Loving your child's mind: Connotations and story telling
A teacher helps students Alana and Magat explore how words carry emotional weight beyond their dictionary meanings. They discuss how choosing words strategically shapes a reader's feelings, then Magat shares a French story for Alana to interpret, showing how language choices drive storytelling.
Chapters
Well, last week Alana and I talked about a couple of things. One of them, we started talking about annotative or denotative language versus connotative, which are complicated words. Do you remember those words at all, Alana?
Yes, I do.
Can you say, explain to Megha what denotative means and connotative means?
Yes, if my memory is correct, denotative means like the exact meaning that you, that you might find in a dictionary, and connotative means like kind of flowing. You can say, or it doesn't have to be exact, but it's a meaning.
Can you say more about connotative?
Yeah, well, it doesn't have to be exact like in— like you might find in a dictionary. It could be— it could be just you saying it, not someone else writing it down and then you saying it.
Okay, um, all true. I'm going to help a little bit if I may. I would say connotative meaning means the emotional resonance or overtones of a word. Does that make sense?
Yes.
So I'll say resonance. So the idea is that every word, it has both its literal or dictionary meaning, but it also has kind of emotional connotations. That's what we say, emotional connotations. So And typically we could say those connotations are positive or negative. So I think you gave some examples last week, Alana, of words. What are some words that have positive connotations?
A word that probably has all— this is kind of simple, but a word that probably has all positive connotations are is happy, joyful.
Absolutely, those are very— those words have very positive emotional connotations. Um, how about dog? Would you say dog is positive or negative?
I think it could be both because someone can call you a dirty dog or something, and then you could also have a dog that you really don't like or that you really like.
Actually, that's a great example. Does it make sense that words have emotional meanings in addition to the literal dictionary meaning?
Yes.
And I actually like your example, Alana, of dog. I hadn't thought of it. I usually think of dog as positive, but that's because I like dogs. But what I had not thought of was that when a human being calls another person a dog, that's usually an insult. And so in that case, dog has a negative meaning. So that's a really great example. Exactly the same word, D-O-G, can be positive, like, oh, what a cute little puppy dog, or it can be very negative. If a person calls another person, you know, you dirty dog, that's probably meant as a negative thing. Um, any other examples of words that have both positive and negative connotations?
Running could probably have both. You could be running from a bully or something, or running to the ocean because you really want to go in it, running a cross-country race or track.
Yep, so running could be positive or negative depending on the context in which it takes place. Um, how about a word like chair? Is chair positive, negative, or neutral?
I think positive.
Why positive, Maga?
Yeah, you said chair, right? Because, because chair, we, we have to sit down in here and everyone, when you are tired, tired, or you, you are tired, you want to sit down, and if you have a chair, you are happy. And I don't think it have a negative.
No, that makes sense to me. The chair in general, I would think chair is positive, and especially if you're tired, you want to sit down in a chair. Can we think of a situation in which chair might be negative?
If someone is throwing a chair at you and they're telling you to sit down, sit down, but you don't want to.
Okay, so maybe it depends on the situation for lots of words. That, um, although let's see, I guess going back, I was thinking, does it always depend on the situation? Or going back to your first example, Alana, happy and joyful are pretty much always positive no matter what. Is that accurate?
Yes.
Um, how about sickness? Is sickness always negative, or could sickness ever be positive?
Mm, it's kind of always negative for me, but maybe if someone you didn't like was like, maybe if you're in school and someone you didn't like was sick so they couldn't come to school, that would be kind of positive.
So Alana has a mean streak, does she? Little bit. But I agree, usually sickness seems pretty negative. How about hungry? Could hungry be positive or is hungry always negative? Gomagath.
I think it can be positive and sometimes negative.
What's an example where hungry would be positive?
It can be, as I said, it can be positive, sometimes negative.
But give an example when it can be positive. What's an example?
An example.
So we run, we run, we run. We are tired and we worked all the day. After, we have hungry and we want to eat.
Okay, so maybe hungry is positive. And I would say, I think what you're getting at is, I think food tastes much better when we're hungry. So if we're tired and hungry, maybe the— and we get to eat, maybe being hungry makes us happier about the food. Is that accurate? Is that how it's positive?
Yes.
What do you think, Alana? Do you think that hungry can be positive if it makes you appreciate food better?
Yes.
