upper grade writing unit of study big idea poetry...

Upper Grade Writing Unit of Study Big Idea Poetry Date of Study April/May Grade 4

Step in the Writing Process

Collecting Entries Choosing Developing Drafting Revising Editing Publishing

Number of Days

5 - 8 1 3 2 4 2 2

Immersion should happen in:-Shared reading-Poetry Centers-Read Alouds

Students should keep a collection of favorite poems

Co-create a poetry noticing chart that focuses on ideas being shared / messages being communicated

* Teachers should consider using whole class Shared Writing Lessons model the work throughout the writing process

Poets of Big Idea Poetry collect entries that help them and their readers to think about bigger issues in their lives and in the world

Choose 2-3 mentor texts from those used during immersion that best highlight strong emotions; Teachers should consider using the work of Langston Hughes, Eloise Greenfield and Donald Graves among others

In collecting, students do not usually write in poetic form. This is the time to gather ideas, feelings and thoughts that may inspire “Big Idea” poems later on.

-Writers of poetry reread past entries in their notebook on the lookout for entries connected to strong emotions or significant experiences and then “lift a line” to

Poets of Big Idea Poetry Choose Entries that Help Them and Their Readers to Think About Bigger Issues in Their Lives and in the World

Students reread entries collected in this study and choose 2 or 3 that they feel will become strong inspiration for Big Idea poems

Students share their choices with a partner. Angle the talk by verbally stating what was strong and memorable about their choice

Teachers should refer to charts co-constructed during past Read Alouds during this process. Students will be supported by big ideas discussed in previously read texts.

Poets of Big Idea Poetry Think Through the Idea / Linger with the Idea Before Drafting

-Writers of big idea poetry consider the elements of story when developing their ideas; these may become lines in their drafted poem

Setting / Place

Action

External Dialogue

Internal Dialogue

-Writers of big idea poetry study mentor texts to prepare them for drafting looking closely at the mood of other poems and how poets created it

Big Ideas Can Be Written As Poems

-Writers can draft their poem by first writing it down in a narrative structure and then using line breaks to break it up into possible lines of a poem. Rewrite it as a poem in draft form

-Writers eliminate the extraneous and only use the words they absolutely need to convey their message. (Cross out words that are not essential)Rewrite using only essential words now that the non-essential have been

Making Our Big Idea Poems Better Depending on the mentor texts used in this study and lessons taught in the previous study, students will choose from the following list when revising their poems to illuminate / highlight the big idea. -Writers of big idea poetry revise their poems keeping the following in mind:

Changing ordinary language to poetic language (This helps the

Conventions that Convey Meaning

Poetic use of punctuation based on mentor text

Use of Conventions based on identified needs of students

Spelling Structure Punctuation

Aesthetics that Convey Meaning

Rewrite poem with particular attention to how aesthetic characteristics can affect overall meaning and transmission of emotion

write long off of. This can often inspire future poemsExample:

Once when I was walking with my mom, we saw my Uncle and he gave us a ride to the store we were going to. We needed to buy some things for my birthday party. Etc….

Walking with my momMy mom and I walk a lot together. We talk and laugh a lot when we are walking. Sometimes I see families walking and they are just listening to music or just ignoring each other but my mom talks to me or listens to me if I need her to. The great things is that it doesn’t even cost anything! We can just make up our own fun and…..

-Writers of big idea poetry find ideas in their everyday lives. List events / things that happened in your life in the last 24 hours and then reread the list noticing if any questions/reflections surface; write long in response to the questions

Example:Overall mood

Text explicitly says

What I can infer about the mood

-Writers of big idea poetry leave the reader to infer the idea but do not state it directly. They can do this by creating mood and adding detail to their pieces; Writers can complete a T-chart listing what they want to say / tell their readers directly on one side and then how they might write it without telling them directly on the other side

eliminated. reader to better picture or experience what the poem is trying to convey.)

Repetition (Writers repeat particular words or phrases within the poem to add to the mood or to better convey the big idea / message.)

Metaphor /Simile (Writers use comparison to say what something is like rather than saying it directly.)

-When revising, poets reread their poems and consider adding or removing words / phrases in order to convey their message.

