Raising Readers and Writers

We are now in our third round of research and it’s been very exciting to see my students’ progress!  At this point, my young learners, always asking questions, think nothing of turning to the table of contents to look for information or flip through pages to find something in particular.  They’re learning how to put information in their own words and some have ventured to do internet searches for hard to find information.  After  allowing students to have free choice in their research in December and February, I knew they were  now ready to focus on creating hybrid informational (also called literary nonfiction by Katie Wood Ray) books on pond animals.  Every child has chosen an animal to research, they’ve asked questions, and they’ve read for information.  Their research journals are full of information ready to be put into what we are calling, “Wow!” nonfiction.  I’ve turned to some tried and true mentor texts and a few new ones too…

Atlantic by G. Brian Karas is a hybrid text that gives information about the Atlantic Ocean in first person point of view.  (I am the Atlantic.  I rub shoulders with North America  and bump into Africa.)  The author also put facts about the ocean at the end of the book.

If You Were Born a Kitten by Marion Dane Bauer uses the pattern, “If you were born a ________, you would ________.”  This beautifully illustrated book tells about many different baby animals. 

10 Things I Can Do to Help My World by Melanie Walsh is a new one this year.  The kids loved it!  The bright, vibrant acrylic illustrations are very simple, yet effective.  The simple text starts with I and a verb (try, remember,)…with the rest of the sentence being completed on the following page.  Each page is a die cut flap (the shape of  a sink, a light bulb, etc.).  A hint for making simple changes is accompanied by a ecological friendly fact written along the illustration.

What Do You Do With a Tail Like This by Steve Jenkins (I LOVE Steve Jenkins’ books) has a question/answer format about animals’ eyes, tails, noses, ears, etc.  There are facts written around the illustrations as well as a listing of additional facts at the end of the book.

Finally, Zach thought we should add Alan’s book because he had a 5 page spread, so Alan’s book, The Race, is our last mentor text.  You can see the pride in Alan’s face that his book is being used as a mentor text!

The kids are just beginning to make choices about their books.  We’ve practiced using the patterns in Atlantic, If You Were Born a Kitten, and 10 Things You Can Do to Save the World.  This week, the kids will be deciding which pattern they want to use in their books and what other features they want to add to make their writing stand out.  After that, we will create a class podcast about their pond animals.

Seeing the kids’ progress in the research process reinforces my belief in giving children lots of choices and lots of time to practice what they are learning.  Scaffolding students’ learning and encouraging students to take risks allows them to be successful in so many ways!  I am very proud of them!!

Tomorrow is our next teacher writing group meeting. After reading Franki’s article at Choice Literacy(if you’re not a member, consider looking into it) about books for President’s Day, I decided to use the book Our Children Can Soar: A Celebration of Rosa, Barak and the Pioneers of Changefor our writing prompt. I checked it out of the library, but it’s one that I must own (which is true of my relationship with most books!) The book’s simple text and snippets of biographical information paired with the rich illustrations give the reader a deeper understanding of those individuals who paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement. After reading the prompt, please feel free to share your own stories in the comments section.

Rosa sat so Martin could march. Martin marched so Barak could run. Barak ran so our children could fly.

This quote, sent via text message, became well-known last year right before the election. As a result, the idea for this book was born.

Our Children Can Soar focuses on 10 different individuals who led the way for the Civil Rights Movement including an unknown Civil War soldier, George Washington Carver, and Jesse Owens. Each of these people is highlighted on a 2-page spread illustrated by a different children’s book illustrator. The illustrations are spectacular and even though they differ in style, they weave the story together in seamless fashion. There are short biographies of each person in the back of the book as well as a brief message from each illustrator.

After reading the book:

This story weaves a message of hope. We are who we are because others have led the way. Our families, teachers, coaches, friends, hobbies, and maybe even books have affected us in some way. Spend some time now writing about those people and things that have given you hope and paved the way for you.

This book could be used in a variety of ways…poetry, biography, famous African-Americans, the use of endnotes, repetition of a phrase to tie a story together, or to launch a piece of writing about heroes, hope, or ways to change the world yourself.

