A(nother) Year of Reading

Franki’s Weekly Text Set-Reading and Writing: Question and Answer Format

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram.

Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

I was thinking about how much elementary students love the Who Would Win? series. I never really looked closely at it but when I did, I realized what a great mentor it is. There is more to each segment than I realized and there is lots there for both readers and writers. So I’ve started to take a look at other nonfiction books with a Question and Answer format, thinking critically about these books for both readers and writers. There is no set way a Q/A book is written so when we study them, we can learn so much about craft moves, layout, organization, etc. This week’s Text Set will take a look at informational books that have a Question/Answer format.

The Truth About…series is one of my favorite new nonfiction series. I discovered Whooo Knew? last year and was thrilled to see two more books in the series. Each of these books focuses on a different animal/living creature. Each two page spread answers a question about the topic such as “Do Dogs Sweat?”. The question is then answered in 2-3 short paragraphs followed by some extra details, photos and information. Each book also includes a glossary, extra information and an activity. This is a great series to begin a Q/A format study as they are very engaging, there is a lot to each page and there are a variety of access points for readers. And this author gives writers lots of new things to try!

These two books What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? and Lift-the-Flap Questions and Answers about Plastic give pages of questions on a topic. Even though the answers are quick, each page is worth studying for the ways the questions work together under a common topic. Part of writing good Q/A nonfiction is the ways in which the questions connect and fit under a bigger umbrella. These books are perfect to think more about that as both readers and writers. Sometimes I worry that kids love these books to just read facts but don’t do the deeper thinking of the umbrella ideas being shared. Both skills are so important. (Plus, what is more fun than a lift-the-flap informational book?)

I love the work of Nicholas St. Fleur (he does some kids informational infographic work in NY Times). His work is such a great mentor for the ways information can be organized to support reader understanding. His book. Did You Know ?Dinosaur is perfect to study… Young readers often love to spend lots of times with books like this but it is critical that we teach them how to navigate all that is on the page. As writers, thinking about ways to organize information on a 2 page spread is critical whether you are writing Q/A or some other format. Lots to learn from this one!

How Come? Every Kid’s Science Questions Explained gives readers and writers much longer answers to the questions posed. It’s important for our readers to see that most questions can’t be answered with a single sentence and this book helps to see how explanations give deep understanding to a concept. It will take stamina and strategy to read these and some would make great read aloud. As writers, there is lots to learn from these–great leads, solid explanations, intentional language and more. These are short texts that can also be used in small group work.

Writers are always trying to add humor to their books and this series by Jess Keating is a great model for thinking about ways to do that effectively. Keating shares so much interesting information but also embeds humor in a way that adds to the experience in Eat Your Rocks, Crocs and Set Your Alarm, Sloth.

This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious and/or Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous local children’s bookstore to support, Cover to Cover is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio! If you don’t have an independent children’s bookstore in your town, check out Bookelicious. They are an online independent bookstore for children with an incredible curated collection.

A #PoemPair for Poetry Friday

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
by Tiya Miles
Random House, 2021

FIRST THE BOOK
The embroidery on the cover caught my eye and the title pulled me in to read the jacket blurb. There I absorbed the lines that Ruth Middleton embroidered on a cotton sack that her great grandmother Rose filled with simple yet precious items to give to her daughter Ashley, Ruth’s grandmother, before Ashley was sold away at the age of nine from her mother to another slave owner.

“My great grandmother Rose
mother of Ashley gave her this sack when
she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina
it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of
pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her

It be filled with my Love always

she never saw her again
Ashley is my grandmother
Ruth Middleton
1921″

The historian Tiya Miles traces every bit of what can be known, as well as inferred, about this sack, its contents, and these three women. As she traces every lead, Miles comes back again and again to the tenacity and revolutionary love of Rose and other enslaved women whose perseverance through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, and the Great Migration, is what has carried generations of Black families into the present.

Reading this book made me rethink my poem “Persevere is a Word.” It seems trite now. Perhaps suitable for a motivational poster, but naively unaware of a deeper, more nuanced and historically-based version of perseverance.

AND NOW THE POEMPAIR

Persevere is a Word

Persevere is a long word:
four hundred years long,
the distance of the Middle Passage,
the length of a ship’s hold, packed with bodies chained together.

And although persevere
contains none of the letters that spell luck,
privilege shines through from beginning to end.

