This week, I was challenged to write a persona poem, focusing on a character of my choice from the book A Crack in the Sea by H.M. Bouwman. For the purpose of my poem, I focused on Kinchen, a major character in the book. Kinchen is the sister of Pip, and a protective one at that. I have included my poem below. The process was fairly easy, mainly because there was a template with sentence stems to go by. While reading the book, I made sure to take lots of notes. That definitely helped when writing my poem. At this point, I do not think my poem is done. As a writer, I can always go back and look at my poem with fresh eyes and change some words. I hope you enjoy my persona poem!
Kinchen By: Kayla Pitman
I am determined and caring I live in the lushness of Tathenn island I wonder what the Raft King wants with my beloved Pip I hear him trying to trick my brother into doing something he will regret I see Pip with his head underwater I want Pip to live a long, fulfilled life. I’m as helpful as scared I am determined, caring, thoughtful, and alert.
I question if the Raft King is a genuine person. I feel that he is hiding something I taste the Sheep’s Wool tea I worry that I will not take care of Pip the way our parents would have wanted. I excel at keeping a watchful eye I understand I cannot always be there for Pip I am determined, caring, protecting, and scared
I say the first thing that comes to mind I believe in always standing up for Pip I dream of a day that Pip will make a real impact in the world I try to put my worries aside I hope Ren will be okay while I am gone I was once an orphan But now I am an adopted daughter I am determined and caring
Poetry Instruction
Creating a poem and incorporating writing instruction reminded me of a graduate level course I took last semester. We learned how to truly teach students how to write and become good at it. According to Frye and Hash (2013), there are many steps that need to be followed in order to teach students how to write, including reading mentor texts, completing graphic organizers, following a template, doing a shared writing, allowing students to contribute, and publishing students’ work. I saw this first hand in my own classroom. We read poems by Valerie Worth and students’ works to help students understand the craft and structure of the poem. Specifically for persona poems, I would definitely read the book Freedom Over Me by Ashley Bryan. This book included persona poems of eleven slaves’ lives. After reading tons and tons of poems, we annotated on, noticing the structure, vivid verbs, and figurative language. With the plan of writing observational or object poetry, we then used a graphic organizer to get our ideas down. Using graphic organizers is very important because it allows students to organize their thoughts and understand exactly what they need to include in their poem. When writing my persona poem, I used a type of graphic organizer, sentence stems. I know if I would not have had the stems, I would have really struggled writing the poem. I am not the only one. I know students struggle a lot with writing, so any way to make writing easier, really helps students. Furthermore, we used students’ ideas to write a classroom poem together. Students could then return to our modeled poem to get ideas on structure and words to use for their own poem. Finally, we published students’ poems. Given the limited amount of time, I typed them into Google. However, in the future, I would like to allow students to type their own. We could add them to Google Classroom, our class website (if they are willing to share), a Padlet, etc.
I have learned so much about teaching writing and poetry. I have also learned how to teach a love of poetry (including myself). In the future, I cannot wait to add this new type of poetry to my poetry toolbox, persona poems.
References
Bouwman, H. M., & Shimizu, Y. (2019). A crack in the sea. New York: Puffin Books.
Bryan, A. (2016). Freedom over me: eleven slaves, their lives and dreams brought to life. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
Frye, E. M., & Hash, L. A. (2013). The Voices of Children: Re-imagining the Internment of Japanese Americans through Poetry. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 25(4), 30–32.
First off, I have to admit, I have never read a book quite like A Crack in the Sea by H.M. Bouwman. This book is different than anything else I have ever read. There are so many layers to this book, that have to be peeled back one by one. Honestly, looking at the length of this book, I hoped and prayed I would like it, otherwise it was going to be a long weekend. It was, in face, an enjoyable read. Long, but enjoyable. For the purpose of today’s blog post, I want to look at this book with a critical, teacher’s eye.
