Feb. 28, 2011
Objective: Students will appreciate how syntax affects a literary work's meaning as a whole.
Aim: How does Tim O'Brian use special syntax in Things They Carried to convey his meaning?
Do Now: Round Robin- Read out loud one favorite line from the book Things They Carried.
Agenda-
Acqusition-Become familiar with the following styles of syntax -
SYNTAX CHART: adapted from Thomas Kane, Oxford Essential Guide to Writing. |
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|
Definition |
Textual examples |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
Writing Uses |
The |
Grammatically simple, expresses a simple idea. |
He writes at most 750 words a day, He writes and rewrites, He polishes and re-polishes. He works in solitude. He works with agony. And that is the only way to work at all. |
Useful in descriptive and narrative writing. |
Less useful in exposition where you must combine ides in subtle gradations of logic and importance. |
Narratives, descriptive passages |
The |
Couples short, independent clauses to make longer sequential statements: Parataxis—independent clauses linked by semi-colons Triadic Sentence—3 clauses using MC or parataxis
|
And the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon the house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. MC-It was a hot day and the sky was bright and the road was white and dusty. Parataxis-- The habits of the natives are disgusting; the woman hawk on the floor; the forks are dirty; the trees are poor; the Pont Neuf is not a patch on London Bridge; the cows are too skinny. |
Can link a series of events, impressions, feelings, or perceptions as immediately as possible, without judging their relative value or imposing a logical structure upon them |
Does not handle idea subtly, and implies that all linked thoughts are equally significant. |
Children’s writing or childlike visions |
The |
Initial independent clause followed by many subordinate constructions which accumulate details about the person, place, event, or idea. |
A creek ran through the meadow, winding and turning, clear water running between steep banks of black earth, with shallow places where you can build a dam. She was then twenty-one, a year out of Smith College, a dark, shy, quiet girl with a fine mind and a small but pure gift for putting her thoughts on paper. |
Can handle a series of events Can act as a frame, enclosing the details Details may precede or follow the main clause—using these, those, this, that, and such as preceding nouns |
Can be open-ended like freight train |
Description, character sketches Less often used in narration |
|
Definition |
Textual example |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
Writing Uses |
The |
Two or more words or constructions stand in an identical grammatical relationship to the same thing. All subjects must be in the same form. |
In its energy, its lyrics, its advocacy of frustrated joys, rock is one long symphony of protest. |
Impressive and pleasing to hear |
Suits only ides that are logically parallel—three or four conditions of the same effect Can be too wordy just by being parallel structure
|
Can be used in all forms of writing for emphasis or description—emotional or intellectual |
The |
Two parts, roughly equivalent in length. It may also be split on either side. |
In a few moments everything grew back and the rain poured down like a cataract. Visit either you like; they’re both mad. Children played about her, and she played as she worked. |
The constructions may be balanced and parallel. Pleasing to eyes and ears and give shape to the sentence Uses objectivity, control, and precision |
Unsuitable for conveying the immediacy of raw experience r the intensity of strong emotions Formality is likely to seem too elaborate for modern readers |
Irony and comedy or just about anything else |
The Subordinating |
Expresses the main clause and arranges the points of lesser importance around it, in the form of phrases and clauses Loose construction—main clause comes first Periodic structure—main clause follows subordinating parts Convoluted construction—main clause is split in two; subordinating parts intruding Centered structure—main clause occupies the middle of the sentence |
Loose sentence- We must always be weary of conclusions drawn from the ways of the social insects, since their evolutionary track lies so far from ours. Periodic sentence—If there is not future for the black ghetto, the future of all Negroes is diminished. Convoluted sentence—White men, at the bottom of their hearts, know this. Centered sentence-Having wanted to walk on the sea like St. Peter, he had taken an involuntary bath, losing his mitre and the better part of his reputation. |
Loose sentence- puts things first, like we talk
Periodic sentence—Emphatic, delays the principle thought, increasing climax Convoluted sentence—Simply offers variety in style and emphasis for the words before and after commas Centered sentence-Good in long sentences, can order events or ideas |
Loose sentence- Lack emphasis and easily becomes formless, no clear ending points Centered sentence-Not as emphatic as periodic or as informal as loose |
Loose sentence- Colloquial, informal, and relaxed Periodic sentence—Formal and literal Convoluted sentence— Centered sentence-Formal, for long and complicated subjects to include event as well as grammatical order |
The |
Single word, phase, or dependent clause standing alone as a sentence |
I saw her. Going down the street. Sweeping criticism of his style throws less light on the subject than on the critic himself. A light not always impressive. |
Emphasis |
Unsupported fragments become grammatical errors --fixed by rejoining the modifier with the sentence |
Formal and informal writing for emphasis |
Meaning Making-
Syntax analysis practice: Excerpt from The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, page 14
They carried USO stationery and pencils and pens. They carried Sterno, safety pins, trip flares, signal flares, spools of wire, razor blades, chewing tobacco, liberated joss sticks, and statuettes of the smiling Buddha, candles, grease pencils, The Stars and Stripes, fingernail clippers, Psy Ops leaflets, bush hats, bolos, and much more. Twice a week when the resupply choppers came in, they carried hot chow in green mermite cans and large canvas bags filled with iced beer and soda pop. They carried plastic water containers, each with a 2- gallon capacity. Mitchell Sanders carried a set of starched tiger fatigues for special occasions. Henry Dobbins carried Black Flag insecticide. Dave Jensen carried sandbags that could be filled at night for added protection. Lee Strunk carried tanning lotions. Some things they carried in common. Taking turns, they carried the big PRC-77 scrambler radio, which weighed 30 pounds with its battery. They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other—the wounded or weak. They carried infections. They carried chess sets, basketballs, Vietnamese-English dictionaries, insignia of rank, Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts, plastic cards imprinted with the Code of Conduct. They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. They carried lice and ringworm and leeches and paddy algae and various rots and molds. They carried the land itself--Vietnam, the place and the soil—a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus, and decay, all of it, they carried gravity. They moved like mules. By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they mortared, but it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost. They marched for the sake of the march, They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts, soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up and again and down, just humping, one step and then the next, and then another, but no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of purpose and carriage, the hump was everything, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscious and hope and human sensibility. Their principles were in their feet. Their calculations were biological. They had no sense of strategy or mission. They searched villages without knowing what to look for, not caring, kicking over jars of rice, frisking children, and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes setting fires and sometimes not, then forming up and moving on to the next village, and then other villages, where it would all be the same. They carried their own lives. The pressures were enormous. In the heat of early afternoon, they would remove their helmets and flak jackets, walking bare, which was dangerous but which helped ease the strain, they would often discard things along the route of march.
Purely for comfort they would throw away rations, blew their Claymores and grenades, no matter, because nightfall the resupply helicopters would arrive, with more of the same, then a day or two later still more, fresh watermelons, and crates of ammunition and sunglasses and woolen sweaters—the resources were stunning—sparklers for Fourth of July, colored eggs for Easter—it was the great American war chest—the fruits of science. the smokestacks,, the canneries, the arsenals at Hartford, the Minnesota forests, the machine shops, the vast fields of corn and wheat—they carried like freight trains; they carried it on their backs an shoulders—and for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknown, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry.
From THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O”Brien ©1990. Reprinted by permission of Clarion Books/ Houghton Mifflin company. All rights reserved.
Transfer- Use syntax as part of the literary element to write your AP Essay.
HW Complete AP Essay onThe Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.