Lesson 3: Diction, Tone, and Mood

Overview

• Focus of the lesson: understanding how diction, tone, and mood shape meaning in literary texts, especially poetry
• Central premise: a single situation (e.g., “A person walks into a room and looks around”) can feel completely different depending on the writer’s word choices and attitude
• Skill goal: analyze literary texts as expressions of individual or communal values within their structural context

Lesson Objectives (Slide‐Stated)

• Analyze literary texts as expressions of individual or communal values
• Examine and explain:
  • Diction (choice of words)
  • Tone (author’s attitude)
  • Mood (reader’s emotional response)

Key Concept: Diction

• Definition: the poet’s deliberate choice and use of words
• Functions:
  • Conveys intended meaning, tone, atmosphere
  • Shapes how readers interpret imagery and symbolism
  • Appeals to the five senses through sensory imagery, enhancing vividness
• Importance: even minor lexical differences can alter emotion, pace, and theme

Illustrative Example – Two Stanzas by Louie Buenaventura

• Poem A: soft diction (“gentle whisper,” “secret tale of love,” “full of bliss”)
• Poem B: harsh diction (“loud whisper,” “dark tale,” “broken and torn,” “pounds the heart with a nail”)
• Takeaways:
  • A single setting (wind, love) yields opposite emotional effects because of word selection
  • Demonstrates how diction directly molds tone (author’s stance) and mood (reader’s feeling)

Key Concept: Tone

• Definition: the author’s or poet’s attitude / emotional stance toward the subject
• Can be positive (celebratory, joyful, triumphant) or negative (somber, melancholic, critical)
• Detected through stylistic markers: word connotation, syntax, figurative language, pacing

Key Concept: Mood

• Definition: the emotional atmosphere perceived by the reader after engaging with the text
• Often echoes—but is not identical to—the tone
• Shaped by diction, imagery, rhythm, and narrative context

Simple Example Poem (Slide 10)

• Lines: “Hear the whisper of the wind… birds softly chirping… gentle breeze… green leaves sway.”
• Analysis:
  • Diction: “whisper,” “softly,” “gentle,” “sway” → establishes calm, serene field imagery
  • Tone: peacefully appreciative of nature
  • Mood: induces tranquility in the reader

Structural & Contextual Values (Connection to Objective)

• Individual expression: each poet’s diction reflects personal worldview, emotional state, historical context
• Communal values: collective cultural attitudes (e.g., Filipinos’ reverence for nature/love themes) surface in repeated word patterns
• Structural context: stanza organization, rhyme choice, and imagery network interact with diction to reinforce tone and mood

Practical / Pedagogical Implications

• For readers: recognizing diction helps decode subtext, irony, and thematic nuance
• For writers: intentional word choice empowers targeted emotional impact
• Ethical / philosophical angle: manipulating mood responsibly avoids misleading or exploitative rhetoric

Classroom Activities (Assessments)

• Challenge 1 (Nexus pp. 15–16): practical exercises on identifying diction, tone, and mood
• Challenge 2A (Home Delight): application task—analyze a given poem for diction effect
• Challenge 2B: create a digital poster that visually represents the mood of the assigned poem
• Mini Performance Task #1: use any online platform to design poster demonstrating mastery of tone & mood concepts

Recap Cheat Sheet

• Diction = word choice → directly affects both tone & mood
• Tone = author’s attitude → inferred through diction & other stylistic choices
• Mood = reader’s feeling → result of tone, diction, imagery, rhythm
• Strategy for analysis:
  1. Highlight emotionally loaded words
  2. Classify their connotation (positive, negative, neutral)
  3. Infer tone from connotative cluster
  4. Describe resulting mood with precise adjectives (e.g., nostalgic, ominous, exuberant)
• Remember: changing even one key adjective can flip tone and mood entirely, as shown in Buenaventura’s twin stanzas