Wondrous Words II

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Wondrous Words II

• KATIE WOOD RAY
• Adapted by Rebecca McKay
• Guide to Ways with Words
• Following Part I Text Structure

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Wondrous Repetition-1. Close-Echo Effect

• A writer will often repeat words or phrases very
  close together when it is not necessary to do so,
  creating an echo effect in the text. You might
  see this in places where a conjunction could be
  used.
• Purpose-writer calls attention to words and
  repeat text rhythms because number of syllables
  is repeated.

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Close-Echo Effect Examples

• Night in the Country-Rylant- There is no night
  so dark, so black as night in the country.
• The Whales-Rylant- someone is standing on a
  shore and his heart is filling up. Filling up and
  ready to burst. Whales do not know how they
  change people, how they make them better, how
  they make them kind.
• Water Dance-Locker- I wind through broad golden
  valleys joined by streams, joined by creeks.
• Miz Berlin Walks-Yolen- Without missing a step,
  without missing a word..
• Dreamplace-Lyon- and see for the first time
  across treeslike a dream, like a sandcastle this
  city the Pueblo people built under a cliff

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Wondrous Repetition-2. Repeating Details

• Writers will take specific details and repeat
  them at different points in a text, creating a
  thread of continuity through the artful
  repetition of detail. Sometimes the details are
  repeated using the exact same words, but not
  always. Sometimes just the detail will come up
  again and some small aspect of it has changed.

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Repeating Details Examples

• Roxaboxen-McLerran- The colors of the desert
  glass-amethyst, amber, and sea-green-mentioned
  twice in the text.
• The Relatives Came-Rylant- Grapes are the
  repeating detail. They are nearly purple enough
  to pick, but not quite and almost purple
  grapes, and finally, at the end, they are dark
  purple grapes
• Miz Berlin Walks-Yolen- A paper fan and a shiny
  black umbrella are details mentioned here and
  there throughout the text.

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Wondrous Repetition-3. Repeating Sentence
Structures

• In just one place in the text, writers will
  sometimes repeat a sentence structure or a series
  of sentence structures for effect. This is a
  repetition not of words, but of kinds of words,
  and how they are put together. These
  sophisticated repetitions tie the sentences
  together in a rhythmic way, adding an interesting
  sound to the text.

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Repeating Sentence Structure Examples

• Secret Place- Bunting- The growl of traffic, the
  snort of trains, the beep-beep of a backing
  truck. The secret place has its own noise The
  cackle of coots, the quack of teals, the rah-rah
  of the mallards that ring the sky
• Night in the Country-Rylant- There are owls.
  Great owls with marble eyes who swoop among trees
  and are not afraid of night in the country. Night
  birds. There are frogs. Night frogs who sing
  songs for you every night reek reek reek reek.
  Night songs.

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Wondrous Repetition4. Re-Say

• The re-say is the repetition of an idea which
  comes immediately after the idea has been
  presented. The re-say is the stopping to say
  something again, another way, right way. Much
  like a close echo, a word or two are often
  repeated in a re-say.

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Re-Say Examples

• Dreamplace-Lyon- and see for the first time
  across the trees like a dream, like a
  sandcastle, this city the Pueblo people built
  under a cliff
• Baby-MacLachlan- Only Byrd looked happily
  satisfied, as if something wonderful, something
  wished for, had happened

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Wondrous Word Choices1. Striking Adjectives

• Writers will sometimes describe a noun using an
  adjective that is unusual or unexpected in some
  way. Sometimes the effect is achieved because of
  crossed parts of speech-a word that is usually
  not an adjective is used as an adjective-but
  often its simply an adjective we dont think of
  as a normal modifier for a particular noun.
• Writers Purpose-makes writing lively because it
  catches the readers eye-its surprising.

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Striking Adjective Examples

• Letting Swift River Go-Yolen- Then I heard my
  mothers voice coming to me over the drowned
  years. We dont think of years as something
  that would be drowned.
• The Relatives Came-Rylant- Then it was hugging
  time. In this case we think of hugging as a verb
  and so we are surprised to see it used an
  adjective.
• Miz Berlin Walks-Yolen- And if you listen real
  hard, you might even hear a block-long tale. An
  unexpected adjective, very specific to the
  content of the story.

