Diction
Consider:
Art is the antidote that can call us back from the edge of
numbness, restoring the ability to feel for another.
-
Barbara Kingsolver, “3 / Lesson 1: Dictation / 3,” High
Tide in the Tucson
Discuss:
- By using the word antidote, what does the author imply about the inability to feel for another?
- If we changed the word antidote to gift, what effect would it have on the meaning of the sentence?
Apply:
Brainstorm with the class and develop a list of medical
terms; then write a sentence using medical term to characterize art. Explain to
the class the effect this term has on the meaning of the sentence.
Tone 1
Consider:
Everybody latched on to you during these trips, congressmen,
businessmen and directors and presidents of this and that. Every hotshot in
town wanted to be to next to the astronaut. For the first ten or fifteen
minutes it was enough for them to breathe in the same air you breathed and
occupy the same space as your famous body. But then they began looking at you…
and waiting…Waiting for what? Well. Dummy!- waiting for you to say a few words!
They wanted something hot! If you were one of the seven greatest pilots and
seven bravest men in America
-
Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
Discuss:
- What is Wolfe’s attitude toward the astronaut? How do you know?
- What is Wolfe’s attitude toward the people who come to see the astronaut? What diction and syntax reveal this attitude?
Apply:
Think about your favorite musician or movie star. Using
Wolfe’s paragraph as a model, write a paragraph, addressed directly to the
star, about his/her relationship with the fans. Your tone should be
conversational and enthusiastic. Share your paragraph with a partner.
Tone 2
Consider:
Indeed, it strikes me that to lay this obscenity off to some
mitigating factor, no matter how worthy, is to make the crime smaller than it
is and offer rationalizations that insult the sufferers.
Meaning that I don’t care what video games these wretches
played. Don’t give a damn if they were picked on by other kids.
It makes no difference.
This was a special category of evil.
-
Leonard Pitts, Jr., “Why? Maybe It’s a Blessing Not To
Know Why Those Two Boys Did It”
Discuss:
- What
is Pitts’ attitude toward the perpetrators of the crimes of the crimes in
- In the second paragraph of this passage, Pitts uses two incomplete sentences. How does his syntax contribute?
Apply:
Think of an issue for which you have a decided opinion.
Write a paragraph defending this opinion. Create a tone of righteous
indignation. Use at least one incomplete sentence to help create your tone. Use
Pitts’ passage as a model. Share your paragraph with the class.
Tone
3
Consider:
Certainly we must face this fact; if the American press, as
a mass medium, has formed the minds of America
-
Clare Boothe Luce. “What’s Wrong with the American
Press?”
Discuss:
- What is Luce’s attitude toward the American press?
- How does the use of the rhetorical questions help express this attitude? In other words, how do the rhetorical questions help set the tone?
Apply:
Write
answer to the rhetorical questions in the passage. Adopt a tone of sneering
derision as your express the attitude that the American press can indeed be
excused from responsibility in order to make more money. Use at least one
rhetorical question in your reply. Share your answer with the class.
Tone 4
Consider:
Proper
Presents for the Wedding Party
DEAR MISS MANNERS:
What are the proper presents to give bridesmaids and my
fiancé’s ushers? Is something so untraditional as a good book – different books
for each, of course, according to their tastes- all right instead of things
like bracelets and cuff links they may never use?
GENTLE READER:
Are you trying to give these people something they might
enjoy, or are you trying to do the proper thing by them? Books, at best, are
only read, but useless, monogrammed silver objects that cannot be returned to
serve to remind one of the occasion of their presentation every time one sees
them tarnishing away, unused. Cuff links and bracelets are all right, since
everyone has too many of them, but silver golf tees or tooth paste tube
squeezers are ideal.
-
Judith martin, Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly
Correct Behavior
Discuss:
1. What is
Miss Manners’ attitude toward gifts towards bridesmaids and ushers? What is her
attitude toward gifts in general?
