- subject / topic
- audience
- self
What determines tone?
- Diction
- Syntax
- Figurative Language / Imagery
- Rhetorical strategy (logos / ethos / pathos)
- just about everything else you've studied in class can go to the making of tone
[Tone Word Bank: Insipid / Flippant / Benevolent / Turgid / Burlesque / Lugubrious / Colloquial / Incisive / Whimsical / Patronizing / Effusive / Didactic / Sardonic / Diffident]
- Lacking qualities that excite, stimulate, or interest; dull
- Impulsive or arbitrary, erratic or unpredictable
- Shy, reserved, lacking confidence
- Informal; writing akin to speech
- Ridiculing a subject; a ludicrous or mocking imitation
- Penetrating, clear, sharp
- Treating in a condescending manner
- Suggestive of doing good
- Disrespectful with an air or levity or casualness
- The Puritans perished in the slowly turning ashes of history; alas, I alone lament the doom of their sweet, sweet innocence.
- Surely the Puritans were justified; anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish. It is not for you to cry witch while other, more sinister witches lurk under your bed. Now, take note and learn as I offer you a nobler path.
- Indubitably, one presupposes the Puritan belief in predestination and eschews one's obligation to qualify and undermine such intellectually vapid notions -- indeed, aforementioned qualities of ecclesiastical predetermination quail before the decontextualized post-industrial philosophies of deconstructive anti-theistic arguments of existential mobility -- ergo, to wit, our cognitive recidivism precludes objective analysis of Puritan dogma.
- Yes, the Puritans -- those tight-fisted black-hatted buggers, so clean and pure in their starched blouses -- internally reeking of bloody sin. So righteous, so good, so grand-friggin-tastic! Oh, we should worship at their buckled feet!
- Those splendidly zealous, amazingly driven, magically wonderful Puritans have never been matched for pure awesomeness.
"If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!"
4. Practice Open Prompt
Defend (agree with), challenge (disagree with), or modify the following quote, said by English author Margaret Drabble: "Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts." Use your experience, observations, or readings.
