Diction

Consider:
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:
1. By using the word antidote, what does the author imply about the inability to feel for
another?

2. If we changed the word antidote to gift, what effect would it have on the meaning of the
sentence?

Apply:
Brainstorm with the class and develop a list of medical terms; then write a sentence using a
medical term to characterize art. Explain to the class the effect this term has on the meaning
of the sentence.

Lesson 1: Diction / 3
 Diction

Consider:
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:
1. What kind of flame does kindled imply? How does this verb suit the purpose of the
sentence?

2. 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 the class a list of action verbs that demonstrate the effects of sunlight.

4 / Lesson 2: Diction
 Diction

Consider:
An aged man is but a paltry thing
A tattered coat upon a stick....
— W. B. Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”

Discuss:
1. What picture is created by the use of the word tattered?

2. By understanding the connotations of the word tattered, what do we understand about the
persona’s attitude toward an aged man?

Apply:
List three adjectives that can be used to describe a pair of shoes. Each adjective should
connote a different feeling about the shoes. Discuss your list with a partner. Share one of the
best adjectives with the class.

Lesson 3: Diction / 5
 Diction

Consider:
The man sighed hugely.
— E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

Discuss:
1. What does it mean to sigh hugely?

2. How would the meaning of the sentence change if we rewrote it as:

The man sighed loudly.

Apply:
Fill in the blank below with an adverb:
The man coughed ______________________.
Your adverb should make the cough express an attitude. For example, the cough could express
contempt, desperation, or propriety. Do not state the attitude. Instead, let the adverb imply it.
Share your sentence with the class.

6 / Lesson 4: Diction
 Diction

Consider:
A rowan* like a lipsticked girl. *a small deciduous tree native to
Europe, having white flower clusters
and orange berries.
— Seamus Heaney, “Song,” Field Work

Discuss:
1. Other than the color, what comes to mind when you think of a lipsticked girl?

2. How would it change the meaning and feeling of the line if, instead of lipsticked girl, the
author wrote girl with lipstick on?

Apply:
Write a simile comparing a tree with a domesticated animal. In your simile, use a word that is
normally used as a noun (like lipstick) as an adjective (like lipsticked). Share your simile with
the class.

Lesson 5: Diction / 7
 Diction

Consider:
Abuelito under a bald light bulb, under a ceiling dusty with flies, puffs his cigar and counts
money soft and wrinkled as old Kleenex.
— Sandra Cisneros, “Tepeyac,” Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories

Discuss:
1. How can a ceiling be dusty with flies? Are the flies plentiful or sparse? Active or still?
Clustered or evenly distributed?

2. What does Cisneros mean by a bald light bulb? What does this reveal about Abuelito’s
room?

Apply:
Take Cisneros’s phrase, under a ceiling dusty with flies, and write a new phrase by
substituting the word dusty with a different adjective. Explain to a partner the impact of
your new adjective on the sentence.

8 / Lesson 6: Diction
 Diction

Consider:
Meanwhile, the United States Army, thirsting for revenge, was prowling the country north
and west of the Black Hills, killing Indians wherever they could be found.
— Dee Brown, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee

Discuss:
1. What are the connotations of thirsting? What feelings are evoked by this diction?

2. What are the connotations of prowling? What kind of animals prowl? What attitude
toward the U.S. army does this diction convey?

Apply:
Use an eating or drinking verb in a sentence which expresses anger about a parking ticket. Do
not use the verb to literally express eating or drinking. Instead, express your anger through
the verb. Use Brown’s sentence as a model. Share your sentence with a partner.

Lesson 7: Diction / 9
 Diction

Consider:
Most men wear their belts low here, there being so many outstanding bellies, some big
enough to have names of their own and be formally introduced. Those men don’t suck them
in or hide them in loose shirts; they let them hang free, they pat them, they stroke them as
they stand around and talk.
— Garrison Keillor, “Home,” Lake Wobegon Days

Discuss:
1. What is the usual meaning of outstanding? What is its meaning here? What does this pun
reveal about the attitude of the author toward his subject?

2. Read the second sentence again. How would the level of formality change if we changed
suck to pull and let them hang free to accept them?

Apply:
Write a sentence or two describing an unattractive but beloved relative. In your description,
use words that describe the unattractive features honestly yet reveal that you care about
this person, that you accept and even admire him/her, complete with defects. Use Keillor’s
description as a model. Throw in a pun if you can think of one. Share your description with
the class.