2. What is the tone of passage? Note that
attitude toward gifts does not determine the tone of this passage. What
attitude does determine the tone? Circle and discuss the details, images, and
diction that reveal every tone.
Apply:
Write an answer to the following request for advice. The
tone of your reply should be critical and condescending. Express your attitude
through details, images, and diction; do not be openly critical. Share your
reply with the class.
DEAR ADVICE PERSON:
I like to go to school, but I hate homework. My parents and
teachers say I have to do my homework. But it takes way too much time. I would
rather watch T.V. Most of my friends hate homework too. What should I do?
Syntax
Consider:
No sooner
had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, then I answered by a voice
from within the tomb! – by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing
of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous
scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman – a howl! – a wailing shriek, half of
honor and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell,
conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that
exult in the damnation.
Discuss:
1. The
dashes in this long sentence set off a series of appositives. (An appositive is
a noun or noun phrase place beside another noun or noun phrase and used to
identify or explain it.) What noun phrase is explained by the appositives?
2. This
sentence makes syntactic and semantic sense if it ends with the first
exclamation point. What do the appositives add to the meaning and effectiveness
of the sentence?
Apply:
Rewrite
Poe’s sentence, changing it into a serried of short sentences. Read your
sentences to the class and discuss how the use of short sentences changes the
overall meaning of the original.
Syntax
2
Consider:
Brother,
continue to listen.
You say
that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to
his mind; and, if we do not take hold of the religion which white people teach,
we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right and we are lost. How
do we know this to be true?
-
Chief Red Jacket, “ Chief Red Jacket Rejects a Change
of Religion”
Discuss:
1. The
words you say are repeated several times in the sentence. What is the
repetition’s function?
2. The
question at the end of the passage is a rhetorical question. What attitude
toward the audience is expressed by the use of a rhetorical question?
Apply:
Write a
three-sentence paragraph modeled after Chief Red Jacket’s passage. The first
two sentences should contain repetition; the third sentence should be a
rhetorical question. Your topic is school uniforms. Share you sentence with the
class.
Imagery
Consider:
At first I
saw only water so clear it magnified the fibers in the walls of the gourd. On
the surface, I saw only my own round reflection. The old man encircled the neck
of the gourd with his thumb and index finger and gave it a shake. As the water
shook, then settled, the colors and lights shimmered into a picture, not
reflecting anything I could see around me. There at the bottom of the gourd
were my mother and father scanning the sky, which was where I was.
-
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Women Warrior
Discuss:
1. What
kind of imagery is used in this passage? Circle the images.
2. Compare
and contrast the imagery of the last sentence with the imagery of the first four
sentences.
Apply:
Write a
sentence which uses precise visual imagery to describe a simple action. Share
your sentence with a partner.
Imagery 2
Consider:
A woman
drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled
whisper music on those strings
And bats
with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled,
and beat their wings
And crawled
head downward down a blackened wall
And upside
down in air were towers
Tolling
reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices
singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
-
T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land
Discuss:
1. Paraphrase
the image of the first two lines. What mood does the image create?
2. List
the auditory images in these lines. How do these images help create the mood of
the passage?
Apply:
Write four
or five lines of poetry which create – through imagery alone – a mood of
absolute triumph. Do not state the nature of the triumph; do not explain or
analyze. Instead, let the images create the feeling of triumph. Use both
auditory and visual images. Share your lines with a partner.
Imagery
3
Consider:
She looked
into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank
again. Edna heard her father’s voice and
her sister Margret’s. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to
the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across
the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the
air.
-
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Discuss:
1. Although
the narrator “looks into the distance,” the images are primarily auditory. What
are the auditory images in this passage? What mood do these images create?
2. The
last sentence of this passage contains an olfactory image (the mucky odor of
the pinks fill the air). What effect does the use of an olfactory image, after
series of auditory images, have on the reader?
Apply:
Write a
paragraph in which you create a scene through auditory imagery. The purpose of
your paragraph is to create a calm, peaceful mood. Use one olfactory image to
enhance the mood created by the auditory imagery.
