I had a discussion the other afternoon with a teacher who wanted to work on a poetry unit with her students.  I dug out all my notes from workshops I had given on poetry over the years and shared ideas with her.  First off, we talked about gathering up as many poetry books as she could from the school and public library and I lent her many of mine.  We agreed that each day there would be time for the students to read and write poetry. We talked about various topics that could develop into mini-lessons for the opening of reading/writing workshop. I adapt the poems I use in mini-lessons to the different grade levels, but basically my lessons center around these points:

1. Many poems are meant to be read out loud.  Poets use ‘white space’ to help us decide how they want their poems to sound.
2. Poems are meant to be enjoyed, shared, talked about, and understood.
3. We can all write great poems.
4. When poets write they use certain tools or think in certain ways.
5. Poets love to play around with language in many ways.
6. All the kinds of standards surrounding poetry (things that might be asked on standardized tests) can be taught and woven throughout the workshop unit. Examples are: stanzas, rhyme patterns, free verse, alliteration, onomatopoeia, narrator of the poem, metaphors, and so on.
7. Sometimes we need to talk about poems with others to help us make meaning or create the story behind the poem.

Throughout the whole unit there are two charts that are available for the students to write on.  Each one is blank, except for the heading. The first one is titled, “Things we are discovering about poetry.”  The second says, “Poets we are enjoying and learning about.”

You would be surprised what the students write.  On the first chart, I’ve gotten things like: poems can be about anything; not all poems rhyme; some poets use repeating lines; some poets use nonsense words; sometimes a poem is shaped funny on the page; there are lots of poems about nature/animals/food.

When we start the unit, most students can only name two poets — Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky.  But by the end, they know many poets, such as: Eve Merriam, Eloise Greenfield, Lee Bennett Hopkins, David McCord, Judith Viorst, Langston Hughes, Nikki Grimes, Ralph Fletcher, Richard Margolis, Lilian Moore, Myra Cohn Livingston, J. Patrick Lewis, Georgia Heard, and many more.

Over the next few weeks, I will be taking each of the above points and telling in more detail how I might relate the topic to students and what poems I might share during that mini-lesson.

Here are the additional poetry posts – enjoy!

Reading Poems Out Loud

Poems and Movement

Kids Write Poetry

Thanks, Ralph!

Borrowing from other Poets

In chapter 9 of our book, Catching Readers Before They Fall, we talk about teaching students to infer as they read.  As readers, we want them all to be able to go deeper than the literal level of books, to get beyond the explicit ideas to the implicit ideas in the text.  There are so many things readers use inference for – setting, character’s thoughts or feelings, author’s message, metaphors, subtle humor, and so on.

One of the discussions you can have with your students, whether they are in kindergarten or fifth grade, is about how characters change from the beginning of the story to the end.  Primary students can see how Lilly changes her mind about her baby brother in Julius, The Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes. Throughout most of the story, Lilly is sickened by her parents’ behavior towards this new baby. She tries everything to get rid of this new addition to the family.  But when Lilly’s cousin begins to make fun of the new baby, Lilly has a change of heart and jumps to the little fellow’s defense.

In a fifth grade classroom, I used some of the picture books that the students were familiar with to jumpstart the discussion on “changes in characters.”  Using Julius, Weekend with Wendell, Edward the Emu, and Ish, the students easily identified the change in each main character.  From there, several students shared characters in the chapter books they read.

In choosing the read aloud book for that day, I wanted to share one that wasn’t quite as easy to determine the change in the character.  So I chose The Table Where Rich People Sit, by Byrd Baylor.  In this text, the little girl calls a family meeting because she thinks her parents are keeping the family “poor” because they don’t have jobs like the other moms and dads.  The parents eventually ask her to make a list of the different things they value, for example, it’s worth $20,000 to them to always work outdoors and another $5,000 to be able to hear the birds and coyotes as they work.  Slowly the little girl catches on to the parents’ way of thinking and changes her mind about how much things in life are valued.

After the reading, the students jotted down ideas to three questions before coming back to the whole group for a discussion:

1.)  What is the issue about which Mountain Girl calls the family meeting? What is her feeling toward that issue?

2.)  How does the main character change?

3.)  What caused the change?

On other days, with other texts, we brainstormed a list of why characters change:

* The character learned a lesson

* Something/someone changed the character’s point of view

* The character got a taste of his/her own medicine

* The character realizes something/comes to a new understanding

* A critical event took place

What kinds of conversations are you having with your students around this topic?  Any picture books you would like to suggest?

“If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.”

– Rachel Carson

Recently I posted a blog about working with upper elementary students on the four types of story conflicts.  As you continue to read other picture books and have discussions about the type of conflict they exhibit, you may come across some of these issues.

