1. Warm up 8/25 and 8/26
Read each sentence. Do the following sentences contain essential or nonessential phrases? Add commas for nonessential phrases (you only have to rewrite the sentences with nonessential parts).
I'd like to find a car that is inexpensive to operate.
Mary's uncle owns a Rolls Royce which gets only 11 miles per gallon.
Sam Banks having made a fortune in the stock market retired to study classical music.

2. Answers Essential Nonessential
Sam Banks, having made a fortune in the stock market, retired to study classical music.

3. Agenda Warm Up→ comma rules Recap and Announcements
-You have a quiz! A-day: 9/2 B-day: 9/6
-Have you turned in your SUMMER READING (advanced)? The class after LABOR DAY is your LAST CHANCE to turn it in before it’s a ZERO. Summative grade.
-Do you have a topic for your personal narrative (college essay)?
2. Diction and Tone Notes
3. Diction and Tone Practice (short story and non-fiction)
RL.12.4 I can analyze the impact of specific word choice on meaning and tone.
RI.12.4 I can analyze the impact of specific word choice on meaning and tone.

4. How Diction Creates Tone

5. Diction refers to the author’s choice of words.
Words are the writer’s basic tools:
They create the color and texture of the written work.
They both reflect and determine the level of formality.
They shape the reader’s perceptions.

6. Effective voice is shaped by words that are clear, concrete and exact.
Good writers avoid words like “pretty,” “nice,” and “bad.” Instead, they use words that invoke a specific effect.
The U.S. Army does not “want” revenge; it is “thirsty” for revenge.
A door does not “shut;” it “thuds.”
Specific diction brings the reader into the scene, enabling full participation in the writer’s world.

7. Diction also depends on the occasion
Diction also depends on the occasion. As with clothes, level of formality influences appropriate choices.
Formal diction is largely reserved for scholarly writing and serious prose or poetry.
Informal diction is the norm in expository essays, newspaper editorials, and works of fiction.
Colloquial diction and slang borrow from informal speech and are typically used to create a mood or capture a particular historic or regional dialect.
Appropriateness of diction is determined by the norms of society.

8. A person cannot study diction without understanding both connotation (the meaning suggested by the word) and denotation (the word’s literal meaning).
When a writer calls a character slender, the word evokes a different feeling from calling the character gaunt. A word’s power to produce a strong reaction in the reader lies mainly in its connotative meaning.

9. Examples of different word choices
Note how the connotation of each word changes its meaning slightly. Pay attention to the different levels of formality.

10. Word Choice Examples
Saving, tight, miserly, frugal, economical, careful, penurious, thrifty, penny-pinching, budget-minded, prudent, mean
Honest, straight, on the level, veracious, guileless, unaffected, artless, genuine, candid, truthful, sincere
Corpulent, plump, obese, pudgy, heavy-set, fleshy, fat, paunchy, burly, overweight, roly-poly, bulky, portly, beefy
Bizarre, singular, far out, outlandish, off the wall, curious, odd, unusual, extraordinary, remarkable, noteworthy, strange, eerie

11. Look at the following pairs of terms, and think about why you might like to be described by one term but not by the other:
Slender/skinny
High-strung/freaked out
Trusting/gullible
Firm/stubborn
Reckless/adventurous
Flexible/wishy-washy
Relaxed/flaked out
Hypocritical/diplomatic
Hard worker/workaholic
Assertive/pushy
Playboy/eligible bachelor
Original/weird

12. Diction plays an important role in setting the tone of a piece of writing.
To determine tone in any type of writing, you have to consider diction.

13. What’s tone?
Tone is a speaker’s attitude towards his or her subject and audience.

14. With your table partner choose a couple of words asking the question, “Is this your money?”
—Accusatory
—Apologetic
—Apprehensive
—Bitter
—Candid
—Condescending
—Critical
—Cynical
—Earnest
—Forthright
—Frivolous
—Grim
Intimate
Jovial
Judgmental
Melancholy
Objective
Optimistic
Professional
Reflective
Restrained
Sarcastic
Sentimental
Sincere
Solemn
Sympathetic

15. Source “Diction Lesson.”Syracuse City Schools. N.d.
14 April web.

16. In small groups...
Read the short story, “The Birthday Party,” and analyze how the diction helps to create the tone.
RL.12.4 I can analyze the impact of specific word choice on meaning and tone.

17. Now, individually... Read the speech from George Bush after
9/11. Underline the words that create a
specific tone. Be able to use a specific tone
word with at least 5-7 examples from the text.
RI.12.4 I can analyze the impact of specific word choice on meaning and tone.