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Wondrous Word Choices2. Out-of-Place Adjectives

• Adjectives usually come before the nouns they
  modify. With thi crafting technique, a writer
  will place an adjective after the noun it
  modifies or in some other unexpected place.
• Writers purpose- draws attention to both the
  adjective and the noun because of unexpected
  language.

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Out of Place Adjectives Examples

• My Mama Had a Dancing Heart-Gray- and drink
  lemonade cold and drink hot tea spiced. We
  expect cold and spiced to come before nouns.
• Baby-MacLachlan- My mother stood with her hands
  up to her face, shocked.
• Writers who use this technique are playing with
  our ears, playing with what we expect to hear. In
  next example, Yolen moves an adjective after an
  adverb phrase that modifies it, causing readers
  to hear something unexpected.
• Miz Berlin Walks-Yolen- But one feather rained
  into my hand, and it was all over gold. Our ears
  expect gold to come before all over.

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Wondrous Word Choices3. Striking Verbs

• Involves careful selection of striking verbs that
  catch readers attention. These verbs work out of
  some other unexpected quality. Writers choose
  verbs that readers do not expect to use with
  their subjects. Sometimes the verb very subtly
  personifies something in the text but just as
  often they are just surprising with the subject.

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Striking Verb Examples

• My Great Aunt Arizona- Houston- For fifty-seven
  years my great-aunt Arizona hugged her students.
  We dont expect this verb. Hugging hasnt been
  mentioned only teaching.
• The Whales-Rylant- In the blackness of the Black
  sea the whales are thinking today. Thinking
  personifies whales and sets gentle tone.
• Maniac Magee-Spinelli- especially when he got
  a load of the kid drowning in his clothes Verb
  creates visual imagery-we do not expect it.
• Secret Place-Bunting- There are warehouses with
  windows blinded by dust and names paint scrawled
  on their brick walls and The phone wires rocked
  the moon in their cradles of lines. Two verbs
  that personify-one created by unexpected word
  combination.
• Miz Berlin Walks-Yolen- I ran up and touched her
  hands and we knitted our fingers

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Wondrous Word Choices4. Striking Adverbs

• Use this to create striking textual features. Do
  this by creating words to make new adverbs, using
  another part of speech as an adverb, putting two
  adverbs unexpectedly together, or just choosing
  one wed never think of putting with a particular
  verb.

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Striking Adverbs Examples

• Miz Berlin Walks- Yolen- Id walk with Miz
  Berlin side by side, step by step, waiting
  cotton-quiet till she cleared her throat.
• The Lost and Found House-Cadnum- All night
  trucks rumble past. But I hardly really sleep.
  Unusual combination of 2 adverbs.
• Nocturne-Yolen-a big moon balloon floats silent
  over treesusing an adverb in adjective
  form-crossing the parts of speech..lively!

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Wondrous Word Choice6. Intentional Vagueness

• Achieved by manipulating pronouns and adjectives
  that modify nouns, making them nonspecific when
  we expect them to be more specific.

The Aunt at Our House
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Intentional Vagueness Examples

• The Relatives Came- Rylant- The Relatives makes
  this every readers story-lends an anyones story
  appeal.
• The Whale-Rylant- They are floating like
  feathers in a sky Choosing a to modify sky
  instead of the makes it vague.
• The Aunt in Our House- Johnson- Refers to her as
  the aunt-never named.

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Wondrous Word Choice7. Proper Nouns

• Name dropping in text gives writing specificity
  that makes readers trust authority of the
  narrator. Proper names-name brands can almost
  take on role of adjectives.
• Writers purpose-call up sensory images.

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Proper Nouns Example

• Missing May-Rylant- Before she died, I know my
  mother used to have loved to comb my shiny hair
  and rub that Johnsons baby lotion up and down my
  arms and wrap me up and hold and hold and hold me
  all night
• Cant you just smell that lotion?
• Missing May-Rylant- My eyes went over Mays
  wildly colorful cabinets, and I was free again. I
  saw Oreos and Ruffles and big bags of Snickers.
  Sensual detail that the proper nouns have for the
  reader.
• Baby-MacLachlan- He danced every evening before
  dinner, after his six crackers (Ritz) with
  cheddar cheese (extra sharp), between the first
  glass of whiskey that made him happy and the
  second that made him sad.

