Making Change: Speeches, Essays, and Articles (2020)

Notes

Consider starting a list of teenage activists that you read about in this week, noting down:

1. What cause are they are standing up for?
2. What sparked their activism?
3. What form(s) is their activism taking?

Standard and Literary Concepts

• Tone is about emotion; it is the way that an author/speaker feels about a subject. But why does determining an author’s (or speaker’s) tone matter for the reader? Because we are always trying to figure out what “moves” an author is making and how those moves impact us (the readers).
• Figuring out tone can give the reader information about an author’s perspective (what do they think or feel about this topic?) and possibly about the author’s biases. Just as importantly, tone impacts the way that a reader feels. If a speaker’s tone is angry or aggressive, this can spark an emotion in the reader. Maybe it makes you feel fired up or maybe it makes you feel uncomfortable. Especially as we read nonfiction texts, we need to be critical consumers of information and question what the author wants us to think and feel—and why.