Overview

Lesson Procedure

65-75 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15-20 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5-10 minutes

1. Warm-Up10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Compare two sentences: 'I've asked you a million times to close the door.' and 'The more you try to look relaxed, the more nervous you seem.' One is false on purpose; the other only seems false. Which is which, and why would a speaker say each one?"

   Take answers for three minutes. The first sentence is a hyperbole: a deliberate exaggeration that no one is meant to take literally, used for emphasis, humor or persuasion. The second is a paradox: a statement that seems to contradict itself or common sense but, read in the right sense, turns out to be true. With hyperbole, the reader measures the gap between what is said and what is meant; with paradox, the reader looks for the two senses that make the contradiction disappear.

   Tell students the lesson has a third strand: words whose dictionary meanings nearly match but whose uses have drifted apart. They will see a Victorian scholar explain how that drift happens.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Four questions for a figure of speech. Model them aloud on each text today:

   1. What does the sentence claim, taken literally?
   2. What does the writer actually mean?
   3. How wide is the gap, and what closes it (an exaggeration scaled back, or a second sense of a word)?
   4. What role does the figure play in the whole text: in its humor, its argument, its speaker's voice or its turn?

   Read the first text aloud. In Roughing It (1872), Mark Twain retells his 1861 stagecoach journey across the American West. Here the travelers see their first coyote, which Twain spells "cayote." A velocipede is an early bicycle, and a minie rifle fired a bullet designed for long range.

   1Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prairie-dog villages, the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I remember rightly, this latter was the regular cayote (pronounced ky-o-te) of the farther deserts. And if it was, he was not a pretty creature or respectable either, for I got well acquainted with his race afterward, and can speak with confidence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry.

   2He is always poor, out of luck and friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is so spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it. And he is so homely!—so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful. When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and then turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, depresses his head a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush, glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is about out of easy pistol range, and then he stops and takes a deliberate survey of you; he will trot fifty yards and stop again—another fifty and stop again; and finally the gray of his gliding body blends with the gray of the sage-brush, and he disappears. All this is when you make no demonstration against him; but if you do, he develops a livelier interest in his journey, and instantly electrifies his heels and puts such a deal of real estate between himself and your weapon, that by the time you have raised the hammer you see that you need a minie rifle, and by the time you have got him in line you need a rifled cannon, and by the time you have “drawn a bead” on him you see well enough that nothing but an unusually long-winded streak of lightning could reach him where he is now. But if you start a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy it ever so much—especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of himself, and has been brought up to think he knows something about speed.

   • Hyperbole that escalates

     "he develops a livelier interest in his journey, and instantly electrifies his heels and puts such a deal of real estate between himself and your weapon, that by the time you have raised the hammer you see that you need a minie rifle, and by the time you have got him in line you need a rifled cannon" (paragraph 2). Interpret the hyperbole and its role.

     Result: Literally, the coyote would outrun a rifle and then a cannon within seconds, and finally only "an unusually long-winded streak of lightning could reach him." Meant: he runs astonishingly fast the moment you threaten him. Each clause is timed to a step in aiming (raising the hammer, getting him in line, drawing a bead), so the exaggeration grows as the hunter's effort grows. The joke lands on the hunter, whose weapon falls further behind with every step.

   • Hyperbole by absurd comparison

     "The meanest creatures despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede" (paragraph 2).

     Result: No flea chooses between a coyote and a bicycle; the claim is absurd on purpose. Meant: the coyote is so miserable that even the lowest creatures would rather live anywhere else. The absurd picture of fleas choosing a machine over a host turns pity into comedy.

   Now the second text. John Donne's sonnet (first printed in 1633) speaks directly to Death, a figure called apostrophe. The poem keeps its 1633 spelling: then in line 6 means "therefore," but the first then in line 12 means "than," and soe, mee and poyson are so, me and poison. Its argument rests on the Christian belief in resurrection, which students treat as the speaker's premise.

   1Death be not proud, though some have called thee
   Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
   For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
   Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
   5From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
   Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
   And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
   Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
   Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
   10And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
   And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
   And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
   One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
   And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

   • Paradox in an argument

     "For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, / Die not" (lines 3-4). Interpret the paradox.

