You have 20 minutes to finish your diction chart for Wiesel’s speech. Work quickly!!!

Warm-up: Look at the following two paragraphs that describe the same dog. Write about which paragraph describes the scene better and why you think so. 1. The dog sat, waiting for his owner to throw the stick. When the owner threw the stick, the dog slowly retrieved it, then casually dropped it down at his owner’s feet. Gradually, the dog lowered himself again. 2. The tri-colored dog sat on the porch at mid-day. His brown eyes, set in sagging skin, watched the stick as his mouth drooped with slobber at one side. When the stick was tossed onto the dying grass, the dog trotted slowly down the three wobbly steps. He moaned quietly as he placed his discolored teeth around the crooked stick. After he walked back and dropped the wet stick at his owner’s dirty feet, he plopped himself down on the creaking wood again.

 Bring your textbooks to all classes on Tuesday.  Tuesday we may go get a silent reading book at the library. Research a couple of books on the list this weekend so you know what you want to check out.

Reading 3.7: Recognize and understand the significance of various literary devices, including figurative language, imagery, allegory, and symbolism, and explain their appeal.

When analyzing an author’s style in terms of detail, look for:  Specific, detailed information about the EXTERNAL that adds to the understanding of what is going on in a scene.  DOES NOT include descriptions of thoughts or emotions. Also does NOT include opinions. Instead, it deals with obvious, clear facts.

Detail includes the following:  Who, what, where and when  What one can smell, taste, touch, hear and see  How many  Facts about a person, setting, or object  Concrete words and phrases (rather than abstract information). Detail includes phrases rather than words.

For example, to describe the picture here, you could say:  The fish swam in the ocean. OR  The yellow fish with black lines around his body, eyes and mouth swam low in the colorful coral reef. It’s body was tilted slightly downward as several other bluish-white fish swam by.

Why would the following NOT be considered detail?  The lonely fish who had lost his school of fish wandered sadly through the abandoned waters, starting to panic about where he should go from here. I thought he looked ugly as he started to swim faster, obsessed with thoughts of danger.

 When you are asked to write about detail, it is often called “imagery”, although detail is only one part of imagery.  Diction (specific words) makes up detail and detail (phrases of facts) makes up imagery. All of this creates tone (how the speaker feels).