Sometimes students get confused when the ‘person’ is actually many people.  A few students thought that the army in The Mysterious Giant of Barletta represented ‘society.’ They eventually came to realize that ‘person’ can mean one, two, or a whole group of people, or even animal characters.  Later when we discussed ‘person vs. society’ they realized that that type of conflict had more to do with ‘societal issues.’  Many students had read The Giver and we talked about how that future society was set up in a different way than what we are used to today.  At first the main character was excited to receive his job on the day the assignments were given out.  But as the story continued, we get a real sense of a ‘person vs. society’ type of conflict.  In the end, Jonas is ready to separate himself totally from the society.

Oftentimes it’s not really clear which category the book falls in.  But those discussions with the students just take their thinking to a deeper level.  In Amazing Grace the class is going to put on a Peter Pan play.  When Grace wants to play the part of Peter, some class members point out that she can’t be Peter because she is black or because she is a girl.  Some students thought the text was a ‘person vs self’ text because Grace gains more confidence in her dancing ability and convinces her classmates that she is indeed the best person to play the role. But others felt it was Grace against those other classmates and therefore it was ‘person vs. person.’

And what about The Big Orange Splot?  Is that a conflict of one man against society because the community in which he lives believes that all houses should look exactly the same?  Or is it a person vs person conflict of the main character against all his neighbors?

We found the ‘person vs self’ type of conflict to be the hardest to find examples of.  We first saw Owl Babies as this type of conflict.  The baby owls try to get over their fear by telling each other reasons why the mom has disappeared; then they gather together all on one branch to protect each other.  Some argued that it was more of a person vs nature story because the owls are feeling scared because of many of the things in the dark woods.

In the book Suddenly, Preston is constantly almost being attacked by the Wolf.  It seems obvious that it’s the pig vs the wolf.  But is it really a person vs. person conflict if Preston, the pig, never actually realizes that the Wolf is about to attack him? He doesn’t escape his conflict by his own strength or cleverness; it’s always just a coincidence.

There were many books that the students examined during independent reading time —Jumanji, Stega Nona, Big Anthony and the Magic Ring, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Caleb and Kate – to name a few.  Students will notice that the main character in each of these books has a problem; he is in conflict with something.  But most of these books made us wonder if there shouldn’t be a fifth story conflict of “person vs magic.” And to that I say, “Why not?”

One of the standards listed in our district for fifth graders is to learn about the four types of story conflicts.  Remember them? Person vs. person; person vs. nature; person vs. self; and person vs. society. I didn’t learn about them until junior year in High School when we discussed Huck Finn, Moby Dick, and The Scarlet Letter.  That difference, in when we teach certain literary elements, makes me wonder if we aren’t pushing curriculum down too much too fast, but I’ll save that argument for another day.  Because kids may someday get “tested” on these conflicts, then teach them we must.

I like to start out just chatting with the students about some books that several kids in the class have read or ones that have been read aloud to the whole group in previous years.  They easily realize that Harry Potter vs. Voldermort and the Narnia kids vs. the Ice Queen fall into the first category.   Many students have heard about Number the Stars and realize that it falls into the last category because of the people who fought against the Nazi society.  Any story of survival against the forces of nature, like Hatchet or My Side of the Mountain, is identified as a person vs. nature conflict. Then we discuss several picture books that have been read in the last few weeks and the kids decide that Ish is about the boy gaining confidence with his own artistic abilities, thus a person vs self text.

Over the next few weeks we read and discuss picture books in relation to these conflicts.  Below are some ideas you may wish to use.

Person vs. Person:

Dogzilla (Dogzilla vs. the mice army of Mousopolis)

My Rotten Red-Headed Older Brother (a Polacco favorite)

The Three Wolves and the Big Bad Pig (a spoof on the 3 Pigs)

The Mysterious Giant of Barletta (giant vs. advancing army)

Suddenly (Preston the pig vs the menacing wolf)

Person vs. Self:

Koala Lou (realizes his mom loves him no matter what)

Owl Babies (conquer their fear of being left without Mom)

Edward the Emu (any story like this works – where the character is not comfortable being who he is and wants to be something else.)

Person vs. Nature:

Brave Irene (fights the blizzard in order to deliver the dress)

Ghost Eye Tree (the little boy fears the spooky tree)

Person vs. Society:      Holocaust books work well here (Let the Celebrations Begin, the picture book version of the Diary of Anne Frank,  The Lily Cupboard.)

Books about racism towards African Americans: Teammates; Freedom Summer; Freedom School, Yes!

Books about the Japanese Internment camps during WWII: The Bracelet, Baseball Saved Us, The Lucky Baseball, Journey Home

I suppose even the issue of homelessness would be considered a societal issue: Fly Away Home, Lady in the Box.

I’m going to do a part II of this post in a day or two to talk about some questions that arise in discussions with kids around these four story conflicts.  Please comment or list some other titles that come to mind that you have used.