Daily Commentary

Practice
Set 3
 Day 1: Diction
The man sighed hugely. ACECES QUESTION:
What does this
choice of diction
--E. Annie Proulx, The
suggest about the
Shipping News
mans attitude?
 Day 2: Detail
I used to like going to have my hair ACECES QUESTION:
cut. I liked the mirrors in the
room and all the smells of lotions What shift does the
and shampoos. I liked to sit there passage illuminate, and
young and fresh and prettyand how do the details in the
see what the women were having passage show that shift?
done, to make themselves look
younger and prettier. I liked the
way my mothers hairdresser
teased me about boyfriends and
dances. Not anymore, though.
Somebody held the door open so
my mother could wheel me in, and
a few people who had met me
came around to say how sorry
they were.
--Cynthia Voight
Izzy, Willy-Nilly
 Day 3: Imagery
A woman drew her long black hair out tight Daily
And fiddled whisper music on those strings Commentary:
And bats with baby faces in the violet light What mood does
Whistled, and beat their wings the imagery of the
And crawled head downward down a passage create?
blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and
exhausted wells.

--T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

 Day 4: Tone
We went with sandwiches, thick,
poor-mans ham from Aldis
supermarket, slapped onto
wheat bread and slathered with
a thin film of mayonnaise.
--Mawi Asgedom
Of Beetles & Angels
Daily Commentary:
What is the authors
attitude toward the
collective white
man? What is the
tone of the passage?
Cite and discuss the
words that reveal the
tone of this passage.
 Day 5: Syntax
Death be not proud, though some have called thee Daily
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; Commentary:
For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow The imperative verb
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. tense is used
For rest and sleep, which by thy pictures be, when you want to
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow; give a command
or suggestion.
--John Donne Death Be Not Proud What is the effect
of opening the first
sentence with the
imperative mood
of the verb to
be?