McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson Elocution · Part 1: Principles of Elocution

2. Principles of Elocution: Inflection optional

Goal: Your student can hear and make the rising and falling slides of the voice, and knows how the book marks them.

⏱ About 30 minutes · 6 steps

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You'll need

  • The book, or the scan beside this guide
  • A notebook and pen
  • A mirror is handy, and a phone to record your student reading (optional)

What's in the book

The section on Inflection explains the rising and falling inflections, the circumflex and the monotone, with example sentences and the marks the book uses for each, followed by rules and exercises.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Read the definition

    Read together:

    Inflection is a bending or sliding of the voice either upward or downward.

    The book marks the rising slide with the acute accent and the falling slide with the grave accent. Point these marks out on the page.

  2. Hear the rising slide

    Ask the book's short questions and let your student copy you:

    Did you call?

    Is he sick?

    SayYour voice goes up at the end. That is the rising inflection.

  3. Hear the falling slide

    Now the falling examples from the book:

    Where is London?

    Where have you been?

    SayThese questions cannot be answered yes or no, so the voice falls. Can you hear the difference?

  4. The circumflex and the monotone

    The book says sometimes both slides are given to one sound; this is the circumflex. Try one of its examples:

    If you said yes, I said no.

    The monotone is a run of syllables with no slide at all, used for solemn passages. Find the book's monotone example and read it slowly and evenly.

  5. Rules and exercises

    Read two or three of the book's rules for inflection with their examples. Your student reads each example twice: once with the marked inflections, once deliberately wrong. The wrong reading shows why the rule exists.

  6. Talk about it

    SayHow can the same words mean different things just by the slide of the voice?

    SayWhen you ask a yes-or-no question, which way does your voice go?

    SayWhy might a speaker use a monotone on purpose?

Afterwards

Over the next few lessons, ask your student to mark the inflection of two or three sentences in the selection with a pencil before reading aloud.

Tip

Many later lessons have notes that point back to these rules (for example, "See Rule V"). Keep this section handy.

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