Georgia 10.T.SS.2.a
The Standard
Analyze how the use of figurative, connotative, and/or rhetorical language contributes to the development of meaning, tone, or mood in a wide variety of texts. (I)
Georgia's K-12 English Language Arts Standards · Texts (T) · Structure & Style
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify figurative, connotative, and rhetorical choices and explain how those choices shape meaning, tone, or mood. They support each explanation with quoted words and consider how different wording would change the effect.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can accurately identify a language choice, quote it, and explain its effect in context. The student can also show how repeated choices build a larger tone, mood, or message across a text.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often name a device, such as metaphor or repetition, without explaining its effect. They may confuse tone, the writer’s attitude, with mood, the reader’s feeling. They may also treat connotation as dictionary meaning or make claims unsupported by specific words.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short excerpt and ask: “Choose one phrase with figurative, connotative, or rhetorical language. Explain how it shapes meaning, tone, or mood.”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Print a short poem and have pairs color-code figurative language, loaded words, and rhetorical moves, then label each effect.
Ask students to rewrite one sentence to create a hopeful tone, then explain which word changes produced that tone.
Play an evidence-match game where teams pair quoted phrases with tone or mood cards and defend each match.
Compare two headlines about the same event and discuss how connotative words shape readers’ reactions and views.
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Printable 10.T.SS.2.a Worksheet
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The 9th Grade version of this standard.
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