Exercises — Week 26: Week 26 — Personal Essay: Voice (Dillard, White)
2 hands-on tasks. Do them in order; each one feeds the Canvas item it names.
35 min · analysis
1. Voice Analysis: Dillard and White
- Find one passage of at least two paragraphs from Dillard's 'Living Like Weasels' and one from any essay in White's Essays of E. B. White.
- Write one analytical paragraph for each: identify three specific examples of diction or syntax that define the voice; explain what relationship to the subject each writer's voice creates; name the quality you would most want to develop in your own writing.
- Do not summarize — cite specific examples.
Turn in / bring: Two analytical paragraphs with three labeled examples each and a closing sentence naming the quality you want to develop.
25 min · written
2. Voice Draft
- Write a paragraph (150–180 words) describing a specific, observable moment in the natural or physical world — something that actually caught your attention.
- Constraints: no thesis, no argument. Your only task is to render the moment clearly in your own voice.
- After writing, identify one sentence that sounds most like you. Write one sentence explaining what specifically makes it feel like your voice rather than someone else's.
Turn in / bring: Observation paragraph with one sentence labeled 'most mine' and one-sentence explanation. This companion enhances — it does not replace — Mr. Gray's instruction.