Poetry Archives | Ideas by Jivey

What Should I Do During Each Close Read?

February 18, 2018

Honest talk here.

Close reading turns those mini-lessons into MAXI-lessons if you try to fit in all that you want to do with a text in one day.

Let’s look at why:

Even though close reading is done with short texts, the time it takes to dig deep shouldn’t be short because…

the texts should be complex with ideas that warrant exploring and discussing
multi-reads are imperative for deeper understanding
students should be taking notes (annotating) as they read
students should be discussing the text with each other
students should be looking for evidence to answer text-dependent questions

In other words, you aren’t close reading a text WELL if you can do it ALL in one twenty-minute mini-lesson.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do close reading as mini-lessons! Break up the tasks over several days to dive deep into a text. As you saw in my last post about annotation, the first read is always the longest and often can’t/shouldn’t be done in a twenty-minute mini-lesson (that doesn’t mean always!!) because of the time it takes to dissect the vocabulary, annotate, and discuss the text.

So What Can Be Done As A Mini-Lesson?

Each subsequent read should focus on just a portion or a chunk of the text, so these reads are perfect for mini-lessons!

What can be done in 20 minutes? After students have completed the first read, the following lessons should:

explore a complex idea
answer a text-dependent question
discover the author’s craft
examine a text feature
determine text structure
synthesize and analyze information across paragraphs or paired texts
make connections to their own lives

Check out this video to hear me discuss what this looked like in my classroom, or continue reading below!

What Can This Look Like?

I am a bit of an admitted poetry nerd. I am going to share how I would use a poem for at least three days in the classroom to practice close reading, but keep in mind, all of these steps can be done with ANY text!

The first thing you want students to do in a close read is to identify “chunks” or sections of text to read one at a time. This helps to not get too overwhelmed. In an article or non-poetry passage, it might already have great reading chunks with paragraphs. With poetry, if the poem is written in stanzas, this is a great way to break up the poem… AND you can hit that “identifying stanzas and verses” standard.

Just as I shared in the post about annotation, during the first read, students should be writing down thoughts, confusing words or concepts, and summarizing the sections for overall understanding. It is no different in a poem! When working on this poem as a class, and doing this as a mini-lesson, I would have students read and annotate (if they are familiar with the routine already- NOT if this is the first time they are annotating) on their own, and then I would read and annotate in the form of think-alouds, while also allowing the students to share ideas from their own papers to discuss. You can see my own annotations below:

Students should have a purpose for each time they close read a passage, article, or poem. The first read should always focus on key ideas and details, such as getting the gist/summarizing/identifying the main idea. After all, when you read something for the first time, you are only trying to grasp and understand the idea of it, right?

If you are using this poem for mini-lessons, in order to keep each lesson “mini,” you’d do the second read in a new lesson.

Before beginning the mini-lesson, I always have my students discuss with a partner or small group the key ideas and details of the poem from the previous lesson, just to get their brain going again about the poem.

Generally, the second read should focus on craft and structure. You can see in the image above, for this poem, I want students to find figurative language (craft) in the poem by identifying items to which the poet compared snowflakes.

I would allow students to share their thoughts and “lead” my pen for this mini-lesson. If they were missing the mark, of course, I would guide them to the metaphors by asking leading questions such as, “Are snowflakes really stars?” You can see where I identified the figurative language in blue below. (I liked to use different colors on the page I presented to students for each mini-lesson so they could see the “current” annotations for that close read.)

I would then have the students work with a partner or in a small group to use what we found in the poem to answer the question, then we would come back and discuss their responses as a whole group.

For the third mini-lesson, and/or the third read of the poem, they will have a new purpose. The third read should go deeper into the meaning of the text you are reading, so focusing on integration of knowledge and ideas is a good requirement that will allow students to analyze the text (and sometimes multiple texts).

I would work with my students to identify the moral by returning to the notes we made in the last two stanzas. Again, I would want students to talk with a partner or small group to form a good response, and then we would discuss it together as a class to make sure everyone is on the right page.

The poem used in this lesson is found in my Close Reading Poetry Through The Year resource.

For more tips on close reading poetry specifically, check out these posts (with bonuses)!

Close Reading Poetry, Step-by-Step

Close Read Poetry Bonus Lesson

I will be sharing more about close reading, finding and citing evidence with text-dependent questions, and writing constructed responses in future posts!

Make sure to check out other “Let’s Talk Test Prep” posts!

