Narrative Voice, 12

th
grade
Final Project Finding Your Own Narrative Voice

DUE DATE: 5/30, 6/3, 6/4, graphic novel projects due by 6/3,
sign-up for spoken-word projects


CHOOSE ONE EITHER A SPOKEN WORD OR GRAPHIC STORY


SPOKEN WORD Project:

You will perform a spoken word piece using either first or third person point of view throughout.

Topic: The topic can be autobiographical (personal) or political,
but it must be something you feel passionate about.

Length: At least 2:30 minutes in length, no more than 4:00

Format: Must be scripted. You will turn in your script at the end of your
presentation. Does not have to be memorized, but must follow the script (no improvisation). Speech
must have a title that you read at the top of
your presentation.

Rhetoric: Must use at least two forms of rhetoric in your spoken word piece.
on your script, you will underline and footnote the section and
list which form it is at the end. For instance:

Whether we weep or whether we win, its the effort that counts!
1



*************************************************************************************

GRAPHIC STORY Project:

You will write and draw a graphic story using either first or third person point of view throughout. Must have a
beginning, middle, and end (mean tell a distinct story that resolves, do not end it in the middle).

Topic: The topic can be autobiographical (personal) or political,
but it must be something you feel passionate about.

Length: Your story must be at least ten pages in length (one-sided) .

Format: Each page must have at least four panels on it. Most panels should contain
both a story (written consistently on top OR below the panel), and dialogue,
written inside the panel by the character who speaks. Can be color or
black and white. Must have a cover with a title and your name on it. Must be
bound in some way.

1
Alliteration



Top 20 Tools of Rhetoric
1. Alliteration
The repetition of an initial consonant sound.

1. Anaphora
The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses. (Contrast with
epiphora and epistrophe.)

2. Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.

3. Apostrophe
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or
a nonexistent character.

4. Assonance
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.

5. Chiasmus
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts
reversed.

6. Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.

7. Hyperbole
An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.

8. Irony
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning
is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.

9. Litotes
A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its
opposite.




10. Metaphor
An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.

11. Metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it's closely associated;
also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.

12. Onomatopoeia
The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

13. Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.

14. Paradox
A statement that appears to contradict itself.

15. Personification
A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

16. Pun
A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or
sound of different words.

17. Simile
A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that
have certain qualities in common.

18. Synecdoche
A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole (for example, ABCs for alphabet) or the
whole for a part ("England won the World Cup in 1966").

19. Understatement
A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious
than it is.