This is such a crazy, yet fun time of the year.  One of the reasons I love first graders is that my own children are way past the Santa phase and it’s very fun to hang out with kids who still have that awe and wonderment about the holidays.  I have been wracking my brain to think of something meaningful for my students to make for their parents to give as presents.  I have so many precious ornaments that my own children made in school hanging on our tree.  Each ornament brings a special memory.  I wanted to give my students’ parents that same gift.  However, this year, I have one student who does not celebrate Christmas, so the ornament idea was nixed (plus I wanted to be more original).

My idea was to use I Am America by Charles Smith Jr. as a mentor text for the kids to create their own I Am poems.  I was going to type their poems, add their photograph and create something that could be displayed year-round.  Well, you know what happens when great minds start working together.  Your original good  idea instantly becomes a much better idea that you never imagined.

I was explaining this project to our tech teacher and saying that I’d also like to  podcast their poems against a backdrop of their self-portraits.  She suggested we use Wordle as part of the project.  I had heard of Wordle a while back, but it never occured to me to use it as part of this project.  Wordle creates a word cloud for the text you type in.  The words that are use more often show up more prominently in the cloud.  You can then tweak the fonts and colors and layouts.  It’s addictive once you get started.

So here’s our plan:  The kids will still write their own I AM poems Monday and Tuesday.  Then on Tuesday afternoon, we are going to bring the laptops down to my classroom and each child will type his or her poem into Wordle.  (You can see an example of mine at the beginning of this post.)  Then the adults will take a screen shot (that’s what I’ve been learning to do this morning when I couldn’t sleep) of the Wordle, put it into Pixie and save it.  I haven’t decided if I will have the kids take their pictures with the computer camera and just add it to Pixie or if I will take their pictures individually and print them.  Either way, the Wordle and picture will get printed and I’ll mat the whole thing.  I’ll post some examples next week.

I’m also excited to give the kids their presents.  I remembered reading katied’s post last year about these sketch and tell journals.  As much as my kids like to write, I knew that this was the gift for them!  I ordered them online from Dick  Blick for $1.59 each.  I’ll also get some special pencils and if I make it to Scholastic’s warehouse sale this week, I’ll add a book.  (I’m having a hard time not giving the kids a book, so I guess they’ll get both!)

Please share any of your great ideas for gifts for parents or students in the comments section.  I think it’s so neat when we can all share our ideas and learn from each other.

What a week it’s been.  My kids have loved exploring all of the new books.  I always begin a new genre study by just reading lots of books.  One of the first books I read was Flip the Flaps:  Animal Homes by Judy Allen and  Simon Mendez.  I chose this book for several reasons.  First, the detailed illustrations draw the reader right into the book and the text is engaging for young learners.  My emerging readers are sure to find information in the pictures if they read the book independently.  Secondly, each habitat (pond, stone, tree, etc.) is a short chapter that includes a flap to be lifted.  Don’t all kids like “lift the flap” books?  The authors list 3 questions on each flap, which can be lifted to reveal the answers.  This book led to more questions from my students.  It was the perfect segue into the students writing their own “I wonder…” questions (an idea I got from Debbie Miller’s Reading with Meaning).  More about that later.  I know that I will go back to this book again and again.  Not only is there is a lot of information to be learned,  it is also a great model for writing informational books.

I am a huge fan of Steve Jenkins’ books.  I have quite a few in my classroom and was happy to add some more and other books that reminded me of his style.  He always takes an interesting look at his subject that keeps kids captivated, instead of the traditional take on animals (habitat, appearance, diet, etc.).  I love that my students can look at his books and envision a wide variety of possibilities for their own writing.

Living Color tells the reader how animals use color to protect themselves, call to other animals, attract mates, or warn predators.  The vibrant illustrations are textured cut paper collage.  The animals virtually pop out of the page.  Each double page spread focuses on one color and what it means for different animals.  Text also flows around the illustrations, another technique that students can do in their own writing.  For instance, “Red says…This is my space. The male hooded seal marks its territory – and tries to impress female seals – by inflating a sac of loose skin that hangs from its left nostril, blowing it up like a big red balloon.”  Who knew that could be attractive?  The book is filled with interesting facts about some very uncommon animals and insects.  The end of the book tells more about the role of color in an animal’s life and as is typical in Steve Jenkins’ books, the last pages give a bit more information about each of the featured animals (size, habitat, diet).  I know the kids will love this book as much as the other Steve Jenkins’ books.  I have enough now that I’ll be making a Steve Jenkins basket.  I will use this book as a mentor text to discuss all the possibilities for presenting information in an interesting way.

