Ahoy, mateys!

Today, we started out the day talking about diction – that’s a fancy name for WORD CHOICE. We sorted through a list of synonyms and decided whether the words were positive, negative, or neutral.

We talked about the difference between CONNOTATION and DENOTATION.

• Connotation is how the word is being used – the associated meaning.
• Denotation is the dictionary definition – (remember DD)

All of these words have pretty much the same DENOTATION, but they have different CONNOTATION. For example, telling Captain Riley that she is slender means something different if you say Captain is scrawny.

Then, each student was given an index card with a mood on the back of it – students to write a description of a dog walking in the park, conveying the attitude on the card. You may not use the word written on the card in their description. You *may* use a dictionary or a thesaurus.

Riley then read each card out loud and students guessed the intended tone.

Lastly, we finished the day off with the American Dream Anticipation guide.

Easy peasy!