Intro to DIDLS

Analysis and Writing Practice

Exercises adapted from Nancy Dean's Voice Lessons

What are DIDLS? Diction Imagery Details Language Syntax

All of these elements work up to determining and supporting TONE.

Diction

What It Means Word ChoiceLook For… Adjectives, adverbs,

verbs, nouns Negative words Positive words Synonyms Contrasting words

Consider… Colloquial? (slang) Formal or Informal? Connotation and

Denotation? Sound? Syllables? Modern or old-

fashioned?

Use the words that jump out at you to determine TONE

Diction Exercise“Art is the antidote that can call us back from the edge of numbness, restoring the ability to feel for another.” –Barbara Kingsolver By using the word antidote, what does the

author imply about the inability to feel for one another?

If antidote became the word gift, what effect would it have on the meaning of the sentence?

Diction Exercise“An aged man is but a paltry thing / a tattered coat upon a stick…” – W. B. Yeats What picture is created with the word

tattered? What do the connotative meanings of this

word tell us about the persona’s attitude toward “an aged man”?

Your Turn: List three adjectives about your current shoes. Make sure that these words connect to your attitude about the shoes. Share with a partner to see if he or she can determine your tone.

Diction Exercise“The man sighed hugely.” –E. Annie Proulx Discuss the impact of the word hugely. How would the meaning of the sentence

change if it were revised as this: The man sighed loudly.

Your Turn: Fill in the blank with an adverb:The man coughed ________.

Discuss the effect of your choice.

Diction Exercise“Abuelito under a bald light bulb, under a ceiling dusty with flies, puffs his cigar and counts money soft and wrinkled as old Kleenex.” –Sandra Cisneros Discuss the effect of the bolded words. Your Turn: Replace dusty with a different adjective in the sentence above. Explain the impact of your choice on the sentence.

Diction Exercise“Most men wear their belts low here, there being so many outstanding bellies, some big enough to have names of their own and be formally introduced. Those men don’t suck them in or hide them in loose shirts; they let them hang free, they pat them, they stroke them as they stand around and talk.” –Garrison Keillor

Discuss the effect of the bolded words. What do they reveal about the author’s tone?

How would the tone change if the author changed suck to pull and let them hang free to accept them?

Your Turn: Write a couple of sentences describing an unattractive but beloved relative. Be honest in your description, but choose your words carefully to reveal your affection in the diction.

Imagery

What It Means

Language that creates a very specific imageTechniques to consider… Alliteration Assonance and Consonance Onomatopoeia Simile and Metaphor Hyperbole and Understatement Personification Pun Analogy Oxymoron

Imagery Exercise“She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father’s voice and her sister Margaret’s. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to a sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.” –Kate Chopin

The majority of the images here are auditory. What effect do these images have on the passage as a whole?

Why does the author follow all of the images relating to sound with one relating to smell? What effect does this choice have on the reader?

Your Turn: Write a scene using mainly auditory imagery. Try to create an frightening mood, and use a smell to enhance this mood.

Imagery Exercise“It was a mine town, uranium most recently. Dust devils whirled sand off the mountains. Even after the heaviest of rains, the water seeped back into the ground, between stones, and the earth was parched again.” –Linda Hogan What feelings do you associate with dusty

mountains and dry earth?Your Turn: Write a sentence describing a rainstorm using imagery with positive associations. Then write a sentence describing a rainstorm using imagery with negative associations. Then, describe how the images change the feelings created in the reader.

Imagery Exercise“All the hedges are singing with yellow birds! / A boy runs by with lemons in his hands.” –Rita Dove How does the image in the second line help

your understanding of the hedges in the first line?

How would the effect change if the second line read, “A boy runs by with apples in his hands”?

Your Turn: Write a few sentences in which you use a specific color to create a specific feeling.

Details

What It Means What kinds of supports or development an

author chooses to use. Facts, statistics, personal testimony, interviews,

surveys, logic, hypothetical examples Like many of these components, it can overlap

with other topics. Ex: Specific imagery used might also be important

to consider for details—how does this image support the author’s claim?

Detail Exercise“Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his veins swelled, and the moisture broke out on his forehead.” –Thomas Babington Mccaulay

What effect does the detail (focus on the ones in italics) have on the reader?

How would the meaning change if the author ended the detail after “himself”?

Your Turn: Write a sentence describing someone with disgusting eating habits using at least three vivid details.