A Few Things To Note:
I highly doubt that this would be a book I would read with my third graders. There are so many ideas and concepts that may be difficult for them to follow and understand. After teaching fifth grade, I feel that this would be a good book for them, especially tying it in with social studies curriculum. There are a few concepts I would want to teach before reading, including: Vietnam War, slavery, refugees, and point of views. To begin with, I would want to do a unit to explain the difference between a slave and refugee. These concepts are highly prevalent in this book. Whether it be the slave ship, transporting lots of people against their will, or Pip being taken from his home unwillingly, both of these concepts relate to slavery. Students need to understand the Middle Passage and the conditions these people were living in. In addition, students need to know about refugees. Even today, students can learn about Syrian refugees to discover how there are some today looking for a better life. I think it would be a really good idea for students to read excerpts and look at pictures of both of these concepts. One text that would be really beneficial in using to learn about refugees is Dreamers by Yuyi Morales. This book explains how a mother and child left their lives behind in pursuit of a better one (Morales, 2018). If students have a good background knowledge of the concepts, they will better understand the book.
Next, the Vietnam War makes up one-third of this book. Thanh, Sang, and Mai are all refugees trying to leave the war-torn country of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Students need to have a good understanding of what the war was, why it started, and our (United States) role in it as well. Having a good understanding of it will helps students visualize what was going on during the book with these characters in it. Furthermore, A Crack in the Sea would be a great resource to teach different point of views. There are three, distinct chunks related to point of view. There is Kinchen, Pip, and Ceasar’s point of view, Venus and Swimmer’s point of view, and finally Thanh, Sang, and Mai’s point of view. Students could write down notes for each section and then explain how the author weaves them all together into a carefully crafted book. Overall, there are so many concepts that can be taught when reading this book. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is, and I know you will be too.
References
Bouwman, H. M. (2017). A crack in the sea. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
I feel like I am always looking for a new book to add to my classroom library. The goal is to have a library full of all different texts that reflects our ever-changing world. This week, I had the opportunity to read three amazing children’s books. They were Red A Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall, Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Peña, and Rescue & Jessica A Life Changing Friendship by Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes.
Rescue & Jessica
Ever read one of those books that make you cry? I balled like a baby during this one. I think it is because of my background knowledge of having a dog and knowing how they change our lives. Rescue and Jessica, by Kensky and Downes, enriches my life in so many ways. To begin with, this is a book that most children would be able to relate with for the simple fact that Rescue is a dog. There is something about a book that one of the main characters is a dog. I loved how we not only had the point of view of Jessica, but also of Rescue and what he was going through. This book would be great to talk about point-of-view, especially since the authors incorporated two points-of-view in the text. Next, one critical literacy piece that I have been more focused on lately is illustrations. The illustrations in this text basically have a story of their own. Scott Magoon, the illustrator, tells a story through his illustrations. According to Magoon (2018), the illustrations were created digitally. On each page, we are able to glimpse the characters’ feelings. The pages that are bright let us know that they are feeling uplifted and happy. However, the darker illustrations let us glimpse into the darker days of their journey. I am especially drawn to the page with the bridge. The characters move from the darker part of the bridge (tougher days emotionally) to the brighter side of the bridge (easier/happier days). This really allows us to see the progression of the characters. Furthermore, I believe this text would be great to use the Bookmark Technique to teach critical literacy. According to DeVoogd and McLaughlin (2004), this technique helps students “monitor their comprehension and evaluate judgements about the text.” Students create four bookmarks related to something they find interesting, something they find confusing, a vocabulary word the class needs to discuss, and an illustration that helped them understand what they read. Students may find that this text was related to the Boston Marathon bombings interesting, the concept of a service dog confusing, ‘application’ as a word needing to be discussed, and the illustration of the bridge to help them understand the story. That of course was only an example. Students may have many different bookmark options to help them better understand the text.
