Exercises — Week 18: Week 18 — Tone, Voice, and Diction
2 hands-on tasks. Do them in order; each one feeds the Canvas item it names.
30 min · analysis
1. Tone Analysis
- Find one paragraph from a published essay, editorial, or speech.
- Name its dominant tone precisely — not just positive or negative, but specific: acerbic, wistful, indignant, measured, celebratory, sardonic.
- Identify three specific word choices that produce that tone.
- Write one sentence for each explaining how that specific word choice contributes to the overall tone.
Turn in / bring: Labeled tone with three annotated examples and one-sentence explanations.
30 min · written
2. Tonal Register Exercise
- Write the same factual event three times: once in a formal, detached register; once in a warm, engaged register; once in a sardonic register.
- After all three versions, write three sentences: what specifically changed in diction between versions, what changed in syntax, and what the different registers suggest about the writer's relationship to the subject.
Turn in / bring: Three version paragraphs plus three comparative sentences.