     Result: Taken literally, the claim is impossible: the people death overthrows are the dead. The contradiction disappears when "die" takes two senses: their bodies stop living, but in the speaker's belief they do not cease to exist. The paradox is the poem's opening move; it strips Death of its one claim to power, and the rest of the sonnet argues for it.

3. Guided Practice15-20 minutes

   G. K. Chesterton was an English essayist so fond of paradox that critics complained about it. In the opening chapter of Orthodoxy (1908), a book defending his religious beliefs, he tells a story he never wrote. Pairs read it and mark every sentence that seems to contradict itself. For each, they write the two senses that resolve it and one sentence on what the paradox does for Chesterton's argument.

   1I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas. I always find, however, that I am either too busy or too lazy to write this fine work, so I may as well give it away for the purposes of philosophical illustration. There will probably be a general impression that the man who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by signs) to plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be the Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather a fool. I am not here concerned to deny that he looked a fool. But if you imagine that he felt a fool, or at any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant emotion, then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the rich romantic nature of the hero of this tale. His mistake was really a most enviable mistake; and he knew it, if he was the man I take him for. What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again? [...] What could be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, that it was really old South Wales. This at least seems to me the main problem for philosophers, and is in a manner the main problem of this book. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being our own town?

   [...]

   2But I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht, who discovered England. For I am that man in a yacht. I discovered England. I do not see how this book can avoid being egotistical; and I do not quite see (to tell the truth) how it can avoid being dull. Dulness will, however, free me from the charge which I most lament; the charge of being flippant. Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am generally accused. I know nothing so contemptible as a mere paradox; a mere ingenious defence of the indefensible. If it were true (as has been said) that Mr. Bernard Shaw lived upon paradox, then he ought to be a mere common millionaire; for a man of his mental activity could invent a sophistry every six minutes. It is as easy as lying; because it is lying. The truth is, of course, that Mr. Shaw is cruelly hampered by the fact that he cannot tell any lie unless he thinks it is the truth. I find myself under the same intolerable bondage. [...]

   • Paradox as a thesis

     "How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it?" (paragraph 1).

     Result: Astonishment belongs to the strange, and being at home belongs to the familiar, so the question seems to ask for two opposite states at once. Chesterton means that a good life combines both: wonder at the ordinary world and a sense of belonging in it. He calls this "the main problem of this book," so the paradox works as a thesis statement, framed as a question the book will answer.

   Circulate and ask: "Where does Chesterton warn the reader about paradox itself? Is that warning a paradox too?" Pairs share one paradox each, and the class sorts them into those that resolve through a second sense of a word and those that resolve through a change of point of view.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Part b of the standard concerns words with similar denotations. Richard Chenevix Trench, a nineteenth-century scholar and archbishop, lectured on how English came to hold pairs of near-synonyms, one often from Old English and one from Latin, and how each pair slowly divided its meaning, a process he called desynonymizing. Students read his paragraph and complete the table below for its pairs, then add one modern pair of their own. Some quiz questions use this paragraph.

   If we look closely at words which have succeeded in thus maintaining their ground side by side, and one no less than the other, we shall note that in almost every instance they have little by little asserted for themselves separate spheres of meaning, have in usage become more or less distinct. Thus we use 'shepherd' almost always in its primary meaning, keeper of sheep; while 'pastor' is exclusively used in the tropical sense, one that feeds the flock of God; at the same time the language having only the one adjective, 'pastoral,' that is of necessity common to both. 'Love' and 'charity' are used in our Authorized Version of Scripture promiscuously, and out of the sense of their equivalence are made to represent one and the same Greek word; but in modern use 'charity' has come predominantly to signify one particular manifestation of love, the ministry to the bodily needs of others, 'love' continuing to express the affection of the soul. 'Ship' remains in its literal meaning, while 'nave' has become a symbolic term used in sacred architecture alone. 'Kingdom' is concrete, as the 'kingdom' of Great Britain; 'reign' is abstract, the 'reign' of Queen Victoria. An 'auditor' and a 'hearer' are now, though they were not once, altogether different from one another. 'Illegible' is applied to the handwriting, 'unreadable' to the subject-matter written; a man writes an 'illegible' hand; he has published an 'unreadable' book. 'Foresight' is ascribed to men, but' providence' for the most part designates, as pronoia also came to do, the far-looking wisdom of God, by which He governs and graciously cares for his people. It becomes boys to be 'boyish,' but not men to be 'puerile.' 'To blanch' is to withdraw colouring matter: we 'blanch' almonds or linen; or the cheek by the withdrawing of the blood is 'blanched' with fear; but we 'whiten' a wall, not by withdrawing some other colour, but by the superinducing of white; thus 'whited sepulchres.' When we 'palliate' our own or other people's faults, we do not seek 'to cloke' them altogether, but only to extenuate the guilt of them in part.

