TCNJ Lesson Plan

Moods In Poetry
Student Name: Sara Calabrese School Name: Hopewell Elementary
Grade Level: 4th Grade Host Teachers Name: Ms. Fleisher

Guiding and/or Essential Questions:

How do poets create mood through their word choices?
How do moods in poems affect us as readers?
How can we incorporate mood into our own poetry writing?

Pre-lesson Assignments and/or Student Prior Knowledge:

The students have been working with poetry for over a week now, and they are in the
developing stage of the poetry writing process. In the prior lessons, students will be working on
identifying setting, action, and dialogue in a mentor poem. They have experience with using
charts and boxed-organizers to categorize their thoughts while listening to a piece of literature.
They have also read Jane Medinas My Paper before and are familiar with it, and they are
familiar with the concept of mood.

Standards:
RL.4.1: I can draw inferences from a text and refer to details and examples in the text when
examining my inferences.
RL.4.2: I can summarize and determine the theme of a piece of literature.
W.4.4: I can produce pieces of writing that are appropriate for fourth grade tasks, purposes, and
audiences.

Learning Objectives and Assessments:

Learning Objectives Assessments

Students will create a t-chart that The teacher will observe responses and check
demonstrates the overall mood and that student note-taking for understanding and
compares what the text explicitly says to what accuracy.
the reader can infer about the mood.

Students will practice writing their own Students will share the poem that they have
poems that will focus on evoking mood. written to evoke mood with the class and the
teacher will assess for understanding.
Materials/Resources:
Pre-made anchor chart
Blank anchor chart with pre-planned poem in mind
My Paper Poem
Writers Notebook
Pencil

Plan for set-up/distribution/cleanup of materials:

Students will be asked to come to the carpet with their writers notebook and a pencil. There will
be an anchor chart ready to go for when the students arrive, and it will be a T-chart that with one
side saying What the Text Says and the other side saying What I Can Infer About the Mood.

Step by Step plan:

1. Lesson Beginning: Students will be asked to come to the carpet with their
writers notebook and a pencil. Ms. Calabrese will briefly discuss with students what they
have been discussing during writing and how they have seen that certain elements of
poetry spark certain reactions and understandings. For example, setting tells the reader
where the poet is talking about and sets the scene for the reader to imagine other details.
Ms. Calabrese will also explain that as poet readers, it is important to notice these
elements of poetry so that they can apply them to their own poem writing. Ms. Calabrese
will explain that each and every poem will have a mood. Although the students will all
likely know what mood is, she will reiterate that the mood is the feeling you get as the
reader, and she will ask them to raise their hands and give some examples of moods.
2. Ms. Calabrese will then explain that a lot of the time, the mood will not be
obviously stated, and it is the readers job to infer what they believe the author wants
them to feel. She will also explain that every line can have a different mood to contribute
to the overall mood of the whole poem. Ms. Calabrese will then tell the students that they
are going to hear the poem My Paper again, it will be portrayed up on the projector,
and they are going to listen closely for various moods. Ms. Calabrese will then read the
poem all the way through. She will then reveal the anchor chart, and will ask the students
to copy this chart into their journals. They will then go through the poem and Ms.
Calabrese will stop after reading the first line, add it to the chart, and infer that the mood
is curious anticipation. She will then ask the students to turn and talk to a partner and
pick out a few more lines to infer.
3. Ms. Calabrese will then stop the students and ask them to share some of the line
they have come up with moods for, and to explain why they have that mood and what it
means to them.
4. Ms. Calabrese will explain to the students again that as poem writers, they need to
be able to create mood in their writing to make their readers feel what they are feeling.
She will then flip to a new piece of paper on the the anchor chart and write a short poem
for the students about something that evokes emotion, and she will verbally model her
 thought process of what she is writing and what type of mood she is trying to
communicate.
5. The students will then be asked to go off on their own and write a poem that
emphasizes mood. They will need to remember what they learned in this lesson and to
write about something in their life or something that they know and to convey their
reader to feel a certain way, without outwardly saying it.
6. Closure: Ms. Calabrese will ask the students to return to full class attention and
will ask for volunteers to read their poem. Instead of the student reading their poem and
telling their audience what the mood is, they will call on a friend to infer what the mood
is.

Key Questions:
1. Why is mood an important element of poetry?
2. Why is incorporating mood into poem writing an effective tool?

Logistics:
Timing: Given: 40 minutes
Lesson Beginning: 5 minutes
Mini Lesson: 10 minutes
Partner Work: 7 minutes
Independent Work: 10 minutes
Sharing/Closure: 8 minutes

Transitions:
Once students sit down on the carpet with their pencils and writers notebooks, Ms.
Calabrese will ask them to not worry about those materials yet, as they will be chatting first.
When it is time for the students to copy down the chart in their notebooks, they will be given
about 2 minutes to do so. Later, when the students are done with their partner work and share, the
students will be asked to go find a good working place for them to work on writing a poem.
When the independent work time is over, the students will be called back to full class attention
when the lights are dimmed and they will then share their poems. After the sharing is complete,
they will be asked to put their writers notebooks away and to get their materials for math.

Classroom Management:
Students will have a pencil and their writers notebook with them as they arrive to the
carpet, and Ms. Calabrese will be ask them to just hold on to them for a moment and not write
anything down. Students will be giving Ms. Calabrese responses by raising their hands to share.
Students will be moved through transitions with the strategies that they are used to and will be
asked to keep the noise level at a minimum when working with a partner.
Differentiation:
Students will be using their notebooks and pencils to work on this mood chart, but the
students that prefer to use their chromebooks will be asked to do so. If a student is struggling
with the concept of mood during partner work, they may ask their partner or student teacher.
While the students are working independently, if they finish writing a poem early and have
exhausted this activity, they will be asked to look through other poems they have written and to
see how well they have incorporated mood. If a student seems to be struggling with the
assignment of writing their own poem, Ms. Calabrese will be circulating to observe how they are
doing and assisting when needed.