Typhoid Fever
by Frank McCourt
Feature Menu
Introducing the Story
Literary Skills Focus: Style
Reading Skills Focus:
Questioning a Narrator’s
Credibility
Writing Skills Focus: Think as a
Reader/Writer
Typhoid Fever
by Frank McCourt
What can we do to make the best of
unpleasant circumstances?
Typhoid Fever
Introducing the Story
Click on the title to start the video.
Typhoid Fever
Introducing the Story
Life is hard in 1930s Ireland.
Jobs and
food are
scarce.
Life-threatening disease is everywhere.
Typhoid Fever
Introducing the Story
When ten-year-old Frankie contracts typhoid fever,
he’s taken to a “fever hospital” for isolation.
Despite the nurses and nuns,
Frankie makes friends . . .
and learns about
language, life,
and death.
[End of Section]
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
Writers have different styles. Style comes through
in how a writer uses language in a piece of writing.
formal
casual
straightforward
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
A writer’s style
can be plain,
humorous,
sentimental,
ironic, formal,
irreverent, and
more.
Are you going to tell me what you look
like?
I have black hair.
You and millions.
I have brown eyes with bits of green
that’s called hazel.
You and thousands.
I have stitches on the back of my
right hand and my two feet where they
put in the soldier’s blood.
Oh, did they?
They did.
You won’t be able to stop marching
and saluting.
From Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Copyright © 1996 by Frank McCourt. Reproduced
by permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group.
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
Writers can combine several elements to help
create a particular style.
• diction
• sentence structure
• tone
• voice
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
Style starts with diction—the words a writer
chooses.
Formal
Diction may be formal, informal,
or somewhere in between.
Long words
with Latin roots
pertinacious
Informal
Contractions
You tell ‘em. You’re
not headstrong.
Short Anglo-Saxon words
Slang
stubborn
bullheaded
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
Formal diction is what makes many classic novels
sound old-fashioned to modern readers.
Occasionally Rob Roy
suffered disasters and
incurred great personal
danger. On one remarkable
occasion he was saved by
the coolness of his
lieutenant . . . a fine active
fellow, of course, and
celebrated as a marksman.
from Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott
A writer today might say:
Rob Roy sometimes got
into trouble. Once, his
coolheaded, sharpshooting lieutenant saved
him from danger.
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
Sentence structure—the way words are put
together—also affects style.
Clambering across the trusses—
those boards that frame out a
roof—is easy for my older brother,
Clive, because he’s been working
on construction sites since way
back in high school.
Sentence patterns create
rhythm and pace.
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
Short, simple sentences can create suspense or
excitement—driving the story at a quick pace.
“Whoa!” Tammy called. It was too late.
The runaway calf lurched. Splash. It was
caught in the river current. “I have to
make this one count,” she said to herself
as she lassoed the frightened calf.
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
Long, complex sentences might slow your reading,
but they can help provide a complete picture of a
character.
He stops mopping the floor and calls to Patricia in
the next room, I was telling Frankie you’re a lovely
girl, Patricia, and she says, You’re a lovely man,
Seamus. He smiles because he’s an old man of
forty and he never had children but the ones he can
talk to here in the Fever Hospital.
From Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Copyright © 1996 by Frank McCourt. Reproduced by permission of Scribner, a division of Simon &
Schuster Adult Publishing Group.
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
Writers use tone, too. It shows the author’s attitude
toward a subject, a character, or the audience.
The tone of a piece of writing may be
admiring
mocking
affectionate
serious
bitter
soothing
comic
vengeful
Typhoid Fever
Literary Skills Focus: Style—Diction, Tone, and Voice
Voice refers to the writer’s distinctive use of
language. McCourt creates a unique voice through
• simple language appropriate
to a ten-year-old
• long, rambling sentences
strung together with the
word and
• humorous tone
[End of Section]
Typhoid Fever
Reading Skills Focus: Questioning a Narrator’s Credibility
In “Typhoid Fever,” Frank McCourt describes events
in his life that took place more than fifty years
earlier.