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Wondrous Word Choice8. Make-Your-Own-Words

• Writers just make up words if they cant find the
  one that they want. By combining words or word
  parts that are familiar to readers, writers dont
  shy away from making new words that fit most
  perfectly with their meanings. Often these new
  words are hyphenated, but not always. They might
  appear to be adjectives trying to describe the
  indescribable.

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Make Your Own Words Examples

• Maniac Magee- Spinelli- Thats why his front
  steps were the only un-sat-on front steps in
  town and unbefroggable!-the ball was heading
  back home
• Home Run- Burleigh- Then there is only the
  echoey, nothing-quite-like-it sound
• An Angel for Solomon Singer-Rylant- ..and the
  smiling-eyed waiter told Solomon Singer to come
  back again to the Westway Café
• Nocturne-Yolen- in the wraparound blacksurround
  velvet night

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Wondrous Sentences1. Artful use of And

• Starting a sentence with and lets the writer set
  a part of something off by itself-showing its
  still tied the the rest of the sentence but
• giving it its own significance. Meant to show
  narrators afterthought. Sometimes will end an
  entire text to give archetypal feeling and sound
  all readers know And they all lived happily
  ever after.

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Artful Use of And Examples

• Missing May-Rylant- And then a big wind came and
  set everything free. Last sentence
• When I was Young in the Mountains-Rylant- And
  that was always enough. Last sentence.
• What you Know First-MacLachlan- And so I cam
  remember too. Last sentence.

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Wondrous Sentences2. Runaway Sentences

• To convey a sense of franticness, desperation,
  excitement, or being carried away with something,
  writers will sometimes craft a very long, winding
  runaway sentence. Their awkwardness makes them
  work in context. Often filled with commas that
  slow and quicken the pace as you read through
  them.

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Runaway Sentence Examples

• House on Mango Street- Cisneros

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Runaway Sentence Examples

• Missing May- Rylant

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Wondrous Sentences3. Artful Sentence Fragments

• Crafted for effect.Writer relies on understood
  parts of a sentenceclarify, reiterate, exclaim,
  or list.

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Artful Sentence Fragment Examples

• Maniac Magee-Spinelli- For instances, he would
  eat dinner with Aunt Dot on Monday, with Uncle
  Dan on Tuesday, and so on. Eight years of that.
• I Had Seen Castle-Rylant- The mills were fed
  coal and men so Pittsburgh might live. And it
  did. Very well. A page over- Evidence of the
  fathers tastes lies behind glass doors of a
  bookcase. Theory. Darwin. Empiricism. Words to
  bind you to this room, this house, this planet.
  Words to make senses of everything.
• Woodsong-Paulsen- Largely because of Disney and
  posed natural wildlife films and television
  programs I had preconceived ideas about wolves,
  about what wolves should be and do. They never
  really spoke to the killing. A paragraph
  Spoke to the blood.
• Baby- MacLachlan- Mama was covered with flecks
  and smears of paint, and I could tell by the
  colors what she was working on. The island.
• Home Run-Burleigh- Then it is as it should be.
  Smooth as silk. Easy as air on the face. Right as
  falling water.

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Wondrous Sentences4. One-Sentence Paragraphs

• Writers will often set off a sentence as its own
  paragraph for emphasis. These are not sentences
  with quotations in them-which are often their own
  paragraphthese are simple sentence set off by
  themselves for effect. When you look at the
  sentences in relation to the other sentences
  around them, you see that by giving them their
  own paragraphs, writers have used white space
  around them as a mark of exclamation.

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One-Sentence Paragraphs Examples
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One-Sentence Paragraphs Examples

• Baby- MacLachlan

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Wondrous Sentences5. Direct-Contact Sentence

• These are sentences-often commands, but they can
  be of any sentence type-in which the writer
  interrupts the narrative to speak directly to the
  reader or to comment on whats happening in the
  text. These sentences invite readers to be active
  participants with the writer, either by following
  the writers instructions or b y listening to the
  writers commentary.

