Mentor Text Monday- Science Poetry

This week I wanted to focus on another genre for our mentor text.  I came across this great poem, Food Chain by Jon Scieszka. Here is a link to poem, but it can be found in Scieszka's book, Science Verse.  This mentor text is a great example of using songs as parody's to help explain a concept.  This poem can be sung to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad."  I found more examples from Jon's book, Science Verse on the Books 4 Learning Blog.  See the post below.  Happy Reading!

Books 4 Learning Blog:

Poetry Friday: Science Verse (by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith)

I am thrilled to share this week’s poetry collection—Science Verse (by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith).  These two authors know how to turn things upside down and make your rethink how you look at everything from fairy tales to science!  This collection is no exception.   The book begins with a group of children in class.  Their science teacher tells them that if they listen closely they will “hear the poetry of science in everything.”  One of the students is zapped with a curse of science verse.  He begins to think of everything in the form of a poem.  The poems and pictures that follow are his journey through the world of science and language.   

The duo uses nursery rhymes, popular songs, and famous adult works as models for their entertaining, educational, and, at times, irreverent poetry.  “Lovely” parallels Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees.”

“Lovely”

I think that I ain’t never seen

A poem ugly as a spleen.

A poem that could make you shiver,

Like 3.5 … pounds of liver.

A poem to make you lose your lunch,

Tie your intestines in a bunch.

A poem all gray, wet, and swollen,

Like a stomach or a colon.

Sometimes like your kidney, lung,

Pancreas, bladder, even tongue.

Why you turning green, good buddy?

It’s just human body study.

This next selection follows the rhythm of the children’s song “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”

“Food Chains”

“I’ve been working in the food chain,

All the livelong day.

In the middle of the food chain,

I’ve got no time to play.

Can’t you see the green plants growing?

That’s energy, okay?

Consumer eats up the producer,

Predator eats prey.

Who’s for lunch today?

Who’s for lunch today?

Don’t you just wonder, who’s for lunch today?

Predator or prey.

Predator or prey.

Eat or be eaten, that’s the only way.

Under “Why Scientists Don’t Write Nursery Rhymes” is a “Mary Had a Little Lamb” parody.

“Mary Had A…”

Mary had a little worm.

She thought it was a chigger.

But everything that Mary ate,

Only made it bigger.

It came with her to school one day,

And gave the kids a fright,

Especially when the teacher said,

“Now that’s a parasite.”

As the book comes to a close, it is revealed that the student with the science verse curse was asleep (in class) the whole time!  Science Verse is witty and entertaining, but it also has several educational tie ins.  Subjects covered are evolution, water cycle, human body, space/astronomy, dinosaurs, food chains, chemistry, scientific method, senses, matter, and life cycles.

Teaching Opportunities:

• Poetry:  students can write their own poems using nursery rhymes, children’s songs, or other poems as models.
• Sound Devices:  identify rhyme, alliteration, consonance, and so forth
• Figurative Language:  identify and discuss examples (similes, puns, personification)
• Science:  use a poem to begin a science lesson or unit study; discuss what is revealed through the poem about the subject
• Critical Thinking:  look carefully together to distinguish fact from fiction in the poems

 Today is Poetry Friday!  Check out other great poems and anthologies at the round up at Book Talking. 

Alternatives to "Round Robin" Reading

This article from Edutopia has been coming across my Twitter and Facebook account.  I thought it was a great one to share on the blog.  I love the 11 easy to use ideas.  One that don't mention, but that is one of my favorites can be called:  Lean in and Listen.  This is when you introduce a section of text to students, then give them a purpose for reading.  Once they have started, all students either whisper read(lower elementary) or silently read.  You tell students that when you lean in toward them you are going to listen to them read.  This is gives teachers a chance to listen to a student, prompt for strategy usage, and have a quick comprehension conversation.  You can take turns Lean in and Listening  to the other students in the group.   This allows for all students to still be engage in text and for the teacher to have a quick reading conference.  Whisper Phones work great for younger students that have auditory sensitivity.  The student soon learn to ignore the auditory distractions and focus in on their own reading.  

I have not tried the Crazy Professor Reading Game yet.  I watched the video Whole Brain Teaching and found it very was a entertaining way to engage students during partner reading.  An interesting point is made about motor movements and deepening comprehension.  If you try it, let me know how this one works for you and your students. I would love to see it in action! 

11 Alternatives to "Round Robin" (and "Popcorn") Reading

DECEMBER 1, 2014

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Round Robin Reading (RRR) has been a classroom staple for over 200 years and an activity that over half of K-8 teachers report using in one of its many forms, such as Popcorn Reading. RRR's popularity endures, despite overwhelming criticism that the practice is ineffective for its stated purpose: enhancing fluency, word decoding, and comprehension. Cecile Somme echoes that perspective in Popcorn Reading: The Need to Encourage Reflective Practice: "Popcorn reading is one of the sure-fire ways to get kids who are already hesitant about reading to really hate reading."  Click here to bring you to the rest of the article at Edutopia.

