VOICE LESSONS

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VOICE LESSONS

• NANCY DEAN

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Voice Lessons Four Elements
DICTION the authors choice of words for a
specific purpose

• An aged man is but a paltry thing
• A tattered coat upon a stick
• W. B. Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium

DETAIL facts, observations, and incidents

• About suffering, they were never wrong,
• The Old Masters how well they understood
• Its human position how it takes place
• While someone else is eating or opening a window
  or just walking dully along
• W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux-Arts

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Voice Lessons Four Elements, 2
Imagery Verbal representation of sense
experience
It was a mine town, uranium most recently. Dust
devils whirled sand off the mountains. Even after
the heaviest of rains, the water seeped back into
the ground, between stones, and the earth was
parched again. Linda Hogan, Making Do
Syntax grammatical sentence structure

• I slowed still more, my shadow pacing me,
  dragging its head through the weeds that hid the
  fence.
• William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

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Voice Lessons Lesson Format

• A quotation highlighting the element under study

• DISCUSS
• A direct reading question about the element,
  often identification and interpretation
•  
• A second question, often more hypothetical,
  abstract, or comparative
•  
• APPLY
• An activity, often imitative

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Voice Lessons 1 DICTION

•  As I watched, the sun broke weakly through,
  brightened the rich red of the fawns, and kindled
  their white spots.

E. B. White, Twins, Poems and Sketches of E.
B. White

• DISCUSS
• What kind of flame does kindled imply? How does
  this verb suit the purpose of the sentence?
•  
• Would the sentence be strengthened or weakened by
  changing the sun broke weakly through to the sun
  burst through? Explain the effect this change
  would have on the use of the verb kindled.
•  
• APPLY
• Brainstorm with your team a list of action verbs
  that demonstrate the effects of sunlight.

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Voice Lessons 2 DICTION

• Art is the antidote that can call us back from
  the edge of numbness, restoring the ability to
  feel for another.
• Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson
•  
• DISCUSS
• By using the word antidote, what does Kingsolver
  imply about the inability to feel for another?
• If we change the word antidote to gift, what
  effect would it have on the meaning of the
  sentence?
•  
• APPLY
• Develop a list of medical terms then write a
  sentence using a medical term to characterize
  art. Explain the effect this term has on the
  meaning of the sentence.

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Voice Lessons 3 DETAIL

• An old man, Don Tomasito, the baker, played the
  tuba. When he blew into the huge mouthpiece, his
  face would turn purple and his thousand wrinkles
  would disappear as his skin filled out.
• Alberto Alvaro Rios, The Iguana Killer
•  
• DISCUSS
• The first sentence is a general statement. How
  does the second enrich and intensify the first?
•  
• Contrast the second sentence with the
  followingWhen he blew the tuba, his face turned
  purple and his cheeks puffed out.Which sentence
  more effectively expresses an attitude toward
  Tomasito? What is the attitude and how is it
  communicated?
•  
• APPLY
• Describe someone jumping over a puddle. Your
  first sentence should be general, stating the
  action simply. Your second sentence should
  clarify and intensify the action through detail.
  Read your sentences to each other.

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Voice Lessons 4 DETAIL
Charley (to Willy) Why must everybody be like
you? Who liked J. P. Morgan? Was he impressive?
In a Turkish bath hed look like a butcher. But
with his pockets on he was very well liked. Now
listen, Willy, I know you dont like me, and
nobody can say Im in love with you, but Ill
give you a job becausejust for the hell of it,
put it that way. Now what do you say? Arthur
Miller, Death of a Salesman  

• DISCUSS
• Who was J. P Morgan? What is a Turkish bath? What
  picture comes to mind when someone is said to
  look like a butcher? How do these details
  contribute to the point Charley is trying to
  make?
•  How would the passage be different if Charley
  said J. P. Morgan would look like a baker in a
  Turkish bath?
• APPLY
• Think of someone famous and powerful. Use detail
  to create an unflattering but accurate
  description of the physical appearance of this
  famous person. Model your description on Millers
  description of J. P. Morgan. Share your
  description with your teammates. (Note that
  Charley is not deprecating Morgan fight any
  temptation to create silly or insulting pictures
  of people.)

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Voice Lessons 5 SYNTAX
Brother, continue to listen. You say that you are
sent to instruct us how to worship the Great
Spirit agreeably to his mind and, if we do not
take hold of the religion which you white people
teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say
that you are right and we are lost. How do we
know this to be true? Chief Red Jacket, Chief
Red Jacket Rejects a Change of Religion  

• DISCUSS
• The words you say are repeated several times in
  the sentence. What is the repetitions function?
• The question at the end of the passage is a
  rhetorical question. What attitude toward the
  audience is expressed by the use of a rhetorical
  question?
•  
• APPLY
• Write a three-sentence paragraph modeled after
  Chief Red Jackets passage. The first two
  sentences should contain repetition the third
  sentence should be a rhetorical question. Your
  topic is school uniforms. Share your sentence
  with your team.

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Voice Lessons 6 Imagery

•  At first I saw only water so clear it magnified
  the fibers in the walls of the gourd. On the
  surface, I saw only my own round reflection. The
  old man encircled the neck of the gourd with his
  thumb and index finger and gave it a shake. As
  the water shook, then settled, the colors and
  lights shimmered into a picture, not reflecting
  anything I could see around me. There at the
  bottom of the gourd were my mother and father
  scanning the sky, which was where I was.
• Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior

• DISCUSS
• What kind of imagery does Kingston use in this
  passage? Circle the images.
• Compare and contrast the imagery of the last
  sentence with the imagery of the first four.
• APPLY
• Write a sentence which uses precise visual
  imagery to describe a simple action. Share your
  sentence with your teammates.

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Voice Lesons 7 Tone

• Piazza di Spagna, Early Morning
• I cant forget
• How she stood at the top of that long marble
  stair
• Amazed, and then with a sleepy pirouette
• Went dancing slowly down to the fountain-quiet
  square.
• Nothing upon her face
• But some impersonal loneliness,not then a girl,
• But as it were a reverie of the place,
• A called-for falling glide and whirl
• As when a leaf, petal, or thin chip
• Is drawn to the falls of a pool and, circling a
  moment above it,
• Rides on over the lip
• Perfectly beautiful, perfectly ignorant of it.
• Richard Wilbur

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Voice Lesson 7 (continued)

• DISCUSS
• What is the speakers attitude toward the woman
  he describes? List the images, diction, and
  details that support your position.
• Consider the last line of the poem. How does the
  repetition of the syntactical structure (adverb
  adjective, adverb adjective) support the tone of
  the poem?
• APPLY
• Using Wilburs poem as a model, write a sentence
  which expresses stunned admiration for a
  stranger. Use repetition of a syntactical
  structure to create your tone.

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VOICE LESSONS

• NANCY DEAN

classroom magic!