Aim: How can an exploration of writers’ choices, and literary devices used, introduced us to the concept of “voice” as it’s used in writing?
We started the lesson with a 5 minute Quickwrite Do Now where we had to write a paragraph about what first came to mind when thinking about pizza. We then continued on with the lesson and did spirit readings of provided information about diction, syntax, imagery, and tone, sourced from The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, second ed. (Murfin Ray).
Diction is the author’s word choice and the vocabulary used in the writing, along with the style of writing.
Syntax is the arrangement of words in sentences and the complexity and length of sentences.
Imagery are the words and descriptions used by the speaker to help create a visual image in the reader's mind.
Tone is the attitude of the speaker towards the subject being discussed.
After reviewing the meaning of those words, we then moved on to the next activity where we identified and made inferences about the speaker based on the diction, syntax, imagery, and tone of the speaker. We did the example below together as a class:
Speaker 1:
"Eating pizza is rather like embarking on a transcontinental excursion. You embark on the journey without being quite certain of what you will encounter. A well-made pizza contains the aromatic essence of fresh basil, oregano, and garlic that beckons invitingly. Once you bite into a perfectly sliced piece of pizza, your taste buds awaken and celebrate. When properly prepared, pizza is an extraordinary culinary creation."
Collectively, we inferenced that the speaker could be a chef or in some sort of culinary profession since they seemed knowledgeable about food and was an adult since they used more complicated vocabulary that a kid would never use. We determined that they spoke formally (diction), used long and complex sentences (syntax), used detailed and descriptive words (imagery), and had an overall positive attitude (tone) towards the subject of pizza.
We then worked in separate breakout rooms with our teams to fill out the chart below:
Speaker 2:
It’s yummy. I like it when the cheese is really gooey. My mom makes it for dinner on the weekends. When it’s too hot, I have to wait for it to cool. Mom says if I don’t wait I will burn my tongue. I like the way pizza smells. When I smell pizza cooking it always makes me want to eat it right up!
Speaker 3:
As long as not one speck of gross disgusting animal flesh comes anywhere near my pizza, I can eat it. I prefer pizza with mushrooms, tomatoes, and spinach. Goat cheese is especially nice too. A thin whole-wheat crust topped with imported cheese and organic vegetables makes a satisfying meal.
Speaker 4:
Pizza is, like, one of the basic food groups, right? I mean, dude, who doesn’t eat pizza? Me and my friends order it like every day. We usually get pepperoni, and it’s great when they are, like, covering the whole top! Dude, hot steamy pizza dripping with cheese and loaded with pepperoni is awesome.
My team and I inferenced speaker 2 to be a kid based on their vocabulary as well as their continuous mentions of their mom. They spoke informally, repeating a lot of words as well as using very simple vocabulary such as “gooey” and “yummy”. They had short and simple sentences such as “It’s yummy” and didn’t have heavily detailed descriptions but they still allowed an image to be created in your mind. Speaker 2 had a very positive attitude towards pizza and also definitely enjoys eating it.
We inferenced speaker 3 to be a vegetarian since they had a heavy disdain of meat and we estimated them to be an older teenager to an adult. They used informal language as the first sentence is mostly a complaint about meat, calling it “Gross disgusting animal flesh” although they did not include any slang. Their sentences were long and complex using detailed descriptions and listings. They also had a generally positive attitude towards pizza as long as it contained the ingredients that they enjoyed, and mostly only had a negative attitude when describing meat.
We thought speaker 4 to be a younger teenager or a child with little knowledge about the topic of food beyond enjoying it. They spoke very informally with heavy slang usage as they repeated “dude” and “like” all throughout. They spoke in short and simple sentences with detailed descriptions such as “Dude, hot steamy pizza dripping with cheese and loaded with pepperoni is awesome.” when describing pizza. They also have a positive attitude towards pizza with nothing negative at all.
In this lesson, we learned about what diction, syntax, imagery, and tone are and how inferences about the speaker can be made based on their writing style. We are able to inference their ages and opinions about the subject based on the vocabulary and the language that was used. Learning about diction, syntax, imagery, and tone are important since they provide the reader with more information about the author which can help understand a text better since they know more about the source that it is from. We can use this knowledge about writing style and use it when examining future texts to get a better understanding about the text overall since we can infer information about the author based on thor diction, syntax, imagery, and tone.c
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