This next book, Hello, Hello by Miriam Schlein, looks at the different ways animals greet eachother.  Eight of her books have been honored as Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children.  Again, I chose this book because it gives lots of information about animals in an unusal way.  We learn that “Elephants are very, very, very, very, friendly.  They touch trunk tips or they put the tips of their trunks in one another mouths.”  Zebras take a different approach as they stretch out their necks and sniff eath other’s noses.  Then they make little chewing noises.  The books ends with the ways humans say hello.    I can see kids using this book as a jumping off point to research other ways animals greet each other.  The illustrations, oils on textured paper, are bright and give the reader a glimpse into each animal’s habitat.  Students will learn that much information can be gleaned from illustrations and that they will need to think about what kind of information they want to portray in their own final illustrations.

I have the books packed up ready to take into school tomorrow.  I’ll be sure to post about how the kids react to all of the new books.  I’m sure to hook everyone with something!

Today was a great day!  I went to Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore to purchase more non-fiction books for our non-fiction genre study.  Melissa, the doctoral student who will be doing research in my room, received a grant that enabled me to buy books for my classroom.  Can you think of a better way to spend a Saturday?  It was way better than fighting the crowd at the grocery store, which is what I usually do on Saturday.

As I drove to the bookstore, I was thinking about the kinds of books I wanted to buy.  My wish list fell into several categories.  First and foremost, I wanted a wide variety of books that would be interesting to my students.  That meant books about cars, construction machines, sports, creepy crawly insects, how to make things, space, etc.  I also wanted books with beautiful photography, detailed illustrations, and ones that used a variety of non-fiction conventions (labeling, diagrams, bold print, index, table of contents, captions…).  Added to that I wanted books that had rich language that would support my students’ writing.  Next, I looked for books that we could use in our content studies.  I chose books at a variety of reading levels.  Some of them my students will be able to read by themselves, and some will be read alouds.  My emerging readers and writers will be able to glean information from the illustrations and photographs when they are not able to read the text.  Finally, I wanted books that gave information about a topic in interesting ways.  Steve Jenkins’ books always fit the bill for that category and I was able to find other great examples. 

I can’t wait to share these books with the kids on Monday.  I bought more book baskets for my room so we can sort through them and decide how we want to categorize the books.  We already have many nonfiction baskets, so the task won’t be too daunting.  Here are a few of the books I bought.  I’ll share more later along with why I chose the books.  I’ll also be sharing our genre study, especially how the kids grow as writers and researchers through the process.  I think life has settled down enough that I will have time to keep up with my blog!

One World, One Day by Barbara Kerley is a beautiful book recently published by National Geographic.  It depicts a day in the life of children all over the world from waking up and eating breakfast, to going to school, to doing chores and playing after school, to eating dinner, to settling in for the evening and finally going to bed.  The photographs’ rich details give the reader an insider’s look into life in different cultures.  The last pages contain the author’s notes and thumbnails that give more details about each of the pictures (specifically where the photograph was taken and more information about what is happening in the picture).  Some even show the photographer’s notes.  This book shows the reader that even though we live in different parts of the world, we all have many things in common.  The author writes at the end of the book, “…the more we can embrace our commonality, the more tolerant we can be of our differences.”  I knew I had to have this book for our “Children Around the World” basket.  My kids will be able to relate to the every day happenings in the photographs.  This book also shows one way to organize text…making a comparison.   I can also show them how they can add more information at the end of their writing  just like Barbara Kerley. 

