Easter Revision Task 1: Word Choice

e-mail answers to igcseenglish@st-ignatius.enfield.sch.uk by Thursday 12 noon

 

What is word choice?   Writers choose every word, space and piece of punctuation very carefully to ensure that they communicate their meaning clearly to the reader.   Word choice is when a word is specifically chosen for its connotations, not necessarily its denotation.   In our vocabulary we have neutral verbs, these are words which simply have a denotation (=a literal meaning), but they do not have connotations (suggestions). For example ‘I walked to the park’. The word walked does not give any suggestions as to how I walked to the park, nor does it suggest anything about me as a person.   Whereas if I wrote ‘I staggered to the park’. The denotation of staggered is walked, however the connotations/ suggestions are that I walked unsteadily, was not graceful, it also suggests I may be drunk or unwell.   RECAP:   Words have a DENOTAION (= literal meaning/neutral verb) and some words have CONNOTATIONS (= suggestions). Writers use word choice in order to include the suggestions of a word to give their writing more meaning. It is your job to identify these examples of word choice and to then identify the connotations of the word.

 

When analysing Unseen Poetry in the exam, you will need to identify examples of word choice and then you can create PQCs on this for your essay.

 

TASK – Read through the poem below and:

a)    Identify 8 examples of word choice

b)   For each example identify the word’s denotation and connotations

 

EXTENSION/ AIMING HIGH: For each example write a PQC e.g. The writer uses word choice to show_________: “QUOTE”. The connotations of the word_____ being ______. This furthers our understanding of _______

IN MRS TILSCHER’S CLASS  (Carol Anne Duffy)  

 

You could travel up the Blue Nile

with your finger, tracing the route

while MrsTilscher chanted the scenery

Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan.

That for an hour, then a skittle of milk                              

and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust.

A window opened with a long pole.

The laugh of a bell swung by a running child.

 

This was better than home. Enthralling books.

The classroom glowed like a sweetshop.

Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley

faded, like a faint uneasy smudge of a mistake.

Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you found

she’d left a good gold star by your name.

The scent of a pencil, slowly, carefully, shaved.

A xylophone’s nonsense heard from another form.

 

Over the Easter term, the inky tadpoles changed

from commas into exclamation marks. Three frogs

hopped in the playground, freed by a dunce,

followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking

away from the lunch queue. A rough boy

told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared

at your parents, appalled, when you got back home .

 

That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity.

A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot,

fractious under the heavy sexy sky. You asked her

how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled,

then turned away. Reports were handed out.

You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown,

As the sky split open into a thunderstorm.