In today’s feature post, regular blog contributor Ruth Breindel shares resources for helping students understand active vs. passive voice.

I find that students have no understanding of active vs passive voice.  Back in the day, transformational grammar addressed this, but no longer.  However, that is still the best way to explain how the voices work (when students complain, tell them at least there is no real middle voice, as there is in Greek!).

Check out this folder of resources for several ways to explain these troubling items: moving sentences from active to passive and back again in English, then doing it in Latin.  My quick and dirty rule: in English, the active is SVO, while the passive has no direct object (hopefully by now they know what a direct object is!).  Take a look at the directions for more tips.

Note: one problem students have is confusing PASSIVE with PAST TENSE.  Good luck with that!

Ruth Breindel taught Latin, Greek, Linguistics and Mythology at Moses Brown School for 30 years.