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Verseday: Concrete Poetry Picture Books
Back in August, I did a post on resources to use when teaching LOVE THAT DOG by Sharon Creech. I didn’t include my concrete poetry picture books because I knew it would be a post all on it’s own. Here are some of my favorite concrete poem picture books.…
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Onomatopoeia Palooza!
I am a contributor to this onomatopoeia resource. If you are a writer or a teacher of writing, I hope that you will find this helpful. It’s like an onomatopoeia encyclopedia. To download this onomatopoeia resource, click on the picture below. Onomatopoeia Sounds Like… Other Onomatopoeia Resources: Onomatopoeia Mentor…
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Mentor Text Tip Tuesday: Pictures as Mentors
Tip: Sometimes students need more than an author’s words to help them in their writing. Many students respond well to pictures. I know many primary teachers that start students out with drawing a picture first, then writing. This can work for older students too. Pictures can be mentors for…
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VerseDay: Resources to Use with LOVE THAT DOG by Sharon Creech
One of the highlights of my year is teaching LOVE THAT DOG by Sharon Creech. My students love reading this book and discovering that they can write poetry too. Over the years, I’ve collected some favorite books that I use while teaching LOVE THAT DOG. The resources are listed…
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Mentor Text Tip Tuesday: Use Non-Book Resources
Tip: Use examples from non-book sources like newspapers and magazines. I tend to focus a lot of my energy on fictional mentor texts. However, much of what students will have to write and read in their school career will be non-fiction. So I’m working on incorporating more non-fiction into…
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VerseDay: Picture Books About Poets
Picture Books About Poets I love making poets accessible to young people. No single book does that better than Sharon Creech‘s LOVE THAT DOG. However, there are poems by famous poets that I love to use as mentor texts for my students. I love learning about the poets…
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Mentor Text Tip Tuesday: Poetry Stations
Tip One of my favorite units that I did with my class last year was on poetry using Tamera Will Wissinger’s GONE FISHING as a mentor text. But I also incorporated many other mentor texts in this unit as well. I created poetry stations for different forms of poetry.…
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Mentor Text Tip Tuesday: Make a Chart
Tip When I’m introducing a mentor text to students for the first time, we talk together about the things we admire about the writing. One way to do this is by making a chart. It gives us a chance to color-code phrases or words and talk about it in…
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Mentor Text Tip Tuesday: Haiku Magnets
Tip: Make Haiku Magnets I love writing haiku with my students. One of the tricky parts about writing haiku is getting to them to be highly selective with their word choice. I ban words like cool, awesome, great, fun. But sometimes it’s hard to for them to know what…
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Mentor Text Tip Tuesday: Laminate the Text
I’m starting a new summer series for teachers called “Mentor Text Tip Tuesdays.” These will be practical tips on using mentor texts in the classroom. If you follow my blog, you know that I’ve been posting mentor text lesson plans. I hope these tips will help you visualize how easy…