Aim: How does a writer create effects through the connotations of words and images?
Do Now: Think/Share
What if life had a RESET button?
It’s a terrible thing to drop your grandmother’s prized china vase on the kitchen floor. And did you really have to be so mean to your sibling yesterday? At one time or another, we’ve all done or said something that makes us cringe with regret. We wish we could turn back the clock by a minute or a day and just do the whole thing over.
Based on your understanding of the aforementioned, share a time when you did or said something that you regret, and explain why you felt that way
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For the Do Now, Ms. Peterson asked the class to share a time that we regret and wish to change. Many of the students agreed that they wished to change something that they said in the past. For example, Elliot remembered a time, where he told another student to “Shut up!” Elliot thought that the student was purposely making noise during a movie. However, it turns out that he was just talking to the teacher about an assignment.
Other students wished that they could change what they did in the past. For example, when Joel was 6-7 years old, he remembered breaking around 4 of his brother’s DS consoles. Nowadays, he felt really bad about what he had done and wished that he could go back and change it. Like Joel, Alyssa also felt bad about something that she did. She recalled a time when she had a bad temper tantrum inside a store. During this moment, Alyssa felt embarrassed and wished it had never happened.
At the end of the discussion, Ms. Peterson told the class to keep this idea (of a “life reset”) in mind when reading “Marigolds” for homework.
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CONNOTATION and DENOTATION
After the Do Now, our class began to learn about connotations and denotations. To start off, Ms. Peterson asked us to do some spirit reading. By spirit reading, our class was able to understand what connotations and denotations were.
Connotations were the ideas/feelings a word invokes, while denotations were the literal meanings of the word. In other words, denotations are the dictionary definitions, while connotations are the tone of a word.
In class, we also discussed the denotation and connotation of the ocean. The denotation would be a body of water that covers around 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. The connotation would be peace, tranquility, expansiveness, the unknown, the power of nature, etc.
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Two different words could have the same denotative meaning, but different connotations (negative and positive). For example, youthful and childish both have the same denotation, as both words are used to describe children. However, youthful has a positive connotation (lively), while childish has a negative connotation (immature).
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Examples:
Mob vs Crowd After spirit reading, our class
Mob: Negative connotation watched a short video, which
Crowd: Positive connotation deepened our understanding
about connotations and
Aroma vs Stench denotations.
Aroma: Positive connotation
Stench: Negative connotation Here's the Video
Selective vs Picky
Selective: Positive connotation
Picky: Negative connotation
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Breakout Rooms/Teamwork
After we had developed an understanding about connotations and denotations, Ms. Peterson put us into breakout rooms. There, we were supposed to work as a team to answer 4 questions.
Consider the following sentence from Speak: “I dive into the stream of fourth-period lunch students and swim down the hall to the cafeteria.” What connotations do the images of diving into and swimming through other students have here?
To start off the conversation, I told my group that diving into and swimming through other students makes it feel like Melinda is lost in a crowd (of students). The rest of the group members agreed that this quote had a negative connotation as Melinda felt overwhelmed in a pool of students.
Now rewrite the sentence, trying to keep the same denotative meaning but changing the connotations to make them neutral.
After finding the connotation, our group was asked to change the connotation (to make it neutral) without changing the denotative meaning. In order to rewrite the sentence, we spent around 30 seconds writing our own sentences. After that, we began to share and combine our ideas to create an ideal sentence. To start off the conversation, I shared what I wrote, which was “I walked down the hall to the cafeteria, where I was met by other fourth-period lunch students.” Katherine said that she wrote something similar as she said “I joined the stream of 4th period students and walked down the hall to the cafeteria.” After, Ivan suggested that we replace the word, stream, with group. Eventually, we decided to use the sentence, “I joined the group of fourth-period lunch students and walked down the hall to the cafeteria.”
Now consider what is conveyed by Anderson’s diction (particularly the verbs) in this sentence. “I ditch my tray and bolt for the door.” Based on the verbs, what inferences might you draw about the speaker’s feelings at this moment?
For the 3rd question, Katherine started the conversation by telling the group that the words, “ditch” and “bolt,” made it feel like the narrator had to leave. Jonathan added onto that idea by saying that it created a sense of urgency. Ivan and I agreed with that statement as we both felt that the narrator acted in a panicked manner.
Now revise Anderson’s sentence to be more neutral.
Now, we were asked to make the sentence more neutral. Like in the 2nd question, we spent around 30 seconds writing our individual sentences. Katherine started off the discussion by telling us her sentence, which was “I put down my tray and walked to the door.” We discussed all of our group’s sentences and eventually we agreed on Ivan’s sentence (which was “I leave my tray and walk out the door.”)
After the breakout rooms, we discussed our answers in the Zoom meeting. Our group seemed to have similar answers with everyone as nothing was extremely different.
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Individual Activity
Towards the end of class, we were asked to annotate the first paragraph of “Marigolds” (for diction, syntax, imagery, and connotations). Some of the things that I highlighted were “arid, sterile dirt” and “lush green lawns and paved streets under leafy shade trees somewhere in town.” The first quote has negative connotation as it represents the lifeless environment of the speaker’s hometown. The second quote has positive connotation as it gives off a sense of life and warmth.
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Reflection
This lesson was important as it taught me about the difference between connotations and denotations. Denotations are the literal meanings of a word, while connotations are the tone of a word. Learning how to use these terms would help me improve my writing as my word choice would be greatly improved. For example, I may choose a word that has the denotative meaning that I’m looking for, and the connotation that would match my writing. By learning this, I can incorporate connotations and denotations into my writing (for school, daily life, etc.) Along with this, this lesson also allowed me to build on my annotating and teamwork skills. Annotating is very important as it can help me comprehend the text and find certain parts quickly. This skill can be applied when reading books for school assignments. Teamwork, on the other hand, is an essential skill that I use during breakout rooms. This skill could be used in group assignments, future jobs, etc. In conclusion, this lesson was extremely important and I recommend that students (who may want a review) should check out the blogs in our English syllabus.
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