Imagery 4
Consider:
It was a
mine town, uranium most recently. Dust devils whirled sand off the mountains.
Even after the heaviest of rains, the water seeped back into the ground,
between stones, and the earth was parched again.
-
Linda Hogan, “Making Do”
Discuss:
1. What
feelings do you associate with images of dusty mountains and dry earth?
2. There
are two images associated with the land in the third sentence. Identify the two
images and compare and contrast the feelings these images evoke.
Apply:
Write a
sentence describing a rainstorm using imagery that produces a positive
response; then write a sentence describing a rainstorm with imagery that
produces a negative response. Share your sentences with the class. Briefly
discuss how the images create the positive and negative responses.
Diction 2
Consider:
The man
sighed hugely.
-
E. Annie Proulx, The shipping News
Discuss:
1. What
does it mean to sigh hugely?
2. How
would the meaning of the sentence change if we rewrote it as:
The man sighed loudly.
Apply:
Fill in the
blank below with an adverb:
The
man coughed __________.
Your adverb
should make the cough express an attitude. For example, the cough could express
contempt, desperation, or propriety. Do not state the attitude. Instead, let
the adverb imply it. Share your sentence with the class.
Diction 3
Consider:
An aged man
is but a paltry thing
A tattered
coat upon a stick…
-
W. B. Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium
Discuss:
1. What
picture us created by the use of the word tattered?
2. By
understanding the connotations of the word tattered, what do we understand
about the persona’s attitude toward an aged man?
Apply:
List three
adjectives that can be used to describe a pair of shoes. Each adjective should
connote a different feeling about the shoes. Discuss your list with a partner.
Share one of the best adjectives with the class.
Diction 4
Consider:
As I
watched, the sun broke weakly through, brightened the rich red of the fawns,
and kindled their white spots.
-
E. B. White, “Twins,” Poems and Sketches of E. B. White
Discuss:
1. What
kind of flame kindled imply? How does this verb suit the purpose of the
sentence?
2. Would
the sentence be strengthen or weakened by changing the sun broke weakly through
to the sun burst through? Explain the effect this change would have on the use
of the verb kindled.
Apply:
Brainstorm
with the class a list of action verbs that demonstrate the effects of sunlight.
Imagery 5
Consider:
The many
men, so beautiful!
And they
all dead did lie:
And a
thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on;
and so did I.
Within the
shadow of the ship
I watched
their rich attire:
Blue,
glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled
and swam; and every track
Was a flash
of golden fire.
-
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Discuss:
1. These
stanzas from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” show the Mariner’s changing
attitude toward the creatures of the sea. What is the Mariner’s attitude in the
first stanza? What image reveals this attitude?
2. What
is the Mariner’s attitude in the second stanza? Analyze the imagery that
reveals this change.
Apply:
Think of a
cat or dog you can describe easily. First, write a description which reveals a
positive attitude toward the animal. Then think of the same animal and write a
description which reveals a negative attitude. Remember that the animal’s looks
do not change; only your attitude changes. Use imagery rather than explanation
to create your descriptions.
Diction 5
Consider:
Abuelito
under a bald light bulb, under ceiling dusty with flies, puffs his cigar and
counts money soft and wrinkled as old Kleenex.
-
Sandra Cisneros, “Tepeyac,” Women Hollering Creek and Other Stories
Discuss:
1. How
can ceiling be dusty with flies? Are the flies plentiful or sparse? Active or
still? Clustered or evenly distributed?
2. What
does Cisneros mean by a bald light bulb? What does this reveal about Abuelito’s
room?
Apply:
Take
Cisnero’s under a ceiling dusty with flies. And write a new phrase by
substituting the word dusty with a different adjective. Explain to a partner
the impact of your new adjective on the sentence.
