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English lesson plan · 7th grade (Year 8 in England) · 30 minutes

Tone and mood

Reading Comprehension

CCSS RL.7.4CCSS RI.8.4England: KS3 ReadingEngland: GCSE English Language Paper 1 Q2

Objective and success criteria

Students will: Tone and mood.

  • I can answer questions on today's skill on my own, without help.
  • I can explain each step and say why it works.
  • I can check my answer and spot a mistake.

Before and after

Needs first: Making inferences

Leads to: Analysing language for effect; Foreshadowing, flashback, cliffhanger and red herring; Explaining the effect of a technique (GCSE)

Materials: A short text or extract (one copy each), Highlighters, Question cards, Mini whiteboards, A short model text on the board, Printed student sheet (below).

Warm-up · 4 min

  • Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Making inferences). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
  • Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.
  1. Tariq stared at his test paper, then crumpled it up and pushed it to the bottom of his bag before his dad could see. What can you infer about the test? (Tariq's dad wrote the test. / The test was cancelled. / Tariq did not do well. / Tariq got full marks.) → Tariq did not do well.Prompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.
  2. Mr Patel glanced at the clock for the third time and tapped his foot. The bus was already twenty minutes late. How is Mr Patel feeling? (sleepy / relaxed / delighted / impatient) → impatientPrompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.
  3. When Grace walked in, her hair was dripping and her shoes squelched on the floor. What can you infer? (Grace has been reading. / It is raining outside. / Grace has been asleep. / It is a hot, sunny day.) → It is raining outside.Prompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.

Hook · 3 min

  • Read the first lines of a short text aloud and ask what students predict will happen and why.
  • Share the objective: Tone and mood. Read the success criteria together.

I do: model it · 7 min

  • Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
  • Example: The empty swing creaked in the wind. Grey rain fell on the abandoned playground, and the last leaves dropped from the trees. What is the mood?
  • Step 1: Tone is the writer's attitude; mood is the feeling created for the reader.
  • Step 2: So the answer is: melancholy (sad and lonely)
  • Answer: melancholy (sad and lonely)
  • Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

We do: guided practice · 6 min

  • Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
  • Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.
  1. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to every volunteer who gave up their weekends. You made this possible. What is the writer's tone? (grateful / bored / mocking / bitter) → gratefulPrompt: What feeling do the word choices create?
  2. Sunlight spilled across the meadow, bees hummed lazily among the clover, and somewhere a child was laughing. What is the mood? (threatening / angry / gloomy / peaceful and happy) → peaceful and happyPrompt: What feeling do the word choices create?

You do: independent practice · 7 min

  • Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
  • Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 6 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

Exit ticket · 3 min

  • Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.
  1. The empty swing creaked in the wind. Grey rain fell on the abandoned playground, and the last leaves dropped from the trees. What is the mood? (joyful / melancholy (sad and lonely) / playful / exciting) → melancholy (sad and lonely)Prompt: What feeling do the word choices create?
  2. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to every volunteer who gave up their weekends. You made this possible. What is the writer's tone? (mocking / bored / grateful / bitter) → gratefulPrompt: What feeling do the word choices create?

Watch out for

  • Answering from memory or opinion instead of evidence in the text.
  • Copying a long quote without explaining what it shows.

Support and stretch

Support

  • Review first: Making inferences.
  • Use concrete materials: a short text or extract (one copy each).
  • Give the first step of each question, or a partly worked example to finish.
  • Pair with a confident partner for the guided practice.

Stretch

  • Move on to: Analysing language for effect; Foreshadowing, flashback, cliffhanger and red herring; Explaining the effect of a technique (GCSE).
  • Explain a common mistake in writing and how to fix it.
  • Write a word problem that uses today's skill, then solve a partner's.

Homework and more practice

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/english/grade-7.

Free lesson plan from eurekami.com/lesson-plan-builder

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Tone and mood

Name

Date

Score/ 6

The Margin

Zainab had read the library book three times before she noticed the handwriting. It was in the margin of page 112, so faint she had taken it for a smudge. In tiny, slanted letters, someone had written: "Don't trust the narrator." Underneath, in different ink and a rounder hand, someone else had replied: "Why not?" And beneath that, in the first writer's slant: "Read chapter 9 again." She read chapter 9 again. Then she read it a fourth time, and a fifth, and on the sixth she saw it – a single sentence where the narrator claimed to have been at home when, three chapters earlier, he had described himself on a train. A lie, hidden in plain sight. The whole story tilted, like a picture knocked crooked on a wall. Zainab sat back. She checked the date stamps on the card inside the front cover. The book had been borrowed forty-seven times since 1994. Somewhere among those forty-seven readers were two people who had held a conversation across years without ever meeting. She found a pencil. For a long time she hesitated over the page, feeling as if she were about to speak in a room full of strangers. Then, carefully, beneath the other two, she wrote: "Found it. Thank you." When she returned the book, the librarian frowned at the pencil marks. Zainab apologised. But as she walked home, she wondered who would be next to find them.

