Thursday, September 7, 2017


1. APTP #5: Tone
2. Scribe Duty Model
3. George Orwell’s “Why I Write”
HW: 1. CEJ #2
       2. Orwell response


Today in class, we examined a passage from Bharati Mukerjee’s “Oddity”. In the excerpt, the narrator describes her father realizing the reality of “Third World politics” when he hears Roy describe how he was tortured in jail. We examined the narrator’s attitude towards her father, and decided that the tone was sympathetic to her father dealing with harsh reality, but also relieved and appreciative that he was finally bursting his bubble and learning the truth.
One systematic way to examine tone is by using the acronym DIDLS:
D: diction (the author’s word choice)
I: images (any image that is brought into the scene)
D: details (details that help create the scene)
L: language (formal or casual)
S: sentence structure (syntax; long or short sentences)
We then reviewed George Orwell’s essay “Why I Write,” and discussed what he thought were the four main motivations behind why authors write:
  1. Sheer egoism: wanting to be seen as clever and having something important to share.
  2. Aesthetic enthusiasm: appreciation of beauty and truth (good story, clever words, etc.)
  3. Historical impulse: see things as we see them right now so that the future can know us
  4. Political purpose: push our own agenda and bias, share our perspective

Tonight for homework, we will be finishing up our second Current Events Journal assignment that’s always due on Fridays. We also will write a paragraph or two on our response to Orwell’s essay. How much do we support, refute, or qualify his argument that authors write from one of those four motivations or that the best writing is a blend of politics and aesthetics?

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