"Susannah Wheatley, wife of slaveholder John wheatley, took great interest in Phillis's education, and it was (she/her) who taught Phillis how to read and write English."

We're to choose the appropriate verb for the subject (Susannah Wheatley), but I'm having a bit of trouble with this one. They both seem correct (though 'she' sounds archaic), and I'm able to reconcile both with the sentence structure ('it was her' and 'she taught'). Am I going about it incorrectly or is it as ambiguous at it seems?

It was "she" is correct. She is a nominative case pronoun and can be interchanged with the subject. She was it. You would never say "her was it." Remember "being verbs" are the same thing as equal signs... so what is on one side is equal to what is on the other.

Oh, I was doing it wrong, looking at the surrounding context and not the subject it was related to, wasn't I?

Thanks.

We're to choose the appropriate verb for the subject

El oh el, I fail; I meant pronoun.

LOL... the correct pronoun for the position in the sentence.

Quick lesson... subject pronouns:
I, you, he, she, it, we, they

Object pronouns: me, you, him, her, it, us, them.

I

Thankya. :o

examples of subject and object pronouns

In this sentence, the appropriate pronoun to use for the subject "Susannah Wheatley" is "she." Let's break down the sentence to understand why.

The sentence states that Susannah Wheatley took great interest in Phillis's education and taught her how to read and write English. The phrase "it was" is not related to the pronoun choice but rather serves as a link between Susannah Wheatley's interest in Phillis's education and her teaching Phillis how to read and write.

To determine if the pronoun should be "she" or "her," you can try rephrasing the sentence without the word "it." For example:

- "She taught Phillis how to read and write English."
- "Her taught Phillis how to read and write English."

The first rephrased sentence makes grammatical sense, indicating that the pronoun "she" is correct. On the other hand, the second rephrased sentence, "Her taught Phillis how to read and write English," is grammatically incorrect because "her" cannot be the subject of the sentence.

While the use of "she" as the pronoun may sound formal or archaic in modern language, it is grammatically accurate in this sentence.