Verb Mood: You mean verbs can be happy and sad??

This is pretty much the reaction my students give me when I introduce verb mood- perplexed looks, some giggles, some eye rolls. You get the picture. Once I get into what verb mood is and subsequent definitions, I finally begin to see the light bulbs come on amongst my kiddos as they realize they've seen these types of sentences somewhere before. Indicative looks quite similar to declarative, and they are already familiar with imperative and interrogative sentences. Conditional and subjunctive verb moods are really the only ones that I have to cover as a result.

In an attempt to have my students understand the changes in wording between the various types of verb mood, I had them create verb mood posters. I gave them each an indicative sentence which they had to manipulate to form each of the other four types of verb mood. They also had to include a picture that represented the change in meaning of each type of sentence. The results were amazing! I gave a test the day after this project was due, and 82 out of 88 students passed! The test also included active and passive voice, but I was still thrilled.

Below is the example I made to demonstrate to my students what I was looking for.

Here are some of the posters my kids created.

HERE are the directions and rubric handout I gave my students. As you can see, I included another example to ensure they understood what I was looking for. My goal is to allow students to fully own the grade they earn.