  1. Question 1

    Read "The Margin". "The whole story tilted, like a picture knocked crooked on a wall." What does this simile show?

    • A. The book fell off the shelf.
    • B. She felt dizzy and ill.
    • C. The library was badly decorated.
    • D. Her understanding of the story suddenly shifted.

Two Views on Zoos

TEXT A – "A Lifeline for Wildlife" Modern zoos are not the cramped menageries of the past. The best of them are centres for conservation, research and education. Breeding programmes in zoos have helped save species such as the Arabian oryx and the California condor from extinction, and some animals bred in zoos have been successfully returned to the wild. For millions of children who will never visit a rainforest or a savannah, seeing a living animal up close can spark a lifelong love of nature. Closing zoos would not free animals; it would abandon them. TEXT B – "Wild at Heart" No enclosure, however large, can replace a wild home. An elephant may walk dozens of kilometres a day in the wild; in a zoo, it may cover a fraction of that, and some show repetitive swaying or pacing that scientists link to stress. While a few breeding programmes have succeeded, most animals in zoos belong to species that are not endangered at all. If we truly want to protect wildlife, our money would do far more good protecting habitats where animals already live.

  1. Question 2

    Read "Two Views on Zoos". What does the phrase "it would abandon them" suggest in Text A?

    • A. Animals want to leave zoos.
    • B. Children would stop visiting.
    • C. Closing zoos would leave animals without care or protection.
    • D. Zoos are like prisons.

The Attic

The attic door had been painted shut for as long as Daniel could remember. His mother said there was nothing up there but dust and old suitcases. So when the decorators scraped away the paint on the first Saturday of the summer holidays, Daniel was the first one up the narrow stairs. The air was thick and warm and smelt of mothballs. Thin blades of light slid through gaps in the roof tiles and lay across the floorboards like fallen swords. In the far corner, beneath a sheet greyed with age, something waited. Daniel crossed the room slowly. Each board groaned beneath him as if complaining about being woken. He reached out, hesitated, then pulled the sheet away in one quick movement. It was a desk – small, battered, and covered in carvings. Initials. Dates. A crooked drawing of a sailing boat. And there, in the corner, carved more deeply than all the rest, were three letters he knew better than his own name: D.A.M. Daniel Adebayo Mensah. His grandfather. The grandfather who had died two years before Daniel was born, and whom his mother never spoke about. He ran his fingers over the letters. Downstairs, someone switched on a radio, and a burst of music floated up through the floor. Daniel did not move. For the first time, the silence in the attic did not feel empty. It felt like someone waiting to tell him a story.

  1. Question 3

    Read "The Attic". "Each board groaned beneath him as if complaining about being woken." Which technique is used?

    • A. personification
    • B. onomatopoeia only
    • C. alliteration
    • D. hyperbole

  2. Question 4

    Read "The Attic". "Thin blades of light…lay across the floorboards like fallen swords." What effect does this simile create?

    • A. It tells us there are weapons in the attic.
    • B. It makes the attic feel cheerful.
    • C. It makes the attic feel dramatic and slightly threatening.
    • D. It shows the attic is brightly lit.

  3. Question 5

    Read "The Attic". What mood does the writer create in paragraphs 2 and 3?

    • A. mysterious and tense
    • B. light-hearted and comic
    • C. angry
    • D. bored and dull

  1. Question 6

    The empty swing creaked in the wind. Grey rain fell on the abandoned playground, and the last leaves dropped from the trees. What is the mood?

    • A. melancholy (sad and lonely)
    • B. exciting
    • C. playful
    • D. joyful

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Answer key: Tone and mood

  1. 1. D. Her understanding of the story suddenly shifted.

  2. 2. C. Closing zoos would leave animals without care or protection.

  3. 3. A. personification

  4. 4. C. It makes the attic feel dramatic and slightly threatening.

  5. 5. A. mysterious and tense

  6. 6. A. melancholy (sad and lonely)