Poetry Cafe
The next Bistro genre of study will be Poetry. I would like your
child to select a poem to memorize and recite in front of the class. The poem
should be no shorter than ten lines, but not too long, since they do need to
recite it from memory. I have attached some excellent resources that can be
found at the local library or borrowed from our own classroom library if
needed to choose a poem from. The Internet is also a wonderful resource for
an endless amount of poems to choose from on any topic you can imagine.
In Addition to memorizing the poem, your child should have some prop,
which helps illustrate their poem. Some examples of this might be an umbrella
for a "Rainy Day" poem or a stuffed kitten for a poem about a cat. The props
can be made by the children or simply be found objects from around the house.
Please no live props for obvious reasons.(: They should practice reading
their poem fluently, which means at a balanced speed, not too fast and not too
slow, and in an expressive voice, acting it out if you will. I will judge
much harder on presentation skills this time such as eye contact, fluency, and
an audible voice. In correlation with this project, we are doing a poetry
unit at school in Writers' Workshop learning how to write different types of
poems. Your child must be ready to recite their poem to the class by the
morning of Friday, Dec. 11th.
Grading Rubric:
Poem memorized 5 points
(At least 10 lines)
Eye Contact 5 points
Audible, Fluent Voice 5 points
Prop illustrates poem 5 points
Total points possible: 20
Have fun with this wonderful genre of literature!
Mrs. Morelos
Mini Lesson: 10-15 Minutes
Each Reading Workshop session will begin with a mini lesson that lasts
approximately 10-15 minutes. Each mini lesson will focus on a reading
strategy. There may be times where a strategy will be studied over the course
of several days, in which case the mini lessons that week will be related to
that strategy.
Activity Time/Independent Reading: 35-40 Minutes
* Read Independently/Practice skill from mini-lesson
* Meet with Reading Partners-Partners set up meeting times to discuss a
text that they have chosen to read simultaneously
* Write in Response Notebooks–Students turn in response journals where
they are asked to make various connections and reflections about what they
have read.
* Guided Reading- A small group of students read a book together with
support from Mrs. Morelos
Guided reading is a major part of a balanced literacy program in our
classroom. During guided reading, students read as the teacher guides them
through the story. I pause to ask questions and prompt readers to use
multiple reading strategies to decode words and comprehend the text. Great
discussions arise from our reading sessions as students learn to make
connections to the text, predict what will happen and
ask questions as they read, visualize events happening in the story, make
inferences, and respond to stories in their reading response journals. It is
also a time for the teacher to observe whether or not students are using the
reading strategies taught during shared reading and teacher read-alouds.
* Conferring With Students-Mrs. Morelos meets with individuals or small
groups to practice a reading strategy and/or to assess student progress.
Sharing: 5-10 Minutes
During this time the class might:
*Meet as a whole group to refer back to the mini-lesson and think further
*Meet together to think about and respond to questions such as: What did
you learn about reading today? What did you learn about yourself as a reader?
*Meet in small groups to have a quick chat about how the reading is going