PARALLEL STRUCTURES Adding Rhythm To Your Writing

The Twilight Zone There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears, and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call... THE TWILIGHT ZONE. (Zicree 1989, 31)

Star Trek Space: The final frontier These are the voyages of the Starship, Enterprise Its 5 year mission To explore strange new worlds To seek out new life and new civilizations To boldly go where no man has gone before.

Parallelism Parallelism is creating grammatical rhythms with a number of word and sentence devices. These parallel structures give prose a musical quality that adds emphasis and sound to central images.

Literal Repetition Using the parallel structure of literal repetition, writers repeat the exact same words to create an echo or a trancelike refrain. In a piece on victory, Kristen Parker writes, They march off victoriously, or so they say. They die so victoriously, or so they think. But how victorious is it to bid good-bye to the sentiments they once knew.

Grammatical Repetition Grammatical repetition is the most common repetition used by writers. Grammatical repetition repeats identical grammatical structures, but with different words.

Grammatical Repetition Examples of this style can be seen in this passage from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

Rhythmic Categories Three Categories: 1) Structures connected with conjunctions 2) Structures created with repeated phrases 3) Structures created with repeated clauses

The Imaginary Zone Each group is to create an imaginary zone, filling in the blanks to create a parody. You can select a subject from school (math class, history class, lunch, a dance, a sport) or from an outside interest (MTV, sports figures, actors/actresses, novelists, political personalities). Below, a group of eight-grade students collaborated to demonstrate how this assignment might be written about math:

The Math Zone There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as acute as one degree and as obtuse as 179 degrees. It is the vast plane between simple addition and advanced calculus, between infinity and probability, and it lies between the teacher’s daily cup of hot coffee and the student’s daily pile of homework problems. This is the dimension of chalkboard scribbles. It is an area which we call the Math Zone.

The __________ Zone There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as _________________ as ______________ and as _________________ as _______________. It is the __________________ ____________________ between _________________ and ________________, between ______________ and _________________, and it lies between the ________________ of _______________ _______________, and the __________________ of his/her __________________. This is the dimension of __________________. It is an area which we call... THE __________________ ZONE.

“I Have A Dream” Delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ric.com/speeches/Ihave adream.htm