Furthermore, there is a lot of teaching potential within this book. One theme that is present throughout the story is overcoming challenges. Students can use this them to discuss and write about a time that they had to overcome a challenge. Once students have written, they can then compare and contrast it with the challenges present in Rescue and Jessica. Furthermore, there can even be research opportunities. Students can research the authors and illustrators to better understand why they wrote the book. It is important to note that the authors had a strong connection to this book. They were running in the Boston Marathon and were injured in the bombings that took place. Students might wonder if Jessica was a child at the time of the bombings, but she was an adult. I believe she wanted the story to be more relatable to kids, so she made Jessica a child. In addition, students can also research service dogs. A great resources is www.neads.org. Students can learn about the process of becoming a service dog and how they help around the world. A great resource for teachers comes from Candlewick Press. They have created a teaching guide for this book. It is full of questions to ask students and great discussions that can be incorporated into instruction. It can be accessed at http://candlewick.com/book_files/0763696048.btg.1.pdf.
Last Stop on Market Street
Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Peña incorporates so many ideas into one short text. It is important to note that it was the winner of the 2016 Newberry Medal and a 2016 Caldecott Honor book. First of all, it really allows the reader to see kindness in action. CJ is a bit negative at first, but his Nana embodies positivity in every way. She sees the good in everything and is an important role model in CJ’s life. In this book, we see an appreciation of diversity, through all types of people in all stages of life. Throughout the story Nana and CJ show an appreciation and kindness to all the people who get on the bus. Whether it was the musician or the blind man, Nana was kind to all people. I really appreciated how CJ gave up his seat to the blind man and his dog. It was a little gesture that showed respect toward another human being. The author also presented differences in social classes throughout the story. At the beginning, we see a nicer neighborhood, but by the end, the setting is in a more run-down part of town. The characters never faltered, but rather, continued to be kind and helpful to all people. In addition, I loved how the illustrations matched the text and, in a sense, told the story as well. According to Robinson (2015), the art was created with acrylic paint, collage, and some digital manipulation. This would be a great book to incorporate into the classroom to showcase diversity and kindness.
After watching the video above, it is important to note that Matt de la Peña allows a diverse culture to connect with his writing. In the video, de la Peña (2013) said that he had a hard time connecting to the stories he was reading. He wanted to give readers a connection to his writing. I believe that Last Stop on Market Street embodies everything that he was trying to do in his writing, especially since the main characters were not the typical blue-eyed, white children present in most children’s books. He also speaks to a wide variety of diversity, not only color of skin, present in our world today. It shows children that we must be kind to all people, regardless of the color of their skin, their abilities, gender, and orientation.
Red A Crayon’s Story
The final book I read this week was Red A Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall. From the very beginning, one of the questions I asked was “why is the crayon called red if it is blue?” I am sure that many others reading this book will ask the same question. Little did I know, the whole story would revolve around that little question. As I was reading the story, I could not help to think of the pressure society and people around us put on each and every one of us. We are expected to behave a certain way and do certain things, just like Red. However, once the crayons realized the talents that Red had, they seemed to appreciate him and brag on his good works.
Red A Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall would be a great addition to the classroom. This book would be great to show that every person is different and appreciating those differences. We need to stop looking at what is on the outside, but rather focus on the inside of a person. There is a lot of good in people, if we will take the time to get to know them. I love how this book portrayed that simple fact in a way that students could relate to. I think it would be really cool for students to recreate a poster about themselves. On it, they could include illustrations of what everyone around them thinks and expects of them, but also what they see in themselves. I believe this would be a great task to get to know students a bit better. It would also incorporate the theme of being true to oneself. Furthermore, another theme in this book is friendship. Red was having a very hard time accepting himself until Berry became his friend. Berry showed Red something positive about himself and things turned around for Red. As a class, we can discuss what it means to be a friend and how to treat our friends. There are many other ways to incorporate Red A Crayon’s Story into the classroom. A good resource is the Teachers’ Guide created by Harper Collins. It can be accessed at: http://4edd9444c072ad07aff7-11d966b2703d5a5467932b6516b2610f.r67.cf2.rackcdn.com/teaching-guides/TG-9780062371805.pdf.
