The document discusses mood and tone in writing. Mood is the feeling a story conveys to the reader, which can be positive or negative. Tone is the author's attitude toward the subject or audience. Writers create mood through setting, word choice, punctuation, and word sounds. Tone can be identified through the language and clues about how the author feels about the subject. Mood and tone are important because they help readers understand the author's purpose and overall theme.

1. Mood & Tone
Mood is the feeling that a story creates
in the reader.
Tone is a author’s attitude toward the
subject or audience of the story.

2. Moods Can Be Positive or Negative
Hopeful
Cheerful
Joyous
Playful
Peaceful
Gloomy
Violent
Tense
Heartbroken
Painful

3. How Does a Writer Create Mood?
The setting, use of descriptive words, the
punctuation used, and the sound of
words all work to create the mood of a
story.

4. We Also See Mood in Images
• What mood does this image create?

5. • What mood does this image create?

6. • What mood does this image create?

7. We Can See Mood in Movie Scenes
• What mood is created in this scene?

8. Tone
• While mood is the feeling that a story
creates in a reader, tone is the
writer’s attitude toward the subject or
audience of the story.
• Look for clues in the language the
writer uses to identify how the writer
feels about the subject.

9. Example of Tone
The Crocodile
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the water of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin!
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
1What is the subject
of the poem?
2What clues tell the
reader the author’s
attitude towards the
subject?
3What is the tone?
Subject:
Crocodiles
Tone:
Attitude towards
crocodiles is they
are dangerous.

10. Why are Mood and Tone Important?
Mood and tone are important
because they help the reader to
determine the author’s purpose and
the overall theme or main idea of
the story.

11. • We are seriously failing our nation’s
teenagers when it comes to education
concerning AIDS. Somehow we must
convince them, without delay, that this
terrible illness can happen to them, not just
too isolated groups in big cities. Let’s give
them the information they need to protect
themselves—before it’s too late.
• a. impassioned c. ironic
• b. mocking d.
sarcastic

12. • . We have come together this afternoon to
mourn the deaths of sixteen miners—our friends
and neighbors—who were trapped by fire
yesterday, deep below the earth. They lived
bravely and they died too soon, leaving behind
grieving wives and bewildered children. We bid
them a final farewell.
• a. forgiving c. angry
• b. sorrowful d. hesitant

13. • Often you feel you’ve done nothing when you’ve
actually done a lot. That’s because what you did
do seemed beneath notice—it was so small that
it didn’t “count.” But it did—just as each stitch
counts toward a finished dress, each brick or
nail toward a house you can live in, each
mistake toward knowing how to do things right.
• a. hesitant c. amused
• b. encouraging d. sarcastic

14. • Which tone is represented in the following
passage?
• Wow! With a top speed of one hundred fifty
miles per hour, that car can almost fly!
• a. calm c. scary
• b. annoyed d. excited

15. • Why do these things always happen to me?,
Brad wondered. First I forget an important
meeting, and nobody reminds me until it’s over.
Then my boss dumps a big project on my desk
and wants it done by yesterday. And to top
everything off, I leave my wallet on the bus.
• a. comic c. optimistic
• b. self-pitying d. sorrowful