Katie Rojeski's Page
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The book Voice Lessons by Nancy Dean, I believe, has specific lessons on tone. I find them very helpful--they emphasize diction, detail, syntax, imagery and tone. Also, people have posted tone lists on the Ning--these are a great starting place fo...
This is a lesson I do contrasting tone and mood, two terms my students often confuse.I also added a couple of other exercises I do that involve tone. Hope they help.
Cordially,
J. D.
I picked up a good trick from a friend. Use nursery rhymes. Recite "Wee Willie Winkie" for example and then give students a tone word like "angry" or "melancholy" and have them rewrite the rhyme replacing key words that would reflect the assigned ...
Hi Katie,
Try typing in the word "tone" into the search function at the top right of the ECN screen; I know there have been a number of useful discussions on this topic in the last year. You might also try "voice," as I recall a few threads on th...
Diction (word choice) creates tone (attitude) in a piece of writing. Play around with connotation/denotation and the idea of choosing exactly the right adjectives and verbs. Make a list of words that are either postive, negative, or neutral in ton...
I too use the spoken word as a starting point. Then I add in the ideas that words exist on a continuum of intensity (consider: barren, arid, dry, moist, wet, soaked, drenched) within their "meaning family." Last, we put words on a "color wheel of ...
I tend to teach tone along with mood and style--since tone is the author's feeling about the work, mood is what the reader feels, and style is what creates it. It helps my kiddos if we do some pieces with extreme tone--Like "How to Write about Afr...
I have students do some background research, and they do an anticipation guide about some of the themes of the story. I attached a few ideas.
Here are some things that I do with the Crucible.
Does anyone have a good lesson plan or notes for teaching students the concept of "tone" in a piece of writing?
Thanks!
Actually, I found one online and then just created a handout for it. Here is my handout, just in case anyone else wants it.
Does anyone have a good Mark Twain or Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Webquest that I could do with my students to build background before we read? Thank you in advance!
I also use articles from the Onion. I bring in 5 or 6 articles and each group is responsible to reading the article, discussing whether it is effective and/or funny. I then have students write brief satiric pieces.
Be sure to take a look at this earlier post on satire that also has a lot of good ideas.
Sad about "A Modest Proposal," though perhaps that is the hook for students: that even otherwise educated people (we'll give the parents the benefit of the doubt here) can misunderstand satire if they have not been taught about satire.
I use the ...
In my class, we analyzed clips from The Simpsons for elements of satire. We read the picture book The Paper Bag Princess first, to introduce parody, incongruity, reversal, and exaggeration as techniques used in satire. Then, we read some satirical...
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Latest Activity
We do Master Harold and the boys with our freshman and they love it. I doubt you could do it with sixth graders, but I think eighth graders would totally get it.
Symbols: Life without Words: Cultural Awareness and Self-Identity through the Evolution of Tattoos
Dear heavens, I hope this works. It took me 2 hours to get it to work on C&W!!!!
This looked like so much fun I couldn't wait to try it out. I pasted the first chapter of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer into Wordle because I am participating in the The Big Read project in our town using this book.
I am so happy!!!! I'm DONE!!!!
I'd love a chance to look at that pdf. Thanks so much for offering. And I'll let you know what I do with it. Right now, I'm open to any ideas that I can use in class -- or just as a springboard. Thanks!!
-ko
Analyzing Adolescent Pressures and Choices through Young Adult Literature
-anna h.
Generation Lost? Exploring the 1920's through the eyes of the Lost Generation.
This thread raises those old--but maybe still interesting--questions about the relationship between the author and the text. I tend toward the New Criticism view that it's most important to pay attention to the text itself, without being too distr...
Keith, I have to agree with you. I was turned on to reading by Hemingway's work. I was given "Islands in the Stream" as a punishment while serving ISS as a senior in high school. What a punishment! I fell in love with Hemingway's work - not the ma...
The Nature of Prejudice
I second, third, and fourth Persepolis...contemporary, accessible, complex, wonderful. For a sci-fi/fantasy edge, what about The Golden Compass? The Dark Materials Trilogy is really compelling, and far more well-written than one might suppose from...
I like Hemingway's writing. It's sort of a marvel and was hugely influential on me for a long while--in terms of style, and thinking about focus and what needs to be said and what doesn't need to be said.
His code, too, was okay as far as it went...
Bill, aren't you a little worried that by discussing Hemingway "the man" before reading his work that you're setting up some students to dislike the man immensely, and by extension, his work?
I'd also be concerned that students might "read too mu...
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