Imagery
6
Consider:
I also
enjoy canoeing, and I suppose you will smile when I say that I especially like
it on moonlight nights. I cannot, it is true, see the moon climb up the sky
behind the pines and steal softly across the heavens, making a shining path for
us to follow; but I know she is there, and as I lie back among the pillows and
put my hand in the water, I fancy that I feel the shimmer of her garments as
she passes. Sometimes a daring little fish slips between my fingers, and often
a pond-lily presses shyly against my hand. Frequently, as we emerge from the
shelter of a cove or inlet, I am suddenly conscious of the spaciousness of the
air about me. A luminous warmth seems to enfold me.
-
Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
Discuss:
1. Since
Helen Keller was blind and deaf, tactile imagery becomes a focus in her
writing. Underline the tactile images in this passage.
2. Which
images in the passage are more specific: visual or tactile? Support your
answers with reference to the passage.
Apply:
Close your
eyes and touch some familiar objects at your desk. Then open your eyes and
describe to a partner how those objects felt. Be sure to use specific, tactile
images, not visual images or figurative language.
Detail
Consider:
The dog
stood up and growled like a lion, stiff-standing hackles. Teeth uncovered as he
lashed up his fury for the change. Tea Cake split the water like an otter,
opening his knife as he dived. The dog raced down the back- bone of the cow to
the attack and Janie screamed and slipped far back on the tail of the cow, just
out of reach of the dog’s angry jaws.
-
Zora Neale Hurtson, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Discuss:
1. Which
details reveal that the dog has rabies? What effect do these details have on
the reader?
2. Contrast the details used to
describe Tea Cake (the male protagonist) and Janie (the female protagonist).
What do these details reveal about the author’s attitude toward these two
characters?
Apply:
Think of
two contrasting characters. Write a sentence for each showing their reaction to
a fight. Do not explain the different reactions; instead, show the different reactions
through use of detail. Share your sentence with the class.
Diction
6
Consider:
Most men
wear their belts low here, there being so many outstanding bellies, some big
enough to have names of their own and be formally introduced. Those men don’t
suck them in or hide them in loose shirts; they let them hang free. They pat
them, they stroke them as they stand around and talk.
-
Garrison Keillor, “Home,” Lake Wobegon
Discuss:
1. What
is usual meaning of outstanding? What is its meaning here? What does this pun
reveal about the attitude of the author toward his subject?
2. Read
the second sentence again. How would the level of formality change if we
changed suck to pull and let them hang free to accept them?
Apply:
Write a
sentence or two describing an unattractive but beloved relative. In your
description, use words that describe the unattractive features honestly yet
reveal that you care about this person, that you accept and even admire him/
her, complete with defects. Use Keillor’s description as a model. Throw in a
pun if you can think of one. Share your description with the class.
Detail
2
Consider:
An old man,
Don Tomasito, the baker, played the tuba. When he blew into the huge
mouthpiece, his face would turn purple and his thousand wrinkles would
disappear as his skin filled out.
-
Alberto Alvaro Rios, “The Iguana Killer”
Discuss:
1. The
first sentence is a general statement. How does the second sentence enrich and
intensify the first?
2. Contrast
the second sentence with the following:
When he blew the tuba, his face
turned purple and his cheeks puffed out.
Which
sentence more effectively expresses an attitude toward Tomasito? What is that
attitude and how is it communicated?
Apply:
Describe
someone jumping over a puddle. Your first sentence should be general, stating
the action simply. You second sentence should clarify and intensify the action
through detail. Share your sentence with a partner.
Syntax 3
Consider:
HIGGINS:
Yes: that’s what drives me mad: the silly people don’t know their own silly
business.
-
George Bernard Shaw, Pygamalion
Discuss:
1. What
is the purpose of the two colons in this sentence?
2. What
function does the yes at the beginning of the sentence serve?
Apply:
Write a
sentence about a TV show you deplore. Using Shaw’s sentence as a model, state
what you don’t like about the show in succinct clause following a colon. Share
your sentence with a partner.
Syntax
4
Consider:
When I am
too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many
bricks, then it is I look at trees.
-
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
Discuss:
1. What
kind of grammatical structure is repeated in this sentence? What is the effect
of the repetition?
