Achieve Each Effect

Worksheet Description

This worksheet is designed to guide students in learning how to vary syntax to achieve different effects in writing. It encourages consultation of authoritative texts on English usage, such as “Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage” and “A Dictionary of Modern English Usage,” for reference. The worksheet asks students to identify a technique for varying syntax to create underlying meaning, emphasize emotion, or introduce intentional ambiguity, and then to provide an example from one of the reference texts.

The purpose of this worksheet is to teach students how to enhance their writing by intentionally manipulating sentence structure. By exploring reference texts on English usage, students can discover various syntactic techniques that professional writers use to convey nuanced meaning, evoke emotions, or generate ambiguity. The activity aims to deepen students’ understanding of the flexibility and power of syntax in shaping effective communication. It encourages students to think critically about the stylistic choices they make in their own writing.