Okay, okay. Um, so one of the things then— so we talked about this last week, positive and connotation and denotation, and then positive and negative connotation. The other thing we talked about is Alana is writing a story. Um, is this your third story? Is that correct, Alana?
Yes.
All right. Have you written stories, Magat?
What?
Have you written stories?
Yes, I read it.
Okay, excellent. Because I was talking about to Alana about when you write stories, do you think about when— whether the words have positive or negative connotations to your reader? That is, when you're writing the story, do you think about your reader And do you think about how the words, what the words will mean to your readers? And Alán, in my senses you said no, that you had not thought about that. Is that correct?
Yes. This while I was writing the story, I actually didn't really think of that, but I think that at least some of my writing might like interject with the reader's emotions.
How would, how would it change your writing if you thought about the emotional impact of your words used, would it change your writing or not at all?
I think that it would change at least a little bit because I'm using more emotion— not emotional, but I might be using better words, or I might be writing better because I'm actually— the words are interacting with the reader.
Do you ever think about how your reader might feel when he or she is reading your story?
Sometimes, but not all the time.
Do you want your readers to like your stories, to be excited by your stories? Yes. I was going to say, do you ever want your reader to be bored by your stories?
Who does?
I would agree. That's what I was saying. Presumably, you don't want your readers to be bored by your stories. You want some kind of positive feeling. Well, how about sadness? Do you ever want your readers to feel sad during part of the story?
Sometimes there's probably gonna be a part there because I mean, I still want them to be— I mean, I noticed that some books that I read make me sad and I really want to read more and I want that to happen with my books.
Do you read books where the whole book makes you feel sad or just the ending of the book or just the middle of the book?
Just some parts of the book, like maybe someone dies or yeah, that's where someone did something. Mm-hmm.
Magat, do you ever read books that make you feel sad?
Yeah, sometimes it's feeling very sad.
Do you prefer books that make you feel happy or books that make you feel sad or both?
Uh, happy and sad, both.
Both. Um, sometimes I describe things like an emotional roller coaster. You know, roller coasters, people go up and down and up and down, and so an emotional roller coaster, what I mean by that is while you're reading the book, sometimes your emotions go up and then something bad happens, they go down, and then something good happens, they go up, something bad happens, they go down. Do you like books that have an emotional roller coaster?
No.
No? You just want a little bit of sadness and a little bit of happiness?
No, I want a lot of happiness and a little bit of sad.
Okay, a lot of happiness and a little bit of sadness. How about you, Alana? Emotional roller coaster, or a lot of sadness, or a lot of happiness, a little sadness?
I like an emotional roller coaster because it really keeps me interested and Like if, yeah, I love it when books just make my stomach and my mind go up and down.
Can you think of a specific book that gave you an emotional rollercoaster experience?
I think you suggested this to me, but when I read Island of the Blue Dolphins, I actually felt really, really sad with, because this part where the girl's brother, Ramo, dies. And actually, my class is reading that as a read-aloud book right now, and when they all found out that he died, they all— they didn't want to read the book because he was the best character or something.
Did they stop the book? Are they going to keep reading?
We're going to keep reading.
And would you say that book also has plenty of happy parts?
Yes.
Um, so you would say that's an example of ups and downs and that makes it actually a better read for you?
Yes.
Mm-hmm. And with your stories, do you think of the stories that you write as mostly happy, mostly sad, or an emotional roller coaster, or something else?
I think my first one was mostly happy because it was my first one. And then my second one was kind of in the middle.
And how about you, Magat? Are your stories usually happy stories, sad stories, or up and down emotional roller coasters?
I think it is the most happy. When the reader, when the, when the some, somebody really read it, when he's, he, he happy, he want to know the the thing will pass. If it's fast, if the moment passed, you want to know the second part.
You want your reader to be happy and curious about what's going to happen next?
Yeah.
Okay, excellent. You need to send me one of your stories, okay, Magat?
Yeah.
Is it in French?
Yes, in French.
Okay, excellent, excellent. Well, at some point we'll do the Spanish and French again with Alana knowing Spanish and Magat knowing French. Actually, you could bring a story in French, Magat, and we could see if Alana can make sense of it with her knowledge of Spanish. That might be fun. But I think this is really interesting. I like the idea that you're both thinking about stories and thinking about the connotations of words and thinking about the emotions as you go up and down. But I want to keep this short, so I will let you go for the day. But wonderful to see you both.
Okay. Yes.
Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
