Wordless Picture Book Poetry

When I taught Kindergarten years ago, I remember how much I loved reading picture books to my class.  There was always plenty to talk about as we closely observed the lush artwork splashed across the pages of whimsical text such as the books of Eric Carle.  During this time, I also discovered wordless books.  In the primary grades, wordless books lend themselves so well to oral narration or opportunities to write.  Sadly, as students move up the grades, they tend to see less and less picture or wordless books.  Has this happened to you?  Would you like to try a different approach to poetry?

If you read my last post, you know that I promised to share some new learnings from my ISI experience.  The ISI (Invitational Summer Institute) is a two-week summer writing program hosted by UCR for teachers to inspire writing in their classroom.  I would like to share how you can inspire poetry through wordless books.

1.  Briefly introduce the elements of poetry.

This is a wonderful title!

2.  Select wordless books that are whimsical, magical, and creative.  Books that lend themselves to the imagination.  Some of my favorites are Sunday, Flotsam, (both by David Wiesner), Wave by Suzy Lee, and Chalk by Bill Thompson.  You can find so many through Pinterest by typing "wordless books" in the search bar.  Once I select one, I see if I can find it on youtube to make it easier to monitor the activity while it plays.

3.  Each student gets one long post-it (4 x 6) and a sharpie.  Mention to students that they will view the story twice.  The first viewing is for them to experience the story line.  On the second viewing, they are instructed to write ONE word that they can think of as they watch.  Encourage creativity.  The word can be a noun, adjective, or verb.  Here are the rules:  as they write the word, they must hurry and place it on a word collector wall (chart paper, whiteboard or easel).  If that word is already on the word collector wall, they must return to their seats and think of another word.


4. I chose Sunday by David Wiesner.  The class was highly engaged and challenged to think of unique words.  It was a great way to informally assess student vocabulary banks as well as "thinking" fluency as they hurried to think of words to place on the word collector.


5.  After typing all the words onto a simple table, I printed and they glued the word table onto their writing journals on one of the pages of a two-page spread.  On the other page, they were to write a poem using only the words from the table PLUS five additional words they may need in order to complete their poems.  They asked many interesting questions such as: Can we use words twice?  Can we change the tenses (past/future)?  Can we use the bonus words twice?  Could we use the root word of one of the words? Could we use a synonym of a word since it means the same thing?  These questions were a pleasant and unexpected surprise as it offered me to do some mini-lessons on grammar at the moment.

 

5.  Once they finished their poems, they typed them onto a Google doc.  I was able to use this part of the activity as a technology opportunity as I taught them how to center text, manipulate fonts to make the poem more whimsical and how to choose an appropriate font size.  After they printed their poem, they glued the paper onto a construction paper and drew some frogs to decorate the blank space (frogs are a major character in Tuesday).

6.  Laminate the poems and decorate a bulletin board.

7.  Make poetry fun!!

Happy Writing!
Gus Macuil

I Know What You Did Last Summer....(a non-horror experience)

When I think of summer, I think of time off especially after an arduous year of teaching, learning, reflecting, grading, writing (lesson plans), reading, and all things academic.  So it was to my surprise that I signed up for the Invitational Summer Institute (ISI).

I bet your gut reaction was "Whaaat!!  Summer writing, no thanks!  MAYBE summer reading, anything but writing!"

No worries, I felt the same way.  People will do anything to avoid writing...like a horror movie it scares, frightens, worries, terrorizes and perhaps makes us sweat (a little).  I get it.  I get it.  I. Get. It!  I used to feel that way too.

Then, something changed.  A shift if you will.  Let me tell you what I did last summer.

It started with me, reluctantly (to be honest), applying and getting accepted to attend the 2018 Invitational Summer Institute (ISI) held at UC Riverside from mid-June to early July 2018.  Twelve days total.  I was unsure if I wanted to spend two weeks of my summer like this but I decided that my writing instruction needed some assistance and a fellow colleague REALLY encouraged me to attend (if you are reading this, you know who YOU are!).

Participating in ISI changed how I viewed writing and how I could make writing more meaningful for students.  I also realized that the ISI was NOT  a writing workshop with hand-outs and a mountain of strategies that you probably will never use anyway.  Don't get me wrong...there were actual hand-outs and strategies that were shared but the main takeaway for me was that writing takes many forms and accomplished writers NEED accomplished writer teachers with an emphasis on the teacher being a writer themselves and not just teachers of writing.

What does this mean exactly?  Well, by experiencing each day during the ISI as a writing "student," I realized that the reasons to write were crucial for engagement and to stimulate creativity.  Through thoughtful and carefully-planned activities, we became poets, storytellers, reporters, authors, rappers, lyrical composers, researchers, and audience members to an array of creative writing pieces.  We clapped, cheered, and encouraged each other.  We became a community of..........writers.

Writers.

Therefore, my "story" for this year's Spotlight Blog will be about writing.  I would like to share with you how the ISI has impacted my classroom practice.  I have implemented some ISI writing experiences with my current class and I am excited to share the results with you in future blogs so please return!

Want more info?  Click here:

http://iawp.ucr.edu/

Would you care for a "preview" - like a movie trailer showing some of the fabulous activities we participated in during the ISI?  Well, there is an annual writing conference coming up on Nov. 3rd at UCR.  There is a fee.  If your site has PD funding, this would be a great way to use it.  I hope you can join us!

Happy Writing!
Gus Macuil