Mystery Vine: A Pumpkin Surprise by Cathryn Fallwell is actually a fictional story about a family planting  a garden and waiting to see what grows from the mystery vine.  (If I had written the story, it would have been non-fiction because I was certain that the pumpkin plants that I put in the garden this spring had died.  Imagine my surprise  when I found pumpkins growing in August!  I probably wouldn’t be so surprised if I marked my plants and actually kept up with the weeding.)  Anyway, I digress.  Sally Oddi, the owner of Cover to Cover shared this book last week at a book talk she gave for the Columbus Area Writing Project.  (One Day, One World was also featured).  What drew me to the book was not only the story that is very engaging, but the fact pages in the back of the book.  The author gives recipes for roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin apple bread (you know how I love to bake…can’t wait to make it with the kids) in the “Pumpkin Recipes” section.  In the “Gardening Fun” section, she tells how to grow grass hair in an empty egg shell and how to start bean seeds in a glass jar so you can watch the seed sprout.  She also gives directions on how to plant seeds from the fruits and vegetables you get from the grocery store and how to start a sweet potato vine.  The final page tells how to make a book vine where the kids  write the title of each book they read on a cut out leaf and create a vine around the room.  I will be able to use this book to show kids how to write “how to” pieces. 

There are so many more books to share!  However, I have an article waiting to be read before I meet with Melissa next week.  I’ll post more tomorrow about my great finds.

Christian the Lion by Anthony (Ace) Bourke and John Rendall is another book that Sara and I chose for our nonfiction unit.  The illustrations and text intrigued us.  Each page reminds me of a mixture of a modern scrapbook and old fashioned photo album.  The bright, textured pages are very colorful with smatterings of paw prints crossing the page.  On each page are several photographs, both in color and black and white, tucked into those old fashioned photo corners like my mother used in my baby book.  As we skimmed through the book, we knew our young writers would enjoy the book and it would give us another type of mentor text.

The story is based on a true story.  Rendell and Bourke were living in a trendy part of London in 1969 when they discovered a lion cub in Herrods, an upscale department store.  They bought the cub and brought him home to live in their basement flat under the furniture store where they worked.  Christian played soccer with the young men, rode in the car with them, went to restaurants, and was even on the radio.  Unfortunately, within a year, he was too big to live in the apartment.  Right about that time, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, married actors who had just finished filming Born Free came into the furniture store.  They helped Bourke and Rendell connect with George Adamson and his wife, the real life naturalists on which the movie was based.   Rourke and Rendell  flew with Christian to Africa where they met Adamson and they slowly acclimated Christian to his natural habitat.  An end note from the authors tells what happened when they went back to Africa to visit a year later.  I don’t want to spoil it for you. 

The story is written from Christian’s point of view with an introduction by Rendell and Bourke “clipped” to the first scrapbook page.  Christian tells about where he was born (there are several maps throughout the book), his life at Harrods, moving in with the 2 young men, and eventually traveling to Africa where he was introduced to his own pride.  The use of real photographs support the story very well and my emerging readers will be able to read the pictures and get a strong sense of the story.  Overall, I liked the book.  I can see using it to help students imagine another way to share information with their audience.  Students could use digital cameras or disposable cameras to take still pictures of a subject  and create a scrapbook from their subject’s point of view. 

However, because the story has been simplified for a young audience, it left me with several questions.  I didn’t understand why the men would bring a lion cub home to live in a basement flat under a furniture store if they wanted a better home for the lion.  Why would a lion even be allowed to be sold at a department store?  I know it was the 60s, but really, it just didn’t make sense to me.  I did some research on the Internet and found this site which answered all of my questions. 

The fact that I had questions is a good teaching point for my young readers.  It will give me an authentic way to show my students that readers have questions and that we can use different resources to answer our questions.  We could actually google “Christian the Lion’ and look at all the information that is out there.  My search also brought up several videos on YouTube that the kids will enjoy. 

I think this book will be a great addition to our nonfiction library.  It’ll be interesting to see if the kids make connections to other books in our nonfiction library that are written from the point of view of the subject.

I just got back from the Columbus Area Writing Project’s Retreat at Kenyon College.  Since participating in CAWP two years ago, I always look forward to returning for the retreat to do some writing and reading just for me.  One of the things I most look forward to is my visit to the college bookstore and once again, I wasn’t disappointed.  Because, once again, I went along with Robin, one of the co-directors of CAWP who owns more books than I do!  She put this gem in my hand and I knew right away that I had to have it.  Where do I begin with Wabi Sabi?  It’s a beautiful concoction of prose, poetry, and collage.  Wabi Sabi is a cat who lives in Kyoto Japan and begins to wonder what her name means after friends from another country inquire.  Her master answers, “That’s hard to explain.”  And so, Wabi Sabi goes on a quest to discover the meaning of her name.  In the Japanese culture, Wabi Sabi means finding  beauty in simplicity, the imperfect, and the ordinary.  Through her visits with other animals, each of who give her a peek into the meaning of her name, she discovers that she is truly pleased with the name her master gave her.  The reader holds the book vertically to view full page spreads of striking collages, which look real enough to touch.  In fact, my friend put her hand on one of the pages to see if she could feel the picture.  Haiku, written in English and Japanese, along with a sparse text are interwoven on each page.  The author even translates the  Haiku written by the great Japanese poets, Bosho and Shiki, at the end of the book.

