Feedback Assignment

Question 1: The learning target is to define mood and tone, so asking, “What is mood?” should produce a definition.

Feedback 1: Yes. Are you “supposed” to feel a certain way?  Is everyone supposed to feel the same way, or can there be differences?

Explanation 1: Good definition.  I just directed to student to think about multiple perspectives of readers.

Question 2: The learning target is to define mood and tone, so asking, “What is tone?” should produce a definition.

Feedback 2: Are the author’s feelings what make the tone?  Can an author convey a tone that s/he doesn’t feel using a variety of words?

Explanation 2: I encourage the student to consider writing with a certain feeling about something they actually feel differently about.

Question 3: The learning target is to identify the mood and tone of a poem, but asking for just one word from the poem to demonstrate the mood is limiting.

Feedback 3: Does the word that’s used the most necessarily have to be the only word that contributes to the tone? Think about the words around “cold” that affect its meaning.

Explanation 3: I directed the student to think beyond frequency of words and look further into what other words could contribute meaning.  I focused them on looking into what words could affect the meaning of the word they’d chosen to represent the mood.

Question 4: The learning target is to identify the mood and tone of a poem so asking students what the tone of the poem is should produce the desired response.

Feedback 4: Look where the speaker mentions loving the privacy.  Do you think the author is upset about being in the snow and alone?  Be careful to identify tone based on what the text says, and not accidentally switch and identify mood.

Explanation 4: The student has mixed in some of his/her own opinions about the poem into the explanation of the tone.  So I remind the student of the difference between mood and tone.

Question 5: The learning target is to analyze how mood and tone affect an author’s word choices, but because the question is worded based on mood, which is subjective, and gives the teacher’s interpretation of the mood, the student is limited in his response.

Feedback 5: What are some example of words you could change to change the tone?

Explanation 5: The student has a good grasp of the analysis of mood and tone, so suggested a next step that could take them even deeper if they were to write an extended essay or something.