Example:Things that happened

last 24 hours

Questions / Reflection that come up about

themWoke up and it was cold in the

houseHad

breakfast and we were out of milk

So annoying that my brother takes the last of everything

Walked to school with my cousin

Why do some

parents let their little kids walk

alone?Hung out

with Tyler at lunch

Helped clean the fish tank

Why won’t my mom trust me

with a pet?Etc…

Why won’t my mom trust me with a pet?I feel sometimes like my mom only pretends to trust me. Trust is something you either have or don’t have. If I can take care of my baby sister, why can’t I take of a fish? Or a hamster? Maybe it is a money thing and not a trust thing. She should just be honest about it. Etc…

-Writers of big idea poetry write about ordinary things and observations and reflect on their significance to inspire future poems

-Writers of big idea poetry often write about experiences and people that bring up strong feelings and thoughts which can inspire future poems

- Writers of big idea poetry think about larger issues in the world around them to inspire future poems

4th Quarter EM’s

Addressed

GLE’s Addressed

W-4-5.1W-4-5.3W-4-10W-4-11.1W-4-11.3

W-4-10 W-4-2.1W-4-4.1W-4-4.2W-4-5.1W-4-5.3

W-4-1.1W-4-4.1W-4-4.2W-4-5.1W-4-5.3

W-4-1.1W-4-4.1W-4-4.2W-4-5.1W-4-5.3

W-4-1.1W-4-9.1W-4-9.2W-4-9.3W-4-9.4

W-4-10W-4-11.2

W-4-10 W-4-10 W-4-10 W-4-9.5W-4-10

Upper Grade Writing Unit of Study Narrative Poetry Date of Study April/May Grade 4

Educational Measurables and Grade Level Expectations Across Balanced Literacy Components

Balanced Literacy Component Suggestions for Instruction 4th Quarter EM’s Addressed GLE’s Addressed

Read Aloud

Chose poems relevant to students’ lives. Choose Narrative poems*(see suggested list next page)

Poems should be read for discussion as an interactive read aloud (not for dissection)

Keep balance in literacy by reading aloud other genres in addition to poetry.

Notice how it unfolds like a story.Questions might include: What struck you about poem?Did any words create interesting pictures?Were there any words you especially liked?What did you wonder?

In addition to turn & talk, students can do quick sketches to visualize the poem (or parts of poem)

R-4-3.1R-4-3.2

R-4-4R-4-5R-4-6R-4-15

Shared Reading

Read poem as a read aloud first, before turning a poem into a shared read.Put poems on overhead or chart paper for shared reading.

Eventually will use other genres for shared reading during study to bring balance to literacy

Read a poem over 4 days. Ie. Teaching point each day may focus on following:Day 1-comprehensionDay 2- vocab. Day 3-similes, metaphors & other literary languageDay 4- punctuation for phrasing & fluency

R-4-3.1R-4-3.2

R-4-17.2R-4-12.1R-4-13R-4-7.2R-4-7.3

“Whole Group” Writing(Modeled / Shared)

May want to do whole class writing of an ordinary object

E.g. Poets see ordinary objects with “poet’s eye” write off of an ordinary object like a pen, or any other ordinary object, and write about it in a not-so ordinary way (my pen is a thin volcano overflowing with blue lava)

W-4-5

Word / Language StudyThis component need not directly correlate with the Unit of Study. You might continue to focus on the needs of your students. For example, you might teach synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, shades of meaning; word structure including base words, prefixes and suffixes; or syllable types.

Words Their Way by Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton and Johnston is a great resource.

R-4-3.1R-4-3.2

R-4-2.1R-4-3.1R-4-3.2R-4-1.1W-4-9.5


Text Suggestions

Children’s LiteratureResources to use in your actual teaching.

Writers’ Notebooks / Drafting FoldersOrganizational tips for this study.

Professional ReadingProfessional resources you may find

supportive as you as you roll out this study.

“Been to Yesterdays, Poems of a Life” Lee Bennett Hopkins

“Twilight Comes Twice” Ralph Fletcher

“Baseball, Snakes and Summer Squash” Donald Graves

“Sea Watch” pps.11,15,21 Jane Yolen

“Brown Angels” Walter Dean Myers

“Slam Dunk” Lillian Morrison

“Creatures of the Earth, Sea and Sky” Georgia Heard

“Sierra” Diane Siebert

“Home, A Collaboration of 30 Distinguished Authors” edited by Michael Rosen

“Home, A Journey through America” Thomas Locker

Kids’ Poems, Regie Routman

- Students may collect in poetic or non-poetic form

- Collecting should be centered around strong emotion

- Graphic organizers can be helpful for organizing and collecting

T-Charts

- Students should be trying out forms and styles of mentor poems in their Writers’ Notebook

- Students should use previous entries in their Writers’ Notebook to spur new collecting for Narrative Poetry. Their notebooks are full of narrative collecting from previous UOS. They should identify emotions that they felt during the events described in the collecting.

