"During twenty-eight years of secondary English teaching, I have become increasingly aware of the complexity and importance of voice in literature. Understanding voice gives students an appreciation for the richness of language and a deeper understanding of literature. Through voice we come to know authors; by exploring voice, we learn to wield language."

Next time you're meeting with your writer's group or posting on a writers' forum, ask the question, What is voice? (Well, only if you have time and patience, that is.) What appears to be a simple question is actually a complex issue, made even more so by the fervor with which each person defends his/her definition of "voice."

In VOICE LESSONS Nancy Dean defines voice in a very simple, yet clear manner as "the fingerprint of a person's language." She then proactively explores voice for another 110 pages using a workbook format. This is not some esoteric, narrative discussion; this is pen-meets-the-page learning, and it's highly effective. Don't be fooled by the small title in the corner of the front cover that states "for high school teachers." These lessons are valuable for all writers, whether high school students, graduate students of comparative literature, or proficient, published authors. By the time you complete even two or three of the lessons, you begin to feel voice, hear it, sense it. As she says, "...by exploring voice, we learn to wield language."

VOICE LESSONS focuses on the five elements of voice-diction, detail, imagery, syntax, and tone. In her introduction, Dean explains briefly the role of each of these elements, but the focus of the book is the experiencing of these elements, i.e., the discussions and hands-on exercises. The workbook is well organized: divided into five sections (one for each element of voice) of 20 lessons each, which do not need to be studied sequentially. Indeed, she recommends doing five lessons from a section, then doing five lessons from the next section, and in that manner, rotating through all five sections. Each lesson starts with a quote from a well-known work of literature, which becomes the focus of two discussion questions. The lesson ends with an exercise, where you write your own material using the precepts from the discussions. Do not fear: each lesson includes plenty of writing space for your work.

For example, in the first section "Diction," Dean uses the following quote from Barbara Kingsolver's "High Tide in Tucson": Art is the antidote that can call us back from the edge of numbness, restoring the ability to feel for another. The first discussion question asks the student to determine what Kingsolver implies about the inability to feel for one another through her use of the word "antidote." [Stop and think about that for a moment! What does Kingsolver imply about the modern world's inability to feel for one another through her use of the term "antidote?"] The second discussion question asks us to determine the effect on the meaning of the sentence if we were to change "antidote" to "gift." The hands-on exercise asks the student to develop a list of medical terms, then to write a sentence using a medical term to characterize art. This includes explaining the effect of the medical term on the meaning of the sentence.

One other example, but this time from the section on "Detail." From Thomas Babington Macaulay's "Samuel Johnson": Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his veins swelled, and the moisture broke out on his forehead. The two discussion questions? First, to explain the effect of the details-the spoiled hare, the rancid butter, the swollen veins, the sweaty forehead-on the reader, and second, to explain how the effect of the sentence changes had Macaulay ended it after "himself." The exercise was as fun as it was gross-or should I say engrossing? To write a sentence describing someone with disgusting eating habits. She asks that the student write one correct sentence with at last three vivid details. [Try it! No, seriously!]*

Most impressive was Nancy Dean's knack for choosing definitive quotes from literature and poetry, and then creating discussion questions and exercises that truly expand the student's understanding of voice. This is no mean feat given the vast canon of literature available to readers.

DISCOVERING VOICE, although published six years after VOICE LESSONS, can be considered the prequel, since it's designed for middle and early high school students. The organization is the same, although as you would expect, she spends a bit more time helping define and uncover the role of voice in writing. The same five sections and lesson format applies to this workbook, and the samples from literature are well chosen to intrigue the students and to expand their experience with literature.

Although the workbooks are written for the classroom, including a "Note to the Teacher," they are valuable to all those who seek to strengthen their writing. When used as part of a writer's group, they create an excellent discussion forum for exploring ideas in literature and voice; when used by the individual, they create contemplation and self-evaluation.

As Nancy Dean says: "Through voice we come to know authors; by exploring voice, we learn to wield language."

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*My "disgusting eating habit" sentence? We no longer ate as a family, for in his mouth he would shovel vegetables on top of barely-chewed meat and laugh loudly, mouth agape and tongue working, and spittle would slide through his beard and harden into crusty remnants of meals uncounted. Gross, huh? But without her prompt, I would have never explored this type of description. Almost makes me want to write a story about this family. Hmmmmm.......