This Lesson's Title:

Poems to Bug
Your Reader

using wordplay to develop a poem about invertebrates

This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by NNWP Teacher Consultant Denise Gallues at an SBC-sponsored inservice class.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book insectlopedia by Douglas Florian. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Check out insectlopedia 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):  Teachers should stress the author’s clever use of language in these poems.  

“The Ticks” is wonderful collection of tic words.  Florian’s rhymes are delightfully unexpected: he finds a way to rhyme denim and venom in “The Black Widow,” cheese and knees in “The Daddy Long Legs,” and pupa and super in “The Caterpillar.” 

The puns are fun—The Praying Mantis swallows religiously.   And, his word inventions like faterpillar and spiderobic are positively brilliant!  The writing activity below encourages students to experiment with language—creating words, and puzzling out unusual rhymes to entertain the reader.

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 should certainly talk about the word choice and the idea development, since these are the focus traits of this lesson.

• We're looking for student samples for all grade levels for this prompt!  Help us get some, and we'll send you free books for your classroom!  Contact us at publish@writingfix.com for details.

Step three (thinking and pre-writing): The interactive button game on the Student Instructions Page is designed to get your students exploring insect-based ideas that might lead to word play. Have them write down several of their favorite options.

Take the options back to class and allow students time to begin drafting short poems about insects. Start by encouraging small, four-line poems. When students have drafts of these, have them share them out loud with each other in small groups. Encourage them to borrow ideas from one another.

After playing with short poems, challenge them to create a longer poem. This longer poem can be an expanded version of their smaller poem, or it can be about a different group of words that inspired them before.

Step four (revising with specific trait language):  One tool for revision is provided below.  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.

• Sheet of 6 Word Choice Post-It Notes
• Sheet of 6 Idea Development Post-It Notes

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.

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 poems might become a longer poem, a more detailed piece, or the beginning of a series of poems about the word play they started here.  Students will probably enjoy creating an illustration for this poem 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.