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7th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 2 of 13

Tone & Mood

How writing feels and sounds

What your child practices

Telling the writer's attitude (tone) apart from the reader's feeling (mood), and seeing how word choice and connotation shape both.

Alaska content standards learning standard: RL.7.4; L.7.5 · tone and mood

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Tone is the writer’s attitude toward the subject: enthusiastic, nostalgic, objective, sarcastic.
  2. Mood is the feeling the reader gets: tense, peaceful, gloomy, cheerful.
  3. Look at word choice and connotation. Words like creaked and shadows build a tense mood.

Example: “I still remember those summer evenings at the lake. Those were the best days.” What is the tone? The writer is looking back fondly at the past. Warm longing for the past is nostalgia. Answer: Nostalgic

Tone & Mood in Alaska

In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 2 of 13 in 7th grade English Language Arts, after Literary Devices and before Persuasive Power.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Sort the words by connotation. Does each word sound positive or negative?

    Sort into: 👍 Positive · 👎 Negative

    • 🐂stubborn
    • 🎯determined
    • 😤arrogant
    • 🔍curious
    • 🌱youthful
    • 👃nosy

  2. Question 2

    Which description of the same person sounds the most admiring?

    • Lena is determined and never gives up on an idea.
    • Lena is pushy about her ideas.
    • Lena is stubborn and never lets go of an idea.
    • Lena is obsessed with her own ideas.

  3. Question 3

    A story describes a long, hard winter. Which final sentence would leave readers feeling most hopeful?

    • Everyone stayed inside, staring at the gray sky.
    • The snow kept falling, and no one remembered what spring looked like.
    • The furnace rattled once and went silent.
    • On the windowsill, the first green shoot pushed up through the soil.

  4. Question 4

    Which word best describes the writer's tone?

    Oh, wonderful. The bus is late again. I just love standing in the rain for twenty minutes.

    • Joyful
    • Fearful
    • Sincere
    • Sarcastic

  5. Question 5

    Which word best describes the mood of this passage?

    The lake was still. A loon called once across the water, and the last light of evening turned the clouds pink.

    • Frantic
    • Angry
    • Peaceful
    • Silly

  6. Question 6

    Which word best describes the writer's tone?

    I still remember the summer we built the treehouse: the long afternoons, the sticky lemonade, the feeling that summer would never end. I miss those days.

    • Angry
    • Sarcastic
    • Nostalgic
    • Fearful

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