1,000 feet from the water's surface, miles off the coast of Norway, a giant squid measuring
40 feet from the tip of her longest tentacle to the top of her head is hunting for lunch.
What will it be? A smaller squid, unknowingly propelling itself right into her clutches?
With her two front tentacles, the giant squid reaches out and grasps the smaller one.
She raises it to her enormous beak, then shreds it with her toothy tongue. Yum!
Giant squids were first described by the ancient Greek philosophers, including Socrates and Pliny
the Elder. Myths and folktales of giant krakens or vicious underwater sea creatures have captured
the imaginations of people over hundreds of years. Yet there is still so much we don't
know about these incredible giants. What we do know is fascinating. Giant squids live
anywhere from 980 to 3,280 feet from the water's surface. Females can grow up to 43 feet long.
Males get only slightly smaller, 33 feet on average. Giant squids have enormous brains and
huge eyes, which span an average of 11 inches across. They can detect bioluminescence,
that special glow that some deep water secretes, which helps them make their way among the depths.
Because the giant squid lives so far down in the ocean, our knowledge of these species is limited.
But the little we do know is humbling and awe-inspiring. The oceans hold so much life.
We humans can only admire it, respect it, and try to understand how we fit into the
amazing web of life that connects us, however distantly, to the sea.
Well, that was very moving. I live for a good nature documentary. I would love
to have a job where I could go out into the wild and write scripts to tell people at home
about all the creatures and living things we share this world with. Because I want to. Hmm,
what is the purpose of this kind of writing? That's right, to inform, which means today
we're talking about expository writing. Let's get into it. Have your PDF out and ready to go.
Today we are going to review the purpose and audience for expository writing. We'll talk
about the elements of expository writing, including how expository writing is a form
of argument, and how to describe the tone that expository writing takes on.
We will also determine how expository writing requires
you to make choices about what information you'll include and what you'll leave out.
In general, the purpose of expository writing is to inform an audience about a specific topic. And
who is the audience? Well, that will depend. Your audience could be that imaginary academic audience
we talked about in lesson one: imagined readers or viewers who are intelligent but uninformed.
Or it could be a real audience, like if you're really excited to tell your family everything
you know about World War II aircraft, which you have learned a lot about at the library,
and so you write a whole presentation about it and try to convince them to take you to
the Aircraft Museum because you think they would actually like it if they just tried it.
Not that that's happened to me or anything.
Ah, anyways, when you start writing your own expository essay, you'll consider what kind of
audience you'll be hoping to inform with your writing. Take a look at the text of
the nature documentary as it's written on your PDF. Read and answer the questions:
What is the purpose of this piece? What makes you say that? What is the audience of this piece?
What makes you say that? And this might be a tricky one: What is the argument of this piece?
Pause this video and answer the questions on your PDF.
Okay, let's talk about some of your answers. The purpose of this piece is to inform the audience
about giant squids. And who is the audience for a nature documentary? The audience is people
who may be interested in animals, plants, and the environment but who may not know a lot about it.
In our last lesson unit, we discussed how all academic writing has an argument. To determine the
argument in this piece, take a closer look at that last paragraph. What stance is the writer taking?
What does he want the audience to do or think about giant squid?
A few key phrases stand out to me: lines 19 to 20, which contain the phrase
"the little we do know is humbling and awe-inspiring," let me know the writer
hopes the audience is impressed and moved by how interesting and mysterious giant squids are.
Lines 20 to 22 say "We humans can only admire it, respect it, and try to understand how we fit into
the amazing web of life that connects us, however distantly, to the sea." This sentence is intended
to persuade the audience to think of themselves as part of a larger network, to convince the audience
that they are not alone as an individual or as a species. Deep, right? Get it, deep?
One way to understand and identify purpose, audience, and argument is to take a look at tone.
But what is tone? Tone is what you, as the reader, infer about the speaker's attitude
or feelings about the subject. You can think about tone differences like musical notes.
Consider the difference between [sound] and [sound]. How would you describe the tone of each?
The first is a happy, optimistic tone, while the second is
kind of a bummer. You can think of language and writing in the same way.
Consider these two ideas: "Mia is curious about the people around her. She asks questions to
try to understand people's experiences and why they feel the way they feel."
And "Mia is nosy. She always wants to know what's going on with everyone
else and butts into their private thoughts by asking tons of questions."
What is the difference between these two statements? While they are both describing
Mia being interested in something and wanting to know more about it, saying someone is curious is
usually positive, and saying someone is nosy is usually negative. So while they both refer to
someone who wants to know more about something, both of those words have very different tones.
Tone is determined by word choice throughout a passage. For example, notice that in the first
passage, Mia is described as curious, and the phrase "try to understand" makes her sound caring.
In the second passage, Mia is described as nosy, and the phrase "butts in" makes
her sound like she's asking questions in ways that make people uncomfortable.
In high school writing, we'll talk about tone using two new words: denotation and connotation.
Jot down these notes on your PDF. Denotation is a neutral dictionary
definition of the word. For example, the word "interested." Connotation is
the emotional or valued charge of the word. In other words, a negative or a positive version.
Look back at your PDF. What do you notice about the tone in the giant squid mini-documentary?
Do you see more words with negative connotations, neutral denotations, or positive connotations?
You might notice words like fascinating, incredible, and awe-inspiring.
These are all words with, that's right, positive connotation.
This expository example has a pretty positive tone, but you might come across pieces with
more neutral or even more negative tones. This week, tone is something we definitely
want to keep our eyes on when we are considering the author's purpose and the implicit argument.
As we'll see in lessons to come, we'll keep our eyes on tone for other genres of writing as well.
One more thing, remember that the choices you make as a writer of
expository work inform the argument you are implicitly making to your readers.
On your PDF, take a look at the list of giant squid facts. Pause this video
and take a moment to put an X next to the facts you see included in the sample piece.
What did you notice? Think about how the author of this piece chose their
facts to tell you something specific about giant squid,
to make their implicit argument about how they want you to think about this topic.
If they had wanted to make a different argument, let's say one about how giant squids have been
misunderstood through their representation in movies and media, the author could have included
more information about how these creatures have been depicted through time. If the author had
wanted to impress upon their reader where they can go to view giant squids up close,
they might have included more facts about museums and exhibits dedicated to educating the public.
Over the next few days of this lesson, you'll practice identifying tone, structure,
and arguments in expository examples. You'll also get ready for this brainstorm, outline, draft,
and revise an expository essay on a topic of your choice. How are you feeling? Excited, nervous,
full of dread, jumping with glee? Remember that the only way to get better at writing
is to write, and we're right here with you. Write on.