Style: diction, syntax, tone and figurative language

Learning objectives

Analyze diction by describing the connotations of a writer's word choices and the level of formality they establish

Analyze syntax through sentence length and variety, coordination and subordination, parallelism, antithesis, cumulative and periodic sentence shapes, and deliberate fragments

Describe tone with precise adjectives and identify the words in the text that produce it, tracking where tone shifts and why

Analyze figurative language — metaphor, analogy, personification, irony, understatement, hyperbole — by explaining the comparison it asks the reader to accept

Make deliberate stylistic choices in your own writing, varying sentence structure and controlling word choice so that the prose matches the occasion

Edit for clarity and conventions under time pressure, since errors that obscure meaning cost credit on every free-response question