Digital Storytelling

By Michelle Kitts

Digital Story: https://youtu.be/IHKNASSpmhs

Learning to identify the tone and mood of a piece of literature helps improve reading comprehension. Students often find distinguishing between these literary devices to be difficult, so when teaching mood and tone, it is important to draw from students’ preexisting knowledge of these concepts. Once students have successfully mastered the ability to identify the tone and mood in major literary works, they may better employ their understandings to evoke specific moods and/or tones in their own writing.

From an early age, many children are able to detect tone through speech, understanding that the meaning of what a person says is derived not only from the words someone speaks; it also is affected by how the person says these words. For instance, “How many times have I asked you to clean your room?” firmly delivered by a frustrated mother is usually understood to be a call to action rather than a legitimate question in need of answering.

Likewise, children are attuned to the mood a physical setting creates. For example, students can use visual indicators to describe the mood their classroom creates, recognizing that the cushioned chairs in the reading corner contribute to a comfortable mood. Similarly, if they have ever been in their school during non-school hours, they may be able to describe the change in atmosphere after the sun goes down and the daily bustle has vanished.

For this assignment, I created a digital story centering on Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” to be used as part of a mini-lesson on mood and tone. The visual makes use of pictures, music, and sound effects superimposed with an audio narration of the poem. In this way, students may become attuned to the mood and tone of the work prior to ever seeing it in writing.

I would begin this lesson by drawing on the “mother’s tone” and “classroom mood” examples to activate the students’ background knowledge. From there, we would create an anchor chart to provide students explicit definitions of mood and tone as well as a variety of words to describe mood and tone. Next, I would play my digital story, asking students to think about the mood and tone of the piece as they watch and listen. The discussion that follows may focus on the peaceful or serene mood conveyed through the pictures, music, and sound effects. Students may also comment on the tone of the narrator, describing his voice as calm, soothing, or even matter-of-fact.

The use of visualization in this lesson deepens the students’ understanding of the content by providing a concrete visual example of a key comprehension skill they should employ while reading—visualizing. In order to analyze a piece of literature to distinguish mood and tone, students must be able to create visual images as they read. Details of a story’s setting and atmosphere provide evidence of mood. For example, as the students read, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” visualizing a quiet wood filling up with snow helps convey a peaceful mood. Likewise, visualizing the traveler stopping to admire the woods but then realizing he cannot linger in this beautiful place, for he has miles to go before he sleeps, may help students perceive a bittersweet tone.