1. Voice in academic writing
Source: IB Companion Guide,

2. Personal voice is: WHAT you talk about HOW you talk about it
Word choice specific to you
Word order and arrangement
Choice and variation of sentences
Connection and length of paragraphs
Etc.
Natural – appropriate to age and experience

3. “High” Language (false “voice”)
Once upon a point in time a small person named Little Red Riding Hood initiated plans for the preparation, delivery and transportation of foodstuffs to her grandmother, a senior citizen residing in a place of residence in a wooded area of indeterminate dimension. (Russell Baker)

4. False “voice”: Sonnet 73 Student’s spoken topic:
I noticed Shakespeare uses a dying fire and falling leaves and fading twilight to suggest his own passing years.
Source: Adams, Michael. The Writer’s Mind: Making Writing Make Sense.
Student’s writing: A careful reader of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 will perceive that the poet carefully articulates his fundamental metaphor by manipulating the integration of images concerning death or dying with his own emotional and intellectual state that is projected onto nature and natural phenomenon.

5. Personal Voice is NOT: Scribbling thoughts “any which way”
Filled with inaccurate uses of words
Filled with invented rules of grammar, punctuation, or spelling
The one you use in your most informal daily conversation
One that is ambiguous and hasty

6. Voice Experiment boats appear glittering sharp thrilled countryside
Use the following words to describe a setting. Aim for one to two paragraphs. You may pluralize or change tense, but you may not make any other alterations to the words.
boats
appear
glittering
sharp
thrilled
countryside
immodest
tapioca
brick
green
snake
flooded

7. Voice experiment Compare with another student:
similarities and differences
any evidence of your particular way of combining words, making sentences and paragraphs (your style or voice)
Now, compare with the original:
any evidence of Roy’s particular way of combining words, making sentences and paragraphs (her style or voice)

8. The God of Small Things
But by early June the southwest monsoon breaks and there are three months of wind and water with short spells of sharp, glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with. The countryside turns an immodest green. Boundaries blur as tapioca fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turn moss green. Pepper vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and spill across flooded roads. Boats ply in the bazaars. And small fish appear in the puddles that fill the PWD potholes on the highways. (Roy 1)

9. Discuss What is voice and how do we develop it?
Why is it important, when studying and quoting the works of others, to have our own writing voice?
Make connections to Hjortshoj’s article.

10. Text Comparison

11. Text options
Choose one of your summer reading texts and one genre-corresponding text from junior year.
Drama
The Importance of Being Earnest
A Doll’s House
Prose: novel and short story
The God of Small Things
Perfume
Kitchen

12. Question options
Compare the use/presentation of and discuss which author was more successful with regards to:
characterization (stick to one or two characters for each text)
thematic development
style, especially in terms of language
structure
some other point of literary comparison that you get approved before you start writing
Brainstorm or quick-respond in a paragraph or two.

13. MLA formatting review