McCourt told an interviewer
that people always wanted
to know how he could
remember so much.
Did he “embroider” or embellish his stories? Or did
events really happen as he describes them?
Typhoid Fever
Reading Skills Focus: Questioning a Narrator’s Credibility
Credibility means “believability.” Not all narrators
are credible, or reliable.
Good readers ask themselves
whether the narrator is telling—
or even knows—the truth.
Good readers do not simply
accept everything they read.
Typhoid Fever
Reading Skills Focus: Questioning a Narrator’s Credibility
In autobiography and memoirs, the author is also
the narrator.
To judge the credibility of such a narrator, you
need to determine how much you trust the
author’s memory.
• Can adults remember conversations,
events, and thoughts that took place when
they were children?
• What circumstances affect the author’s
memory of these events?
Typhoid Fever
Reading Skills Focus: Questioning a Narrator’s Credibility
Read this brief passage from the selection.
The nurse takes my temperature. ‘Tis up a bit,
have a good sleep for yourself now that you’re
away from the chatter with Patricia Madigan
below who will never know a gray hair.
She shakes her head at Seamus and he gives her
a sad shake back.
From Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Copyright © 1996 by Frank McCourt. Reproduced by permission of Scribner, a division of
Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group.
What details in this scene might make you question
McCourt’s memory of the incident?
Typhoid Fever
Reading Skills Focus: Questioning a Narrator’s Credibility
Into Action: As you read, use a chart to record
details and facts that may have affected McCourt’s
memory of the incidents he describes.
Detail/Fact
Possible Effect on Memory
McCourt is an adult A long time has passed, which may
writing about when
make it difficult to remember
he was ten years old. details accurately.
Frankie is recovering
from typhoid.
[End of Section]
Typhoid Fever
Writing Skills Focus: Think as a Reader/Writer
Find It in Your Reading
Some of McCourt’s words may be unfamiliar because
they’re from a dialect—or variation—of English. For
example, he refers to his mother as “Mam.”
Mam visits me on Thursdays. I’d like to see my
father, too, but I’m out of danger, crisis time is over,
and I’m allowed only one visitor.
From Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Copyright © 1996 by Frank McCourt. Reproduced by permission of Scribner, a division of Simon &
Schuster Adult Publishing Group.
As you read, write these unfamiliar words and
their meanings in your notebook.
[End of Section]
Vocabulary
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
internal adj.: on the inside.
relapse n.: process of slipping back into a
former state.
induced v. used as adj.: persuaded; led on.
potent adj.: powerful.
clamoring v. used as adj.: crying out,
demanding.
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
The word internal often refers to the inside of the
body or an organization.
Ms. Johnson, our
anatomy teacher, put a
chart of the body’s
internal organs on the
screen.
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
Which of the following words is
the opposite of internal?
a. extraneous
b. external
c. extended
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
Relapse is used to describe falling back into a
situation or condition.
Leo can’t compete
in the swim meet
because he had a
relapse of the flu.
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
Dr. Russo said the relapse was a sign that Lucky’s
infection was still active because _____
. . . the dog’s condition
began to deteriorate again.
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
Being induced, or persuaded, means “feeling
influenced to do or think something.”
Induced by her friends, Priya
agreed to go to soccer camp.
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
Which person looks as though she could be
induced to get on stage and perform?
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
Potent is another word for strong, powerful,
compelling, or effective.
Miranda’s potent
vocals overshadowed
the entire choir.
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
Potent is the opposite of
weak
feeble
puny
frail
fragile
delicate
flimsy
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
The word clamoring means “to demand something
noisily or desperately.”
The volunteers, now
clamoring for
something to eat, had
finished a hard day’s
work.
Typhoid Fever
Vocabulary
Which of the physical senses does the verb
clamoring most affect?
[End of Section]
The End