word choice Archives - Page 2 of 6

Buddy and Earl
by Maureen Fergus (Author) and Carey Sookocheff (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Buddy does not know what is in the box that Meredith carries into the living room. But when the small, prickly creature says he is a pirate — and that Buddy is a pirate too — the two mismatched friends are off on a grand adventure.

Snippet:
“Uh-oh,” said Earl. “We’re heading into a storm.”

“Uh-oh,” said Buddy.

“Can you hear the wind howling, Buddy?” cried Earl.

“I can hear it, Earl!” cried Buddy.

“Can you feel the waves crashing down on us, Buddy?” shouted Earl.

“I can feel them, Earl!” shouted Buddy.

Six Traits Mini Lesson

Traits: Organization How you organize the ideas in a story affects how readers experience each scene. This page has three character interactions. Earl talks like a pirate three times.

One:

“Uh-oh,” said Earl. “We’re heading into a storm.”

“Uh-oh,” said Buddy.

Two:

“Can you hear the wind howling, Buddy?” cried Earl.

“I can hear it, Earl!” cried Buddy.

Three:

“Can you feel the waves crashing down on us, Buddy?” shouted Earl.

“I can feel them, Earl!” shouted Buddy.

Buddy repeats Earl’s words each time he replies. Buddy is acting like a pirate, too.

Traits: Word Choice The verbs used in the dialogue tags help the writer build tension in the story. The first verb is the simplest one, the “invisible” verb said:

“Uh-oh,” said Earl. “We’re heading into a storm.”

“Uh-oh,” said Buddy.

The next verb used in the dialogue tag, cried, reflects the rising tension:

cried Earl.

“I can hear it, Earl!” cried Buddy.

The third dialogue tag verb, shouted, shows readers that the tension has risen even higher:

“Can you feel the waves crashing down on us, Buddy?” shouted Earl.

“I can feel them, Earl!” shouted Buddy.

One, two, three–with three examples the imaginary pirate ship sails into a storm. With three verbs, the story tension rises. With three interactions, both characters participate fully in the world of their own imaginary story.

In Western stories, three is the number that feels complete. Three is the number that feels just right. Give it a try in your next story.

Goodnight Football
by Michael Dahl (Author) and Christina E. Forshay (Illustrator)

Booktalk: A celebration of football, friendship, and family from the opening kick off to the final whistle with rhyming text and a gentle ending for the youngest fans.

Snippet:
It’s the end of the week,
it’s the best of all sights–
beneath the night sky
lies a field of bright lights!

Watch the book trailer.

Six Traits Mini Lesson

Trait: Word Choice This picture book story is told in rhyme and one of the key elements in a rhyming story is word choice. Like prose, poetry is written in paragraphs. A poetry paragraph is called a stanza. The poetry stanza on the first page of the story is four lines long.

It’s the end of the week,
it’s the best of all sights–
beneath the night sky
lies a field of bright lights!

Notice the use of end rhyme in this stanza. The word at the end of the second line:

it’s the best of all sights–

rhymes with the word at the end of the fourth line:

lies a field of bright lights!

The words at the end of the second and fourth lines rhyme perfectly!

The website Literary Devices defines perfect rhyme this way:

“A perfect rhyme is a case in which two words rhyme in such a way that their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical e.g. sight and light, right and might, rose and dose etc.”

When the words rhyme perfectly they are a delight to read aloud. When the words are close but not quite the same, something doesn’t sound quite right. Finding just the right word is essential for writing in rhyme. As Mark Twain once said:

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by Today’s Little Ditty.