Prompt: Analyze the impact word choice has on the meaning or tone of a text. Analyze how dialogue or specific incidents reveal information about characters. Make sure to include textual evidence.
This week in Social Studies, we have been reading the book named NightJohn. The book is very graphic at some times, like when they are being punished for example. It exposed me to some punishments that I was previously unaware of. One of which was rubbing salt in the wound. LITERALLY rubbing salt in the gashes and cuts left on a slaves back after a fierce whipping, then leaving the slaves in the open for another period of time. Some had maggots in the cuts on their back.
Word choice has a big effect on what the story is conveying to us. In this book, it really puts us in the shoes of the slaves because the narrator, Sarney, is using the southern dialect. We get to see what sone of the slaves think. "God and maybe old Clel Waller. He wants that we should call him "master," and they's some do when he can hear but we call him dog droppings and pig slop and worse things yet." The word choice really tell us what the slaves think of the Waller. It also shows us how uneducated they are when she says "they some do" This shows us that they did not get any education, except how to kind of speak from their "families"
Dialogue and incidents are really big parts in the story. We learn the true intentions of Nightjohn as Sarney and Mammy talk to him. This is the conversation between Nighjohn and Mammy.
N: I did
M: You ran until you were clean away?
N: I did
M: And you came back?
N: I did
M: Why?
....
N: For this
M: What do you mean-this?
N: To teach reading
This conversation that they had told us the kind of person Nightjohn. He cared about the others, and he really wanted to help slaves. There was another part in the book, the part when Mmmy was being whipped. he confessed the teaching people to read. Since he did confess, he got two of his toes cut off, with a minimal struggle.
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