Detail Exercise“An old man, Don Tomasito, the baker, played the tuba. When he blew into the huge mouthpiece, his face would turn purple and his thousand wrinkles would disappear as his skin filled out.” –Alberto Alvaro Rios The first sentence is a general statement. How does

the second sentence enrich and intensify the first? What is the author’s attitude toward Tomasito? How

do the details help to communicate this attitude?

Your Turn: Describe someone jumping over a puddle imitating the structure used here.

Detail Exercise“He went on till he came to the first milestone, which stood in the bank, half-way up a steep hill. He rested his basket on the top of the stone, placed his elbows on it, and gave way to a convulsive twitch, which was worse than a sob, because it was so hard and so dry.” –Thomas Hardy

How do the details in this passage prepare you for the convulsive twitch at the end of the passage?

The passage does not describe the character’s face. What effect does the lack of detail have?

Your Turn: Write a few short sentences about a character’s emotions by focusing on what leads to the emotions rather than the facial expression, imitating the structure you see here.

Detail Exercise“The dog stood up and growled like a lion, stiff-standing hackles, teeth uncovered as he lashed up his fury for the charge. Tea Cake split the water like an otter, opening his knife as he dived. The dog raced down the back-bone of the cow to attach and Janice screamed and slipped far back on the tail of the cow, just out of reach of the dog’s angry jaws.” –Zora Neale Hurston

What conclusion can you draw about the dog from the details presented here?

Contrast the details used to describe Tea Cake and Janice. What do these details reveal about the author’s attitude toward these two characters?

Your Turn: Imagine you just discovered your entire college education would be paid for through scholarships. Show your reaction to this news through the use of detail.

Language

What It Means Words that describe the body of words in the text

Not just isolated diction Look for patterns, changes in diction and tone Look for rhetorical devices

Examples: Rhetorical Question Euphemism Repetition Aphorism Restatement Irony Allusion Paradox

What It Means Put all of the pieces together to determine the

overall feel of the words in the passage. Not just isolated pieces of diction.

Tone– how do diction, imagery, and details work together to communicate the author’s attitude?

Consider rhetorical devices: rhetorical questions, figurative language, repetition, etc.

See DIDLS Analysis Resource for more guidance.

Language ExerciseWhat a thrill—My thumb instead of an onionThe top quite goneExcept for a sort of hinge

Of skin, A flap like a hat,dead white.Then a red plush.-Sylvia Plath

What is the poet’s attitude toward the cut? What words, images, and details create the tone?

In the second stanza here, what is the effect of the author’s use of color? How does the color imagery convey tone?

Your Turn: Write a description of an automobile accident, trying to achieve a tone of complete objectivity. Do not convey any emotions about the scene.

Syntax

What It Means The arrangement of words and phrases to

create a sentence. The pattern of sentence structure in a larger

section or piece as a whole. Consider:

Length Beginnings Arrangement of Ideas in Sentences Arrangement of Sentences in Paragraph Patterns

See DIDLS Analysis Resource for more guidance.

Syntax Exercise“The impact of poetry is so hard and direct that for the moment there is no other sensation except that of the poem itself. What profound depths we visit then—how sudden and complete is our immersion! There is nothing here to catch hold of; nothing to stay us in our flight…The poet is always our contemporary. Our being for the moment is centered and constricted, as in any violent shock of personal emotion.” --Virginia Woolf

Explain the effect of the exclamatory sentence.

Classify each sentence by length: short, medium, long. How is the meaning of the passage reinforced by sentence length?

Your Turn: Write a declarative sentence about college entrance exams. Then write an exclamatory sentence which amplifies or clarifies the declarative sentence.

Syntax Exercise“Brother, continue to listen.You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to his mind; and, if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right and we are lost. How do we know this to be true?” –Chief Red Jacket

The words you say are repeated several times in the sentence. What is the repetition’s function?

What attitude toward the audience is expressed by the use of a rhetorical question at the end of the passage?

Your Turn: Write a three sentence imitation of Chief Red Jacket’s passage instead focusing on school start times. Use repetition in the first two sentences and close your passage with a rhetorical question.

Syntax Exercise“The seven years’ difference in our ages lay between us like a chasm: I wondered if these years would ever operate between us as a bridge.” –James Baldwin What function does the colon serve in this

sentence? How does the sentence change if it the author

used “chasm, and” rather than the colon?Your Turn: Write two independent clauses about any topic, using Baldwin’s sentence as a model for structure.