Precise Terms for Expressing Emotion

[Anna J. Small Roseboro]

It's Spring and you're entering the final stretch, coaching as many students as possible to meet curriculum standards by the end of the school year.  Now that you've introduced your students to the concepts of tone and mood, you probably are finding they struggle trying to find just the right word  to express their observations about the author's tone in piece of writing, that of the director in film,  or even the student's own  personal response to those works? 

Your middle school students probably can explain that tone and mood refer to the emotional aspect of literature and/or media and in their own words, show they know

Tone is the author's attitude toward the topic/subject of the book, article, poem or movie

Mood is my (the reader's) emotional response to the topic/subject of the book, article, poem or movie. I know how the writer/director makes me feel.

You probably have begun to require that they include an qualifying term in the thesis statement when they write about literature or media.  Once they've selected the adjective or adverb that most precisely expresses their understanding that tone refers to emotion expressed by the writer/director and mood expresses emotion experienced by the reader/viewer, students wonder,  "Now what? "

Urge them to find words, phrases, images, and incidents from the beginning, middle and end of the work that illustrate or explain the term they've chosen to express their observation or response.

Here's a list of terms my students found helpful.  I've had it so long, I don't recall the source.  But consider this my "thank you" to whoever pulled this list together.

EMOTION WORDS to express TONE and MOOD

Enjoy!