Active vs. Passive Voice: A Grammar Adventure

Miacademy & MiaPrep Learning Channel

This engaging language arts video introduces students to the concepts of active and passive voice through a narrative set in the fictional town of "Verbados." When the town's tourism industry suffers due to confusing grammar, the presenter steps in to help clarify the town's communication. By breaking down the roles of the subject and the verb, the video demonstrates how active voice portrays the subject performing an action, while passive voice shows the subject receiving the action. The lesson uses clear visual metaphors—such as an archer shooting a target—to illustrate the direction of action in a sentence. It provides multiple opportunities for interactive learning, asking viewers to pause and label sentences as active or passive, and later to rewrite sentences from one voice to the other. The content covers not just how to identify the voices, but the stylistic reasons for choosing one over the other, such as using active voice for persuasion and clarity, or passive voice for formality or when the actor is unknown. Ideal for upper elementary and middle school English classes, this video serves as an excellent introduction or review of sentence structure and style. Teachers can use it to help students strengthen their writing by making conscious choices about subject-verb relationships. The narrative approach helps contextualize abstract grammatical rules, showing students practical applications in advertising, official announcements, and storytelling.