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Elizabeth Gilbert talks about Creative Genius on TED Talks.

What is "creative genius"? Do you have that illusive ability to be creative? What loaded questions these are for the average writer. Perhaps even more so for the average middle school writer. Never have a I ever said about a student, "Wow! This kid is a creative genius!". Now, I've had students who were talented artists and exceptional writers~but, their talents were always within the boundaries of average middle school genius. But then again, I teach regular ed language arts not the gifted.

What does this have to do with mood and style? Mood, imagery, tone, style~that blend of spices that an author uses to make you want to tear through a story; it makes you want to stay up late hungrily turning the pages; you wake up craving those words that set your senses reeling. Does it take a creative genius to create that need in you or has the storyteller seemed to have found the creative genius in himself that we all have?

When teaching mood, imagery, tone, and style, you must provide plenty of examples. Point out to your students that mood can be described as the way that the author makes you feel. I like to share this passage from "Rain, Rain, Go Away" by Isaac Asimov~students identify those words that reveal an eerie setting and in turn create an eerie mood.

A wind had spring up, driving the dust of the weeks-dry road before it, when they entered the street on which they lived, and the leaves rustled ominously. Lightning flickered.

*I encourage you to share the entire story with students as it lends itself to so many different lessons.

Here is another passage that will help students identify mood and style in a story. This passage comes from the YA novel Taking Sides by Gary Soto.

When he made a fist, his forearm tightened with muscles. His stomach was muscle, his legs muscle. His face was brown, like coffee laced with cream, and his hair black as a chunk of asphalt.

You could also read chapter 3 of Lord of the Flies aloud~it has fantastic word choice that really adds to the mood (I remember being so disturbed after reading this in high school).

Since I teach two ninety minute block classes (and one class of writing), I always try to incorporate my writing workshop into every literature lesson. Here's a short (and fairly painless for the students) writing lesson that ties directly into the idea of creating mood in a story.

• In their journal, students will brainstorm a list of moods that you might feel on any given day: lonely, sad, happy, excited, anxious.
• Now list nouns~people or animals work best~that you associate with this mood (for our purposes, I have chosen the mood "lonely"): astronaut, dog at the pound, a lost child.
• Next, have the students list some adjectives that could modify their nouns and create an image that creates the mood: over-aged, small, dirty.
• Now list some verbs that illustrate your mood: cry, weep, wander, whisper.
• Now list some adverbs that illustrate your chosen mood and can go with your verb choices: inconsolably, forlornly, silently.
• After the students have an opportunity to brainstorm their word lists, have them create sentences (or short paragraphs) that create the mood that they're looking for. The over-aged astronaut whispered silently to his crew that this was his last trip as they entered the black hole.

I'm going to finish today's blog with a poem that creates a sense of different moods with each stanza: 

A Summer Mood

BUT wait. Let each by each the days pass by,
One faded and one blown like summer flowers;
What need of hope, with summer in the sky?
What of regret, with all fair morrows ours?
If yesterday be gone,No reck, 'twas not alone,
To-morrow will have just so sweet long hours.
But yet to-day is sweetest till 'tis flown.

But wait. Let summer day be changed from day,
Like following surges of the ebb and flow;
And flow brings breath of saltness and blithe spray,
And ebb long music of seas plashing low.
The waves, stolen out of reach
,Have no farewell for speech;
Next tide will roll as swift, as rippling go.
And yet 'tis now that's best along the beach.

Ah wait. The while we linger our lives live,
Our summer ripens purpose through our dreams;
Flower-petals fallen leave a seed to thrive,
Spent tides heap treasures from the deep sea streams;
Now drifts by unaware,
And Afterwards is heir;
To-morrow wins the wealth of yester gleams.
Yet 'tis to-day that summer makes most fair. 

Augusta Davies Webster