A Note Slipped Under Door-Teaching from Poems We Love, Nick Flynn

The No Nonsense Guide to Teaching Writing¸ Chapter 10, Judy Davis and Sharon Hill

Poem-making: Ways to Begin Writing Poetry, M.C. Livingston


Monitoring Student Learning

Indicators of Understanding When conferring, you might say / ask:

1. Students include all story elements in the narrative poem.

2. Students convey the strong emotion or crucial nature of the moment in the narrative poem.

3. Students demonstrate knowledge of poetic form and its uses.

4. Students demonstrate understanding of the ways convention and aesthetics can convey meaning in poetry.

1. Smart writers, when writing Narrative Poetry carefully use the criteria of a Narrative Poem to guide their drafting. Narrative Poetic writing should include all the elements of story. Talk to me about the different elements of story that are a part of your Narrative Poem.

2. Smart writers, when writing Narrative Poetry, attempt to communicate a strong emotion through the telling of an event. Let me read your poem back to you and you tell me what emotion the poem communicates. What words, images, and sounds might help communicate the emotion you want your reader to experience.

3. Smart writers of Narrative Poetry attempt to communicate meaning through words but also through form. White space, word choice, and shape can help communicate the emotion and meaning of the poem. Lets look at our list of poetic forms that we might use to better use form to communicate meaning and emotion.

4. Smart writers of Narrative Poetry see how conventions and publishing can add to the meaning of their poetry. Are there some way that you can use color or font , punctuation or sentence structure to better communicate the meaning and emotion of your poem.

Suggestions for Intensive Small Group / One-on-One Work

When data shows… / For students who you notice are… You might try…

1. Not following the narrative poetic style and have not included story elements in their Narrative Poems…

2. Not invoking a strong emotion or crucial feeling in their Narrative Poems (poems that do this will be more a reporting of an event without the emotional connections)…

3. Unable to use poetic form and are still writing their narrative in prose…

4. Not attending to the aesthetics (publication, color, font,

1. Working within a T-Chart that allows the small group of students to line up the story elements from a Narrative Story in one column and the same story elements in poetic form in the second column or reviewing the criteria chart of a Narrative Poem with them or refocusing the student on their chosen Mentor Poem and reviewing what it is about the poem that makes it a Narrative Poem and identify the different story elements in the Mentor Poem

2. Exploring vocabulary that conveys strong emotion or revisiting Mentor Poems through a small group read aloud during which you are able to model the strong emotions through expressive reading of the Poem or partnering two students together to tell the Narrative of their poems to each other complete with relating the thoughts and feelings of the moment in their telling or working with a T-Chart that lines up the events in one column and the emotions connected with each event included in the Narrative.

3. A small group to which you demonstrate how to break up the narrative into specific events or emotion. Then in a T-Chart transpose a line of prose about a specific event or emotion in the narrative into a poetic line that gets across the same specific event or emotion or demonstrate the differences between narrative and narrative poetry in your own writing. (This issue will arise with some students. Remember that their prose is their first approximation of Narrative Poetry. They are just having a harder time letting go of the more familiar prose style. Give them multiple examples of how a story can be told in prose and in poetry.)

4. Demonstrating the strength of aesthetics to convey

illustrations, etc.) and their ability to convey the story or the emotion…

meaning through your own writing (e.g. using red to write a Narrative Poem in which anger played a big role, using ALL CAPS to convey importance of a specific word or section of a poem, using punctuation to slow a reader down at a lazy part of the poem or no punctuation to speed a reader up at a nervous part of the poem) or create a chart where you take one line of poetry through various different colors, fonts, punctuations, and forms that express different feelings with each change. e.g. - squeak (small quiet squeak) SQUEAK (very loud, huge door) Squeeeeeeaaak (opening an old door slowly)

Six Room Image Chart

_____________________________

Image Light

Sound Questions

Feelings Repeating Words

Thunderstorm, from Basketball, Snakes, and Summer Squash, by Donald Graves

Rags trembles under the tablewith the first sound of thunder;the second boom sendsher panting into the bedroomto lie on Mother’s clothes.

Mother brings George and meout to the screen porchof our summer cottage.Lightning pierces the darklike silver darts, rumbles follow. I wonder if warsounds the same.

“Start counting , one-onehundred, two-one hundredthe second you seethe lightning flash,then you’ll knowhow many miles away the storm is.”

“When thunderstorms come,your Aunt Helen drawsthe shades and curtainsand jumps into bed,even pulls the coversover her head.”

ZZZZZZZt – bang!“That was right on top of us.”We giggle our excitement.Mother says, “I wouldn’t miss this show and it doesn’tcost a penny.”

On Being Sent to My Room from Baseball, Snakes, and Summer Squash by Donald Graves

Each morning I hurrythrough choresbefore school:dry the dishes,dump the trash,make my bed.

