The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
 Literary Focus: Humor and Regionalism
 Humor: literature purposely meant to entertain
 All types of humor include exaggeration (hyperbole)
and irony
 3 types of Humor
 Humor of situation: comes from situational irony in
plot
 Humor of character: based on exaggerated
personalities
 Humor of language: includes sarcasm,
exaggeration, irony, and puns
 Tall Tale
 Humorous story
 Exaggerated characters
 Impossible events
 Style
 Frame Story
 Twain introduces a 2nd narrator, Simon Wheeler, who tells the
story
 Regionalism
 Dialect
 Distinct form of language as it is spoken in
one geographical area or by one social or
ethnic group
 Uses unconventional spelling
 Suggests the way the words actually sound
 Establishes setting
 Adds local color (regionalism)
 Develops characters
 Contrast the two narrators—unnamed narrator and
Simon Wheeler
 Language—how does each narrator use language
 Tone—attitude toward the subject (the story of the
jumping frog)
 How does each narrator feel about Jim Smiley’s Tall
Tale?
 Analyzing Dialect and Hyperbole
 Find three examples of exaggeration/hyperbole combined
with dialect
 Write out the example
 Explain why combining dialect and hyperbole creates humor.
 Write the first paragraph of Simon Wheeler’s next story….
 “Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn’t
have no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and—”
 Maintain Wheeler’s voice as narrator by copying his…
 Dialect
 Use of exaggeration/hyperbole