2. This
is a periodic sentence, a sentence which delays the subject and verb to the
end. What idea is emphasized by the end-focus in this sentence?
Apply:
Write a
periodic sentence about getting a bad grade on a test. Use Cisnero’s sentence
as a model. Share your sentence with a partner.
Diction
7
Consider:
Meanwhile,
the Unites States Army, thirsting for revenge was prowling the country north
and west of the Black Hills , killing Indians
wherever they could be found.
-
Dee Brown, Bury my Heart at Wounded
Knee
Discuss:
1. What
are the connotations of thirsting? What feelings are evoked by this diction?
2. What
are the connotations of prowling? What kind of animals prowl? What attitude
toward the U.S.
Apply:
Use an
eating or drinking verb in a sentence which expresses anger about a parking
ticket. Do not use the verb to literally express eating or drinking. Instead,
express your anger through the verb. Use Brown’s sentence as a model. Share
your sentence with a partner.
Diction
8
Consider:
Doc
awakened very slowly and clumsily like a fat man getting out of a swimming
pool. His mind broke the surface and fell back several times.
-
John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
Discuss:
1. What
is the subject of the verb broke? What does this tell you about Doc’s ability
to control his thinking at this point of the story?
2. To
what does the surface refer? Remember that good writers often strive for
complexity rather than simplicity.
Apply:
List three
active verbs that could be used to complete the sentence below. Act out one of
these verbs for the class, demonstrating the verb’s connotation.
He_____________________
into the crowded auditorium.
Syntax 5
Consider:
Death be
not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and
dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those
whom thou think’st though dost overthrow
Die not,
poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest
and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much
Pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
-
John Donne, “Death be not Proud”
Discuss:
1. What
is the effect of opening the first sentence with the imperative mood of the
verb to be?
2. In
the first clause of the second sentence (lines 5-6), the verb is understood: in
the second clause of this sentence, the subject is understood. What verb is
omitted? What subject is omitted? What effect does this have on the meaning of
the lines?
Apply:
Write a
sentence about credit cards which begins with a verb in the imperative mood.
Share your sentence with a partner and discuss the attitude credit cards your
opening verb reveals.
Syntax
6
Consider:
I hear an
army changing upon the land,
And
the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:
Arrogant,
in black armor, behind them stand,
Disdaining
the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers.
-
James Joyce, “ I Hear an Army Charging Upon the Land”
Discuss:
1. The
subject of the verb stand in line 3 in charioteers at the end of line 4. How
does this inversion of the normal word order (subject-verb) affect the impact
on those lines?
2. Examine
the adjectives and adjective phrases in lines 3 and 4: arrogant, in black
armor. What word do these adjective modify? How does this unusual word order
affect the impact of the lines?
Apply:
Write a
sentence about a car crash. In your sentence invert the normal order of subject
and verb. Try to make your sentence sound natural and powerful. Share your
sentence with a partner.
Tone 5
Consider:
There is no
drop of water in the ocean, not even in the deepest parts of the abyss, that
does not know and respond to the mysterious forces that create the tide. No
other force that affects the sea is so strong. Compared with the tide the
wind-created waves are surface movements felt, at most, no more than a hundred
fathoms below the surface.
-
Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us
Discuss:
1. What
is Carson
2. Carson
Apply:
Rewrite the
first sentence of the passage, changing all of the negative constructions to
positive ones. What effect does it have on the tone? Share your sentence with a
partner and discuss the effect.
Tone
6
Consider:
Microphone
feedback kept blaring out the speaker’s words, but I got the outline.
Withdrawal of our troops from Vietnam Cuba United States
I laugh out loud.
-
Tobias Wolff, “Civilian”
Discuss:
1. What
is the attitude of the narrator toward the political speaker in this passage?
How do you know?
2. How
does the use of a short, direct sentence at the end of the passage (I laughed
out loud) contribute to the tone?
Apply:
Substitute
a new sentence for I laughed out loud. Your new sentence should express support
for the political speaker. Read the passage – with your new sentence – to a
partner and explain how your sentence changes the tones of the passage.
