Salem Possessed Lesson Plan

In Chapter 7, the authors discuss Samuel Parris’s use of language in detail. What patterns do they notice in Parris’s sermons? Do you notice any comparable patterns in the authors’ own use of language? What other themes, introduced by the authors in today’s reading, might be relevant to our analysis of the authors’ own style and craft?

Students might point to Parris’s use of imagery, which the authors track over several sermons (for instance when they note that, on October 23, he “abruptly drop[s[ his martial imagery” and gives a sermon “suffused with sensual imagery” including “Let me see, let me feel, let me sense thy love”). Or his use of the adjectives “famous”, “...