The privilege of tracing a blood line
for generation after unbroken generation
in an ancestral story of ascension

rather than a lineage that dead-ends
in the shackles of slavery,
in lives with trauma encoded in the DNA,
in the knowledge that one’s existence
is not predicated on bootstraps
or an innocuous insistence to try again
or the blithe assertion to summon grit

but instead dependent on ancestors who persevered
surviving horrors unimaginably severe
family members inhumanely severed from each other
per their owners’ whim.

Persevere is a light word for some,
a chirpy motivational poster word.
For others it is a heavy word,
a how-dare-you-assume word,
a claim-my-humanity,
praise-the-ancestors,
lift-while-we-climb* word.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

*Angela Davis

Matt has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.

Franki’s Weekly Text Set: Indigenous People-Authentic Representations

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram.

Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

It is almost November and I’ve already seen horrible misrepresentations of Indigenous People as we near the Thanksgiving holiday. Our children learn harmful and incorrect stories of “Pilgrims and Indians” as early as preschool. Along with correct history, it is so important that our children learn about contemporary Indigenous People and see authentic representations in contemporary settings. This week’s text set focuses on books that feature lives of Indigenous people who are members of various nations today. I rely so much on the work of Dr. Debbie Reese and her blog American Indians in Children’s Literature and each of the books on this list have been reviewed on her blog. Please visit her blog to learn more about each of her books. And follow her daily on Twitter and commit to stop putting harmful misrepresentations of Indigenous People in front of our children.

We Are Still Here and Go Show the World are two books that have been instrumental for my own learning and two books that have helped me unlearn a great deal. Both books are both historical and contemporary. Both belong in every school and classroom library. We Are Still Here looks at history and helps us begin to unlearn and relearn what we thought we knew. And Go Show the World features several historic and modern-day Indigenous heroes. These are great for elementary age children as well as high school classrooms.

I love a good picture book biography and Sharice’s Big Voice and Mission to Space are two must-haves. Both tell the story of the impact of two heroes. The added bonus is that they are both autobiographies. Making sure we read biographies of present-day people making a difference is critical and making sure readers see a full and authentic representations of those people is just as critical.

Fry Bread has won so many awards! It is another modern day look at a Native American family and the ways Fry Bread bring family and friends together. Again, I love the connection between history and today as well as the diversity within the community shown in this book. Every detail of this book is brilliant–the end papers, the cover under the dust jacket, all of it!

A look at the tradition of the powwow, Bowwow Powwow is a must-have. This book packs so much information in while also seeing the powwow from a child’s eyes. The history and tradition of the powwow is embedded within a great story. This is another one that connects history to present-day.

First Laugh-Welcome Baby! is one of my new favorite books and this is one of the favorite celebrations I’ve learned about recently. In Navajo families, the first person to make a baby laugh, hosts a celebration. This book honors that celebration as well as the diversity within the family and community. The illustrations are incredible–so many details to notice.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is HERE!

Linda Mitchell (@A Word Edgewise) gave the Inklings our challenge this month. She charged us with writing “a poem that includes the idea of percentage or percent. Percentages are all around us in recipes, prices, assessments, statistics. Include the idea of percentage in your poem in some way.”

My poem was born during the drive home from Vermont. Our day in St. Albans and along the coast of Lake Champlain at Hathaway Point was fresh in my mind. As we burned up the miles through the Adirondacks, I wrote, looking up every few lines to take in the beauty of the fall foliage.

View from the summit of Aldis Hill, St. Albans, VT

Here’s how the rest of the Inklings interpreted Linda’s challenge:

Linda@A Word Edgewise
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Molly@Nix the Comfort Zone
Catherine@Reading to the Core
Margaret@Reflections on the Teche

And here’s what the rest of the Poetry Friday Community is up to this week!

Last reminder! Tomorrow is the deadline to join in the Winter Poem Swap!

Franki’s Weekly Text Set: Writing About Important Places in Our Lives

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

Place is such an important idea in our reading and writing. For our elementary writers, learning various ways to capture all that you love about a place can support writing across units of study. This week’s Text Set will explore books that capture a specific place. These books can be studied as writers to discover new things to try as writers.

I always love starting any mini-cycle of study with wordless or nearly wordless picture books. Sidewalk Flowers and Wait! are similar in that they each follow a young child noticing the little things in a city/neighborhood. The idea of noticing those things that are worth noticing in a place, as writers is a good way to start this cycle.

The language in If Dominican Were a Color is amazing and the rhyming text works well. The thing I love best about this book is the way the author uses colors to describe so many things in the place she loves. The illustrations are amazing and there is so much to learn as a writer and as an artist in this one.

