Tone Exercise #2                 Due: Friday, Sept. 19

Revise the descriptive paragraph below* to convey a particular tone.  Follow the instructions below.

1.      To do this, you should not totally obliterate (destroy) what the paragraph is trying to say. 

DO NOT change “The color of the shell is white and caramel brown.” to “The color of the shell is puke green and urine yellow.”  (Although this revision certainly conveys a strong tone, it loses accuracy in the description of the object by totally changing the colors.)

DO NOT change “It …looks like a pen.” to “It looks like mashed rat’s brains.”  (Again, while tone is strong, you’ve lost accuracy in describing the shape of the shell.)

DO maintain the basic ideas like color, shape, texture, and so on.  However, add adjectives, use more specific color words, and choose more clearly connotated ideas to make the basic description communicate your feelings about the shell in the paragraph.  For example, you could describe a girl as having long, black hair; but if you were jealous of her, you might describe her as having long, snake-like locks that poison men with their black venom.  (In this example, you’ve maintained that she has “long” and “black” hair, which is the basic idea behind the original description.)

2.      Choose ONE of the following “tones” to convey in your revised paragraph.  Write this “tone” at the top of your paper.

DISGUSTED w/ the shell                  OVERJOYED w/ the shell

IN LOVE w/ the shell                        TERRIFIED by the shell

3.      Read the paragraph below.  Decide what is a basic idea that MUST be kept, brainstorm ways of re-describing the shell to convey your chosen tone (you can write these ideas down as pre-writing notes), and then write your REVISED paragraph on a separate sheet of paper.

*      The color of the shell is white and brown. The tip is black and looks like a pen. It looks like a slide that swirls around. The shell looks like it has a white background with caramel clouds like a giraffe’s skin. It feels smooth.  The opening of the shell looks like an eye and the inside is white.