Georgia 7.T.SS.2.a
The Standard
Explain how figurative language, connotative language, and/or literary device choices contribute to meaning, mood, or tone 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 deliberate words, comparisons, symbols, or other devices in a text. They explain how those choices shape meaning, create a mood, or reveal the writer’s tone.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students point to a specific word, phrase, or device and describe the feeling or attitude it creates. They connect that effect to the text’s larger meaning with clear evidence.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may name a metaphor, simile, or symbol but never explain its effect. They may confuse mood with tone or assume a word has the same connotation in every context.
How to Assess It
- Give students a six-line poem with one simile and one loaded word. Ask them to choose one and explain how it shapes mood or tone, using another detail as evidence.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed poem, three highlighters, and sticky notes to mark devices, connotations, and each choice’s effect on mood.
Ask students to compare “slim” and “scrawny,” then write which word creates a harsher tone and why.
Play Effect Match: teams pair phrase cards with meaning, mood, or tone cards, then defend one match using context.
Analyze two headlines about the same event and discuss how loaded words shape readers’ reactions before they read the article.
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Related Standards
- 8.T.SS.2.a
Analyze how figurative language, connotative language, and/or literary device choices are used strategically to achieve specific purposes for target audiences. ...
- 6.T.SS.2.a
Determine how figurative and connotative language choices contribute to meaning, mood, or tone in a wide variety of texts. (I)
- 10.T.SS.2.a
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. ...
- 9.T.SS.2.a
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. ...
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