Name: ____________________________________________________
Guided Style Analysis: Using Diction and Details
“Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan
Prompt:
The following passage was written by contemporary novelist Amy Tan. In it, she recounts an
experience from her youth. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-organized paragraph,
analyze how Tan uses diction and details to relate how this experience affected her view of her
Chinese heritage.
Activity One: Responding to the Prompt (Day 1)
Before you read the passage, it is important that you understand the task of the prompt and think about
what you already know about the topic. Read each sentence of the prompt separately and discuss the
questions that go with each sentence.
1. The following passage was written by contemporary novelist Amy Tan. Why is it important
that you know that the author is “contemporary” (or living today)?
2. In it, she retells an experience from her youth.
 Is this passage fiction or nonfiction?

How do you know?

How would a person’s perspective about a childhood experience change as he or she
becomes an adult?
3. Read the passage carefully. What does reading carefully (or close reading) require the reader to
do?
4. Then, in a well-organized paragraph, analyze how Tan uses diction and details to relate how
this experience affected her view of her Chinese heritage.
 What does it mean to analyze?

What is diction?

What are details in a text?

Why would a person be proud or ashamed of his or her heritage?
*Activity Two will be the copy from LTF—copy of the story.
Activity Three: Analyzing Details (Day 2)
Re-read paragraphs 1 and 2 of the original text.
5. The prompt asks you to analyze how the author’s experience taught her a lesson about being
proud of her Chinese heritage. So as you read, you should have been paying attention to the details
about how the author feels separate or different. The chart below lists some details from these
two paragraphs. Fill out the remaining boxes of the chart to analyze how these details reveal the
author’s feelings.
Textual Evidence
Context: This detail describes… Commentary: This detail
reveals that the author…
“He was not Chinese, but as white the boy that the author has a
feels different from the boy
as Mary in the manger.”
crush on
because their skins are
different colors.
“our shabby Chinese Christmas”
“noisy Chinese relatives who
lacked proper American
manners”
“not a roasted turkey and sweet
potatoes but Chinese food”
Through her descriptions of ________________________________________________________________________________________,
the author reveals that she feels ___________________________________________________________________________________.
Re-read paragraphs 3 and 4 of the original text.
6. In paragraph 3, underline the details of the food that the author’s mother is serving for Christmas
dinner.
7. Is this food a typical American Christmas dinner?
8. How does this dinner make the author feel (paragraph 4)?
How do you know?
9. Fill in the blanks to analyze the effect of the details in these paragraphs.
Amy Tan includes very specific details about the dinner, such as _______________________________________________,
________________________________________________________, and ___________________________________________________________
because she wants to emphasize ___________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
Re-read paragraphs 5 and 6 of the original text.
10. Underline the details in paragraphs 5 and 6 that show the differences between how the author’s
relatives behave and typical “American” behavior.
11. How does the author feel about this behavior?
12. Quote the lines from the text that defend your answer:
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Paragraph _____)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Paragraph _____)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Paragraph _____)
Re-read paragraph 7 of the original text.
13. In paragraph 7, what advice does Tan’s mother give her about her heritage?
Re-read paragraph 8 of the original text.
14. What was the author’s mother reminding Amy of when she prepared all Amy’s favorite foods for
that dinner with the minister’s family?
Activity Four: Analyzing Diction (Day 3)
15. Go back to the paragraphs and circle examples of connotative diction and then fill in the chart
below, paying close attention to patterns of diction:
Diction (emotionally loaded
words)
disappointment
Other words from the passage
that support the same
commentary:
Context: The author is
describing…
how she believes Robert will
feel when he doesn’t get a
traditional Christmas dinner.
both how she feels and how she
believes the minister’s family
will feel at Christmas dinner.
Commentary: This diction
reveals…
that the author already believes
that the differences between
her family and the minister’s
family will cause negative
feelings.
Same as above
cried, strange, appalling, despair,
stunned
shabby
Other words from the passage
that support the same
commentary:
Same as above
Look back at the previous activities and draw some conclusions about how Tan uses language (diction
and details) to reveal how this experience affected her view of her heritage. Then fill in the blanks to
complete a thesis statement for the paragraph.
In the passage “Fish Cheeks” written by Amy Tan the author uses ________________________________________ and
______________________________________________ to reveal that an embarrassing experience in her youth changed
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ by
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
*Day 4 is composing paragraph using textual evidence.