Tone & Attitude

1. Tone & Attitude Taken from Jane Schaffer’s Teaching Style Analysis to Advanced Placement English Students Second Edition

2. What does the word tone mean?

3. What does the phrase tone of voice mean?

4. List 5 words that could describe a person’s tone of voice.

5. Tone • Authors convey feeling in writing the same way that people convey feeling through tone of voice. Writers, though, must rely only on the printed word and cannot use inflection, volume, or gestures to make their point. • Here is an example of a sentence with an arrogant tone: • John surveyed his classmates, congratulating himself for snatching the highest grade without studying at all, unlike all the other dolts in the class.

6. Which words suggest arrogance? • John surveyed his classmates, congratulating himself for snatching the highest grade without studying at all, unlike all the other dolts in the class.

7. You try it. • Select a word from the tone/attitude list we created. (Do not choose words in the arrogance category.) • Write one sentence on any topic that conveys the tone you chose without naming the tone word itself. • Then, write commentary (analysis and interpretation) for your sentence. What words did you include that convey the tone you want, and why did you pick these particular ones?