magic-eight-ball-tone-activity.doc 

1. Students came prepared to present their poems to their classmates. The classroom was decorated with mini white-lights along the floor, we turned the lights out, and there were halloween door decorators hanging from the whiteboard where students stood to present. Halloween sound effects and music was playing softly in the background, like thunder with lightning or the sound of footsteps down an empty hallway. Some brought their own props for special effect and most attempted to memorize their poems. We even had a few grade twelve guests who wanted to watch the presentations.
2. From there, students were asked to try writing with a specific ‘tone’ in mind. I read for them three paragraphs about the topic of a Magic Eight Ball, but all were written with very different tones. This was not an assignment or something I had planned for the students to do, we only had some extra time for them to practice writing a paragraph focusing on tone, but one student “ASKED” if they could try to write three paragraphs about the same topic but with different tone. Well… that was just great! They’re all working on tone paragraphs now. Well done!