Exploring & Analyzing Syntax & Diction

To Kill a MockingbirdChap. 12

“Overnight, it seemed, Jem had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on me: several times he went so far as to tell me what to do” (Lee 154).

• Introductory element• Interrupter• Compound sentence: with a colon• Colloquial and non-colloquial language• Documenting a quote

“The beginning of the summer boded well: Jem could do as he please; Calpurnia would do until Dill came” (Lee 154).

• Compound sentence: colon• Compound clauses; semi-colon• Parallel Structure• What’s the difference between the use of a colon and the use

of a semi-colon?

“With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable” (Lee 154).

• Parallelism • Compound sentence (CP) ;

“The Governor was eager to scrape a few barnacles off the ship of state; there were sit-down strikes in Birmingham; bread lines in the cities grew longer; people in the country grew poorer” (Lee 155).

• Parallelism• Compound clauses ; ; ; • Exposition – providing snapshot of the greater

world – note the use of diction– Metaphor : barnacles off the ship of state– Sit-down strikes of 1930’s and 1960– People in the country = USA, country people

1960

1930’s

Sitting Down. 1936-37. Photograph. Flint Sit-Down Strike Organization. Historicalvoices.org. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://www.historicalvoices.org/flint/organization.php>.

Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson, and Mark Martin Stage Sit-down Strike after Being Refused Service at a F.W. Woolworth Luncheon Counter in Greensboro, N.C. 1960. Photograph. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. American Memory from the Library of Congress - Home Page. The Library of Congress. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/query/D?aaodyssey:1:./temp/~ammem_jOun::@@@mdb=aap,aaeo,rbaapcbib,aasm,aaodyssey,bbpix,rbpebib,mfd,hurstonbib,gmd,mcc,ncpm,afcesnbib,mesnbib,llstbib,uncall,fpnas>.

“Calpurnia’s hands went to our shoulders and we stopped and looked around: standing in the path behind us was a tall Negro woman” (Lee 158).

• Colon: or Semi-colon?Capital or no capital after the colon?Run-on or not?

“I agreed: they did not want us here” (Lee 159).

• Colon• Short Clauses

“I Iooked down the street. Enarmored, upright, uncompromising, Aunt Alexandra was sitting in a rocking chair exactly as if she had sat their every day of her life” (Lee 168).

• Short Sentence• Introductory element: series without conjunction –

asyndeton -- imagery– Enarmored – in armor – ready for battle– up right – Righteousness, correctness, standing up right– un- compromising = without compromise– Rhythm – sound

• Main clause• Subordinate clause – sentence complex (CX)

Assignment

• Write 10 sentences which use a colon to introduce an explanation or definition or clarification.– Clause: Clause (this clause defines or explains

some concept in the first)– Example: Mrs. Dubose is a woman of courage: she

beat her addition.• 2 pt bonus for TKM sentences!