   • Nuance: one denotation, two spheres

     Trench writes: "It becomes boys to be 'boyish,' but not men to be 'puerile.'" Explain the nuance.

     Result: Both words denote "like a boy" (puerile comes from Latin puer, boy). Boyish suits its subject, and a boyish grin can even be praise. Puerile is used of adults and blames them for childishness, as in "puerile jokes." Here "becomes" means "suits," so Trench's sentence states the nuance in its own form: the same quality fits a boy and shames a man.

   Desynonymizing organizer for the Trench paragraph

   Pair	Shared denotation	Sphere of the first word	Sphere of the second word
   ship / nave
   boyish / puerile
   a pair of your own

5. Closure5-10 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Write one hyperbole and one paradox about today's class, and name the role each would play in a speech. (2) Name one pair of near-synonyms and state the difference in their spheres in a single sentence.

   Teacher note on the texts: Twain's 1872 narrative treats shooting at a coyote as ordinary sport, as travelers of the time did, and later paragraphs of the chapter, which this excerpt does not include, describe the desert's Native American peoples in openly racist terms; preview the whole chapter before assigning more of it. Donne's sonnet is printed in its 1633 spelling from a 1912 scholarly edition. Chesterton (1908) calls the Brighton Pavilion, built in an Indian style, a "barbaric temple," a dismissive phrase of its time; one sentence that disparages South Africa is omitted and marked [...]. Trench (1851, revised 1888) wrote as an Anglican clergyman and draws several examples from the Bible and the church; his "promiscuously" means "without distinction," an older sense that students can compare with the modern one. All four texts are quoted exactly as published, apart from the omissions marked [...].

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   "He is so spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it" (paragraph 2). What does the sentence suggest about the coyote?

   AHe is dangerous but has learned to be polite to the travelers he meets BHis snarl is a bluff that his fear gives away, a comic picture of cowardice CHe is sick and in pain, so his face twists into shapes he cannot control DHe regrets stealing food from the travelers' wagons and wants their forgiveness

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   "The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want" (paragraph 1). What does Twain mean?

   AThe coyote wants to be tamed and fed by the travelers on the stagecoach BThe coyote is the hero of a well-known fable that Twain expects readers to recall CHe seems to embody hunger itself, as an allegory's figure stands for an idea DThe coyote is so rare that hunters on the plains want it very badly

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Paragraph 1 describes the coyote as "a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it." Which statement about this description is accurate?

   AIt is a literal description of a coyote's anatomy, which Twain had studied closely BIt is a paradox, because a skeleton cannot be alive and walking across the plain CIt is a euphemism that softens the plain fact that the coyote is already dead DIt is a hyperbole that exaggerates a live animal's thinness for comic pity

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Paragraph 1 calls the coyote "long, slim," and paragraph 2 calls him "so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful." How do slim and scrawny differ?

   ASlim is neutral or approving; scrawny adds weakness and ugliness, pushing toward mockery BSlim describes a short animal and scrawny a tall one, so Twain is correcting his first claim CThey mean exactly the same thing, and Twain repeats the idea only for its rhythm DScrawny is the more approving word, suggesting a lean and athletic hunter's body

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Across the whole Twain excerpt, what role does hyperbole play?

   AIt gives travelers accurate natural-history facts about the coyotes of the plains BIt shows that the narrator was frightened of coyotes during the trip CIt builds a comic voice that mocks the coyote yet admires its speed DIt argues that coyotes should be protected from hunters

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why does the speaker call death "poore" in line 4?

   AHe pities death because death, unlike the living people it visits, has no food, money or home BThe word is a euphemism that makes the act of dying sound gentle and harmless CHe admits that death is humble and deserves respect rather than fear or scorn DIt reverses the roles: the speaker pities death as weak and mistaken instead of fearing it

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   "From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, / Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow" (lines 5-6). What argument do these lines make?

