Marshfield Dreams

Marshfield Dreams
by Ralph Fletcher

In Marshfield Dreams, Fletcher describes his early years growing up in a large family in Marshfield. This book a similar feel to Fletcher's Fig Pudding, but this book is a memoir and not a work of fiction.

If you working on personal narrative or memoir with your studtents this book is awesome.  It is filled with stories that demonstrate the keys aspects of the idea trait: exploded moments, precise details, dialogue, and thought shots. It covers every other trait as well, but I'm currently focusing on ideas in my classroom, so that's what I noticed. 

You could choose to read the entire book to your class or just pick and choose a few stories.  The book does blend together as a whole, but the majority of the stories could stand alone also. 

The Woods

The Woods
by Paul Hoppe 

In The Woods, a young boy sets out to find his lost stuffed rabbit before going to bed.  On his quest, he imagines he is in the woods and encounters many scary monsters. To defeat the monsters, he does nice things, and by the end he has his stuffed rabbit and a few other stuffies to snuggle with. 

I see using this book for copycat writing.  Students could follow the organizational structure of searching for a lost item, running into obstacles, and overcoming them.  The obstacles wouldn't need to be monsters, and the solutions wouldn't need to be solved with kindness.  If you assign this copycat write, students  could choose to follow the exact format or invent their own. It could be realistic or fantasy based.  This book could be used a lot of ways. 

Published: 2011

Fig Pudding

Fig Pudding
by Ralph Fletcher


In this work of fictional personal narratives, 11 year old Cliff covers all of the emotions from laughter, tears, shame, and joy.   These stories can be used to teach the ideas trait in writing, especially for expanding details.  Examples of exploded moments, precise details, dialogue, and thought shots are found throughout the book.

Hugs From Pearl

Hugs From Pearl
by Paul Schmid

Pearl is a lovely little porcupine who loves to hug her friends.  Her non-porcupine animal friends don't always love her hugs because Pearl is a porcupine.  Will she ever be able to hug her friends without hurting them?

This book is great for copycat writing.  Students could choose an animal and write about a problem the animal is facing due to one of its physical characteristics.  For example a snail might have trouble hanging out with his faster friends.  Another one might be a dog who can't figure out a way to visit his mouse friends in their mouse hole.

For each story I would ask students to introduce the character and the problem, attempt at least two failed solutions, and finally have a happy resolution. 

This could be done at any time of the year or after an animal research project. 

Published: 2011

Locations: Public library

Me and My Dragon

Me and My Dragon
by David Biedrzycki

In Me and My Dragon, a young boy describes what would happen if he had a pet dragon.

This story is a list of what the boy imagines doing with his dragon.  I could see using this book as an inspiration for writing at any time of the year or after my students complete their animal research project.  Students could list what they would do with their animal.  I would ask them to explode one moment in their story (see Falcon by Tim Jessell for an example).

Published: 2011

Locations: Public library

Falcon

Falcon
by Tim Jesssell

In Falcon, a young boy imagines he is a falcon.  He lists a lot of his actions but really blows up the final moment of the story.  

After reading this story, I would ask my students to imagine they are an animal.  They could list a few actions but would need to explode one moment just like Tim Jessell did. 

Published: 2012

Location: Public Library

Dinosaur Thunder

Dinosaur Thunder
by Marion Dane Bauer
Illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine

In Dinosaur Thunder, Brannon's family tries to help him get over his fear of thunderstorms.  

After reading this story and Thundercake by Patricia Polacco, I will have my students compare the two stories. Their are a lot of similarities and differences to discover.

Published: 2012

Locations: Public library

Work In Progress

Due to a busy schedule I am only updating Mr. Markey Reads 4 Kids at this time

Faithful Elephants

Faithful Elephants

Faithful Elephants

by Yukio Tsuchiya

translated by Tomoko Tsuchiya Dykes

illustrated by Ted Lewin

Faithful Elephants is a fictional retelling of what happened at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo during World War II. 

Today the Ueno Zoo is a wonderful zoo and it was a wonderful place before World War II as well.  But during World War II is was a very sad place.  As the Allied Forces bombed Tokyo more and more, the Japanese Armed Forces ordered that all large animals, that could be dangerous if they escaped, be killed. 