When thinking critically about the book, one important aspect to note is the illustrations. Hall (2015) noted that the art was digitally combined with crayon drawings and cut paper. I thought the author did a really good job of connecting the text to the illustrations. One could almost retell the story, based on the illustrations. According to his website, Hall is an author and a graphic designer. He has received many honors and is the author/illustrator of a New York Times bestseller, My Heart is Like a Zoo.
So many times in the media now of days we hear the importance of keeping people out of the United States. However, we fail to remember that our country is a melting pot of all different ancestral backgrounds. This week, I was reminded to be empathetic of the ones who continue to risk it all for a better life through three wonderful children’s books, My Two Blankets by Irena Kobald and Freya Blackwood, Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris, and Wishtree by Katherine Applegate.
Evaluating from a Critical Literacy Perspective
My Two Blankets and Her Right Foot are two children’s books that do a remarkable job of tugging at heart strings. They both focus on diversity and revolve around immigration. When thinking about these two books from a critical literacy perspective, the first thing I notice is the focus itself. I really enjoyed the background information on the Statue of Liberty in Her Right Foot. I knew that it welcomed immigrants into the harbor in New York City. However, I never realized the Statue of Liberty was “moving.”
In relation to the “movement” of this iconic statue, the reader is encouraged to think critically about where she is going. Eggers (2017) does a great job of presenting different locations in New York and the surrounding areas that she might be on her way to, but opens it up to the reader to ponder this question. At the end, the book wraps up by suggesting that the Statue of Liberty is meeting the new arrivals into the country. Furthermore, Harris also presents a story through the illustrations and photographs that are used. Not only do they line up with what Eggers wrote, but they tell their own story of the Statue of Liberty. I really appreciated how I was able to look at the illustrations, but also look at the photographs as well. When we visited last April, I never noticed the ideas that were presented in the book. It has given me a new appreciation for the iconic statue.
In addition, the illustrations in My Two Blankets can also be evaluated from a critical literacy perspective as well. Before reading the book, I thought the blankets would be real items used in some way by the main characters. However, now knowing the “blankets” are words that the main character knows and understands makes much more of an impact. From the illustrations, I get the feeling of how an immigrant coming from a war-torn country would feel, sad and alone. The feeling is made even deeper when they do not know the language of the country. It really sheds light on the situation and our role in it when the other child enters the scene. If not for the character helping the child learn the language, her experience may have been a lot different. As a teacher, it makes me aware to teach a culture of responsibility to help others that we may not understand and to develop empathy for other cultures and sacrifices for a better life. I can definitely relate to this in my own life because I have a student that just moved to America from Honduras. She speaks hardly any English, and after reading this story, it makes me want to help her to understand her story better.
As a Whole
First off, I absolutely love Katherine Applegate. She wrote one of my favorite children’s books, The One and Only Ivan. Once again, I am inspired by her newest addition, Wishtree. I’ll be honest, at first I had a little bit of trouble connecting to the book, but as I kept reading I fell in love. This book, in addition to My Two Blankets and Her Right Foot weave in ideas of immigration and accepting people as they are. I love how Applegate (2017) incorporates the Wishtree as a selfless character just wanting to see the good in people and the world. Applegate does an amazing job of bringing to light social issues of mistreating cultures that are not completely understood, but showing that we can be friends with all people if we give them a chance.
All three of these books would be a great addition to any classroom, especially when talking about diversity and the acceptance of all people and cultures. They all shed light to social issues present in our society and how to overcome them. I believe that these issues should be brought to light, even at a young age. If we teach how to overcome them, then perhaps our world will be a little sweeter in the future.
References
Applegate, K. (2017). Wishtree. New York, NY: Fewer and Friends.
Eggers, D. (2017). Her Right Foot. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.
Kobald, I., & Blackwood, F. (2014). My Two Blankets. Melbourne: Little Hare Books.
