Mood and Tone

Authors Note- This is a journal response about the two songs "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Field Below." I would like feedback on if you agree with the mood. 


In my language arts class, we read two poems and then  listened to them. "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell and "Field Below" by Regina Spektor.  "Field Below" lyrics are about a girl or boy that's family or boyfriend left them. When we listened to the song, it was very slow and depressing, and it really made me want to go to sleep.  The way Regina Spektor sang this song, it went exactly with what the lyrics were saying. . The mood, which is the feeling that the author wants you to get  is sad because of what it's actually talking about. Overall the tone in this piece is wishing for something better, sadness, and being unhappy with life.

Joni Mitchell on the other hand, created a different type of song. "Big Yellow Taxi" is about destroying nature, and the overall message is that you don't know what you have until its gone. When we listened to this song, it was more upbeat and not so slow, which actually contradicts the meaning of the song. In my opinion, I think the mood that she wants you to get is to stop destroying nature. The tone is sadness, because she probably lost something that was near and dear to her heart, but again inspirational because the way she was singing the song didn't make me feel like she was sad about anything.

Chocolate Milk

Chocolate Milk
Oh how you are so good.
Your smooth and chocolatey  taste
And rich flavor

Delicious when I begin to taste the flavor.
Oh how, I love chocolate milk

Right to be Free

Do you ever feel like your parents don’t trust you to make your own decisions? Sometimes they forget that you really are mature and you can make your own decisions. But what would you do if they started taking control over your body? Is that taking it too far? Anna Fitzgerald from My Sisters Keeper is sick of her parents having control over her, and her resolution is…Suing them. Not something the average person would think of doing.

Anna Fitzgerald was born with a purpose; to save her sister, Kate. She has leukemia and needs bone marrow transplants and she needs an organ donor. Leukemia is a cancer that affects the blood and the bone marrow. That’s why people with this type of cancer typically need bone marrow transplants and blood transfusions. The long term prognosis for Kate probably isn’t very good because with leukemia it’s a very hard cancer to get rid of and then to keep clear of it, so for the time being everybody is doing as much as they can to save Kate, and hopefully increase the chance of her living longer. 

Imagine not feeling loved by your parents. Imagine not getting any attention. Imagine your parents making you give blood all the time and bone marrow, and think about what that would be like. Probably very different from how your life is now. Anna has to go through this almost every day. Recently she has gotten to the point where she doesn’t want to deal with it anymore. Her solution was suing her parents for rights to her own body. In her house all the attention goes to Kate because she’s in the hospital and always sick. Now it’s switching because everybody is trying to stop Anna from suing them. Her parents had her, “The perfect baby” so she could save Kate. 

The parents aren’t supportive of anything. They never understand the way Anna is feeling. Sara Fitzgerald, the mom, wants Anna to cancel the lawsuit and just try and work it out between them. Brian Fitzgerald, the dad, actually is starting to understand how Anna is feeling and he is starting to support her with her decision. With all the struggles Kate’s had in her life, she’s supported Anna with whatever she wanted to do. There’s no better support than having a sister that will always take your side and give you advice when you need it. 

When you get overwhelmed with what’s going on in your life, you are quick to make a decision like Anna chose to sue her parents. Maybe it wasn’t the best choice, but she went with what she felt was right. 

 Everyone deserves to be able to make their own decisions and do what they want in life, and if Anna felt like her parents weren’t doing what she wanted then I believe she had every right to take them to court.

Mother to Son Response

In the poem "Mother to Son" there is a lot of figurative language used. One example was when Langston Hughes  said "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair." This means that his life or his past hasn't been easy.  That was probably the most common metaphor throughout the whole poem. The meaning and purpose of the figurative language used is to give you a better idea of how bad his past was, and make it easier for the reader to understand what it was like. Also by using metaphor "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair" it helps you in-vision what his life was like. In this poem the mood is very serious and the tone is inspirational because it's written from his mothers point of view, so it's telling him to keep going in life and never give up.

Anna Fitzgerald

Authors Note- This piece is about Anna Fitzgerald, a character from My Sisters Keeper. My focus for this piece was using figurative language.


BAM, Anna Fitzgerald just walked into Asa Clark Middle School. All eyes were on her… who is this girl? Her slow walk, it looked as if she was trying to go unnoticed. The whole lower level of the school froze, and everybody looked at her. She was a medium height, and fairly a thin girl. The one thing that stood out was her pure brown hair, it was gorgeous! All the students were very welcoming to her. She looked like a really sweet and nice girl.

One girl noticed a distinct smell around and she asked if it was something Anna was wearing. It smelt as good as a freshly cleaned house.  Another thing  that stood out about her was her clothes, she was wearing a very fancy dress. Her clothes really stood out, they were as colorful as a rainbow.  She said it was her Chanel perfume that she had gotten for her birthday. Anna was as quiet as a mouse most of the time but there are other times that she can be very loud and attention seeking. No one knows much about Anna because she is very secretive about her life at home.  People don't know her life story, no one knows who she really is until they know about Kate and her family. Normally doesn't like to talk about Kate and how she has to give Bone Marrow and organs to her.