Diction
9
Consider:
A rowan*
like a lipstick girl. * a small
deciduous tree native Europe , having white flower
clusters
and orange berries.
-
Seamus Heaney, “Song,” Field Work
Discuss:
1. Other
than the color, what comes to mind when you think of a lipsticked girl?
2. How
would it change the meaning and feeling of the line if, instead of lipsticked
girl, the author wrote girl with lipstick on?
Apply:
Write a
simile comparing a tree with a domesticated animal. In your simile, use a word
that is normally used as a noun (like lipstick) as an adjective (like
lipsticked). Share your simile with the class.
Detail
3
Consider:
About
suffering they were never wrong,
The Old
Masters: how well they understood
Its human
position; how it takes place
While
someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
W.H.
Auden, “Musee des Beaux Arts”
Discuss:
1. Suffering
is a general term. What is a general term that sums up in detail in line 4?
2. Compare
line 4 with the following:
While someone else is not
suffering;
Why is
Auden’s line more effective?
Apply:
Substitute
the word laziness for suffering in line one of the poem. Now rewrite line four
to complete the following:
While
someone else is ___________ or ___________ or ______________.
Your new
line should give details about the opposite condition of laziness. Use Auden’s
line as a model. Share the “new” stanzas with a partner.
Tone 7
Consider:
What a
thrill –
My thumb
instead of an onion.
The top
quite gone
Except for
a sort of a hinge
Of skin,
A flap like
a hat,
dead white
Then a red
plush.
-
Sylvia Plath, “Cut: For Susan O’Neil Roe”
Discuss:
1. What
is the poet’s attitude toward the cut? What words, images and details create
the tone?
2. In
the second stanza, Plath uses colors to intensify the tone. The flap of skin is
dead white, the blood is red plush. What attitude toward life itself. Does this
reveal?
Apply:
Write a
short description of an automobile accident. Create a tone of complete
objectivity – as if you were from another planet and had absolutely no
emotional reaction to the accident. Read your description to a partner and
discuss the details. Images and diction that create your tone.
Syntax
7
Consider:
While we do
these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make
very clear to all the world, what our motives and our objects are.
-
Woodrow Wilson, “President Woodrow Wilson Presents an
Ideal to the War Congress”
Discuss:
1. This
is a periodic sentence, one in which the subject and verb are delayed until the
final part of the sentence. This creates syntactic tension and emphasizes the
ideas at the end of the sentence. What ideas are stressed in this periodic
sentence?
2. How
would it change the effectiveness of the sentence of the sentence if we rewrote
it as:
Our motives and objects must be
clear to all the world while we do these deeply momentous.
Apply:
Using Wilson
Detail
4
Consider:
Whenever he
was so fortune as to have near him a hare that had been kept to long, or a meat
pie made with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his
veins swelled, and the moisture broke out on his forehead.
-
Thomas Babington Macaulay, “ Samuel Johnson”
Discuss:
1. What
effect does the detail (the spoiled hare, the rancid butter, the swollen veins,
the sweaty forehead) have on the reader?
2. How
would the meaning of the sentence be changed by ending it after himself?
Apply:
Write a
sentence describing someone with disgusting eating habits. It must be one,
correct sentence; and it must contain at least three vivid details.
Detail
5
Consider:
CHARLEY (to
WILLY): Why must everybody like you? Who liked J.P. Morgan? Was he impressive?
In a Turkish bath he’d looked like a butcher. But with his pockets on he was
very well liked. Now listen, Willy, I know you don’t like me, and nobody can
say I’m in love with you, but I’ll give you a job – just for the hell of it,
put it that way. Now what do you say?
-
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Discuss:
1. Who
was J.P. Morgan? What is a Turkish bath? What picture comes to mind when
someone is said to look like a butcher? How do these details contribute to the
point Charley is trying to make?
2. How
would the passage be different if Charley said J.P. Morgan would look like a
baker in a Turkish bath?
Apply:
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