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    Tone Worksheet

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    R. Cornelius Spencer
    The document discusses tone in literature. Tone is the attitude a writer takes toward the subject or audience. Like a speaker's voice, a work's tone expresses the writer's feelings and can usually be described with an adjective. To determine a passage's tone, one should consider its subject and audience, important words and their connotations, feelings created by images, hints about a narrator's sincerity, presence of jokes, and imagined tone of voice. The document then provides examples of passages and asks the reader to identify each one's tone.

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    Tone Worksheet

    Uploaded by

    R. Cornelius Spencer
    684 views3 pages
    The document discusses tone in literature. Tone is the attitude a writer takes toward the subject or audience. Like a speaker's voice, a work's tone expresses the writer's feelings and can usually be described with an adjective. To determine a passage's tone, one should consider its subject and audience, important words and their connotations, feelings created by images, hints about a narrator's sincerity, presence of jokes, and imagined tone of voice. The document then provides examples of passages and asks the reader to identify each one's tone.

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    From a Lesson on Tone in literature

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    The document discusses tone in literature. Tone is the attitude a writer takes toward the subject or audience. Like a speaker's voice, a work's tone expresses the writer's feelings and can usually be described with an adjective. To determine a passage's tone, one should consider its subject and audience, important words and their connotations, feelings created by images, hints about a narrator's sincerity, presence of jokes, and imagined tone of voice. The document then provides examples of passages and asks the reader to identify each one's tone.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    684 views3 pages

    Tone Worksheet

    Uploaded by

    R. Cornelius Spencer
    The document discusses tone in literature. Tone is the attitude a writer takes toward the subject or audience. Like a speaker's voice, a work's tone expresses the writer's feelings and can usually be described with an adjective. To determine a passage's tone, one should consider its subject and audience, important words and their connotations, feelings created by images, hints about a narrator's sincerity, presence of jokes, and imagined tone of voice. The document then provides examples of passages and asks the reader to identify each one's tone.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    Tone is the attitude a writer takes toward his or her subject or audience.

    Like the tone of a speakers voice, the tone of a work of literature expresses the writers
    feelings. A works tone can usually be described with an adjective or two: bitter, playful,
    sarcastic, and so on. To decide on the tone of a passage, you should ask yourself the
    following questions?
    1. What is the passages subject, and who is its audience?
    2. What would you say are the most important words in the passage? What
    connotations, or associations, do these words have?
    3. What general feeling do the passages images create?
    4. Are there any hints that the narrator or speaker does not really mean everything he
    or she says?
    5. Does the narrator or speaker make any jokes? If so, are these jokes lighthearted,
    bitter, or something else?
    6. If the narrator or speaker were speaking aloud, what tone of voice would he or she
    be using?
    Analyzing Tone
    Write one or two words to describe the tone of each of the numbered passages; circle
    phrases within the poem that create the tone. You may chose words from the list below,
    or you may use words of your own.
    sad
    impassioned
    serious
    approving
    teasing
    agitated

    joyous
    anxious
    objective
    grieving
    reflective
    tender

    bitter
    contented
    angry
    romantic
    admiring
    aggressive

    ironic
    affectionate
    sympathetic
    fearful
    happy
    mischievous

    playful
    gloomy
    critical
    melancholy
    disappointed
    despairing

    mocking
    confused
    unemotional
    patriotic
    loving
    hopeful

    I looked upon the scene before meupon the mere house, and the simple landscape
    features of the domainupon the bleak wallsupon the vacant eyelike windowsupon
    a few rank sedgesand upon a few white trunks of decayed trees . . . . (from The Fall
    of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe)
    1. Tone:______________________________

    The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our
    ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we
    here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? (from Speech to
    the Virginia Convention by Patrick Henry)
    2. Tone:________________________________

    I am not well. I do not know our target. They do not tell us for which city the bird is
    targeted. I do not know. That is planning. That is not my responsibility. My
    responsibility is to watch the console and when certain events take place upon the
    console, turn my key in the lock. Shotwell bounces the rubber ball on the floor in a
    steady, stolid, rhythmical manner. I am aching to get my hands on the ball, on the jacks.
    (from Game by Donald Barthelme)
    3. Tone__________________________________
    NO TRESPASSING. We Like the snappy, rude signs. NO TRASPASSING. You get
    the idea. NO TRUSTPASSING. Keep out. NO BOATS ALOUDsilent boats OK, but
    no boats aloud. (From Misspelling by Charles Kuralt)
    4. Tone_____________________________
    If only I could nudge you from this sleep,/My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
    (from Elegy for Jane by Theodore Roethke)
    5. Tone________________________

    This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my career as a slave. It rekindled
    the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own
    manhood. (from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick
    Douglass)
    6. Tone__________________________

    Changing the Tone of a Passage


    Choose one of the numbered passages above and rewrite it, changing some words and
    images to give the passage a different tone. Then identify the passages new tone.
    _______________________________________________________________________.
    _______________________________________________________________________.
    _______________________________________________________________________.
    _______________________________________________________________________.
    _______________________________________________________________________.
    _______________________________________________________________________.
    _______________________________________________________________________.

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