   ADeath is painful, unlike rest and sleep, which are the only true pleasures of life BSleep is only death's image; if the image gives pleasure, death must give more CSleep is dangerous, because it is a picture of death DPaintings of death bring viewers great pleasure

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   "Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men" (line 9). What role does this line play in the sonnet?

   AIt turns death from a mighty master into a servant of whatever brings it BIt praises kings for having power over death, which even fate cannot equal CIt warns the reader to avoid desperate men and dangerous chances DIt says that Fate is the slave of death

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Chesterton writes: "I am not here concerned to deny that he looked a fool. But if you imagine that he felt a fool..." (paragraph 1). What distinction does the passage draw?

   ABetween a real fool and a wise man who only pretends to be foolish for a joke BBetween the yachtsman and the crowds of Brighton people who laughed at him as he landed CBetween how the mistake looked to others and how the man himself experienced it DBetween feeling seasick on the voyage and looking pale and tired after landing

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    "I know nothing so contemptible as a mere paradox; a mere ingenious defence of the indefensible" (paragraph 2). Why is this sentence surprising from Chesterton?

    ABecause he promises the reader that his whole book will contain no paradoxes of any kind at all BBecause he is accused of paradox yet scorns it, meaning only paradox that defends a falsehood CBecause he admits that his own book is likely to be both dull and egotistical DBecause he accuses Bernard Shaw of lying in his plays in order to earn money

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    "The truth is, of course, that Mr. Shaw is cruelly hampered by the fact that he cannot tell any lie unless he thinks it is the truth" (paragraph 2). What does Chesterton mean?

    AShaw is a habitual liar who cannot stop himself even when he wants to BShaw treats other writers cruelly in the reviews he writes for newspapers CShaw cannot tell the difference between the truth and a lie in his own writing DIt is praise posing as a complaint: Shaw's paradoxes are sincere, not lies

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which sentence follows the distinction Trench draws between illegible and unreadable?

    AThe doctor's note was unreadable, so the pharmacist called to check the scrawled spelling. BThe report was illegible: two hundred pages of dense jargon that nobody in the office could finish. CHer handwriting was illegible, and his novel, though neatly printed, was unreadable. DThe road sign was unreadable because its letters had faded almost completely away.

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Trench calls kingdom concrete and reign abstract. Which sentence uses both words in those senses?

    ADuring the reign of Queen Victoria, the kingdom built railways across its lands. BThe kingdom of Queen Victoria lasted for many decades, and her long reign had many rivers. CThe reign stretched from the coast to the northern mountains. DHer kingdom lasted from 1837 to 1901, longer than any before it.

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Trench writes that to palliate faults is not "to cloke them altogether, but only to extenuate the guilt of them in part." Which sentence uses palliate in that sense?

    AShe palliated the theft so skillfully that no one ever learned of it. BHe palliated his lateness by explaining that the bus had broken down on the bridge. CThe judge palliated the prisoner by releasing him at once and without any conditions at all. DThey palliated the old garden wall with two coats of white paint.

15. Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Trench says that "'pastor' is exclusively used in the tropical sense, one that feeds the flock of God." What does tropical mean here?

    ARelated to hot climates near the equator, where missionaries often served BReligious, the sense a word takes when it is used inside a church CFigurative: from trope, a figure of speech DLiteral and primary, the first meaning listed in a dictionary entry

16. Question 16 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which of these sentences is a paradox rather than a hyperbole?

    AThis essay is going to take me forever and a day to finish. BI could sleep for a hundred years after this week. CHer backpack must weigh as much as a small car. DThe more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    The sonnet ends: "One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, / And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die" (lines 13-14). Interpret the final paradox and explain its role in the poem as a whole.

    Show model answer

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write your own escalating hyperbole of three or four steps, in the manner of Twain's sentence about the rifle and the cannon, about a subject of your choice. Then explain the intended meaning and the role your hyperbole would play in a piece of writing.

    Show model answer

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    "What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again?" (paragraph 1). Interpret the phrases "fascinating terrors" and "humane security," and explain how the question builds Chesterton's paradox.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Trench explains that "we 'blanch' almonds or linen" but "we 'whiten' a wall." Explain the difference he draws between blanch and whiten, and write one sentence that uses each correctly.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to L.11-12.5: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.