One way to share the joy of a place is to tell stories of the place. I love the book Marshfield Dreams as part of this study because Ralph Fletcher includes so many stories that give readers a sense of the place he grew up. I also love the map at the beginning of the book–this serves as a great mentor for writers –creating a map of a place is often a great way to think about ways to write about it.

Vamos! Let’s Cross the Bridge and My Two Border Towns are two new books about US/Mexico border towns that capture these cities in very different ways. Comparing two ways that two authors captured the joy and stories in different ways will invite great conversations about writing.

Saying goodbye to a place you love is always difficult. Both of these books capture the love of place and the feeling of loss in beautiful ways. Everything Naomi Loved make for an easier mini lesson because of its length, but Turtle of Oman is an incredible quiet read aloud for upper elementary students and almost any page can be studied as a writer. Pairing the two would be powerful.

Poetry Friday: Word Play

The Poetry Sisters’ challenge for this month was to write Word Play poems, introduced to the Poetry Friday community in 2015 by Nikki Grimes as one of Michelle H. Barnes’ (Today’s Little Ditty) Ditty of the Month challenges. Laura Purdie Salas showed how the form might work in a classroom.

I have two poems this month. The first came about because of this conversation on FaceBook with Poetry Sister Kelly:

This second poem was written more in the style of Poetry Sister Laura’s “Freedom is a Word” (one of my all-time favorite poems of hers).

Don’t forget to join the Winter Poem swap…
if you’re so inclined. More info here.

Linda has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at TeacherDance, and check out how all the rest of the Poetry Sisters met this month’s challenge:

Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Kelly @ Kelly Ramsdell
Andi @ A Wrung Sponge

You’re invited to join the Poetry Sisters’ challenge for the month of November! We’re writing an Ode to Autumn. An ode is a lyrical poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often meant to be sung. Whether you choose an irregular ode with no set pattern or rhyme, or the ten-line, three-to-five stanza famed by Homer himself, we hope you’ll join us! You can share your offering with the rest of us on November 26th (the Friday after Thanksgiving, so plan ahead) in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

Franki’s Weekly Text Set-Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

I often get requests for book recommendations for young children that support Phonological and Phonemic Awareness. Both of these skills are anchored in oral language. We want children to be able to focus on and manipulate sounds. We want them to be able to do this with larger chunks (rhymes, word parts, etc.) and to also be able to isolate individual sounds. Songs and stories are often great ways to play with sounds as you work with these skills. This week I’ll share some books that are fun to share with young children (and children of all ages) as they learn to play with and manipulate sounds in words.

I have to start with an oldie, but goodie–Tanka Tanka Skunk! I think we went through at least two copies of this book when my daughter was young. It is such a fun read aloud and it never seems to get old! The rhythm and breaking apart of syllables in words while reading this one make it perfect for young children. The illustrations are great fun and invite lots of good conversation.

I just discovered this new book The Sound Bites at a local bookstore. This is a fun story with lots of sound and word part play throughout. Authored by a Speech Language Pathologist, the book introduces letter sounds and also plays with alliteration and more throughout. The author shares great tips for caregivers at the end of the book.

There are never enough rhyming books to share with young children. One Hug, Cool Cuts and Moo Hoo are three of my recent favorites as the rhymes and rhythm work well for young children. The humor in Moo Hoo is an added bonus! All are great choices for reading aloud to young children–whether at home or in a classroom.

I love discovering new song books to share with young children. Paletero Man is a lively happy song filled with rhyme. It was created by Lucky Diaz. Pairing this book with the song recording would make for a happy day at home or at school! Of course kids will join in!

I just discovered Atticus Caticus and I can’t get over the brilliance and the fun. Readers of all ages will love this one but the play with words, the rhyme, the I just discovered these two books and I can’t get over the brilliance and the fun. Readers of all ages will love Atticus Caticus because the play with words, the rhyme, the multisyllabic nonsense words all make it such fun. I love the way the words and illustrations work together to tell a fun story with such playful language ((and it is almost National Cat Day–THANKS Bookelicious for the reminder!). Look is another fun story of a day at the zoo. And it is told almost exclusively with words with the double o. I can see having fun breaking words apart, replacing the first letter, etc. after reading and enjoying this books. Kids will love these two! . #TextSet #ReadAloud

Poetry Friday: What An Amazing Community!

