Yesterday evening Hannah, a young teacher, was explaining to me that today she’s teaching her Year 2 class about ‘expanded noun phrases’. I had to confess my ignorance. It sounded a bit grand for 6-7-year-olds.
She explained that she’ll be encouraging the children to use adjectives… instead of writing about ‘a dog’ it’s a ‘big, black dog’; it’s not just ‘a hat’ it’s a ‘dirty, red hat.’ Expanded noun phrases describe the noun more precisely by adding extra details.
In our paper was an article headed ‘Man with one leg refused disabled parking permit’. It’s not any old permit – the expanded noun phrase says it’s a ‘disabled parking permit’. There’s ‘retired banker, Nigel Ward’, and ‘insufficient medical evidence’. I’ve spotted more expanded noun phrases!
I was reminded of Mahatma Gandhi’s words: ‘Compassion or love for fellow human beings is the highest spiritual power that is synonymous with God and is the ultimate basis for life and peace.’ …expanded noun phrases ‘highest spiritual power’, ‘ultimate basis’…
On the news Prince Harry and Meghan’s reported visit to Nottingham included the phrase, ‘headline-grabbing public figures’ – the noun ‘figures’ is expanded, becoming a phrase…
In this morning’s Bible reading Jesus’ disciples caught ‘a large number of fish’, Jesus healed a ‘man covered with leprosy’ and a ‘paralytic man on a mat’. St. Luke also knew about expanded noun phrases.
I’m re-reading ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’. Robert Pirsig contrasts the ‘spectator-attitude’ of some mechanics who treat motorcycles without any care or relationship, with ‘the real business of motorcycle maintenance, the most important aspect of all. Caring about what you are doing…’
He describes this lack of care or relationship as ‘…that strange separation of what a man is from what a man does…’ that is ‘a poisonous twentieth-century attitude.’ A powerful expanded noun phrase describes that attitude!
Pirsig’s relational caring is seen in Jesus’ healing, questioned with Harry and Meghan’s motives, described in Gandhi’s compassion, required with Nigel’s disability, and demonstrated in Hannah’s teaching through her ‘expanded noun phrases’ lesson.
