Smiley Face Trick #4

Repetition for Effect

~Mary Ellen Ledbetter

Repetition for Effect

•Writers often repeat specifically chosen words or phrases to make a point, to stress certain ideas for the reader.

EXAMPLES:

• “The veranda is your only shelter away from the sister in bed asleep, away from the brother that plays in the tree house in the field, away from your chores that await you.”

• The children make it difficult to ever rest, boys and girls of all sizes—running in and out of rooms, running up and down the corridors, running just to run.

• Tap, tap, tap. I sit thumping my pencil, wondering when will this boredom end?

• Like all southern mothers, my mother had determined early in our relationship that no matter what it took—all the family money, all the family patience, or with my stiff, white petticoats raised, all the swift lashes Mother could bring herself to administer with the family switch—I would learn one thing or they, and presumably I, would die trying. I would learn how to be a lady. (“Far from a Lady”)

Now find and write down the Repetition for Effect in the following excerpts from

renowned, published authors.

• Tom, Tom, Tom, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways. I hate the way you whine, I hate the way you always get your way, and I hate the way you get better gifts at Christmas. My grandmother thinks I’m making this up and should be nicer to Tom (Roeschen, Micheal, “GI Joe Boxer Shorts”).

• The beach is full of people and laughter. Children and their shovels meet at the same place every Saturday, scooping the same sand and rebuilding the same castle that took them hours to make and a second to be washed away by the roaring waters.

• My father was the strictest person in the entire universe. I can still hear his big deep voice sternly giving orders—don’t go anywhere after school, don’t get any grade less than an “A,” don’t have any friends I don’t approve of—nothing and no one was ever quite good enough for him.

The tables are turned now. Using the following prompts, write your own 10 minute quickwrite paragraph for each of the following prompts

using Smiley-Face Trick #4: Repetition for Effect.

• Describe your favorite (or least favorite) teacher. You can choose any teacher you have ever had.

• Persuade your audience to agree on who should be our next president