Formation Exercise 3
(for FAQ 8)
Using the passive correctly

Directions. Read the following passage and then decide which of these sentences can be made passive. The verbs are underlined for you. Write [T] above transitive verbs, [I] above intransitive verbs, and [=] above linking verbs. Then, consider the clauses with [T] verbs. Which of these sentences should be made passive? Remember that even though a verb can be made passive, there are many reasons why a verb should NOT be made passive. Rewrite this paragraph. Make passive those sentences that should be passive. Discuss your answers with those of your classmates.

Shipwreck Narratives.

Shipwreck stories form an important part of American colonial literature. A review of Spanish colonial literature finds four major shipwreck narratives. Researchers have found the earliest of these narratives in the diary of Christopher Columbus. Columbus mentioned a shipwreck in the diary of his third voyage. Another famous shipwreck story is the story of the Spanish sailor, Pedro Serrano. His story appears in Los comentarios reales by El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. Serrano spent seven years on an island before a ship saw his campfire and sent a boat to rescue him. The most famous shipwreck narrative of the period comes from the writing of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish explorer whose boat crashed on the coast of Florida in the early sixteenth century. He wandered from Florida to Mexico in a trip that lasted seven years. Los infortunios de Alonso Ramirez by the Mexican writer Carlos Siguenza y Gongora tells another shipwreck story. Because this story is fictional, modern literary scholars consider this story a precursor to the modern novel.