Tag: T shaped literacy

LI: to make sense of an unfamiliar text.

This week we have been looking at making sense of an unfamiliar text. We looked at the title of the poem and made predictions of what the poem was about. We then read the poem and compared our initial predictions to what the text was about. After this, we unpacked the poem using our prior knowledge to make meaning of what the text was about while justifying our thinking with evidence.

I found this activity interesting because it was a new topic of learning that I was unfamiliar with but I adapted quickly and was able to apply my prior knowledge of predictions, connections and mood & atmosphere to understand the poem more clearly.

LI: To map the highs and lows in the character’s mood and emotions as the story progresses

Our group Motuihe, read two different diary entries (Home Little Maori Home & Hami Grace’s Dairy) and discussed the variety of mood and atmosphere’s the texts had underlined. The mood chart shows the progress of emotions throughout the diaries, 10 being the highest level of intensity whereas 1 was the lowest level of intensity. We looked at the words the men had used in order to determine the different emotions/moods. By created the two mood charts, we could compare the two texts to see the differences these men had to face when confronted on the battle field. When looking at the different moods the men had felt, we all agreed Rikihana Carkeek and Hami Grace both had difficult events in the time that they were fighting in war. We saw that Rikihana’s diary entry started of from chaos and progressed down to calmness. However, Hami’s diary entry started of calm and was very chaotic at the end.

Exploring Mood & Atmosphere 1

Exploring Mood & Atmosphere 2

Exploring Mood & Atmosphere 3

Exploring Mood & Atmosphere 4

Exploring Mood & Atmosphere 5

LI: To notice how authors use vocabulary to create mood and atmosphere in a text.

LI: To have learning conversations to strengthen your connections.

Over the past few weeks, we have been exploring the mood and atmosphere in different texts, more specifically on texts about World War 1 because they can bring out a lot of emotion in the reader. The texts that we read were Hami Grace’s diary, Home Little Maori Home, King and Country, Chunuk Bair, Sheldon Rua’s poem, Maori in WW1 and The Maori Pioneer Battalion.

We have been identifying the mood and atmosphere in each of these texts by understanding the figurative language, vocabulary, language features, phrasing of the words and sensory imagery details in each text. Once we read a text, we have a learning conversation asking questions about the text and record it. A learning conversation is where we shared our opinion on a text and give our reasoning.

Then, shared our own questions we want to ask about the text and vocabulary we don’t understand. Among our groups, we discussed everything we wrote. We also completed some mood charts where we described the mood and atmosphere of different times throughout texts. The 10 words challenge was a writing activity where we brang affect and alliteration to describe images. To do this, we ‘read’ images to write about them. We used effective nouns, adjectives and verbs. 

To conclude, we recorded a presentational video explaining the overall thoughts behind our slide and the collaborational understanding behind it. This challenge was to help us practice capturing emotions that the text made us feel.

LI: To identify the language features the author uses to create mood and atmosphere.

Our focus for this activity was to identify the language features that the author used in the text to create mood and atmosphere. First, we selected an Anzac text that we had read before and the text we choose was Chunuk Bair, which is specifically about the experiences of the Turks and Maori Contingent fighting their last major interaction of the Gallipoli war, before the Maori Contingent had evacuated warfare.

To identify the language features used in the text, we looked at different examples and observed our text. We highlighted phrases and words in the text that corresponded to whatever language feature was used. To explain, we gave a description of why we thought that phrase or word was highlighted under a certain language feature and why we thought the author used that language feature.

Language features are the words or phrases an author uses to bring emotion and descriptive detail to the text. Some examples are adjectives, verbs, metaphors and similes.

Mood is what the text makes the reader feel and how the emotions of the character can connect with the reader. Atmosphere is the emotion of the overall text and what the reader feels as a result of reading the text.