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Close Reading, Poetry

Close Reading Poetry: Step-by-Step Mini-Lesson

October 27, 2015

Poetry is not just for April! Don’t save all the awesome poems for the spring! Everything you are doing with close reading can be done with a poem, too. Students can still infer, determine theme, compare characters or events, understand figurative language and word choice, explain how stanzas build on each other, determine mood or point of view, and compare poems to each other, just like they can with literature.

In this post, I will walk you through how I close read poetry with students.

I have used different colors for each step, but this is not necessary. (Although it IS prettier!)

When close reading a poem with students, before we read, I like students to label stanzas, verses, and sometimes even rhyme scheme.

Close Reading Poetry step-by-step with Ideas by Jivey.

Then in the first read, I just want students to “get the gist” of the poem. Students will annotate their initial thoughts during the first read. (Check this post for a great annotation bookmark students can use as a reminder!) Sometimes I read it aloud to them during the first read, sometimes I want them to read it alone. It depends on how much I anticipate that they might struggle with it (I don’t want them to struggle TOO much, but a little is good). With this poem, I’d say most students 4th grade and up could read it alone.

During the second read, I always read the poem aloud to them. I will usually do some think-alouds along the way and ask questions about parts that I want them to really think about. I also talk about any cloudy words to make sure they understand the meaning (by leading them through context clues if possible). This is when students really dig in deep and try to understand what is happening in the poem, and what the author wants to convey.

With this poem, I’d be sure to really talk about the word choice of the poet to show Ann’s fear as well as the mother’s feelings. We will also talk in detail about the lesson Ann’s mother is trying to teach her.

For me, I think the third read is always for the students to do on their own. They should really have a pretty good understanding of it at this point, too. The third read is where I like for students to connect to the poem and figure out what it really means to them. In this example, I have boxed the words that made me feel a bit sorry for spiders- all of Ann’s mother’s words.

(Of course, with all of the things you can do with one poem, you might do several readings over the course of a few days, but this is just one day!)

The poem you’ve seen in this post is a freebie in my store! 🙂

Close Read A Poem Freebie with Ideas by Jivey.

Enjoy using it with your class!

**Fun fact to share with your students: Jane Taylor also wrote Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!**

You can also get the full pack to give you a poem for every month of the year!

Close Read A Poetry Through The Year with Ideas by Jivey.

Close Reading, Poetry

Close Read Poetry: BONUS LESSON!

January 27, 2016

One of my all-time favorite books to use when teaching poetry is Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, but you CAN’T just read it. For students to really “get” what the boy is talking about in the book, students have to first know the poems that Ms. Stretchberry is making him read. What better way for students to connect with a character than to have them also learn about the same poems? I found that my boys actually ended up liking our poetry unit more than my girls because many thought like Jack: “boys don’t write poetry.”

Use Poetry to Teach Close Reading Strategies with Ideas By Jivey

Before I would ever open the book, we would do some close reading with the poem, The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams, which is a great one for visualization. It’s also super short and pretty easy to analyze.

“Now can we start reading it?”

Nope. The book would remain on the tray of my board, taunting them.

The next day, we would do some close reading with the poem, Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. This blog post will walk you through how I would teach them to do close reading with a poem… and be sure to stick around for a BONUS at the end!

I liked to use different colored pens as I went through the steps so my students could see how my thinking progressed. This is a great technique when you can display your “live” work on the board with a document camera.

First, I would label stanzas and rhyme scheme. You can also number the verses for the purpose of future discussions, but since this one is pretty short (and the verses are not very wordy), I would just have students refer to the stanza they are talking about when discussing.

Next, you want students to “get the gist” of the poem. Students will annotate their initial thoughts during the first read. (Check this post for a great annotation bookmark students can use as a reminder!)

If this is the first time you are close reading a poem together, I would definitely do it “think aloud” style. Read it aloud, and as you come across things that “jump out” to you (or that you want to jump out to students), stop and talk about your thoughts as you jot them down. For example, the first stanza talks about the woods being owned by someone who doesn’t live there. I would underline and annotate this thought as I read to them. After going through the entire poem this way, write a short summary: the gist.

Once students have an understanding of the poem, we want them to go even deeper and try to understand what is happening in the poem, and what the author wants to convey. It’s important to provide a purpose for this read. Read the poem aloud to them again, and this time, focus on answers to the question: “Why does the horse think the stop is a mistake?”

