Mood and Tone Lesson Plan: Craft and Structure

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Mood and Tone Lesson Plan. 

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Mood and Tone, and supports the standard of analyzing the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Display an image of a moody setting, like this:

Prompt students by asking:

• How does the setting make you feel?
• What details about it make you feel that way?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

• Read the description on the Mood and Tone topic page.
• Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
• Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the following articles: “Arts and Entertainment” or “Theory” Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.
  

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign Mood and Tone Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about mood and tone while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

• Make-a-Movie: Produce a trailer for a movie that uses imagery, sounds, and language to convey mood and tone. Challenge a classmate to determine your trailer’s mood and tone. 
• Make-a-Map: Create a concept map identifying the mood and tone of a scene in a book. Cite words and details that support this mood and tone. 
• Creative Coding: Code a museum with artifacts that work together to convey a specific mood or tone. 

More to Explore  

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of mood and tone with these topics: Setting, Show, Not Tell, and Similes and Metaphors.

Teacher Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas. 
• Learning Activities Modifications: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.