Mentor close read — Tan 'Mother Tongue' and diction as analytical subject

Quick-write: have you ever spoken differently to different people — to family vs. friends vs. teachers? What changed?

• Affirm: this is REGISTER — adjusting language by audience and context
• Connect to today's text

Today we read Amy Tan's 'Mother Tongue' — an analytical essay about LANGUAGE. Tan analyzes her own mother's English, her own writing, and how the two relate. The essay is a model for what an analytical essay can do: take a specific phenomenon (her mother's English), make a claim about it, and ground the claim in concrete examples. We will close-read with three goals: (1) name Tan's claim, (2) identify her evidence, (3) notice her analytical moves. We also add the final 5 Tier-2 words: METAPHOR (saying one thing IS another), SIMILE (comparing using 'like' or 'as'), PERSONIFICATION (giving human qualities to non-human things), HYPERBOLE (deliberate exaggeration), PARADOX (an apparent contradiction that reveals truth).

• The claim is a CLAIM — it asserts something specific.

  model Tan argues that 'broken' English is not broken at all — it is a form of English with its own grammar and beauty, often misunderstood by speakers of standard English.

  prompt What is Tan's claim about language?
• Concrete, specific, grounded in personal observation.

  model She quotes her mother's actual speech, describes situations where her mother was dismissed, and compares her own writing to her mother's.

  prompt What evidence does Tan use?

• Pair-share: state Tan's claim in your own words.
• Cold Call: define paradox and find one in 'Mother Tongue.'

M-7-S-VOC-04-A Chart

MG-19 complete with all 20 words and definitions. Final 5 words highlighted (metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, paradox). Print-ready 18x24.

MG-19 Chart

Tier-2 Set 16 literary-analysis precision vocabulary anchor: 20-word grid. WORDS: diction, syntax, imagery, tone, mood, motif, symbol, characterization, point of view, irony, ambiguity, juxtaposition, allusion, foreshadowing, metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, paradox, theme. Each cell: word + 1-sentence definition + example-of-use-in-analysis ('Angelou's DICTION is sensory and concrete.' / 'The SYNTAX shifts from long flowing sentences to short fragments at the moment of trauma.' / 'The IMAGERY of caged birds runs through the chapter as a MOTIF.' / 'The POINT OF VIEW is first-person retrospective.' / 'Hughes uses HYPERBOLE in line 4 to amplify the speaker's outrage.'). Print-ready 18x24, dyslexic-friendly font.

• 3-pass close read of 'Mother Tongue' excerpt with 5-color annotation. Look for figurative language: metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, paradox.

  scaffold Tier-2 Set 16 anchor at desk
• Identify Tan's analytical moves — where does she state a claim, where does she give evidence, where does she analyze?

  scaffold 3-column observation sheet (claim / evidence / analysis)

• Identify one place in 'Mother Tongue' where Tan analyzes (not just describes) language. Quote the analytical sentence.

• Restate: analytical writing makes claims about specific phenomena, grounded in evidence
• Preview tomorrow's literal-vs-figurative meaning lesson

• Complete Tier-2 Set 16 vocabulary entries (all 20 words). Add 1 'sentence I admire' from 'Mother Tongue' to notebook.