I will use this beautiful book in a variety of ways with my students.  My first graders will love the beautiful illustrations and we will talk about all the things Wabi Sabi encounters in her travels.  I will even ask my students at the beginning of the year to find out what their names mean and how their parents picked their names.  It will be great for community building.  I will also use this book to prompt my fourth and fifth grade  writing project students to write about their own names.  How do they feel about their names?  How did they get their names?  How does their name affect them?  I will also use it as a mentor text to study haiku and ways to use collage to support the meaning of your text. 

I can’t wait to show this book to my new students next year.  I know that all of them will love it!

Bill from Literate Lives recommended Savvy by Ingrid Law during our trip to Cover to Cover.  I absolutely loved this book.  I always gravitate toward an author’s first book, and this one did not disappoint me.  The quirky characters reminded me of the  somewhat peculiar Southern women in The Secret Life of Bees.  The age 13 for the Beaumont family is magical.  It is then that they gain some kind of supernatural ability called a savvy.  One of Mib’s brothers can cause hurricanes (the family had to move to the middle of the United States, away from all major bodies of water) and another one  can create electricity, or even cause a power outage.  Right before Mib’s 13th birthday, her father is in a terrible accident, causing Mib’s mother and oldest brother to travel to his bedside  leaving Mib, Grandpa, and her siblings at home.  All’s well, until the well-meaning, nosy preacher’s wife shows up to  take care of the family and plan a huge birthday party for Mib.  Knowing that she can’t attend this party, because who knows what might happen when her savvy appears, and being determined to get to her father’s hospital bed, Mib, along with her brothers, and the preacher’s kids hide on a bright pink bus that is going toward the town where Poppa is recovering.  However, it’s not an ordinary bus.  Lester, the bumbling bus driver, is having a hard time selling the boxes of pink bibles stacked in the back of the bus.  And unfortunately, the bus turns in the opposite direction of the hospital when he leaves the parking lot.  This eccentric crew encounters one adventure after another, which brings them many surprises and teaches them about each other. 

Not only is this a hilarious, fantastic tale; the author weaves interesting words and descriptive language throughout this story.  For example, outraged at the box of pink Bibles, the minister yells at poor Lester, “What do you think we are?  A church full of mollycoddled sissies?”  I found myself either grinning or laughing through most of the book!  I could see using this book to collect examples of colorful language an author uses to help the reader get a better understanding  of the story or characters.  This would be a great read aloud for 4th and 5th grade and a fun read alone for 5th grade and up. 

Check out Ingrid Law’s website.  It looks fun!!

I’ve been reading poetry to my students the last week as we finish our literary nonfiction unit and get ready to start a poetry study.  I always start a new unit immersing my students in the new genre that we will study.  We spend lots of time just reading for pleasure and then talking about what we notice.  I love teaching poetry.  I find that even my most reluctant writers like writing poetry once they find out that every line does not have to rhyme.  Today, when I went to the library to get some of my favorite books that I used last year, I found a nice surprise.  Sprinkled through It’s Raining Laughter   were sticky notes left from one of my students in last year’s class.  He had chosen several poems because they meant something to him and had marked them so that he could go back to them.   I can’t wait to show them to his younger sister who is in my class this year. 

It’s Raining Laughter by Nikki Grimes  is one of the books I’ll be sharing with my students tomorrow.  It’s full of beautiful photography of kids being kids and poignant poems about growing up.  I know I can’t go wrong with Nikki Grimes.  My students will choose a poem to put in their pockets and carry with them all day since it’s Put a Poem in Your Pocket Day.  It’ll be a fun way to start on our new writing journey!