One day I skip chores;I hope to finish themwhen I come home.Mother waits for mewhen I come through the door.

“Why weren’t the chores done?”“Well, the day isn’t over,I’ll do them now.”“Too late.Go to your room and think it over.”

I sit in my room, read my book;I cook a plan.I won’t come downstairsnot even for supper.

“You can come down now.”“I’m still thinking.”I read my book I have a crackerin my desk drawer.

“You can come down now;time for supper.”“Nope, still thinking.”“You have five secondsto be down these stairs,one, two, three….”

Fake It from Baseball, Snakes, and Summer Squash by Donald Graves

Miss Johnson gives us fiftymath problems, a whole pageof misery that ruinsa perfectly good evening of reading my book.

In the morning I wake with forty math problemsstaring at me.

At breakfast Mother says,“Finish your cereal, Donald.You’ll be late for school.”

Gradually my moth fillsand I swallow nothinguntil my cheeks bulge.I spring from my seat, racefor the bathroom and BLAH, I blowthe whole mess into the toilet.

“Ma, Ma,” I yell.“I’ve just thrown up.”

Mother races in,looks over my shoulder.“You do that againand I’ll tan your hide.”

Grades from Been to Yesterdays by Lee Bennett Hopkins

K through threein Scranton, PA.

Grade fourin farawayNewark, NJ.

Grade fiveanother schoolanother teacheranother new face.

Grade sixin some othernew partof anotherNewark-place

One thingI learnedfrom allof these schools

is that Iam someonewho willmakemyown rules.

Foul Shot by Edwin A. Hoey in Slam Dunk by Lillian Morrison

With two 60’s stuck on the scoreboardAnd two seconds hanging on the clock,The solemn boy in the center of eyes,Squeezed by silence,Seeks out the line with his feet,Soothes his hands along his uniform,Gently drums the ball against the floor,Then measures the waiting net,Raises the ball on his right hand,Balances it with his left,Calms it with fingertips,Breathes,Crouches,Waits,And then through a stretching of stillness,Nudges it upward.The ball slides up and out.Lands,Leans,Wobbles,Wavers,Hesitates,Exasperates,Plays it coyUntil every face begs with unsounding screams –And then And then, And then,Right before ROAR-UP,Dives down and through.

The Grandstander by Anne Haeusler in Slam Dunk by Lilliam Morrison

The score was tiedwith a minute to go.Ball caught at midcourt – she poised for the throw,a two-handed shot,a perfect long loop.Unbelievable!Right into the hoop.She should have passedbut all the same her team forgave herfor winning the game.

The Bully

Bobby Nelson is the toughest kid in our class;I am the smallestHis hoarse voice finds me every dayon the way to school and home again.“Hey, Rabbit, whatcha doin’?”A rock drops into my gut.He walks next to me,throws his elbow into my ribsand edges me to the curbhoping I’ll take a swing at him.I tried once and he flippedme like a toy dog.

One day Jim, my best friend, gets fed upwith Nelson’s jabs and taunts.Someone on the playground yells “fight”and a ring of kids surrounds them.“Hit ‘im Jim.”“Take him, Nelson.”They shove back and forthsaying, “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,think you’re big,think you’re tough.”Nelson takes a swing;Jim catches his armand twists him to the ground;the dust flies, the circle cheers.Jim sits on Nelsonlike we own the playground,the school, and everything in it.

GRANDPARalph Fletcher

Grandpa came to visit every spring.

We’d get up early, just he and I,

and sneak outside at sunrise

while diamonds danced all over the lawn.

Grandpa told me how spiders work

stringing water beads on the finest thread,

decorating their webs with morning dew,

and Grandpa never lied so I knew it was true.

In winter Grandpa took me on long walks.

We always stopped at Tolliver’s barn

to pull down wicked icicle swords,

each one filled with sharp clear light,

and challenged each other to death by duel.

Grandpa explained how wind works at night

sharpening icicles long as they grow,

and Grandpa never lied so I knew it was so.

In Grandpa’s study we drank hot chocolate

while he read from a book of fairy tales.

I saw on his windows the blooming frost

and asked about those delicate lines.

Grandpa told me about the winter elves

who come at dusk with magical brushes

to sketch on glass their silvery hues,

and Grandpa never lies so I knew it was true.

Once Grandpa took me ice fishing at night.

He held my hand while we crossed Spy Pond

and showed me how to cut out circles of ice.

When I asked if he still missed Grandma

fat young tears rolled down his cheeks

and I heard the ice settle and moan.

He said: “Ice this deep can talk to you,”

and Grandpa never lied so I knew it was true.

taken from: Water Planet, 1991

upper grade writing unit of study big idea poetry...

Documents