Can you help me check the following stataments? Thank you very much.
1) I'v been teaching (to) them since last year.
2) We played tug-of-war and archery on the beach.
3)Her head is always up in space (can you say up in the air or in the clouds)
4)Mr Lockwood is taken to a bedroom, where Catherine used to sleep. Soon after falling asleep, he is woken up by a tapping on the window. He ascribed (attributed?) it to the sound the wind produced on a fir bough.
5)He stood up and tried to open it but he couldn't as the the hook was soldered into the staple (how can I rephrase it?)
6) As he intended to open it, he knocked his knuckles through the grass and tried to seize it. His fingers, however, closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand.(how can I simplify it?)
7)He tried to draw back his arm but the hand clung to it and a voice asked to be let in.
8) He attempted to disengage (free, release?) himself but the voice said her name was Catherine Earnshaw and that she had lost her way on the moor and wanted to come home (her exact words are: "I'm come home, I'd lost my way on the moor").
Get rid of words in parentheses in #1.
#3 -- up in the clouds
#4 -- "he is awakened" and "attributed" and "by" instead of "on."
#5 -- Since I don't know what "it" is, I don't know. This sounds OK even though it's obviously vague.
#6 -- "knocked his knuckles through the grass" = ????
#7 -- commas after "arm" and "it."
#8 -- comma after "himself" and delete the wording in parentheses, as well as "that."