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Direct-Contact Sentence Examples
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Wondrous Sentences6. Seesaw Sentences

• Seesaw sentences are crafted with predictable
  pairs of information or detail, just like seesaw
  text structures, but on a smaller, one-or-two
  sentence scale. The pairing effect gives these
  sentences a two-part rhythm.

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Seesaw Sentences Examples
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Wondrous Sentences7. Taffy Sentences

• These sentences begin with a central idea and
  then pull that idea out a little bit, and then a
  little bit more, and maybe even a little bit
  more. Each time the sentence is stretched, a
  little more detail is added and the original
  detail is repeated.

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Taffy Sentences Examples

• Nocturne-Yolen- In the night, in the velvet
  night, in the brushstroked velvet night..

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Wondrous Sentences8. Short, Short, Long Sentences

• In a move seemingly borrowed from musicians,
  writers will often craft a series of three
  sentences in a rhythmic duh, duh, duh-duh-duh
  three part rhythm.

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Short, Short, Long Sentences Examples
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Wondrous Sentences9. Sentences that Make A Long
Story Short

• When writers want to move in a hurry through a
  lot of time or activity in a text, they will
  write one sentence that covers lots of ground
  fast. These sentences compress time and detail
  and are the opposites of the crafting technique
  in which writers will stretch a moment out,
  sometimes making a single action last several
  pages. This shows that writers are clearly in
  control of their texts.

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Sentences that make a long story shortexamples

• The Relatives Came So they drank up all their
  pop and ate up all their crackers and traveled up
  all those miles until they finally pulled into
  our yard. She makes the traveling part of this
  trip pass by very quickly.
• I Had Seen Castles After the war ended, America
  made Germany its friend, Russia its enemy, and it
  helped rebuild Japan. Sums up the entire war in
  a single sentence.

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Wondrous Marks of Punctuation

• This technique is used to communicate directly
  with readers, stepping outside the regular text
  for a moment to whisper something in the readers
  ear. These are usually asides of explanation that
  are more characteristic of spoken language than
  written language, but the form they take in texts
  is often parenthetical. Whispering parentheses
  give texts a conversational tone, making readers
  feel like insiders with an author.

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Wondrous Marks of Punctuation1. Whispering
Parentheses

• An Angel for Solomon Singer- When he reached the
  end of his list of dreams (the end was a purple
  wall), he simply started all over again and
  ordered up a balcony (but he didnt say the
  balcony out loud).

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Wondrous Marks of Punctuation1. Whispering
Parentheses

• Missing May- May started talking about where
  theyd hang the swing as soon as she hoisted
  herself out of the front seat (May was a big
  woman), and Ob.
• But Ill be Back Again- When the Beatles came to
  America in 1964 the boys lost most of us girls to
  either John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George
  Harrison, or Ringo Starr (not many to Ringo).

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Wondrous Marks of Punctuation2. Commentary Dashes

• Writers add extra layers of commentary to a text
  by an extra set, by-the-way details off with
  dashes. Writers do this to not just to expand an
  idea, but to do so with voice. They sound like an
  additional thing the narrator has just thought to
  tell you. Compare these with parenthetical asides
  for an interesting study.

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Commentary dash examples

• Missing May-Ob was an artist-I could tell that
  the minute I saw them-though artist isnt the
  word I could have used back then, so young.
• Canyons-Paulsen- He lived alone with his mother
  and when he was home-which was less and less as
  he approached fifeteen and his mother spent more
  and more time working to live, working to be,
  working to feed and clothe her only son-the two
  of them existed in a kind of quiet tolerance.
  Notice the lovely repetition in this stunning
  sentence.

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Wondrous Marks of Punctuation3. Items in a Series

• Writers often make very deliberate decisions
  about how a list will be punctuated.
• Some are punctuated with all commas and no
  conjunctions some that use all conjunctions and
  no commas some that place periods between items
  in the series, making each one its own sentence
  and some that are punctuated following the more
  traditional rule for items in a series. This
  lets the writer toy with how items in a series
  are punctuated by playing with the rhythm and
  with meaning. Look at the examples and listen to
  the difference in the rhythm. Think about how the
  listed items mean what they mean through their
  listing.

