The Devil Wears Prada: Dangling Modifiers

This is the opening scene of this funny movie with excellent characters. I left the answers to the exercises on the blog post just to help you out, but of course you'll have to delete this information when you prepare the students' exercise sheets. This is the opening scene of the movie, with a great song. I prepared a lesson plan to practice dangling modifiers with visual input to contextualize the topic.





These ladies are the main characters:




















Andrea and MirandaA. Discuss the following questions with a partner:


1. How should people behave in a job interview?
2. What should they wear?
3. What is the perfect boss like?
4. How would you deal with an extremely impolite boss if the job was very good pay and extremely important for your career? Justify your answer.



Watch the movie segment and decide whether the following sentences have dangling modifiers. Write (C) if the statement is correct and (W) if it is wrong.

1 - After getting dressed, Andrea kissed her boyfriend goodbye. (C)


2 - Going to her job interview, the waitress handed Andrea a bagel for breakfast. (W)


3 - While eating a sandwich, she took the subway to work. (C)


4 - Surprised by the message the taxi driver sent, a lot of things had to be done in a hurry. (W)


5 - After asking if someone had eaten an onion bagel, Andrea checked whether her breath was fine. (W)


6 - Before reaching her office, nobody but her assistant talked to Miranda. (W)


7 - While going to her office, the employees avoided walking or staying where Miranda was. (W)


8 - Sitting in the waiting room, Miranda called Andrea for the interview. (W)



Now revise the dangling modifiers and write a possible correction.



Possible answer key:


Ex:
1 - Correct
2 - Going to her job interview, Andrea bought a bagel for breakfast.
3 - Correct

4 – Surprised by the message the taxi driver sent, Emily had to do a lot of things in a hurry.
5 – After being asked if someone had eaten an onion bagel, andrea checked…
6 – Before reaching her office, miranda didn’t talk with anyone but her assistant.
7 – While going to her office, miranda made her employees avoid walking…
8 – Sitting in the waiting room, Andrea was called for the interview.


How to prepare your own video activity:

- Select a scene with a lot of actions
- Prepare sentences about the sentences with dangling modifiers
- Some of the sentences should be correct
- Students watch the segment and decide how to correct the wrong sentences






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