I would point out the word “stopping” means that they had been moving, or traveling. I would also point out that there is no farmhouse, and they are basically in the middle of nowhere. This would probably confuse the horse since he most likely is used to only stopping for food or shelter when traveling, or when they arrive home. He shakes his bells to get his owner’s attention.

I would also start a discussion about promises- who do you make promises to? (Most will likely reply to people they love or care about.) This will lead to a great new discussion, where do you think they are going in the poem?

Finally, the third read could be done on their own, but again, if this is the first time you are doing this with your students, I would still walk them through the last step. To connect to this poem, students can visualize it. I like to mark words that stand out to me that help me visualize.

You could do this all in one day, or stretch it over a couple days. And of course, your students are STILL WAITING for you to start reading Love That Dog! Now that you’ve read these two poems, you’ll at least be able to start the book.

To make sure that the students know the poems Jack is referring to throughout the book, look ahead and see when it is necessary to analyze a new poem!

If you want to use this poem in your room, either with Love That Dog or without, you can get the lesson you’ve seen in this post for free here!

You can also get a full pack of lessons just like this
to give you a poem for every month of the school year!

Enjoy!

Teach students to close read poetry for better understanding! Get this free lesson from Ideas by Jivey in this post!

Close Reading, Mentor Texts, Poetry

Close Reading And Writing Love Poems

February 9, 2017

Ideas by Jivey shares ideas to use nonfiction texts to close read and practice paired texts, as well as work on writing poetry in upper elementary classrooms.

**This post contains Amazon affiliate links. The few cents I earn on affiliate purchases is used to fund awesome giveaways!**

When I read Molly’s blog post (Lessons with Laughter) where she described using the book, Vulture Verses with her students to create a class book of poems for the unloved…

…I immediately thought of a fun Seymour Simon book, Animals Nobody Loves.

This is a great non-fiction book on animals, of course, but this book is the PERFECT book to use for modeling close reading. The book has 26 different pages/animals, each with its own short passage. You can see how I use this specifically to teach close reading strategies in this post, and pick up a free downloadable task!

Seymour Simon does an excellent job describing each “gross” animal in an engaging way in just one page. The poems in Vulture Verses are also only one page each, and each page focuses on just one animal that people don’t really care for too much.

These two books together will address Reading Anchor Standard 9 perfectly! (Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.)

LESSON IDEAS

Give students a photo copy of a page from each book on the same animal so they can write on it (remember, you can copy pages that are for classroom use!!) and use this activity sheet (which you can grab for free):

Here are the animals that are in both books:

vulture

spider

skunk

cockroach

bat (there are two kinds in the poems)

Allow students to research an animal of their choice, and then write their own animal poems!

Here are a couple examples of the beginning of some poems from a previous class of mine.

This student was upset that zebras are hunted for their hide, so she was on track to write about that being unfair:

Of course, around Valentine’s Day, you could have them imitate Vulture Verses and write LOVE poems to those animals! 🙂

Get this Close Reading Poetry pack for even more practice!

Get this Nonfiction Better Than Basal Unit for MORE nonfiction activities!

Poetry

Loved That Lesson: Imitating Poetry

March 8, 2015

We have had some serious fun with poetry using Love That Dog.

Imitating Poetry from book Love That Dog with Ideas by Jivey.

If you’ve never read this book, it is a MUST with a poetry unit! Check it out here! It’s a little sad, but even still, my kids have loved it the last few years.

Those of you that already follow me know that I think imitation is a must for kids to learn the craft of writing. I do this weekly through Mentor Sentences. Analyzing the structure and craft of an author, then trying it out: that is the BEST way for students to learn to write!

Sooo… I decided to have my kiddos try out imitating a poem. This one worked perfectly since we had also just done some research on an animal for an opinion piece:

dog

BY VALERIE WORTH

Under a maple tree

The dog lies down,

Lolls his limp

Tongue, yawns,

Rests his long chin

Carefully between

Front paws;

Looks up, alert;

Chops, with heavy

Jaws, at a slow fly,

Blinks, rolls

On his side,

Sighs, closes

His eyes: sleeps

All afternoon

In his loose skin.

First, we broke down each line for structure-

Under a maple tree – prepositional phrase

The dog lies down – what the animal does (subject/predicate)

Lolls his limp

Tongue, yawns, – does something with a (adjective) body part, then another action

You get the idea… we only did the first seven lines because I thought that would be “enough.” They had a bit of a struggle getting started, but once I gave a few of them ideas to start, they really flew… and they BLEW ME AWAY with their imitation poems!