Don’t use that TONE with me!

The literary device (literary element), tone is the attitude a writer/speaker has towards the SUBJECT they're writing/speaking about. (Do NOT confuse this with mood; Mood is the atmosphere created by the setting, and actions of people/characters in it.) Every written piece comprises a central theme or subject matter. The manner in which a writer approaches this theme and subject is the tone. The tone can be formal, informal, serious, comic, sarcastic, sad, and cheerful or it may be any other existing attitudes.

Write about:

What tone do the following selections convey? Explain your answer and support it with evidence from the selection.

Reminder – Crossover short answer response includes an assertion (response to prompt), evidence (quotes) and commentary/analysis (explanation).

Examples:

Example 1 Excerpt from Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs“My grandfather lay facedown in a bed of creeper, his legs sprawled out and one arm twisted beneath him as if he’d fallen from a great height. I thought surely he was dead. His undershirt was soaked with blood, his pants were torn, and one shoe was missing. For a long moment I just stared, the beam of my flashlight shivering across his body. When I could breathe again I said his name, but he didn’t move. I sank to my knees and pressed the flat of my hand against his back. The blood that soaked through was still warm. I could feel him breathing ever so shallowly” (Riggs 32).

Example 2 Excerpt from The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe“Oh God! what could I do? I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!”

Example Crossover Short Answer Response:

In the excerpts from Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and The Tell-Tale Heart the tone in both selections is nightmarish. Riggs creates this tone through the use of the narrator. The narrator helps the reader understand the nightmarish tone by stating that his grandfather lay, “…facedown in a bed of creeper, his legs sprawled out and one arm twisted beneath him as if he’d fallen from a great height”, which is clearly upsetting for the narrator to find a family member in this manner. Similarly, Poe uses his narrator to bring out the nightmarish tone by telling the readers after he murdered the old man that, “--they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror !... But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision!” The narrator’s worst nightmare of being caught as the murderer has come to fruition. Both authors use the narrator to help the reader understand how nightmarish the tone of these excerpts are.

Class Model – We’ll first create a class model with this excerpt from Scorched by Mari Mancusi and The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.

Prompt: What tone do the following selections convey? Explain your answer and support it with evidence from the selection.

Reminder – Short answer response includes an assertion (response to prompt), evidence (quotes) and commentary/analysis (explanation). In addition – you should read the prompt first BEFORE reading the selections. This gives you the opportunity to annotate for the answer.

Excerpt 1 – Scorched by Mari Mancusi

“‘Damn you, blasted thing,’ Connor swore under his breath as he slammed his laser pistol against the case a second time. But it was no use; the glass remained intact and the egg inside only gleamed back at him, as if mocking his efforts. He needed something heavier – a bat maybe or some kind of crowbar. The kinds of tools he could have easily acquired had he been given the four months he’d been promised” (Mancusi 31).

Excerpt 2 – The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

“’Why don’t I turn you into prairie dog and run you over with my Harley? Because I don’t feel like it. A god is giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, Percy Jackson. Will you prove yourself a coward?’ He leaned forward. ‘Or maybe you only fight when there’s a river to dive into, so your daddy can protect you.’” (Riordan 227).

Now you practice!

A few tips…

Tone● For finding tone in a selection, try to focus on the diction (word choice) the author used. Authors use specific

words to help the readers understand why they or the speaker feel a certain way toward the subject they are discussing. What words are they using to help convey how they or the speaker feel?

S.A.R. & Connecting Selections C.S.A.R.

● If you’re having trouble taking out “me” in your writing, try switching that out for “the reader”. It normally makes sense after the revision is completed.

● Try changing “I” to “one” or “a person”.

● Try changing “people” to “society”.

● Be sure to have an assertion without giving an opinion. Try crossing out the “I think” or “I believe” at the beginning of your sentence – I believe it will make sense!

● Be sure to include evidence that is RELEVANT to your ASSERTION (not just the topic).

● Tie your assertion and evidence together in the analysis. Explain to the reader of your writing why the evidence you used supports (proves) your assertion.

Excerpts from Literature

1. Excerpt from Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson“I open up a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep? I draw little windowcracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting. It looks like I arm-wrestled a rosebush” (Anderson 87).

2. Excerpt from Heat by Mike Lupica

“He watched her now, moving slowly across her living room, the room as neat and clean as always, smelling, as always, of flowers, even when Michael couldn't see any new flowers anywhere. Lately she was moving more slowly. He could see that her ankles, showing underneath her long summer dress, looked more thick and swollen than ever, as if they had been stung by bees. Michael worried sometimes that Mrs. C would be the next person he loved to leave him, even though he could not imagine his world without her in it” (Lupica 133).

3. Excerpt from Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers“Kenny always looked up to me. He couldn’t play ball as well as I had when I was his age, and he didn’t do as well in school. Maybe it had something to do with Dad leaving when Kenny was four. He saw all the fights between Dad and Mom, and I think it hurt him more than it did me. I had basketball, and I was good in school. Later, with Mom drinking so much, all Kenny had was me. I wanted to tell him that I did something in the war (Myers 60-61).

4. Excerpt from The Pact by Davis, Jenkins, and Hunt

“He grabbed my shorts and the Icee clunked to the ground. My heart was thumping. I thought for sure I was about to die. The next thing I knew, I was face-to-face with two snarling dogs. They were German shepherds, and they looked big enough to eat me alive. I screamed for mercy. In his thick Spanish accent, the owner was shouting something about letting the dogs tear me to pieces if I ever tried to pull that trick again. I could have sworn the dogs were licking their chops when the owner suddenly let us go. We flew out of the store. I didn’t have much of a taste for stolen Icees after that” (Davis, Jenkins, & Hunt 33).

TONE SWITCH: There are times when the author/speaker switches (or changes) their tone toward the subject. The next two passages contain examples of this.

5. Excerpt from Touch the Top of the World by Erik Weihenmayer

“We sat silently for awhile, and then Alex asked, ‘What do you miss most now that you're blind?’‘Nothing!’ I said at first, not wanting my mind to linger in the past.‘There must be something you miss,’ she persisted.

Then, I gave into it and let my mind wander through my sighted life. Riding my bike to the reservoir and down along the Glen in the summer, sprinting full bore across a field -- I weighed the possible responses. Then I came upon it: faces.

‘I miss people's faces,’ I said. ‘I miss looking into people's eyes, and I miss seeing their expressions change from sad to happy, from anger to laughter’ (Weihenmayer 108 ).

6. Excerpt from Swallowing Stones by Joyce McDonald

"Something else came with the night: a disturbing dream. A dream choked with thick, twisted tree trunks, big enough to hide a bear, and tangled vines that coiled around her body, pulling her deeper and deeper into a mist-clouded forest. Through the vapor Jenna could make out the bare bone-white branches of a giant tree. And as the vines pulled at her ankles she tugged against them with all her strength. She would not go to this place. Nothing, not all the vines on the face of the earth, could make her go there" (McDonald 62)

CSAR #1What is similar in the tones between the excerpts from Speak and Heat? Explain your answer and support it with evidence from both selections.

CSAR #2What is contrary in the tones between the excerpts from Speak and Swallowing Stones? Explain your answer and support it with evidence from both selections.

CSAR #3What connection can be made between the tone in the excerpts from Fallen Angels and The Pact? Explain your answer and support it with evidence from both selections.

CSAR #4How would you describe the tone switch in the selection “Touch of the Top of the World”? Explain your answer and support it with evidence from both selections.

CSAR #5How would you describe the tone switch in the selection “Swallowing Stones”? Explain your answer and support it with evidence from both selections.