Voice Lessons: Classroom Activities to Teach Diction, Detail, Imagery, Syntax, and Tone

Voice Lessons procides 100 historically and culturally diverse passages from world literature. Each sharply focused exaples targets a specific component of voice, presenting it in a short manageable exercise that functions well as a class opener. Activity pages may be reproduced.

The activities also serve as writing promprs, with space on the reproducible pages for students to respond to discussion suggestions for teachers.

Use Voice Lessons with any high school curriculum. Prepare your high school students for Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and other examinations tha tdemand an understanding of the subtle elements that comprise an author's unique voice: diction, detail, imagery, syntax, and tone.

The introduction thoroughly defines each facet of Voice to be explored. The body is divided into 20 pages of exercises per category: Diction, Details, Imagery, Syntax, and Tone (here linked with Attitude). Each page has ample space for answers on photocopies or on an overhead transparency (both permissable and encouraged). Dean outlines practical-- and flexible--methods for utilizing the activities straight from the book with no additional preparation stress. (I can testify that the suggestions do work!)

My general level to AP students' interest was piqued by samples from modern writers such as Tom Wolfe, Erma Bombeck, Chinua Cchebe and Toni Morrison along with cannonized authors like Shakespeare, Orwell, Steinbeck, Milton, Yeats, and even G.B. Shaw. The book is a wonderful resource for state and national competency test preparation or for increasing reading comprehension and literary appreciation. Compliments to Ms.Dean.


What a great book!   June 18, 2000
 18 out of 18 found this review helpful

Voice Lessons is a very useful tool for aspiring writers at the high school level and beyond. Dean focuses on five elements of voice: diction, detail, imagry, syntax, and tone. In 100 self-contained exercises, the student is presented with a literary excerpt (the range and diversity of the quotations is wonderful!), and then given questions for discussion and application. Students learn firsthand from the greatest writers in the English language, and really begin to think about their writing. This book is a joy to work with!


Highly recommended for highschool & homeschool.   July 5, 2000
 11 out of 13 found this review helpful

Voice Lessons: Classroom Activities To Teach Diction, Detail, Imagery, Syntax, And Tone provides one hundred historically and culturally diverse passages drawn from world literature. Each passage offers a sharply focused example targeting a specific component of voice, presenting it in a short, manageable exercise that functions well as a class opener. The activity pages are reproducible. The activities also serve admirable as writing prompts, with space on the reproducible pages for students to respond to discussion questions and apply what they have learned from specific passages. Highly recommended for high school and homeschooling curriculums, notes at the back of Voice Lessons provide background and discussion suggestions for the teacher.


Voice Lessons will stretch the brightest students...   September 27, 2000
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

Voice Lessons is a collection of writing exercises that will stretch the brightest students and focus the rest. Each exercise begins with an example from a broad range of English literature and then challenges the reader to examine how it manages one of the following components: Diction, Detail, Imagery, Syntax and Tone.

In addition to being a quite useful collection of exercises, there are some important, benefits to the manner of presentation. The diversity of the selections (as well as their brevity) establishes, as a given, that the issues explored in these exercises have a wide application. Also, there are no lauditory introductions to or explanations of the excerpted authors: instead, each selection is placed on our workbench and we are encouraged to paw the offering and then to fashion our own. I particularly like this respectful, workaday approach to the student and the task of learning.

The exercises work independently so you should find it easy to mix and match them to conform to your existing course-plan. If you have the luxury of an independent plan for each student the book is a whole kit of ready starting points.


A powerful little tool   October 8, 2002
 10 out of 11 found this review helpful

This is a superb introduction to teaching the components of voice. The selections not only illustrate diction, imagery, detail, tone, and syntax with brevity and specificity, but also they afford an opportunity for deep discussion and reflection. I use these exercises with my sophomores every day.