Writing Street View 4th Grade Unit 6 January 7 25, 2013 - Office of ...

Writing Street View 4 th Grade Unit 7 January 28 – February 22, 2013Unit 7: Writing PoetryPacing: 3 WeeksPlanning for InstructionMentor Texts:Haiku Hike by written and illustrated by fourth-gradestudents of St. Mary's Catholic School in Mansfield,Massachusetts (Scholastic, 2005)Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel SilversteinLove That Dog By Sharon CreechOut of the Dust By Karen HesseI Never Saw Another Butterfly by Hana VolavkovaYo! Yes! by Chris RaschkaSpeak to Me by Karen English and Amy June BatesMarvelous Math: a book of poems by Lee Bennett HopkinsWonderful Words selected by Lee Bennett HopkinsSpectacular Science by Lee Bennett HopkinsTurtle In July by Marilyn SingerPirates by David Harrison (Bluebonnet Book 2010)Poems from Treasures reading textbookPoems from Treasures Read Aloud AnthologyPoems from Treasures Time For KidsProfessional Resources:Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6,Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell (Chapter 24)No-Nonsense Guide to Teaching Writing,Judy Davis and Sharon HillTreasures Phonics/Spelling Practice Book(Resource CD),Macmillan/McGraw-HillTexas Write Source,Houghton MifflinHarcourt PublishingSuggested Sequence:Because children must first, spend time reading poetry tounderstand it, analyze it, and become inspired to write poetry,at the start of this unit, you will spend a few days prewriting forpoetry in this way. As students begin to draft poetry, they doproceed through all stages of the writing process, but becausemany poems are short, they may move through the processvery quickly, sometimes completing more than one poem inone writing period. In any case, you should continue to modeleach stage of the writing process, especially revising to showthat poetry, like all other writing, is revised or rewritten severaltimes in an attempt to create just the right picture or feeling inthe reader’s mind. While editing, be sure to model for studentshow to experiment with the visual placement of words,capitalization and punctuation, to achieve specific visual effectsin their poems.See “Getting Started with Poetry Workshop”, in the Organizingsection below, for suggestions on how to structure the writingprocess for poetry.Areas of FocusGenre and Audience:Poetry is generally written to entertain. Somepoetry is humorous; some is serious. Somepoetry describes; some tells a story. Manypoems make the reader think about ideas innew ways or from new perspectives.“Poetry brings together sounds and words inunique, intriguing ways that may evoke intenseimagery and profound meaning. The best poetryfrequently contains an element of surprise. Youencounter language that you want to read overand over, and when you do, you experience thepoem anew each time. Your thoughts andemotions may be aroused by a single word.”(Fountas & Pinnell)Most poems are enjoyed best when we readthem aloud, because we can appreciate themusical sound, the rhythm, and the imagery ofthe language. If possible, we recommend thatyou take the poetry written by children to anaudience outside the school environment,where the creative work of the children will begenuinely appreciated and celebrated.TEKS:The Student Expectation forwriting poetry says that studentsshould be writing poems that‘convey sensory details’ andinclude:• Rhyme• Meter• Patterns of verse• Alliteration• Onomatopoeia• Similes• Metaphors• Graphic ElementsWithin this unit we also want toteach the Student Expectation forreading poetry, specifically thecharacteristics of various forms ofpoetry, such as narrative poetry,lyrical poetry, humorous poetry, freeverse, etc.Grammar/Editing:If you have kept up with teachingthe conventions SEs as outlined inthe previous CRMs, all grammarand editing skills have alreadybeen taught. Please consult the4th Grade ConventionsChecklist to make sure yourstudents have been taught andare reviewing all the parts ofspeech, capitalization,punctuation, and spelling SEs thatneed to be mastered for theSTAAR Writing Assessment.Assessment:Students will not be asked to write poetry for theSTAAR Writing test at any grade level. However,the STAAR Reading tests at all grade levels willinclude comprehension, analysis, and somemechanical knowledge of the form and structuresused in poetry.It can be argued that a person does not trulyunderstand the intricacies of poetry until he haswritten poetry. And because there are so manydifferent forms of poetry, children will not gain anoverall knowledge of the many different kinds ofpoetry until they have spent a considerableamount of time reading a variety of poetry,analyzing it, talking about it, listening to differentperspectives on it, and ultimately trying to writemany different kinds of poetry. Students continueto work on refining word choice by choosingprecise wording for the poems they write.It is worth our time to ask children to try writingpoetry, even if we are not completely comfortablewith writing it ourselves. Most children enjoy thechallenge and, at the very least, they will not beafraid of it when they see it on their reading test.