For her birthday, Linda Baie GAVE the gift of poetry — she handpicked volumes for anyone who sent her their address. I’ll enjoy the David Ignatow book (POEMS 1934-1969) a little at a time, but her pick of CRY OUT: POETS AGAINST THE WAR was magical. From the blurb on the back: “On February 16, 2003, eleven contemporary poets held a reading in Manchester, Vermont, called “A Poetry Reading in Honor of the Right to Protest as a Patriotic and Historical Tradition.” Organized in response to the cancellation of a White House poetry symposium, the reading was sponsored by the Northshire Bookstore and drew a crowd of over seven hundred people. CRY OUT: POETS PROTEST THE WAR gathers together the poems read by the participants, many of them original poems and others poems by…renowned poets…”

We were in Manchester, VT just.last.week!! The Northshire Bookstore is one of our favorite destinations there! Magical! Thank you, Linda!!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is winter-poem-swap-2021.png

Laura Shovan and I are helping Tabatha with the Winter Poem Swap. The Winter Poem Swap is a little different than the Summer Swap. In the SummerPoem Swap, poets do up to five swaps, while the Winter Poem Swap is just ONE swap. This time, though, you are asked to send a wee gift along with your poem. If you would like to participate, send Laura an email (laurashovan @ gmail . com) by November 6. Include your full name and mailing address. Let her know if you want to swap with the same person who is sending to you or if it doesn’t matter. Include any allergies your gift giver might need to know about. Laura will send you the name and address of your poem/gift recipient by November 13. Then you have a month to write your poem and put your package together for delivery by December 15, in plenty of time for the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (10:58 AM on December 21, in case you were wondering).

Jama is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Jama’s Alphabet Soup. Head over for some October goodness and the rest of the posts by this amazing community! I’m so thankful for all of you, and all you do to make the world a better place, one Friday after another!

Franki’s Weekly Text Set: The Power of Visuals in Fiction and Nonfiction

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

This week, we’ll look at the Power of Visuals in both fiction and nonfiction. This is another study that is important as both readers and writers. More and more of our world is becoming visual and more and more books have embedded visuals that work together WITH the text. Learning to read visuals as part of a text and thinking about being intentional as a writer with the visuals we use are both critical.

If you have not had time to check out Uma Wimple Charts Her House, please do! This is a longer picture book that is full of charts, diagrams and other visuals. The focus of the story is on charting Uma’s house so it is a great book to begin a conversation around visuals to share information, to tell a story, etc. This one is also a great book to connect to math concepts. This is one readers will read and reread, noticing new things each time.

What’s Inside a Flower is one of my favorite new nonfiction books. This can be read from cover to cover or it can be studied based on what a reader wants to learn. Each page has visuals that can be studied. This would be a great book to project on a board to discuss the creation of the various visuals. And the colors in this one are unique which is another layer of thinking when it comes to visuals.

There is something about a graphic novel layout that is often challenging to understand and to create. I love a simple graphic novel that can be studied for design. This early graphic novel, Burt the Beetle Doesn’t Bite, shares lots of facts about insects. And it does so with humor. The layout and the way the text and dialogue are laid out on each page are all worth talking and thinking about. So many design decisions on each page.

How to Make a Book (About My Dog) is a new book by Chris Barton. I love it for thinking about the writing process but I also love the ways the visuals add so much to the text–breaking things down, etc. This is a fun book to read as part of your writing workshop. Then I can see going back to individual pages to really study the visuals that are embedded and how each helps the reader make meaning.

I LOVE everything about both of these books-Juana and Lucas and Make Meatballs Sing . I’d share them over and over with children. The reason I included them in this Text Set is the way that the words themselves are visuals. If you know the art of Corita Kent (which I did not before this book), much of her art is involves words. Words are the visuals in these books and there is so much to learn with this concept. In Juana and Lucas, there are other visuals throughout. I like the pairing of these as ways authors and artists create words in a way that moves them beyond “just text”.

Poetry Friday: Retirement and Winter Poem Swap Info

This poem is a decima. The rhyme scheme is ABBAACCDDC, and there are 8 syllables each line.

Laura Shovan and I are helping Tabatha with the Winter Poem Swap. The Winter Poem Swap is a little different than the Summer Swap. In the Summer Poem Swap, poets do up to five swaps, while the Winter Poem Swap is just ONE swap. This time, though, you are asked to send a wee gift along with your poem. If you would like to participate, send Laura an email (laurashovan @ gmail . com) by November 6. Include your full name and mailing address. Let her know if you want to swap with the same person who is sending to you or if it doesn’t matter. Include any allergies your gift giver might need to know about. Laura will send you the name and address of your poem/gift recipient by November 13. Then you have a month to write your poem and put your package together for delivery by December 15, in plenty of time for the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (10:58 AM on December 21, in case you were wondering).

Bridget has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at wee words for wee ones. (And remember, I’m taking November 5.)