As a classroom teacher, I am constantly exposed to text. Some of the texts are amazing, and others are a challenge to get through. When thinking about what makes a good children’s book, I would say that it needs an interesting storyline that keeps the reader engaged, rich vocabulary (appropriate to the level it was written for), and picture support related to the text. Granted, there are times when texts are lacking one or more aspects, but generally most of them have those. This week, I had the privilege of reading two very interesting texts, The Wild Robot by Peter Brown and The Girl and the Wolf by Katherena Vermette and Julie Flett. Honestly, I enjoyed The Wild Robot more, but both stories were good. I believe both texts met my criteria for a good children’s book. They both had illustrations that matched the text and were beautiful to look at. In addition, they included rich vocabulary. The Wild Robot even included terms that were science-related that could be taught in a classroom. However, in regard to engagement, I felt that The Wild Robot did a better job of keeping me engaged in what I was reading, but it possibly could have been because I was really tired when reading The Girl and the Wolf.
Furthermore, there are many ways in which these two texts connect. Both incorporate animals that communicate. In both stories, we are able to understand what the animals are saying. In one story, the wolf can communicate with the girl, while in the other the animals communicate between themselves and the robot. When humans are incorporated into the story, they cannot understand what the animals are saying. Next, both texts incorporate some sort of journey, not only external, but internal as well. Both texts result in the main character finding their way back to where they came from. In addition, they also make a journey within themselves. The robot learns that she has a deeper purpose on the island, while the girl learns her lesson not to wander off.
Next, another element of these texts is the characters having agency at some point in the text. To begin with, Roz the robot in The Wild Robot has agency and it becomes more prevalent throughout the text. At the beginning, she is just focused on what is programmed inside her robot brain. However, as time goes on, she realizes that she can use her ideas to better her situation. At first, the animals were scared of her, but as time went on she began to use her skills and abilities as a robot to help them out. Over time, they began to treat her better and were grateful to have her in their community. At one point in the book, she even saved many of the animals from freezing to death with her ingenious ideas. Next, the girl in The Girl and the Wolf also developed agency. However, she was aided in hers by the wolf. He would not simply tell her the answer, but invited her to use her critical thinking skills to solve her problems.
The Wild Robot
I cannot say enough good things about this book. I absolutely fell in love with this book. Last year it was chosen as the Little Read for our school in fourth grade. While we griped about one more thing to incorporate in instruction, I can whole-heartedly see why it was chosen. Unfortunately I moved grades and was unable to do the Little Read with my class. This weekend was the first time I read the book. There are so many good things that can be learned from this book. To begin with, there can be many class discussions on being different, incorporating others, conflict, and how to handle problems when they arise. Aside from social skills, there are many science concepts woven throughout this book, including life cycles, animals and habitats, migration, hibernation, and weather and seasons. I love how it included scientific vocabulary. It also would allow opportunities to teach English-Language Arts concepts. From this book, I could teach onomatopoeia, personification, vocabulary, comprehension, addressing the reader, and themes. So many good things! As I read the book, I kept thinking it was a gold mind for teachers and students. However, I kept thinking back to my reading of “Story as World Making” by Kathy G. Short. According to Short (2012), “the focus is not on the stories themselves. Instead literature is used to teach something else-reading skills.” As a teacher reading the article, I immediately thought to the pressure I receive to “teach the reading skills.” I hardly ever get to think about the story at hand and the simple impact it could have on many individuals just from the story alone. At this point, I still feel conflicted on this topic, as it is constantly ingrained into me to be teaching to the test. As sad as it sounds, I am sure there are many others who would agree that they feel the same way. I would love to focus more on the story in the future, as I read there are many benefits to using this approach.
References
Brown, P. (2016). The wild robot. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
This will be my professional blog for for some of my Reading Education courses and beyond. Looking at children's literature as both a reader and writer (and a future teacher of reading and writing) through a critical lens. Sharing works of my own as I grow as a writer. And resources for reading and writing instruction. Everyone is welcome here.
Mrs. Pitman's Classroom 