Tone: Connotation, Diction, Figurative Language, Imagery, Irony, and Theme

Tone: Connotation, Diction, Figurative Language, Imagery, Irony, and Theme

What Should I Learn In This Lesson?

¡ñ I can explain the relationship of tone, connotation, and diction in a text. (RL/RI 4).

¡ñ I can choose an appropriate tone word for a passage and support it with individual

diction choices. (Rl/RI4)

¡ñ I can explain the relationship between imagery and figurative language and describe its

impact on the tone of a text. (Rl/RI4)

¡ñ I can explain why a situational or verbally ironic tone is present when its presence is

identified for me. (RL/RI4)

¡ñ I can explain how an author uses diction choices and the tone they create to support

the development of a theme category or a central idea. (RL/RI 2)

What Is Tone?

Tone is the general character, attitude, or feeling of a piece of art or literature. What tone

does this painting have? How do you know?

Tone in Our Bodies: Voice and Body Language

Tone is also communicated through our voice and body language. Have you ever

had an authority figure tell you to ¡°Watch your tone¡±? What did he or she mean?

Deliver the line ¡°I thought you would understand,¡± and give the line a strong tone (or feeling).

Record your line on the Flipgrid and say your tone word after your performance. If you aren¡¯t

sure which tone to use, try one of these: Bitter, Loving, Confused, Surprised

View some of the performances of your colleagues. Then answer the following questions.

How does voice communicate tone? Consider things like volume, pitch, and speed.

How does body language communicate tone? Consider things like eye-contact, head position,

and placement of arms and hands.

Tone on the Page: Diction and Connotation, Imagery and Figurative Language

When it comes to reading and writing, the connotation of an author¡¯s diction choices

primarily create tone. Connotation is the collection of feelings or associations you have with a

word, while a word¡¯s denotation is that word¡¯s dictionary definition. For example, ¡°smell,¡±

¡°aroma,¡± and ¡°stench¡± are all words that technically communicate the existence of an odor in a

place. However, they all have different emotional impacts. ¡°Aroma¡± is certainly positive, while

¡°stench¡± is certainly negative. Connotations can¡¯t be looked up online; they are made up of

your experiences with a word. Diction simply means ¡°word choice.¡± All writers make diction

choices as they write, and these choices form patterns that communicate tone.

Read the poem below. Using a tone word list, choose a tone word to describe the poem.

____________ Now, highlight the diction that creates that tone. Do not highlight more

than one or two words together. When you talk about diction, talk about individual words.

Makin¡¯ Jump Shots

By Michael S. Harper

He waltzes into the lane

¡¯cross the free-throw line,

fakes a drive, pivots,

floats from the asphalt turf

in an arc of black light,

and sinks two into the chains.

One on one he fakes

down the main, passes

into the free lane

and hits the chains.

A sniff in the fallen air¡ª

he stuffs it through the chains

riding high:

¡°traveling¡± someone calls¡ª

and he laughs, stepping

to a silent beat, gliding

as he sinks two into the chains.

Sometimes, an author will make diction choices that create imagery and/or figurative

language.

Consider the following poem. Highlight:

¡ñ Imagery in yellow. (Remember: imagery is intense language that describes what the

senses can perceive. How does something look, smell, feel, sound, or taste?)

¡ñ Figurative language in blue. (Remember: figurative language is a comparison that

creates a literal ¡°lie¡± in order to tell an emotional truth. Metaphors, similes, and

personification are common forms of figurative language.)

¡ñ When figurative language describes a sense experience, both imagery and figurative

language can be happening at one time. Highlight this phenomenon in green.

A Blessing

By James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl¡¯s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

What tone word would you choose to describe this poem? Which specific diction supports

your choice? (When you are talking about figurative language as a diction choice, you may use

all the words you need to in order to show the comparison. Otherwise, only list single words.)

Tone That Doesn¡¯t Stay The Same: Tone Shift

Tone doesn¡¯t actually often stay the same through a whole poem. It usually shifts in one or

more important place. This poem is about the poet¡¯s father dying, but he tells the story first

through a memory of a family meal together and then through a metaphor about a road going

through a snowy forest. Where does the tone shift?

Eating Together

by Li-Young Lee

Tone Words

(Highlight the first tone section in one color, and

then type a tone word in this column to describe

that section. Repeat for the second tone section.)

Intro to Ironic Tone ¡ª Feeling Two Things At The Same Time

Irony is when the opposite of what you would expect to happen, happens. An ironic tone occurs

when someone feels two things at one time that seem to contradict each other but that also

make sense together.

Watch a Poetry Out Loud Recitation of This Poem.

What tone word would you choose for this

poem? ___________________

Highlight in yellow diction that seems happy.

Highlight in blue diction that seems lonely.

As Farley recites, watch his hands and face.

What does he do to change his body

language and communicate that he is having

both lonely and ¡°happy¡± feelings? Make a

bulleted list.

Danse Russe

By William Carlos Williams

If I when my wife is sleeping

and the baby and Kathleen

are sleeping

and the sun is a flame-white disc

in silken mists

above shining trees,¡ª

if I in my north room

dance naked, grotesquely

before my mirror

waving my shirt round my head

and singing softly to myself:

¡°I am lonely, lonely.

I was born to be lonely,

I am best so!¡±

If I admire my arms, my face,

my shoulders, flanks, buttocks

against the yellow drawn shades,¡ª

Who shall say I am not

the happy genius of my household?

The Most Difficult Tone: Irony

Sometimes a poem will have a tone that is ironic. Irony exists when language begins to hold

opposites together in a way that creates truth instead of contradiction. There are three common

forms of irony: verbal (saying the opposite of what you mean), dramatic (when readers or

viewers know something a character in a story doesn¡¯t know), and situational (when the

opposite of what you expect to happen, happens.)

You are probably already comfortable with verbal irony, for example, because one very popular

form of verbal irony is sarcasm. We will talk more about dramatic irony in a future unit. Most

of the time, when we are talking about irony, we are talking about situational irony.

Situational irony occurs when the police station gets robbed, or when the firehouse burns down

(Fahrenheit 451, anyone? ) When someone says that a piece of literature has an ironic tone, and

they don¡¯t explain what kind of irony, they usually just mean situational irony.

The following poem has an ironic tone. Can you explain why? What about the tone of this

poem is the opposite of what you might expect?

Famous

by Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth

before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom

is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,

more famous than the dress shoe,

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men

who smile while crossing streets,

sticky children in grocery lines,

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do.

Why does this poem have an ironic tone?

This poem has an ironic tone because ____________ is what we usually expect from fame,

but in this poem, fame becomes __________________. Nye¡¯s new, ironic, definition of

fame develops when she writes about the ¡°___________¡± because _____________.

Tone That Makes Meaning: Theme

Tone expresses the feeling of a poem, but that feeling can inform a reader about the meaning,

message or theme that the author wants to communicate. Could you match the titles of the

poems from this lesson with an appropriate universal theme category?

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