Mood & Atmosphere

M&A

Activities

Tasks for building & showing understanding​​

The learning activities about each text and language feature will help students complete three main tasks in the latter part of the unit:​

  1. Creative writing task​
  2. Digital Learning Object task:Students will select a text and teach other students how it uses language features to create a strong sense of mood and atmosphere​
  3. Synthesis task:Students will compare how two or more different texts use language to create mood and atmosphere. For example, by completing a synthesis table or writing a synthesis essay.

BEFORE engaging students in literacy analysis:​​​​

  • Enjoy the text as it was meant to be enjoyed!​
  • Emphasise the text as a whole and readers’ affective response to the text, characters, ideas and settings​
  • First explore “what it made you feel” and only then “how” it made you feel that way​
  • Treat identification of a language feature as a tool to understand the effects – not as an end in itself

Key learning activities​​​​

  • Explicit teaching of new language features​
  • Supported opportunities to reinforce students’ knowledge of language features and their effects e.g. mix and match activities, clines​
  • Opportunities to explore and talk about how authors use these language features in a range of different texts (close reading)​
  • Opportunities to practice using these language features in their own creative writing​

AND​

  • Maintaining normal good practices e.g. Guided Reading, activating and building students’ prior knowledge before reading​
  • Within a Learn-Create-Share model​

A supported writing activity​​​​​

Teacher asks students to write down the name of a mood or feeling.​
After 30 seconds or so, ask them to write down a place they associate with that mood.​
Then repeat for a colour that symbolises or suits that mood.​
Then repeat for the other “ingredients” on the next slide​

Creating mood example​​​​​​

Step 1

  • Emotion or mood​
  • Place​
  • A way of walking (adverb)​
  • Colour​
  • Sound​
  • Smell​
  • Touch​
  • Time of day​
  • Weather​

Step 2

  • Students then write a short moody story that uses all the “ingredients” they have recorded.​
  • They can use the writing frame on the next slide if they like, or they can break out on their own.

It was……….…… (time of day ) when I walked …….ly (adverb) to the ….……………. (place).  It was a …………..(weather) day. The sunglasses I was wearing made everything look …….….. (colour) and I felt a …….. (touch) sensation on my skin.  There was a strong smell of ….…………(smell).  In the distance I heard  …..…….(sound).

Step 3

  • Students then take turns to share their stories and others guess what kind of mood is evoked​
  • After editing further these student texts can be used as “scaffolding texts” to help students’ close reading for mood and atmosphere.​

Viewing activity​​​​​​​

View this clip and consider what mood/ atmosphere is created​.

Discussion

Five ways the text created a strong sense of mood and atmosphere were:

Compare & contrast

Language features​

Sensory story​

Film clip​

Similarities & differences​

Colour​

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Movement​

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Pace​

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Sound​

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Vocabulary Jumble

adjectives​

olfactory imagery​

lighting​

denotation ​

adverbs​

pensive​

repetition ​

light-hearted​

concrete nouns​

juxtaposition ​

pathetic fallacy​

connotation​

simile​

pace​

joyful​

abstract nouns​

metaphor​

visual imagery​

gustatory imagery​

emotive language​

personification​

foreboding  ​

symbolism​

contrast​

colour​

melancholic​

setting​

​​

Traffic Light Activity​​​​​​​

Green: all words you are very confident you know the meaning of​
Orange: words you have seen before but are a little unsure about their meaning​
Red: words that are completely new to you​

    Resource: Exploring language​​​​​​​​

    https://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Planning-for-my-students-needs/Exploring-language​

      Close Reading Example

      The Promise​

      The colours in the bunker were muted, fading to grey in the shadows. Zadie tried to imagine the world outside. She pictured the sun, low and angry in a purple, ruined sky. Or perhaps it was night, the stars feeble in the haze. There was no way of keeping time, of knowing how many days had passed. Nick claimed it had been two weeks, based on the length of his stubble; he had been clean-shaven on the morning it happened. The last phone battery had gone dead on day five. None of them wore watches.​

      Zadie felt the cold reaching out like fingers from the thick walls. The concrete that had shielded them from the blast now threatened to freeze them. The lamp fizzled and sputtered overhead. ​

        Task​​​​​​​​

        Each group has been allocated one aspect of language:  colour imagery, lighting, tactile imagery, concrete nouns, metaphorical language, modal verbs.​
        Analyse how the author uses that aspect of language to create a strong sense of mood and atmosphere.​

          Example​​​​​​​​

          The author uses language that reinforces a strong sense of uncertainty e.g.​

          • “Tried to imagine”​
          • “Perhaps it was night”​
          • “Nick claimed it had been two weeks”​
          • “No way of keeping time”​
          • “Guessing”​
          • “Estimating”
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