Back to Frankie's
ESL Worksheets

THE OUTSIDERS, S E Hinton

Using Pronouns to Avoid Repetition

Writing in English sounds clumsy if you repeat your nouns a lot -

e.g. Johnny Cade is a weak, frightened character. Johnny’s father often beats Johnny.

It is much better to use pronouns –

e.g. Johnny Cade is a weak, frightened character. His father often beats him.

or Johnny Cade is a weak, frightened character whose father often beats him.

Some useful pronouns to include:

he, she, it, we, they, his, her, its, our, their, who, which, whose, where, this.

Now look at the following examples of bad writing and re-write them so that they sound better. (Replace the underlined words with a pronoun.)

  1. Ponyboy meets a "Soc" girl called Cherry Valance. Ponyboy discovers that, like Ponyboy, Cherry enjoys watching sunsets. Ponyboy and Cherry become friends.
  2. Ponyboy observes that most "Socs" get a good education, wear smart clothes and have a car whereas most "Greasers" live in poverty and have low-paid jobs. Seeing how "Socs" are rich and "Greasers" are poor makes Ponyboy angry.
  3. The three boys rush over to the burning church. When the three boys rush over, they find that some children are trapped inside.
  4. Ponyboy and Johnny had been smoking in the church earlier, so Ponyboy and Johnny think that perhaps the fire was Ponyboy and Johnny’s fault.
  5. Ponyboy recognises that although "Socs" and "Greasers" come from different social classes, "Socs" and "Greasers" both have problems.
  6. Darry is a strict guardian . Darry checks Ponyboy’s homework nightly and constantly urges Ponyboy to aim for higher marks.
  7. The two boys enjoy a Robert Frost poem . The poem describes how everything youthful and beautiful eventually decays.
  8. The Curtis boys never lock their front door at night. They don’t lock it because it allows their Greaser friends to drop in anytime they like.
  9. The boys flee to Windrixville. They hide in an abandoned church in Windrixville.

[Try rewriting No. 9 by using the pronoun where and joining the two sentences together.]

Frankie Meehan