The Search for Adjectives

As we merge into diction analysis, the big push is for you to aggrandize your adjectives, verbs, and infinitives to better describe the diction, activate your verb usage, and mature your purpose statement. Say goodbye to vague words like bad, good, positive, negative, optimistic, pessimistic, and the like. The best way to analyze diction is to exhibit your own mastery of the vernacular!

1: We commenced phase one of the team close read, breaking down Alcott's passage and noting so much already - syntax, dialogue, mood, pathos, diction, tone, alliteration, simile, metaphor, and even zeugma! As you may have noted in class, you need to evolve past the quick surface interpretation and delve beneath the surface to the "bigger picture" that the text conveys. We will finish this phase tomorrow, and then move to phase two.

3: We spent the majority of class finishing up the team close read of Capote by peer reviewing the body paragraphs and constructing a group conclusion to wrap up the team essay, recap the essay's content, and revert back to the hook. Then, you shared your intro, one body paragraph, and concluding paragraphs for instant feedback and to provide some samples for your classmates. With our variegated introductions, there were many a hook to exhibit all the possibilities of gaining the reader's attention: crafting a mood-inducing context, showing off mature diction, providing Civil War context from the soldier's realm and the nurse's realm. We will finish our last group tomorrow and then transfer to our diction study.

5: Diction, diction, diction! After copying down our new set of vocab words, we spent the hour talking diction and the significance of adopting specific, mature adjectives to craft a true understanding of a text's diction and show off your own diction for the reader's inspection. Through "A Birthday" and celebrity quotes, we identified the best adjectives for diction, the best infinitives for purpose, and the best active verbs for verbs. Referencing back to the thesis formula (author + active verb + specific rhetorical strategies + mature purpose), we created carefully crafted examples of exemplary thesis statements - such as the first one - CR paints compassionate, fruitful diction to announce excitement of motherhood. More of the same tomorrow!