Verbs & Diction Lesson

Verbs & Diction Lesson

• Teacher:Alexa Hayes
• Date: September ?, 2013
• Context of Lesson: Teaching parts of speech in English 9A (will have already covered nouns & pronouns)
• Quotes for Consideration:

Words fashioned with somewhat over precise diction are like shapes turned out by a cookie cutter. -Peter De Vries

“I want my vocabulary to have a very large range, but the words must be alive.” -Peter Agee

“Verb: it’s what you do.”-CDC’s Youth Campaign

• Overview:

According to Dictionary.com, diction is the choice and use of words and phrases in writing or speaking. It is easy for students to write a sentence as part of a story or essay and not put much thought into each of the words they use to convey their ideas. With this in mind, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the most important parts of writing with strong diction is the use of strong verbs that accurately portray the action the writer wants to reader to visually see in their minds. Adjectives, adverbs, and different kinds of phrases also play a key role and will serve as future lessons that are set up similarly to this one.

• Procedure/Directions:

1)Hook activity: Do a review of verbs by playing Simon Says. Lead the class through a few Simon says actions like clap your hands, touch your head, pat your stomach, tap your neighbor’s shoulder, etc.

2) Discuss: On the board/overhead, have students call out different verbs that they just did. During this time review the definition of a verb and point out that we only did action verbs. Review state of being verbs as well. (Teach and practice Helping verbs Jingle bells if students don’t know it already. This will need to be practiced daily.)

3) Pick out action words that are (semi-)synonymous [YUN1]and discuss the differences between them. Example: Touch and tap. What’s the difference between these two?

4) Have students list other pairs of words that are (semi-)synonymous but that have different nuances in meaning. (Examples: chew, chomp; walk, stomp; hit, punch, slap)

5) Mentor Text: Read the original excerpt of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Read aloud to class. Pause on the underlined words and have students say them aloud during reading. These are the verbs you want to draw their attention to. This practice also serves to keep students engaged since they are all responsible for reading some of the words and have to be paying attention to know when they will have to read.

6) Discuss: Tell students that the words they said aloud are some of the verbs in the passage. Ask: What do you notice about them? Why are they particularly important in this passage, especially considering this scene is taking place in space, somewhere none of us have been before? (Anticipated response: Since we’ve never been to space, we wouldn’t know what the actions would look like in zero gravity. The author has to be specific so we know what we should be seeing in our minds.)

7) Read the revised version of the mentor text as you did before.

8) Discuss: What has changed from the first version to the second? What impacts have these changes made on the passage? Which passage do you think has better diction and why? Which passage creates a better visual in your mind? Why do you think this?

9) Discuss: When you’re writing, why does word choice matter? Why should you use a thesaurus or think about which specific verb you should use in your writing before jotting down any old verb?

10) Writer’s Notebook: In your writer’s notebook, describe a time when you or someone you know was injured. Make sure you pay attention to the diction you use, in particular your verbs. When you’re finished, underline or highlight 2 sentences that you think have the strongest diction/ verb choice.

Homework:

Pick one sentence from tonight’s reading homework (the short story we’re currently reading) that contains a strong verb. Copy it onto a piece of paper and include the proper citation. Skip a line and rewrite the sentence using a (semi-)synonym for the verb. In 1-2 sentences, explain how the sentence’s meaning or tone is changed. You may need to use a thesaurus to find your (semi-)synonym. Be prepared to share with a partner tomorrow.

Original Mentor Text[YUN2](Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, page 33)

It hurt, but Ender was already trying to sense the coming of the next blow. Now. And yes, right on time. I’ve got you, Ender thought.

Just as the next blow was coming, Ender reached up with both hands, snatched the boy by the wrist, and then pulled down on the arm, hard.

In gravity, the boy would have been jammed against Ender’s seat back, hurting his chest. In null gravity, however, he flipped over the seat completely, up toward the ceiling. Ender wasn’t expecting it. He realized how null gravity magnified the effects of even a child’s movements. The boy sailed through the air bouncing against the ceiling, then down against another boy in his seat, then out into the aisle, his arms flailing until he screamed as his body slammed into the bulkhead at the front of the compartment, his left arm twisted under him.

It took only seconds. Graff was already there, snatching the boy out of the air. Deftly, he propelled him down the aisle toward the other man. “Left arm. Broken, I think,” he said. In moments the boy had been given a drug and lay quietly in the air as the office ballooned a splint around his arm.

Revised Mentor Text (Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, page 33)

It hurt, but Ender was already trying to sense the coming of the next blow. Now. And yes, right on time. I’ve got you, Ender thought.

Just as the next blow was coming, Ender reached up with both hands, grabbed the boy by the wrist, and then pulled down on the arm, hard.

In gravity, the boy would have been pulled against Ender’s seat back, hurting his chest. In null gravity, however, he went over the seat completely, up toward the ceiling. Ender wasn’t expecting it. He realized how null gravity made clearer the effects of even a child’s movements. The boy flew through the air bouncing against the ceiling, then down against another boy in his seat, then out into the aisle, his arms flailing until he yelledas his body went into the bulkhead at the front of the compartment, his left arm twisted under him.

It took only seconds. Graff was already there, snatching the boy out of the air. Deftly, he sent him down the aisle toward the other man. “Left arm. Broken, I think,” he said. In moments the boy had been given a drug and lay quietly in the air as the office ballooned a splint around his arm.

Extensions: Possible Follow up Lessons:

• Follow up Lesson 1: Verbs & Character

How does the author’s use of verbs reflect a character’s personality?

1) Read the following mentor text and underline the verbs. What do these verbs tell you about how Ender is feeling? What about Bean? What can you tell about their personalities?

Mentor Text (Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Page 166)

Ender reached down and grabbed the front of his uniform and shoved him into the wall. “When I say I work a certain way, Bean, then that’s the way I work.”

Bean just smiled. Ender let go of him and walked away.

Writer’s notebook:

Describe your best friend or a sibling. Instead of saying he or she is nice or mean, for example, use the person’s actions to convey their traits.

***

• Follow up Lesson 2: Verbs & Chocolate

1) Have 3 students volunteer. Hand each student a post it note with a synonym for “eat” on it. I recommend nibble, devour, and chomp.

2) Hand each of them a piece of candy and tell them they have to do the action on their card. (You can tell the class that they each received a semi-synonym for eat.)

3) Have the rest of the class write down the verb that they think each student is doing. Once the candy has been eaten, call on students to shout out their verbs and tell them if they got it “right”.

4) After this, discuss how all of them did the same activity (eating) but in different ways and how we have to choose precise words to describe exactly how they ate. Discuss how this can apply to writing and why it’s important in reading as well as writing.

Writer’s notebook:

Pretend you are an observer at a food eating contest. (You choose what kind of food.) There are 3 contestants. Describe each contestant and how they eat the food. Give each character a distinct way of eating that might match their personality traits. If you would like, pretend you are a reporter covering the event and write your response as a newspaper article.

[YUN1]I like to use this term because even though some words are synonymous with each other, they do have different nuances in meaning and therefore are not 100% synonymous. This is crucial for students to understand if they are to understand this lesson.

[YUN2]This would also be a good passage to use for prepositions.