The Parent Plan Skills list tells students to "adapt spoken language such as word choice, diction, and usage to the audience, purpose, and occasion" and to "assess how language choice and delivery affect the tone of the message," which asks students to alter and evaluate register. The Performance rubric asks that "words were easy to understand" and that "tone and volume were appropriate for each poem," prompting students to make language/delivery choices for different poems. Part 3 directs students to decide the "feel" of each poem (fast-paced, slow, high-pitched, etc.) and practice how to read them aloud, which requires selecting appropriate diction and register for performance.

Students are prompted to compare Nadia's voice with Noah's voice in the Introducing the Lesson section and to "briefly discuss some differences between Nadia's voice and Noah's voice." Activity 2 (Voice) asks students to write three interesting things they notice or learn about Nadia once they hear her story written in her voice and to fill in Nadia's storyline. The Parent Plan describes specific language features of Noah's voice (use of the word "fact," advanced vocabulary, frustrated tone), which students can use as points of comparison.

Students are asked to translate figures of speech drawn from the stories (e.g., "climbin' a greased pole...," "happy as a jay bird...," "as sour as week old buttermilk") and to list three figures of speech they have heard in their family or community and use them in context. The materials note that figures of speech often reflect a person's culture and may not be easily understood by people of a different culture. Students read Brer Rabbit stories that use regional forms (e.g., the form "Brer") and are prompted to discuss cultural roots of the tales.

Students read and analyze excerpts that include nonstandard dialect (e.g., the quoted line: "I knew a Phill-eep who fresh out of St. Jawn, but an outrageous man he was"). The Skills list asks students to "identify and interpret authors' word choices" and to "consider the ways language and visuals bring characters to life," which directs attention to how characters speak. Vocabulary and context activities require students to read dialogue and word usage in context, exposing them to different speech patterns.

The lesson explicitly defines dialect in the "Things to Know" section and states that "Timothy's dialect is different from Phillip's voice." Activity 3, "Timothy's Voice," asks students to translate four quoted phrases written in Timothy's dialect and provides lines for written translations. The parent answer key and guidance (e.g., reading dialogue aloud, noting apostrophes stand for missing consonants) give concrete examples and modeling for interpreting dialect.

Students read or listen to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and are encouraged to read part of it aloud to hear how it sounds. Students prepare and practice a formal eulogy, with explicit directions to "speak formally (using good grammar and avoiding slang)" and rubric criteria assessing rehearsal sound, clarity, and emphasis. The lesson asks students to present orally and to consider voice, tone, and phrasing when delivering their eulogy.

Students read Chapters 13–15 of A House of Tailors and are prompted in the discussion questions to consider Dina speaking "half German and half English." A parent-note explicitly explains that when people are becoming fluent they often combine words from their native language and the language they are learning, giving an explicit reason for the mixed speech. The materials ask students to discuss this behavior with guiding questions, so students engage with an example of language variety in the text.

The RAFT activity asks students to "pretend that you are an ornithologist... and give a short presentation about falcons to a group of second grade students," which requires tailoring language to a younger audience. The Parent Plan lists the skill "Make oral and written presentations using visual aids with an awareness of purpose and audience," explicitly calling attention to audience-aware language use. The presentation options (speech + poster/clay/PowerPoint) require students to choose an appropriate register and vocabulary for second graders.

Students work with a focused idioms activity where they read idioms used in the text and match each idiom to its meaning. The Parent Plan and activities instruct students to "identify how language usages (e.g., sayings and expressions) reflect regions and cultures" and to "discuss how the idioms reflect the culture and the times." The materials explicitly note that the idioms "were used by the author to reflect the culture and speech of the West."

Students read an excerpt of the Emancipation Proclamation and are told that the writing is hard to understand because of the "language of the day" and the formal/legal register of the document. Students are asked to underline three sentences or sentence parts they think are most important, copy them into their journal, and explain their significance. The Parent Plan explicitly directs an adult to read the Proclamation with the child and discuss the document's complex language.