Faithful Elephants retells how difficult it was for the three elephants' caretakers to follow through with the army's orders.

This story is extremely sad and demonstrates some of the lesser known consequences of war.  

Students would find this story to be quite fascinating and I can see wonderful discussions about right and wrong happening during and after reading. 

After reading and discussing the story, students could be asked to write a summary and their opinion on whether killing the elephants was the correct thing to do.

Published in English: 1988

Genre: Historical Fiction Picture Book

Locations: School Library, and Amazon

Note: This book is considered fiction and non-fiction depending on which library you go to.  The Library of Congress considers it to be fiction.

Me Too! and The Escape of Marvin the Ape Writing Lessons

These lessons are exactly like my No David Writing Lesson that I wrote about early.  Both Me Too! by Mercer Mayer and The Escape of Marvin the Ape by Caralyn and Mark Buehner are cute picture books that contain a lot of little events but very little detail about each event.  


After reading either book, you could ask children to choose one event from either story and then revise what was in the book by adding more detail.  Students could explode the moments, add dialogue, or add thought shots.  (I wish I could give proper credit for those revision ideas but I don't remember which teaching book I read them in.  I would guess Ralph Fletcher.  He's awesome!)


This kind of activity makes for a nice prompt write because it provides students with a variety of main ideas to choose from instead of just one topic.  Also, students don't have to come up with the seed idea (Lucy Calkins), they just need to fill in all the details. 


There are a ton of books that can be used in this manner.  All of the No, David books are possibilities and a lot of Mercer Meyer's Little Critter books would work too.

Banish Boring Words

Banish Boring Words
Leilen Shelton


Leilen Shelton has created an awesome mini-thesaurus to use with your students.  Its 48 pages contain 26 different word choice lists, ranging from "Action Verbs" to "Sound" to "Easy/Hard" that you can refer to or refer to and photocopy to share with your students. 


I've used bits and pieces of the "Action Verbs" portion to discuss word choice with my students. I look forward to using more of the book in the upcoming weeks.


Word choice is a neat writing trait to teach because it helps students make their own writing more interesting but it also teaches them vocabulary words that help them better understand other writers' stories.


This book is well organized and easy to use.  I would recommend it.

Free Choice Language Arts Games

Instead of using Work Stations so I can run interventions with my fifth graders this year, I've come up with Free Choice Language Arts.  I'm still experimenting with it so I'm not going to go into detail about it now.  One of the free choices is Language Arts Games.  I've recently purchased three games that I want to briefly discuss.

 

1. Tell Tale by Blue Orange:  This is a story telling game.  It comes in a circular metal tin and contains 60 double sided picture   cards.  The included directions explain 4 different games.  I'm going to summarize all 4 with one version.  You pass out some of the cards to each game participant and you use the pictures on the card to make up a story.  Students could just tell their stories orally or they could record them if they wished. 
2. Spell It! by Blue Orange: This is a spelling game.  It comes in roundish metal tin and contains 5 dice with a different letter on each die (it does not contain the entire alphabet).  It also comes   with 28 scoring disks.  Students are asked to roll the five dice,   and then using at least three of the letters that turn up spell a word that is at least 4 letters long.  The first person to spell a word gets the points. Students can score points for words ranging from 4 - 10 letters.  Depending  on how you play the game, students may be asked to spell words that fit certain themes, or you could just spell anything.  Once again, the game does not require students to record anything but students could write the words down if they wished. 
3. Rory's Story Cubes by Gamewright:  This is also a writing game.  The game comes in a sturdy box and contains 9 dice with a different picture on each side of each die.  There are no repeats.  Students roll the die and then use the pictures to create a story.  Students are not required to record their story but they can if they wish.  I've already used this game in my class.  Some students have rolled the dice and told stories to their partners.  Other pairs have rolled the dice and used them to create a picture book together.  I like the picture book ending the best but don't require it. 

In addition, Spot It! by Blue Orange is a cool matching game that I've played with my 4 year old son and 15 year old nephew.  There is also another version of Rory's Story Cubes called Rory's Story Cubes-Actions that I haven't ever seen in person.