South Dakota ELA 7.RL.4.a

ELA7th GradeReading Literature

The Standard

Determine the meaning of words and phrases including how figurative and connotative meanings affect tone and mood.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students use nearby lines to work out what a word or phrase means. They explain how word choice affects the narrator's attitude and the feeling a scene gives readers.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can explain why “slithered” feels more threatening than “moved” and point to a clue in the passage. They can tell the narrator's attitude from the mood of the scene.
Common Misconceptions: Students may read a figurative phrase literally or rely on a dictionary definition without checking the passage. They may name a mood without pointing to a word that creates it.
How to Assess It: Exit ticket: Read “The hallway swallowed her footsteps.” Explain what “swallowed” means here and how it affects the mood. Replace it with a word that changes the mood.

Lesson moves

Give pairs cards labeled “crept,” “walked,” and “stomped”; have them place each in the same printed sentence and label the mood.
Ask, “Why does ‘the wind clawed at the window’ feel different from ‘the wind blew’?” Have students write two sentences.
Write “After the scolding, the dog slunk home” on the board; teams swap “slunk” and explain how the mood changes.
Put “cozy apartment” and “tiny apartment” on two mock rental ads; ask students which would attract renters and why.

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