Figurative Language in Literature

Our figurative language study is in full swing! This week, we are focusing our efforts on finding examples of figurative language in literature, music, and in our daily lives. Inspired by a colleague, I am challenging my students to listen and think about figurative language all hours of the day. As they find examples of figurative language, they are invited to add those examples to our class collaborative Google Slides. 

Did I mention we are 1:1 now? Life changing, folks! We just recently started utlitizing Google Classroom now that we are 1:1 with iPads. 

To begin, I created a bare-bones Slides project with the different types of figurative language we study in 5th grade. After assigning the collaborative Google Slides in Google Classroom (how many times can I say Google in this post?), we defined each of the types of figurative language as a class. This isn't the first time we've discussed figurative language, so the definitions were more of a refresher after the long holiday weekend. 

Then, I partnered the students and gave each duo an opportunity to pick a book from my special pile of "figurative language friendly" books. Students read the book together and were adding to the Slides in a matter of minutes! We had so much editing happening at once it caused a bit of panic. We'll refer to that as GAFE Growing Pains. :) We did some troubleshooting and solved the problem with "disappearing" text. 

"Owl Moon" by Jane Yolen 

"Pigsty" by Mark Teague

Here's a snapshot of the titles we used. There were several more I found online, but I didn't have access to those books in my personal library or our school library. 

If you are looking for good books to add to your mentor text stash or your classroom library, I highly recommend the following titles! I apologize to your bank account in advance. 

Pigsty by Mark Teague

Fireflies by Judy Brinkloe

My Mama Had a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray

When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant

Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee 

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Yesterday, I Had the Blues by Jeron Ashford Frame

Parts by Tedd Arnold

Grandfather Twilight by Barbara Berger

What books do you use to teach figurative language? Share with me!

Mentor Text: Voices in the Park

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The book "Voices in the Park" by Anthony Browne has been sitting on my shelf for several years. Until this week, I haven't found a real reason to use it for instruction. I was pacing around my room thinking about perspective and point of view and had that AH-HA moment. I'm almost positive I said, "I'VE GOT IT!" out loud and completely startled my students. By now... they've become used to my outbursts. I knew I had the perfect book to illustrate the difference between point of view and perspective (something we are stuck on in 5th grade). 

I closed my mini lesson on the difference between point of view and perspective by reading aloud and dissecting Voices in the Park. It was a great discussion! However, it wasn't until later that day when the magic happened...

An avid writer in my classroom (such an avid writer that she had to get a NEW writer's notebook this year because her other one was full!) approached me and asked if she could write a "Voices in the Park" story. We brainstormed what her location could be in the story and we settled on the school cafeteria. Then, she was off! Writing a fictional story about the cafeteria from four very unique perspectives.

Last night as I was thinking about my plans for reading time - it hit me! Why aren't we ALL doing what my little writer is doing? What a great lesson!

From there... the lesson was born. We discussed how to brainstorm a location, time of day, or time period in our life. Then, we picked logical "voices" to play the roles in our short stories. 

The lesson lent itself to great extra mini lessons on voice, dialogue, and character development. We pulled Wonder off the shelf as an additional mentor text. One student piped up, "my character is like Justin from Wonder, he NEVER writes capital letters." 

Our finished products will be published on our blogs next week. I'm equally excited for my kids to publish their stories and be able to read and comment on one another's. 

Have a great week!

The Writing Process

Daily, I'm thankful that I paid attention in college and took great notes. Today I was especially thankful when it came to my writing plans. My students and I are working towards writing personal narratives, but first we had to talk about the process of writing! I know my students have heard the language before but we needed a refresher. 

Here's where my handy Writer's Notebook from college came in handy. Oh, that's redundant. Quick think of a synonym for handy. 

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Anyway, I introduced the story "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle to my students. I was fairly certain they had either read this book or it had been read to them at some point in their educational careers. Although, I was hopeful it hadn't been used for this purpose. As we read the story, we focused on the development of a tiny seed as it conquers mountains, snow, rain, tiny hands and so on.  Near the end of the story, the tiny seed had blossomed into a beautiful flower.  By the end, we watched as more tiny seeds flew from the beautiful flower to create more flowers around the world. The illustrations were absolutely stunning. Would you expect anything less from Eric Carle?

After the story, we opened up OUR writing notebooks and began sketching the writing process. As suggested by one of my fabulous literacy professors, we compared the process of writing to a developing tiny seed. As you can see in the pictures below, each step relates to our little seedling. Throughout the process, our seed grows and blossoms into a beautiful flower. Then, once we finish our final project we're back to square one with more seed stories. 

Above you see my "sketches" of the writing process. Any artist probably wouldn't let me categorize these as sketches. Oh well. Tomorrow, our entry will be "Seed Stories" for our narratives. Using our heart maps, feet maps (future blog post), memories, and various webs we'll begin picking "seeds" to develop.

Check out the incredible creations two of my students made in their notebooks. I had 22 excellent entries, but I limited myself to only picking two. 

I especially love the ultimate party scene that the gentleman above picked to illustrate celebration. He added that on his own. :)

As we venture into personal narratives territory - I ask for advice! What mini lessons or mentor texts do you use in your classroom? Do share! 

Using Mentor Texts in Writing

Slowly but surely, we are starting to add entries in our brand new writer's notebooks. Writing is my absolute favorite time of the day. My entire building is participating in professional development on Writing Workshop. I'm very excited to have a method to my madness. Eventually, my writing time will be a little more structured. For now, I'm working on making meaningful mini lessons. 

Lucky for me, I work with amazing teachers with incredible ideas. My team teacher suggested some great ideas and was more than willing to let me share them on my bloggy-blog. In other words, I cannot take credit for these wonderful ideas!

One of our entries was about our memories. We started our lesson with the read aloud, "Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge" written by Mem Fox. If you haven't read this precious book, stop what you're doing and go read it ...now! Tears started welling up as I read the pages of this story. It's such a beautiful story. 

To get our brains thinking about memories, we reviewed each definition of a memory from the story. I modeled writing in my notebook each memory. The students were able to follow along with me because I was using a document camera. (It's quickly becoming my new favorite piece of technology). 

I started writing down a warm memory of my own. I began to recall the day that my niece Libby was born this summer. Then, I sent the students on their merry way to begin writing.

Another entry in our notebooks was inspired by, "The Important Book" by Margaret Wise Brown. My teammate and I put our heads together and planned for our kids to make an Important Book about our school. We used the format of Brown's book as a guide.

First, we brainstormed the REALLY important characteristics of our school. The kids were shouting out answers left and right. It's evident that we have many important and special qualities at the UE. 

After our brainstorming session, students were given time to write their own variation of The Important Book. We stressed using the same format as Brown's to make the book consistent for our young readers. Soon, the book will be published and available for little eyes and minds to enjoy.

 Have you jumped into writing workshop this year? What kinds of mini lessons do YOU start the year with? Do share!