10 / Lesson 8: Diction
 Diction

Consider:
Doc awakened very slowly and clumsily like a fat man getting out of a swimming pool. His
mind broke the surface and fell back several times.
— John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

Discuss:
1. What is the subject of the verb broke? What does this tell you about Doc’s ability to
control his thinking at this point in the story?

2. To what does surface refer? Remember that good writers often strive for complexity rather
than simplicity.

Apply:
List three active verbs that could be used to complete the sentence below. Act out one of
these verbs for the class, demonstrating the verb’s connotation.
He _________________ into the crowded auditorium.

Lesson 9: Diction / 11
 Diction

Consider:
Pots rattled in the kitchen where Momma was frying corn cakes to go with vegetable soup for
supper, and the homey sounds and scents cushioned me as I read of Jane Eyre in the cold
English mansion of a colder English gentleman.
— Maya Angelou, I know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Discuss:
1. By using the word cushioned, what does Angelou imply about her life and Jane Eyre’s life?

2. What is the difference between the cold of the English mansion and the cold of the English
gentleman? What does Angelou’s diction convey about her attitude toward Jane’s life?

Apply:
Write a sentence using a strong verb to connect one part of your life with another. For
example, you could connect a book you are reading and your mother’s dinner preparations,
as Maya Angelou does; or you could connect a classroom lecture with sounds outside. Be
creative. Use an exact verb (like cushioned), one which connotes the attitude you want to
convey. Share your sentence with the class.

12 / Lesson 10: Diction

 Diction

Consider:
Once I am sure there’s nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
— Philip Larkin, “Church Going”

Discuss:
1. What feelings are evoked by the word thud?

2. How would the meaning change if the speaker let the door slam shut?

Apply:
Fill in the following chart. In the first column, record five different verbs which express the
closing of a door; in the second column, record the feelings these verbs evoke.
Verbs expressing the closing of a door Feeling evoked by the verb

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Lesson 11: Diction / 13

 Diction

Consider:
We have been making policy on the basis of myths, the first of them that trade with China
will dulcify Peking policy. That won’t work; there was plenty of trade between North and
South when our Civil War came on.
— William F. Buckley, Jr., “Like It or Not, Pat Buchanan’s Political Rhetoric Has True
Grit”

Discuss:
1. What does dulcify mean? What attitude toward his readers does his diction convey?

2. What attitude does Buckley communicate by writing our Civil War instead of the
Civil War?

Apply:
Fill in the following chart, substituting uncommon words for the common, boldface word in
the sentence below. Your new words should change the connotative meaning of the sentence.
Use your thesaurus to find unusual words. Share your chart with a partner.
She gazed at the tidy room.
Synonym for tidy Effect on the meaning of the sentence

14 / Lesson 12: Diction

 Diction

Consider:
Wind rocks the car.
We sit parked by the river,
silence between our teeth.
Birds scatter across islands
of broken ice . . .
— Adrienne Rich, “Like This Together, for A.H.C.”

Discuss:
1. What are the feelings produced by the word rocks? Are the feelings gentle, violent,
or both?

2. How would the meaning change if we changed the first line to Wind shakes the car?

Apply:
List with the class different meanings for the verb rock. How many of these meanings would
make sense in this poem? Remember that the poet often strives to capture complexity rather
than a single view or meaning.

Lesson 13: Diction / 15

 Diction

Consider:
Close by the fire sat an old man whose countenance was furrowed with distress.
— James Boswell, Boswell’s London Journal

Discuss:
1. What does the word furrowed connote about the man’s distress?

2. How would the impact of the sentence be changed if furrowed were changed to lined?

Apply:
Write a sentence using a verb to describe a facial expression. Imply through your verb choice
that the expression is intense. Use Boswell’s sentence as a model. Share your sentence with a
partner.

16 / Lesson 14: Diction

 Diction

Consider:
Her face was white and sharp and slightly gleaming in the candlelight, like bone. No hint of
pink. And the hair. So fine, so pale, so much, crimped by its plaiting into springy zigzag
tresses, clouding neck and shoulders, shining metallic in the candlelight, catching a hint,
there it was, of green again, from the reflection of a large glazed cache-pot containing a
vigorous sword-leafed fern.
— A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance

Discuss:
1. When the author describes a face “like bone,” what feelings are suggested?

