Who's Doing What? Active vs. Passive Voice
- Grade band
- 8
- Duration
- 45 minutes
- Skill
- Active and passive voice
- Standards
- L.8.1b — Form and use verbs in the active and passive voice.
- Materials
- Student worksheet (printable, included)
- Pencils
Learning objectives
- Students will be able to identify whether a sentence is written in active or passive voice.
- Students will be able to convert a sentence between active and passive voice.
- Students will be able to evaluate when a writer might deliberately choose passive voice.
Lesson procedure
- Warm-up (5 minutes) — I Do. Write "The dog chased the ball" and "The ball was chased by the dog" on the board. Ask what's different about who's doing what.
- Identify and convert (15 minutes) — We Do. As a class, practice converting two or three sentences each direction (active to passive, passive to active), noticing what gets added or dropped (usually "by ___").
- Worksheet practice (15 minutes) — You Do. Students complete the worksheet independently: identifying voice, converting sentences, and answering the discussion question.
- Partner discussion (7 minutes) — You Do. In pairs, students compare their answers to the "when is passive voice the better choice?" question and find one real example each from a news headline or book.
- Share-out (3 minutes) — Closure. A few pairs share their real-world passive voice example and why it might have been the right choice.
Printable worksheet
Part 1: Identify the voice. Label each sentence active or passive.
1. The window was broken by the storm. Voice: _____________
2. Our team won the championship. Voice: _____________
3. The letter was mailed yesterday. Voice: _____________
4. The chef prepared a delicious meal. Voice: _____________
Part 2: Convert the voice. Rewrite each sentence in the opposite voice.
1. The committee approved the new rule.
→ ________________________________________
2. The package was delivered by the mail carrier.
→ ________________________________________
Part 3: Discussion. Why might a writer choose passive voice on purpose? Give one real example.
________________________________________________________________
Try it on your smartboard
Sort each sentence into Active or Passive voice — works with touch, a stylus, or a mouse. Reload the page to reset.
Active
Passive
Background for the teacher
In active voice, the subject performs the action ("The dog chased the ball"). In passive voice, the subject receives the action instead ("The ball was chased by the dog," or even "The ball was chased," with no mention of who did it). Eighth graders can usually hear the difference once it's pointed out, but the deeper skill — and the one that actually improves their writing — is recognizing passive voice as a deliberate choice with real tradeoffs, not simply "bad grammar" to eliminate everywhere.
Passive voice genuinely is the better choice sometimes: when the doer is unknown ("My bike was stolen"), unimportant ("The bridge was built in 1932"), or being deliberately downplayed. This lesson's discussion step matters as much as the mechanical conversion practice — students should leave able to choose voice on purpose, not just avoid passive voice reflexively because a teacher once told them to.
Differentiation
Support: Highlight the "was/were + past participle" pattern that signals passive voice, and provide it as a checklist for Part 1.
Extension: Challenge students to find a passive-voice sentence in a news article where the missing "by ___" is doing real work — hiding or downplaying who's responsible — and explain what effect that has on the reader.
ELL support: Passive voice constructions vary a lot across languages — use consistent color-coding (subject in one color, "was/were + past participle" in another) across every example so the pattern is visually, not just aurally, reinforced.
IEP/504 support: Reduce Part 1 to two sentences and Part 2 to one conversion, and allow Part 3's discussion answer to be given verbally.
Answer key (for teachers)
Part 1 — Identify the voice. 1. Passive 2. Active 3. Passive 4. Active
Part 2 — Convert the voice. 1. "The new rule was approved by the committee." 2. "The mail carrier delivered the package."
Part 3 — Discussion. Open-ended: accept any real example where the doer is unknown, unimportant, or deliberately downplayed (e.g., "Mistakes were made" hides who made them).
Digital extension (optional)
To keep practicing verb choice, try a fill-in-the-blank story in Giggle Gaps, where verb blanks are labeled clearly throughout.