Mood Description

Sample Mood Description Worksheet
Reading Comprehension Worksheets

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Mood Description
By Brenda B. Covert

¹     It was a dark and stormy night. Thus begins many an unpublished story. That overused first line tries to set the mood of the story, but unless a creepy-voiced narrator utters the words, we don't really get a sense of mood. It's going to take a little more creative description.

²     Mood, of course, is a state of mind. You can be in a good or bad mood. You may be described as "moody." Mood pertains to your emotions and feelings. When a writer creates mood in a story, it draws an emotional response from the reader.

³     Here is an example from Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell.

I remember the day that I decided I would never live in the village again.

It was a morning of thick fog and the sound of far off waves breaking on the shore. I had never noticed before how silent the village was. Fog crept in and out of the empty huts. It made shapes as it drifted and they reminded me of all the people who were dead and those who were gone. The noise of the surf seemed to be their voices speaking.

⁴ Think about what you just read. What kind of mood does the narrator create? ___________________________

⁵ Let's dissect this passage to see how the mood was set up. First, look at all the verbs. List only the action verbs: