This powerpoint has several examples of tone and diction. It also has an interactive game so your kids can learn and have fun simultaneously.

1. Tone and diction

2. Part 1. Theory
•What is tone?
•What is diction?
•Why do students need to
understand the author’s tone?
•How does diction influence tone?
• How to identify tone?
Part 2. Practice

3. 1. What is tone?
Tone is:
 The attitude that an author takes toward
the audience, the subject, or the character
 Conveyed through the author’s words and
detail

4. What is Diction?
• Diction refers to the author’s choice of words.
Tone is the attitude or feeling that the writer’s words express.
The author’s choice of words express the tone of a story.
• What to ask you yourself when discussing tone:
• What seems to be the speaker’s attitude in the passage?
• Is more than one attitude or point of view expressed?
• Does the passage have a noticeable emotional mood or
atmosphere?
• Can anything in the passage be described as irony?

5. Words that describe tone
POSITIVE NEGATIVE NEUTRAL
- Optimistic
- Formal
-Humorous , witty
- Amused, Cheerful
- Joyful, jubilant,
jocular ,
-Complimentary
- Compassionate: -
Reverent; respectful
- Pessimistic
- Informal
- Sarcastic, Ironic :
Critical
- Threatening, Horror
- Foreboding,
Ominous
-Nonchalant,
Indifferent:
-- disgruntled:
- Detached,
objective :
- Authoritative:
- straightforward:
- matter-of-fact:
- Candid, imparcial :
- Disinterested:

6. “Bouncing into the room, she lit up the vicinity with a
joyous glow on her face as she told about her fiancé
and their wedding plans.”
What are the specific words that create the feeling of
the sentence? What words did the author use to
create the feeling of the sentence?
Let’s try together!

7. Bouncing into the room, she lit up the vicinity
with a joyous glow on her face as she told
about her fiancé and their wedding plans.
Bouncing – lit – joyous – glow – fiancé -
wedding
What kind of words are these?

8. Bouncing into the room, she lit up the vicinity
with a joyous glow on her face as she told
about her fiancé and their wedding plans.
____ diction contributes to the ____ tone.
Cheerful diction contributes to the euphoric
tone.
Or uplifting diction contributes to the joyful tone.

9. Example 1.
“This is one of the best essays I've ever seen. It's clear,
concise, and convincing”
 The writer specifies three things that make the
reader's essay exceptional: It's "clear, concise
and convincing." The use of more specific
adjectives makes this writer's praise seem sincere.
=> Complimentary

10. Example 2
“Did you see what he just did? My goodness!”
=> surprised
The exclamation mark (!) that follows the question
is a clue revealing that the observer is surprised
Exclamation points are often used to denote surprise

11. 2. The purpose of understanding tone
Fully understand the writer’s intention
Have an objective view on the reading

12. 3. How to identify the TONE?
 Tone must be inferred through the use of
descriptive words
 You can recognize the tone/ attitude by the
language/ word choices the author uses
 His language will reveal his perspective/
opinion

13. GAME RULES
- Class is divided into 7 teams.
- Look into the screen: there are 2 clues
which relating to one subject
- Say “ Bingo” if you can guess the name of
subject.

14. WHICH ISLAND IS THIS ???
USA
A FAMOUS FILM …
PEARL HARBOR
AN EXECTING DANCE
HAWAII
ISLAND

15. 1.A teacher talks to her student: “Mr. Jones, since you obviously
appear to know everything, would you like to come up here and teach
this class for me?”
 sarcastic

16. WHO IS HE ???
THE KING OF POP
BE FAMOUS FOR ….
HEAL THE WORLD
BLACK AND WHITE

17. 1.The girls were playing in the pond, splashing each other and
trying to catch fish with their hands. They were having fun, but
kept looking over their shoulders at the looming forest. The
long grass of the field kept moving and they sort of felt like
they were being watched… About a half hour passed and still
the girls kept checking the field for movements. It seemed like
a pair of dark eyes was on them. They even considered going
back inside, but that would mean homework time. So they
continued splashing, but with caution now. Their eyes hardly
left the field.
 Ominous

18. WHAT IS THIS ???
A FAMOUS ARTCHITECTURE IN NEW YORK
SYMBOL OF FREEDOM AND LIBERTY
THE STATUE OF
LIBERTY

19. 3. Donovan and Larry were early for baseball practice. They
decided to run up and down the bleachers to exercise before the
rest of the team arrived. Larry was first to the top. He
whispered to Donovan, “Look over there.” He pointed to a man
sleeping on the highest, narrow bench of the bleachers. His
pants and shirt were faded, worn, and too large for his thin
frame. One big toe stuck out of a huge hole in his sock. His
scraped-up shoes sat a few feet away. Donovan whispered, “We
should help him out. Let’s hide something good in his shoes.
Then, when he wakes up, he will have a nice surprise.”
 Sympathetic

20. WHO IS SHE???
- A POP Singer
-Known for “strange”
outfits
LADY GAGA!

21. 4. About three million people have to look for a place to sleep at
night. Some homeless people have jobs but do not earn
nearly enough money for both food and shelter. Some
become homeless because they have an unfortunate accident
or lose their job. They do not have any back-up resources to
make it through the hard times.
The homeless face terrible problems. Many become victims
of violence. Serious health problems may begin because they
are exposed to bad weather and unclean conditions.
Homeless children may miss the chance to go to school.
Worst of all, some cities pass laws that make it even harder
on the homeless.
Matter of factly

22. ROSE
- THE SYMBOL OF LOVE
- NATIONAL FLOWER OF ENGLAND
Which flower is this?

23. 5. Bill had stayed up all night preparing for this
presentation. He had everything ready: charts, graphs,
lists, statistics. This was the biggest meeting of his
career. He was ready. He smiled as the cab pulled up
to 505 Park Avenue, and he gave the taxi driver an extra
large tip. He entered the building confidently and
pushed #11 on the elevator. Suddenly, as the doors of
the elevator closed, he realized that he had left his
briefcase in the cab.
 ironic

24. Summary
An ability to determine tone is an essential
component of reading comprehension. Often,
writers will let their diction convey tone and thus
their meaning, so you need to look carefully for
clues in their language and style to determine
how writers want their words to sound.