Lesson Summary: Students discuss how synonyms can convey different connotations but similar denotations. Students identify whether words have negative, positive, or neutral connotations. Advanced students explore how an advertisement uses words that appeal to their emotions rather than logic. Struggling students write about the feelings a noun or adjective creates.
Lesson Objectives:
The students will know…
· that words have multiple meanings: the explicit definition as listed in a dictionary vs. the set of associations/emotional connections that a word brings to mind.
The students will be able to….
· identify the connotation and denotation of new words.
Learning Styles Targeted:
Visual / Auditory / Kinesthetic/Tactile
Pre-Assessment:
1) Write these words on the board or overhead projector: old, family, raw, alone. Ask volunteers to offer definitions for each word. Tell students that these literal definitions found in dictionaries are also called denotations. Now explain how each word can also evoke different emotions in people, which are called connotations. Ask students what these words suggest to them.
2) Review with students how synonyms can have the same denotations but different connotations. Write the following words directly below the first list of four: aged, dynasty, crude, unaided. Ask students how these words are related to the first list, and what connotative meanings they have.
Whole-Class Instruction
Materials Needed: paper, pens, pencils, thesaurus, print or online and PowerPoint Presentation*
Procedure:
Presentation
1) Discuss how word choice can convey different connotations for similar sentences. Depending on the word, the sentence can convey positive, neutral, or negative connotations. Write the following sentence on the board: The woman selling cookies was slender. Ask students what the implied or suggested meaning of the word “slender” conveys. Then replace “slender” with a variety of synonyms (skinny, gaunt, thin, emaciated, slight, willowy) and ask students whether the words convey positive, neutral, or negative connotations.
2) Ask students to select an adjective and then use the thesaurus to identify synonyms. Have them create a T-chart showing whether synonyms have positive, neutral, or negative connotations.
Guided Practice
3) Along with adjectives, animals can evoke strong emotions in people. Have students write a paragraph about five animals that evoke warm and fuzzy emotions in people, and another paragraph about five animals that evoke fear and revulsion in people. Ask students to share their paragraphs.
Independent Practice
4) Students explore 10 positive/negative connotations on PowerPoint presentation.* Have students take out pencils and paper and respond to the Slides 2 through 6.
5) Have students rewrite the ad in slide 7. Ask for volunteers who rewrote the ad in a neutral way to share their answers. Then ask for volunteers who rewrote the ad in a positive way.
6) In slide 8, students write sentences about how three different characters move. Ask for volunteers to share their answers.
7) In slide 9, students write how three different characters would talk, using positive connotations. Have volunteers read their descriptions and speak like the character.
8) Have students complete slides 10 through 14 on their papers.
Closing Activity
9) Ask students to brainstorm a name for their school’s sports mascot using two words with positive connotations. Ask them to supply an alternative name that would be rejected because of negative connotations.
Advanced Learner
Materials Needed: magazines, paper, and pencil
Procedure:
1) Remind students that advertisers use connotative words to evoke emotional responses in the reader, thus persuading him or her to purchase the product being advertised.
2) Have students pick a particular product that is advertised in a magazine and write a paragraph about how the ad uses words that appeal to their emotions rather than their logic.
Struggling Learner
Materials Needed: thesaurus, paper, pencil
Procedure:
1) Have students select a noun such as “home” or an adjective such as “brave” to look up in a thesaurus.
2) Then ask them to write a paragraph describing the feelings that the word stirs up in them, using some of the synonyms that they discovered in the thesaurus.
*see supplemental resources
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