TONE PAPER TRENDS 2018 RUBRIC Organization Evidence and

TONE PAPER TRENDS 2018

RUBRIC • Organization • Evidence and Analysis • Grammar and Mechanics • MLA format Weighted the heaviest

ORGANIZATION • Introduction • Did you explain your tone word? Did you give its definition and context? • Did you provide background information? • Did you follow thesis formula? • Was your tone word appropriate? • Topic sentences • Transitions

ORGANIZATION: EXAMPLE Race is a unique and quite often controversial topic. Every human being has a race, one which is completely out of their control. Despite this factor being uncontrollable, discrimination against one based on one’s race is a concept that has been present in human society since the very beginning of recorded history. This discrimination based on race, known as racism, is a concept that author Mark Twain explores and critiques in his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The novel itself is about a poor white boy, named Huck, and an escaped slave, named Jim, and follows their adventure along the Mississippi River as they try to free Jim from his life of slavery, and Huck becoming free of societal influences. Racism, naturally, is a very important topic within the novel, as Jim is, as a black man, believed to be less than any white man could ever be. Twain feels disdain, or a lack of respect, disgust or anger, towards the topic of racism. Through his usage of details, diction and imagery throughout his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain conveys a disdainful tone toward racism.

EVIDENCE • Quotes that were accurate • Quotes that showed examples of your chosen element of DIDLS • Quotes that proved your tone word

ANALYSIS • Did your analysis contain all three parts? • 1. Explain the context of the quote (what’s happening at this point in the novel) • 2. Explain specifically how the quote shows your chosen element of DIDLS • Specific word for diction, what qualifies this as a detail, how is this a simile, metaphor, etc. • 3. Explain how quote shows Twain’s attitude towards your topic • Analysis that fully and thoroughly explained TWAIN’S attitude towards your topic, not Huck’s attitude. This should not summarize but offer new ideas and insight. • If your paper did not analyze how the quote showed Twain’s attitude, it could not earn higher than a 70%

EVIDENCE AND ANALYSIS EXAMPLE Twain uses irony as a language device to further express his critical tone towards hypocrisy. After Huck meets the Grangerfords, they bring him to their church. Afterwards, Huck states that, “. . . everybody said it was a good sermon. . . and had a powerful lot to say about faith and works and free grace, ” (Twain 99). The feuding families attend a church service together, and both praise the loving words preached. However, this shows irony, because neither side practices the very same words they praise; they have been fighting and killing each other for decades. Twain’s use of irony at the sermon depicts the Grangerfords and Sherpherdsons as hypocrites because they endorse the sermon while at the same time ignoring its teachings of To be an A+, Twain this would continue to love. By presenting the families as religious hypocrites, increases hiscomment critical on Twain’s worldview as a whole. What is Twain tone towards them. using the Grangerford’s to say about society?

Therefore, Twain strongly condemns racism for its harsh judgments of one’s character and for its value of appearance over actions and behaviors. Similarly, Huck eventually comes to this realization for himself which provides an even more explicit questioning of character in regards to race. He narrates much later in the novel while debating whether or not he should inform Jim’s owner of the whereabouts of her property, “I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ’stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; [. . . ] and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper”(Twain 191). Twain creates this character who demonstrates kindness and compassion, strong values that an ideal contributing member of society should possess. The one obvious flaw that his society would be able to identify is the color of his skin. The details of Jim’s behavior, such as his sacrifice of sleep and his appreciation for how Huck values Jim’s humanity and treats him as a friend, establish a disapproval towards the ideology of racism for its insufficient and cruel judgement of wonderful individuals. Although his culture has conditioned him to believe that Jim belongs to Miss Watson, Huck understands in his true moral conscience that Jim deserves a life in which he can make his own decisions as anyone else Huck has ever met before. Through such details, Twain illustrates that character should not be dependent on the factors that are important

GRAMMAR AND MECHANICS • Correct spelling and grammar • Avoiding run on sentences and sentence fragments • Vary sentence structure • Sophisticated transitions • Avoid ill-fitting synonyms • Clear and concise language

MLA FORMATTING • Quote integration • (author’s last name 42) • Heading • Title • Double spaced • Page numbers