What's In a Word? Setting the Mood.
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 Nevada Objective(s): 4.6 The student will recognize that an author chooses words with specific connotations to create mood. |
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 This lesson will take place in the classroom. Time - 2 days Grouping / Interaction(s): Small group brainstorming followed by direct instruction Whole group brainstorming followed by direct instruction Small group independent practice followed by individual independent practice |
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 Day 1 1. Pass out cards with mood words to groups. Each group should develop a brief skit where the characters and setting reflect the mood. Groups present their skits. Other students should guess what mood is being conveyed and what clues they used. 2. Students will be given a list of scenarios (such as going to Wet-N-Wild, a relative visiting, moving to a new environment) and write a word for each that describes how they felt or might feel in that situation. 3. From the student responses, generate a master list of mood words. 4. Discuss why these words were chosen and derive a definition of mood. (The motion created in the reader by a piece of writing. A writer creates a mood by using concrete details.) Day 2 1. Review the definition of mood derived in previous activities. 2. Read first two paragraphs of A Wrinkle in Time orally and identify words that set mood. Continue this activity with several other passages from a variety of literature. 3. Use one passage to demonstrate creation of a graphic organizer. 4. Have small groups generate a graphic organizer for another passage. Share and discuss organizers. 5. Students work independently to generate a graphic organizer of another passage. From "The Sneetches" by Dr. Seuss "Then, with snoots in the air, they paraded about And they opened their beaks and they let out a shout, "We know who is who! Now there isn't a doubt The best kind of Sneetches are Sneetches without!" From Call of the Wild by Jack London (Chapter 3) "At the end of this day they made a bleak and miserable camp on the short of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like a white-hot knife, and darkness, had forced them to grope for a camping place. They could hardly have fared worse. At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois were compelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself. The tent they had discarded at Dyea in order to travel light. A few sticks of driftwood furnished them with a fire that thawed down the ice and left them to eat supper in the dark." From "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury "It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives." |
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Students will read a selection and generate a graphic organizer showing words related to character, setting, and other story elements that set the mood. |
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 Tools / Materials 1. Mood words on cards 2. List of scenarios 3. Copies of literary passages Technology Component(s): None |
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