Voice

1. Voice • Expresses feelings • Varies according to audience and purpose • Connects your reader to you • Is unique as a fingerprint

2. Voice • Your voice is specific to you! • Let’s see… • Close your eyes • I’m going to move around the room, when I touch your shoulder, say hello to the class in a way that is specific to you in fewer than three words. Let’s see if we can guess who you are. • Example… I would say “Good morning, class.” • Let’s see just how specific your voice is. Can you guess who is saying hello?

3. Voice • Voice is important in writing! • People can make money because they are good at creating voice. • Can you think of jobs where people have to be good at creating voice? • What about greeting cards writers? • We are going to take a look at the insides of some greeting cards. Can you guess what type of card it would be in based on the voice the writer created?

4. Voice • The heart remembers most what it has loved best. May memories comfort you and bring you peace. Sympathy

5. Voice • The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. Humor

6. Voice • Wherever your dreams take you… …hope you’ll find happiness waiting! Encouragement

7. Voice • May all the care and kindness you give so freely to others come back to warm your heart. Thank you for the gift. Gratitude

8. Voice • On our wedding day, I want you to know I love you for your tender touch and soft, sweet kisses. And for your whispered words that make me smile. I love you for the promise you keep and the dreams you bring to life. Today and always, you are the first in my heart and the first in my life. Love

9. Voice • Assignment… • You are going to write two different insides to two different types of greeting cards. • You must do one for sympathy and the other can be thank-you, congratulations, birthday wishes, or get well

10. Voice • How can you add voice to writing??? • You can start by writing these tips down! • Add intentional fragments • What’s more, just before you flinched or passed out, you probably heard someone utter the famous line, “This won’t hurt a bit.” Then the old needle poked your arm. Ouch! • Don’t use “you” unless asking a question or giving a command • Know who your audience is and choose words that are fitting • Show don’t tell • Pick a tone that’s appropriate and stick to it.

11. Voice • How can you add voice to writing??? • You can… • Use active verbs, not passive ones • Nightmares terrify me. VS. Nightmares are scary • Take out the helping verbs and use active verbs instead of linking verbs • Add sensory details (smells, sounds, tastes, etc…) • Get emotional!!! Show your reader how you • Try different angles, like humor, mystery or seriousness. If you get stuck, try an unexpected angle. • For example, if you are writing about a serious topic, like taking your driver's test, approach it with humor. feel

12. Voice • Adding voice is hard… • To help you, we are going to look at a couple pieces of writing that display strong voice and remove all traces of voice from it.

13. Voice Paper Title: Letter of Complaint Grade: 8th Hey Buddy! Listen up! This is your mouth speaking! I was invented for talking, so you had better pay attention! First of all, man, what are you thinking? Here’s a lesson in life: when food comes right off the stove, it’s hot. Do you understand second-degree burns? Also, even if it’s not hot, please don’t shovel it all down in a half second! Trust me, buddy, it’s not going anywhere. I don’t need to work that hard. Third, do you really need to eat your own cooking? I mean, that’s why McDonalds was invented, right? At least their food has flavor! (And no, I don’t consider “burnt” a real flavor!) Lastly, when you do eat your own “cooking,” please don’t bite the tongue. It’s in enough pain from having to deal with your concoction, anyway! Signed, The Mouth

14. Voice Your turn! Get into groups of four, and together remove all traces of voice from the copy of this excerpt. Use your notes! • Chores! Chores! Chores! Chores are boring! Scrubbing toilets, cleaning sinks and washing bathtubs take up a lot of my time and are not fun at all. • Toilets! When you’re scrubbing toilets make sure they are not stinky. There’s nothing worse than a toilet that is left stinky, but this means I have to really get in under the rim. Yuck! I think toilets are one of the hardest things to scrub in the bathroom. • Sinks aren’t that easy either. One question for you… Wouldn’t it be easier to rinse the toothpaste off when it’s still wet? Jeez! I mean, once it dries, it is impossible to get off. • Bathtubs, ever washed one? They are big. They are deep. And it is hard to get up around the sides. One time, I had this gigantic one filled with hot water and cleaner. Well, I leaned in to really get a good shine on the bottom, and guess what? Yep, that’s right; I fell right in. • Chores are the worst way to spend a Saturday!

15. Voice • Now that you have an idea of what it takes to remove voice from a piece of writing, let’s see if you can add it! • Remember your notes, and you will do just fine!

16. Voice Jaguars are the largest of South America's big cats and the third largest cats in the world. At one time, jaguars roamed all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border, but jaguars are now only occasionally sighted in Texas and Arizona. Most jaguars are found in the Amazon River basin. Jaguars are secretive and are not known to killbhumans. These beautiful and powerful beasts were important in ancient Native American cultures and were used as royal symbols. People believed they could protect them against evil. The name jaguar comes from the Native American word yaguar, which means "he who kills with one leap.” Unlike most cats, jaguars like water and are quite good swimmers. Jaguars eat fish, turtles, and caimans—small, alligator-like animals—but also eat larger animals such as deer, cows, and tapirs. They sometimes climb trees to jump on unsuspecting prey, killing them with one powerful bite through the neck or head.

17. Voice • Your turn! Get into groups of four, and together add voice to the copy of this excerpt. Use your notes! • Koalas are marsupials, related to kangaroos. Most marsupials have pouches where the newborns develop. A koala mother usually gives birth to one joey at a time. A newborn koala is small. It is called a joey. The baby is blind, naked, and earless. As soon as it's born, this creature makes its way to its mother's pouch. • Using the two well-developed senses it's born with—smell and touch—along with its front legs and claws and an instinct that tells it which direction to head, the baby koala reaches the pouch. There it stays, grows, and develops for about seven months. • The baby stays in the pouch for about six months. Its mother begins to produce a special substance called pap. The joey feeds on this in addition to the milk it's already getting. Pap comes from the mother's intestines and contains bacteria that the joey needs to have in its own intestines so that it can digest an adult diet of eucalyptus leaves. • At about seven months, the joey leaves the pouch to eat leaves, but returns to it to nurse. By the time the joey is about one year old, it stops nursing and eats just leaves.