13

I went to my classroom today to begin to get ready for the new school year~even after twenty years I still feel a tingle of excitement as each year begins. It's like I'm getting a fresh start~a chance to "do it better" this time. I like the whole ritual of moving desks and bookcases, then filling those bookcases up in anticipation of a new group of students reading them. As I left the classroom, I turned for one last look~proud of my handy work. 

When teachers decorate and arrange their classrooms at the beginning of the school year, they're creating a mood for the students. You want your students' (along with their parents) impression of your classroom to be one where learning is taken seriously, but it's okay to be a seventh grader. One teacher described her classroom as a "safe haven"~I like that idea.

When teaching mood in literature, there are three basic learning targets that you (and your students) need to keep in mind: (1) to identify mood in stories, (2) to analyze how setting helps to create mood, and (3) to recognize the effect of imagery on mood. 

Remember to tell your students that mood is the overall feeling that you get from a story~delighted, angry, or calm. You can begin this second part of the lesson with a writing assignment: Write about a time when you were _____. Students decide on what mood would go into the blank and then respond to the prompt in their journal.

You can also have students write a response to photographs. Find several photos of people with different expressions; then, students can create events or situations for these people that caused them to have that specific expression.

Just like the previous lesson, "Mood and Style in Literature", you will want to share multiple examples of text and have them identify the mood in each passage.

Here is a passage from O. Henry's "After Twenty Years":

The policemen on the beat moved up the avenue impressively. The impressiveness was habitual and not for show, for spectators were few. The time was barely ten o'clock at night, but chilly gusts of wind with a taste of rain in them had well nigh depeopled the streets.

Here is an activity that I found on-line that explains more about mood and tone; the students read several passages and then write about the mood in each.
Another activity is to have several passages typed up on cards and different locations in the classroom labeled with different "moods". Students read the passage on their card, then go stand near the label that they think best exemplifies the mood of the passage. As an extension, have students return to their journals and explain why they feel that the passage is that mood. If you need some mood words, try here.
Here is an example where describing the setting helps to define the mood: 

I gazed at the crumbling staircase that twisted and spiraled out of sight. My stomach knotted as I put my foot on the bottom step. The step protested with a loud squeak startling me. Although the monstrous chandelier occasionally caught what light came in through the broken windows, the stairs were dark and unwelcoming. 

As mood in literature is difficult for students to learn to identify (it's also difficult to teach for us), be prepared to have to reteach this concept throughout your unit on mood, tone, and style.

Today's poem illustrates mood with its rhythm and repetition:

One Way Ticket

by Langston Hughes, 1949

I pick up my life

And take it with me

And I put it down in

Chicago, Detroit,

Buffalo, Scranton,

Any place that is

North and East~

And not Dixie.

I pick up my life

And take it on the train

To Los Angeles, Bakersfield,

Seattle, Oakland, Salt Lake,

Any place that is 

North and West~

But not South.

I am fed up

With Jim Crow laws,

People who are cruel

And afraid.

Who lynch and run,

Who are scared of me

And me of them.

I pick up my life

And take it away

On a one-way ticket~

Gone up North,

Gone out West,

Gone!