This week, we continue to add delicious rhetorical devices to your prose spice shelf.
Asyndeton omits conjunctions and speeds up the sentence using three or four beats.
Dick ran, laughing, hysterical, howlingfrom the library.
Balance offers two propositions of equal value joined by a comma or semicolon. The second half mirrors the first half but changes a few words.
Dick asked not what Jane could do for him1, but what he could do for her2.
Chiasmus repeats a sentence or clause but reverses the order in the second half.
When the water gets rough, the rough get in the water.
Chronicity moves the sentence backward or forward in time using connectors such as: after, before, during and until.
BeforeDick would agree to enter the library, before he would agree to read the book, he insisted that Jane go home.
Conduplicato repeats a key word from the base clause to start the next sentence or clause.
Dick was hard to love, hard tohate.
Consecutive clauses reveal a series of actions or thoughts.
Dick ran through the hall1, up the stairs2, skidding around the corner3, breaking into the library4 in time to hear Jane scream.
Epanelepsis repeats the same word or phrase at the beginning and end of a clause or sentence.
Dayfollowed day, week followed week, and Jane still had no answer.
Epistrophe repeats the same word or phrase at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. It carries emotion.
Jane charmed him, confused him, and consumed him.
Next week, we will contine adding spices to your prose shelf.
For the complete list of spices and other revision layers, pick up a copy of:
*Picture book for preschoolers (However, this can be used with elementary students during a poetry unit.)
*Young boy as main character
*Rating: Red Sled is a clever book about a night time sled ride for a boy and his dad. Not to mention, there’s wonderfully bright illustrations!
Short, short summary: A sad lad and a sad dad take a red sled down a hill of freshly fallen snow one night. They have a ton of fun until–oops, crash! But falling in the snow is not so bad. When they go home to warm up, they are no longer sad, and now they are glad lad and glad dad. This book may sound simple, but it really is not! Patricia Thomas wrote Red Sled in the form of a chiasmus (ky-AZ-mus). This is a type of ancient writing. Here’s what she says in the back of her book: “This format creates a kind of mirror image, with thoughts, words, or even word sounds flowing toward a center point, then reversing to reflect that order as it reaches the end.” She, then, shows the reader in the author’s note the form of a chiasmus, using her Red Sled book. Very cool!
So, what do I do with this book?
1. The most obvious thing is to write a chiasmus, either as a whole class in a shared writing lesson or individually for older students. This will NOT be easy for anyone, so take your time, have fun, and play around with rhyme and the English language. Pick an easy, well-known, action-filled subject such as Patricia Thomas did.
2. Ask students to write or draw about a time when they went on a sled ride. If you live somewhere with no snow or sledding, then you can ask children to make up a story about sled riding, based on the book Red Sled.
3. This is a great book for oral reading, listening to rhymes, text patterns, and noticing the rhythm to language. Students could actually read this book with teachers because the text is large, or they could repeat after the teacher or parent. A really fun part to read with children is when the dad and boy are on the sled, and the text says, “Go! Go! No! No! Whoa! Whoa! Flip-flop stop.” Have fun with this book!
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