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Items in a series examples

• The Relatives Came- We were so busy hugging and
  eating and breathing together
• Night in the Country-.the groans and thumps and
  squeaks that houses make when they like you are
  trying to sleep
• The Whales-Thinking of those things that matter
  most to them friends, family, supper. A song
  they used to know . A combination of commas and
  a period.
• Welcome to the Green House-If we do not do
  something soon, there will be no more green
  house, not for the monkeys and fish and birds and
  bees and beetles and wild pigs and bata and
  kinkajous and all the hundreds of thousands of
  flowers and fruits and trees. And not for us
  either
• Scarecrow- The earth has rained and snowed and
  blossomed and wilted and yellowed and greened and
  vined itself all around him

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Wondrous Marks of Punctuation4. Super Colons

• Writers use colons to do lots and lots of artful
  work in text. Colons can set an idea off from
  others, show that someone is thinking or talking,
  or serve as markers that something big is about
  to follow.

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Examples of Super Colons

• Tulip Sees America-And we left Ohio and went
  across America. This is what we saw- this colon
  sets up the entire rest of the text. You drive
  between a stand of firs and you thinkno ocean.
  Then you blink, and there it is
• Dreamplace- ..till we came around a bend and
  see for the first time across the trees like a
  dream, like a sandcastle, this city the Pueblo
  people built under a cliff
• Scarecrow-They ignore the pie-pan hands and the
  button eyes and see instead the scarecrows best
  gifthis gentleness.

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Wondrous Marks of Punctuation5. Super Ellipses

• Ellipses can show that an action is continous,
  transition from one action to another or from one
  idea to another, move time or place, or show that
  there are just not words for something.

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Examples of Super Ellipses

• Dog Heaven- They turn around and around in the
  clouduntil it feels just right, and then they
  curl up and sleep.
• On the Day You Were Born- a rising tide washed
  the beaches clean for your footprintswhile far
  out at sea clouds swelled with water drops
• The Whales- There are not enough poems in the
  world to tell show a speechless narrator
• Down the Road- Then she continued down the
  roadthrough the meadowacross a streampass a
  house or twodown a streetaround a cornerup
  some stepsand into the cool shadows of Mr.
  Birdies Emporium and Dry Goods Store
• Madelia- There is a placea place, Daddy sang
  out, Oh, yeaha place far awaya beautiful
  placeyes, Lordwhere the streets glisten in
  daywell ride highwell sail in the skywith a
  host of many

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Wondrous Marks of Punctuation6.
Quotation-Mark-less Quotations

• Quotation marks are not the only method of
  setting off direct quotations in text. Writers
  will sometimes choose to represent speech in
  other ways for various meaning-making reasons.

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Examples of Quotation Mark-less Quotations

• All the Places to Love- Quotations are written in
  italics and not enclosed in QMs Each one is
  something someone has said in the past about how
  or why they love a place.
• House on Mango Street- No marks for direct speech
  of any kindWhere do you live, she asked.
• We Had A Picnic This Sunday Past-Author uses bold
  print to mark DQs- The tooth fairy bring you
  anything?

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Wondrous Print-Interesting Italics

• Baby-Italics are used in text in interesting
  ways-especially to set Sophies memories apart.
• Night in the Country-Night frogs who sing songs
  for you every night reek, reek, reek. Night
  songs. Italics make that noise.
• Maniac Magee- You have eaten pizza before,
  havent you?
• Water Dance- I fill and overflow. I am the lake

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Wondrous Print

• Laying out text to match the meaning. Common in
  picture books and poetry.

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Wondrous Print2. Text Shaped to March Meanings

• Sometimes writers will layout text or the print
  of a single word on the page in a way that
  matches the meaning of the text in that place.
• Dreamplace-Lyon-
• Food, too,
• had to be grown above them
• or hunted below them
•  
• harvest and kill
• borne home on their backs
• hands
• and
• feet
• finding
• slots
• in the
• stone.
•  Canyons-Paulson- It was going to be a long,
  loong night.