2. How can hair be “clouding neck and shoulders”? What picture does this word create for
the reader?

Apply:
Substitute another noun for bone in sentence one. Your substitution should change the
meaning and feeling of the sentence. Share your sentence with the class and explain how
your noun changes the sentence’s connotation and impact.

Lesson 15: Diction / 17

 Diction

Consider:
“Ahhh,” the crowd went, “Ahhh,” as at the most beautiful of fireworks, for the sky was alive
now, one instant a pond and at the next a womb of new turns: “Ahhh,” went the crowd,
“Ahhh!”
— Norman Mailer, “Of a Fire on the Moon”

Discuss:
1. This quote is from a description of the Apollo-Saturn launching. The Saturn was a huge
rocket that launched the Apollo space capsule, a three-man ship headed for the moon.
Why is the sky described as a pond then a womb? Contrast the two words. What happens
that changes the sky from a pond to a womb?

2. What does Mailer’s use of the word womb tell the reader about his attitude toward the
launch?

Apply:
Think of a concert you have attended. Write one sentence which expresses a transformation
of the concert stage. Using Mailer’s description as a model, call the stage first a ____________
then a ____________. Do not explain the transformation or your attitude toward it. Instead,
let your diction alone communicate both the transformation and your attitude. Share your
sentence with a partner.

18 / Lesson 16: Diction

 Diction

Consider:
. . . then Satan first knew pain,
And writh’d him to and fro convolv’d; so sore
The grinding sword with discontinuous wound
Passed through him.
— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VI, lines 327-330

Discuss:
1. By using the word grinding, what does Milton imply about the pain inflicted by the
sword?

2. What does discontinuous mean? How does the use of discontinuous reinforce the idea
of a grinding sword?

Apply:
Pantomime for the class the motion of a grinding sword, a slashing sword, and a piercing
sword. Discuss the context in which a writer might use the three different kinds of swords.

Lesson 17: Diction / 19

 Diction

Consider:
Newts are the most common of salamanders. Their skin is a lighted green, like water in a
sunlit pond, and rows of very bright red dots line their backs. They have gills as larvae; as
they grow they turn a luminescent red, lose their gills, and walk out of the water to spend a
few years padding around in damp places on the forest floor. Their feet look like fingered
baby hands, and they walk in the same leg patterns as all four-footed creatures — dogs,
mules, and, for that matter, lesser pandas.
— Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Discuss:
1. What is the difference between a lighted green and a light green? Which one do you think
creates a more vivid picture?

2. What is the effect of saying fingered baby hands instead of simply baby hands?

Apply:
Compare the neck of each of the animals below to something familiar. Use Dillard’s
comparison (Their feet look like fingered baby hands) as a model.
The elephant’s neck looks like __________________________________________________
The gazelle’s neck looks like ____________________________________________________
The flamingo’s neck looks like __________________________________________________
Share one of your comparisons with the class and explain the attitude it conveys about the
animal.

20 / Lesson 18: Diction

 Diction

Consider:
This is earthquake
Weather!
Honor and Hunger
Walk lean
Together.
— Langston Hughes, “Today”

Discuss:
1. What does lean mean in this context?

2. Is lean a verb, an adjective, or both? How does this uncertainty and complexity contribute
to the impact of the lines?

Apply:
With a partner, read the poem aloud several times, changing the meaning of lean with your
voice. Discuss how you controlled your voice to make the changes.

Lesson 19: Diction / 21

 Diction

Consider:
Twenty bodies were thrown out of our wagon. Then the train resumed its journey, leaving
behind it a few hundred naked dead, deprived of burial, in the deep snow of a field in
Poland.
— Elie Wiesel, Night

Discuss:
1. This scene describes the transporting of Jews from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, both
concentration camps in World War II. In this selection, Wiesel never refers to the men
who die on the journey as men. Instead, he refers to them as bodies or simply dead. How
does his diction shape the reader’s understanding of the horror?

2. How would the meaning change if we substituted dead people for bodies?

Apply:
Change the italicized word below to a word that disassociates the reader from the true action
of the sentence.
Fifteen chickens were slaughtered for the feast.
Share your new sentence with the class and explain its effect.

22 / Lesson 20: Diction