1. Active and Passive ‘Literacy: a tool not a task.’

2. What’s the difference? The pirates hid the treasure. The treasure was hidden by the pirates. active passive

3. Passive In the passive sentence the words have been moved around. The sentence is about what happens to the treasure, rather than being about the actions of the pirates. The verb changes from the active form (hid) to the passive form (was hidden).

4. Can you change these around? a) The children put on a play. b) A fire destroyed the factory. c) A whistle silenced the crowd.

5. How did you do? a) A play was put on by the children. b) The factory was destroyed by the fire. c) The crowd was silenced by a whistle.

6. Controlling your meaning… In a passive sentence you can hide the ‘doer’ of the action. This is useful when you want to use bias, or when it is not important. e.g. I connected the wires to the battery. The wires were connected to the battery. by me.

7. Can you hide who did it? 1. People used pigeons to send messages. Pigeons were used to send messages. 2.We sent the letter to the Prime Minister. 3.Someone stole the pirate’s treasure.