Higher Close Reading Tone Questions

Tone Tone is important in your appreciation of the passages you are given to read. There is nothing worse than taking everything seriously only to discover later it was all tongue-in-cheek. It is important to take an overview before you become involved in the individual questions.

Tone in Individual Questions Tone is the voice that would be used to say the sentence or word. If someone could read the passage aloud for you it would really help in this type of question. Unfortunately you have to do this silently to yourself – trying to ‘hear’ what your voice would do with it.

What gets marks? Because tone is so subjective, there are often a number of acceptable answers but identification of tone is usually only worth something if you justify your choice of that tone by referring to the passage – i.e. by quoting!

What gets marks? There will always be more than one word to describe the tone used in the text: critical, disapproving, contemptuous or disparaging could all be used to describe the same tone. Likewise, witty, humorous or light-hearted all mean the same thing.

Recap Tone reveals the feelings and attitudes of the writer It refers to how the writing might be said if it were read aloud You could be asked to identify it and / or show how it is created. The main problem is a tone vocabulary!

Warning!! At Higher, it’s never enough to just say the tone is ‘negative’ or ‘positive.’ These words are not specific enough – e.g. ‘disappointed,’ ‘angry’ and ‘despondent’ are all negative tones, but very different in their meanings. You must choose a specific and precise tone word if one has not been identified for you.

A Tone Vocabulary humorous tongue-in-cheek sarcastic ironic dismissive critical aggressive patronising bitter conversational dismissive resentful chatty/friendly mocking disapproving contemptuous pessimistic optimistic approving

Words to Describe Tone Look at the grid containing words to describe tone. Sort them out into two columns – positive tones and negative tones. ‘Negative’ and ‘positive’ are too vague to describe a particular tone, so you need to be prepared to use words like these. Some words may not seem strongly positive or negative; you could label these ones ‘neutral.’

Words to describe tone Now, use words from the grid to fill in the blanks on the revision sheet. This will provide you with a set of revision notes on some very common tones you are likely to encounter in Higher passages.

Tone Questions - Strategy Identify the tone (more often than not, this will be done for you). – 1 mark Show, BY ANALYSING TECHNIQUES, how the tone is created. – 1 / 2 marks Word choice, imagery, sentence structure, contrast, hyperbole etc. are all language techniques which create tone in writing. Tone questions are just language questions that ask you to consider the writer’s feelings!

Tone Questions - Error Don’t just quote a sentence / chunk of text and put it in your own words. This is just explaining the writer’s point – not showing how tone is created. You need to identify and analyse specific techniques, using the strategies you are familiar with.

Tone Questions - Strategy Read ‘Why Tonya the wicked witch…’ (p51) It should be clear that the writer is using a tone of contempt or disgust. Pick out any FIVE examples of language that alert you to this tone. Now, analyse ONE example (as you usually would word choice, imagery etc.) and explain how this tone is created.

Tone Questions - Example The writer creates a contemptuous tone by comparing Tonya Harding to a fugitive. A fugitive is someone on the run, usually because they have been involved in criminal activity. This comparison suggests Harding is a suspicious character, not to be trusted.

Tone Questions - Examples Read the following extracts on p51-54: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9. For each extract, show how the following tones are created: 1 – Mocking 2 – Emotive 4 – Disgusted / contemptuous 7 – Disgusted / contemptuous 9 - ironic