Mentor Text Monday- Amelia's Notebook

Amelia's Notebook  by Marissa Moss
Amelia's Notebook is a a great springboard for using writer's journals.  I does a great job with incorporating writer's voice into the text.  

Amelia’s Notebook Story Summary:

The hand-lettered contents of a nine-year-old girl's notebook, in which she records her thoughts and feelings about moving, starting school, and dealing with her older sister, as well as keeping her old best friend and making a new one.- From  www.marissamoss.com

This is the link to Marissa Moss' website.  She has more notebook's and they develop with Amelia now that she is in Middle School. 

Amelia's Notebook by Marissa Moss, prominently displayed in your classroom chalk tray at all times, is a perfect tool for reminding students how creative and personal a writers notebook can and should be. Author Marissa Moss has created a wonderful book, story, and tool that will inspire your writers to collect their thoughts in a notebook. The book also shows how voice is very important in notebook writing. And it provides ideas for topics. The fact that it looks like a notebook written in a composition book is pure genius on the author's part.- www.writingfix.com

Amelia asks a lot of questions like: 
Why are hands so wrinkly?
Why d we have a thumb?
Why 5 fingers and not 4 or 6? 
Isn't it amazing how our fingers move and how many things they can do? (Page 21)

From Amelia's Journal- (Page 2-3)

Writing Fix also provides some great lessons for a "fierce wondering story".  Here is a sample lesson for a generating ideas in a writer's a:

Student Writer Instructions:

A "fierce wondering" is an interesting thought that makes you think hard about the world. "Fierce wonderings" happen inside the heads of writers all the time.

If you read any of the Amelia Notebooks by author Marissa Moss, you will find examples of Amelia's wonderings that she writes down in her writers notebook. Many of Amelia's wonderings could be developed into longer pieces of writing.

Ralph Fletcher writes about the importance of writing down your ""fierce wonderings" if you keep a notebook like Amelia does. He writes, "Writing about what you wonder about isn't always as easy as it sounds. It takes honesty and courage" (A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer within You, page 17).

For this assignment, we want you to devote (at least) one page in your writers notebook to interesting things that you wonder about. Throughout the year, when you end up with new wonderings, you'll have a place to record them.

Having the list is just your first step! When your teacher asks you to write and you're not sure what to write about, you'll always have the list to go back to for inspiration!

 Here are the links:

• Planning a Fierce Wondering Story
• Fierce Wondering Brainstorm Generator by Writing Fix- This link has a noun and verb generator that can help students that have writer's block.  Here are a few Fierce Wonderings that the tool generated:

• What if books posed for school pictures?
• What if thunder played sports?
• What if wild animals had a garage sale?

I am not sure if these would be topics to go back to, but the generator was fun to get random questions that can lead to more "fierce wondering".  


I have this book if anyone is interested in borrowing it.  

Mentor Text Monday

One of the blogs I follow:  Two Reflective Teachers participates in a weekly- What are you Reading? blog on Mondays.  The bloggers review any of their current books and include teaching points that will fit with the book.  Here are two other sites that also included many great mentor text ideas:  Teach Mentor Texts  &  Unleashing Readers- Helping Navigate the World of Books.

I will try a spin off the idea include some great books for Mentor Texts on Monday and call it Mentor Text Monday!



So here is my first Mentor Text Monday Feature:

Saturdays and Teacakes 

by Lester Laminack

Summary: The narrator reminisces about his boyhood Saturdays in the South when he would bike to his Mammaw's house to spend the day helping out and building special memories like baking and eating teacakes together. 

Narrative Craft Lessons:

• Alliteration- examples: a fitful of flour, sputtered and spit, and mixed and mashed and mixed and mashed
• Descriptive Language- Creates Language imagery and captures tiny details:Every Saturday she spread a cloth over the red countertop and scattered a fitful of flour across it.  Sending a cloud into the air.
• Effective Ending- As the young boy pedals away from her house: Don't worry, Mammaw. I won't every forget.  
• Metaphor- Some examples how Lester used metaphor: Morning's dew turns into gems, as in the dew-pearls were gone; gravel sprayed into a garden becomes a shower of tiny pebbles.
• Onomatopoeia- use of many sounds
• Print Features- italics is used for dialogue and onomatopoeic words
• Punctuation- Ellipses slow down a moment, as in One. . . Two . . . three. . .; insert an aside, such as In our little town everyone knew everybody. . . and told everything to anyone who would listen; and add clarification, as in an pull that shell apart over the bowl. . . like this.
• Simile- Many examples: sunlight poured through he windows like a waterfall; I gobles mine down like a hungry dog. 
• Verb and Verb Forms- interesting verbs include: coasted, sputtered, trudged, and flopped
• Voice- Lester wrote the dialogue with the southern voice coming though.  For example: I 'spect we need a bit more sugar; I recon we can call that half and egg; You better wait buddy. They  gonna be mighty hot just yet.
• Wordplay- Lester creates unique words that describe his memories, such as dew-wet grass or flour-dusted.

I have a copy of this book, if you are interested in using it in your class, let me know and you can borrow it or we could do some lesson development together. 

Thanks,

Rhoda