Writing assignment at the beginning of the second day of class:
For the next 5-10 minutes, select one word from Rudyard Kipling's story “Wireless” (1901) and write about its significance in the text.
Topics to consider include: your word's placement in the sentence and story, its sound, its frequency (is it repeated often and why does this matter), its relation to the characters or events.
Student Words:
Electricity (7)
Disheartening (6)
Cold (3)
Power (3)
Marvelous (2)
Induction (2)
Apothecary (2)
Tomorrow (2)
Cough (2)
Cohere (2)
Discovery
Disgrace
Progress
Electric
Electrified
Light
Hope
Manifestation
Apothecarie's Hall
Die
Keats
Poet
Difference
Interested
Magic
Telegraph
Shocked
Brr
Grand
Scientific
Immense
Tired
Funny
Inevitable
Connected
Using Voyant it is possible to chart the frequency with which words appear in the story (excluding the most common words such as articles). With the exception of the word "cold," which appears 12 times, visible in the first image below, the students' selections were often not among the words that Kipling uses most frequently. One of the closest to the students' interests, "wire," is displayed in the second image below. The students may have been drawn to words that have greater prominence because they appear less often or in key passages. The student list also underscores Kipling's use of a variety words clustered around similar topics, such as electricity, electric, science, and power, in a fashion that is not apparent in the visualizations.
For the next 5-10 minutes, select one word from Rudyard Kipling's story “Wireless” (1901) and write about its significance in the text.
Topics to consider include: your word's placement in the sentence and story, its sound, its frequency (is it repeated often and why does this matter), its relation to the characters or events.
Student Words:
Electricity (7)
Disheartening (6)
Cold (3)
Power (3)
Marvelous (2)
Induction (2)
Apothecary (2)
Tomorrow (2)
Cough (2)
Cohere (2)
Discovery
Disgrace
Progress
Electric
Electrified
Light
Hope
Manifestation
Apothecarie's Hall
Die
Keats
Poet
Difference
Interested
Magic
Telegraph
Shocked
Brr
Grand
Scientific
Immense
Tired
Funny
Inevitable
Connected
Using Voyant it is possible to chart the frequency with which words appear in the story (excluding the most common words such as articles). With the exception of the word "cold," which appears 12 times, visible in the first image below, the students' selections were often not among the words that Kipling uses most frequently. One of the closest to the students' interests, "wire," is displayed in the second image below. The students may have been drawn to words that have greater prominence because they appear less often or in key passages. The student list also underscores Kipling's use of a variety words clustered around similar topics, such as electricity, electric, science, and power, in a fashion that is not apparent in the visualizations.