[Teacher-TalkNovel] Session #2 idea for sharing for Bedford, NH SERESC group

To Bedford In Search of Novel Colleagues:

In an attempt to offer something to share for this week I am placing a
copy of the poem I plan to share here.

Since */Bridge To Terabithia/* by Katherine Paterson was one of the
novels listed I thought folks might be interested in the following poem
written by a 5th grader on the night her teacher had finished reading
this novel aloud in class. It seemed to fit the creativity focus and
"in their own voice" concepts brought up in the first video.

    As the stubborn stream
          swirls and pulls out a song
    The hillside stands in the cold dark sky.
    Over the hillside stands
          a lovely palace.
    Before
          it shook with joy,
    But now
          its queen is dead.
    So the sour sweet wind
    Blows the tassels of the weak rope.
    And the tree mourns
       scolding the rope, saying
    Couldn't you have held out a little longer?

                                                    Cheri Taylor
                                              Highland Park School
                                              Grove City, Ohio
                                              Linda Charles, teacher

My source for this poem is the 4th ed. of /*Children's Literature in the
Elementary School*/ by Charlotte S. Huck and others, c1987, p. 393.

I also want to mention a novel I used this past summer in a Language
Arts three week summer school class for students just completing their
Grade 7 year. It would work well in grades 5-9 I believe. The novel is
*/Slakes's Limbo/* by Felice Holman. It is about a teenager in N.Y.C.
who has no nurturing family who is bullied enough that to try and stay
safe he runs into the subway and in desperation stays there. It is
123p. long. There are actually four different covers for the book so I
will share what I did with this. It also allows for students to create
their own graffiti "bulletin board" of appropriate things they discover
as they go through the book. I will share some other ideas I used if
time allows.

Kathleen Fencil
   

-- 
Kathleen Fencil
fencilk@sau25.net
Library Media Specialist
McKelvie Middle School
108 Liberty Hill Road
Bedford, NH 03110
"Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place..., but there is always one little corner that keeps flapping around."  
(E. L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, c. 1967)

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Received on Mon Oct 24 11:02:19 2005