This Lesson's Title:
Four Metaphor Poetry
stretchiiiing a metaphor four times to build a poem
This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by NNWP Teacher Consultant Holly Esposito at an SBC-sponsored inservice class. |
The intended "mentor text" to  be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.
Check out Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge at Amazon.com.
Washoe County teachers, click here to search for this book at the county library. |
Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :
Step one (sharing the published model): Mem Fox’s Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge centers around four metaphors for the question: "What is a memory?" Mem Fox uses a young boy to interpret other people's metaphors, and these metaphors help Miss Nancy’s memory return. The careful way Fox has chosen to describe each metaphor creates special meaning. The writing activity below stresses the skillful creation of metaphors, which is a skill used in idea development and helps in developing showing details.
Teachers should discuss, as they read Mem Fox's Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, what the author has done particularly well in writing this story: in this case, author Mem Fox creates four Illustrator Julie Vivas has created realistic and colorful images to bring the story to life.
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Step two (introducing models of writing): In small groups, have your students read and respond to any or all of the student models that come with this lesson. The groups will certainly talk about the idea development, since that's the focus of this lesson, but you might prompt your students to talk about each model's word choice as well.
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Step three (thinking, talking and pre-writing): The interactive button choices on the Student Instructions Page can certainly inspire your students to begin generating ideas for metaphors for this assignment, but you can certainly create a class brainstorm that accomplishes the same without being on the computer.
Each student's goal is to create a four stanza poem for an interesting noun other than memory. Each stanza needs to make a comparison between their interesting noun and another noun. Each stanza needs to explore details about the metaphor they have made. When finished, each student will have a poem that actually contains four metaphors. The graphic organizer below will help them explore details for their four metaphors.
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Step four (revising with specific trait language): Two tools for revision are provided below. You can use one or both, depending on how much time you have to spend on this assignment.
To promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach WritingFix's Revision and Response Post-Its to your students' drafts. Make sure the students rank their use of the trait-specific skills on the Post-Its, which means they'll only have one "1" and one "5." Have them commit to ideas for revision based on their Post-It rankings. For more ideas on WritingFix's Revision & Response Post-Its, click here.
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Step five (editing for conventions): After students apply their revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to find an editor. If you've established a "Community of Editors" among your students, have each student exchange his/her paper with multiple peers. With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post-it. The "Community of Editors" idea is just one of dozens and dozens of inspiring ideas that is talked about in detail in the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Workbook for Teachers.
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Step six (publishing for the portfolio): When they are finished revising and have second drafts, invite your students to come back to this piece once more during an upcoming writer's workshop block. Their stories might become a longer story, a more detailed piece, or the beginning of a series of pieces about the story they started here. Students will probably enjoy creating an illustration for this story as they get ready to publish it for their portfolios.
Interested in publishing student work on-line? We invite student writers to post final drafts of their original at WritingFix's Community of Student Writers. This is a safe-to-use blog for students and teachers. No writing is posted until it is approved by the moderator. Contact us at publish@writingfix.com if you have questions about getting your students published.
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Learn more about Mem Fox
by clicking here!
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