FEATURE FRIDAY #3: Getting Cozy! The Close Read with Sara Fuller, Gina and Coffee. . .

I'm your host, Gina of the PerfettoWritingRoom(c), store at teacherspayteachers.com and this cozy little blog, where friends meet to talk about TpT and my favorite subjects: English, language and writing.

It's April so let's talk about poetry, and close reading, the coziest of all types of reading.

CLOSE READING - is reading for understanding, though that understanding is one that moves from a simple read-through and "look up the definitions" type of understanding, to a more nuanced approach that is based on LAYERS. There is no strict order in which to follow a close reading process, though the list may look something like this. Keep in mind that EACH article in the list may require you to read again:

• a simple read through
• a reading while circling unfamiliar words. These must be looked up and you will read through again, understanding the text as a whole
• summarizing or rewriting the text in your own words (not required, but this proves your understanding)
• Noting words that demonstrated sound devices (assonance, consonance, alliteration, etc)
• Figurative language, metaphor, simile, synecdoche, metonymy, personification, pathetic fallacy, and more)
• Rhetorical devices 
• Noting Structure (this includes - meter, rhyme scheme, or stanza, but may also include parallel structure, repetition, internal rhyme, and more) 
• Tone - in particular the author or speaker's attitude toward the subject or characters being spoken about in the poem
• Diction (word choice, level, usage).
• OTHER - this may include historical, cultural, or background information known about the writer, if the piece is known to be semi-autobiographical or not, the period in which it was written or other elements that might enrich the reader's understanding or "reader response" to the poem.

THE Goal of the close read is to have a deeper appreciation and understanding of your text, in this case, your poem. AND, as the goal of most schools and colleges in to advance written and spoken communication, students should be able to write about what they now know or have learned about the poem through classroom discussion and then, a paper.

Sara Fuller is always having some crazy adventure or other. 

                                              Visit My Store - Ms. Fuller's Teaching Adventures!

Whether her adventure is teaching, coming up with some new product for her store on teacherspayteachers,  or hanging out with her cat Titus (you DID know Titus is short for Titus Andronicus, from Shakespeare, right?) Sara is always up to something.
       Sara left her post over at TpT, and her home not far from Cleveland to make a little pit stop at the PerfettoWritingRoom and have a little cup of coffee with me .  .   .

Is it me, or do English-loving folks the world over always have things in common? 

• First of all . . . I had a black cat, I named him Horace after you guessed it, Horace Walpole, given credit for the first Gothic novel (though it's not very good). 
• We both love travel. Sara is planning on going to California and Scotland this summer! Don't you just wish you could go too? I lived in San Diego for awhile . . . let me tell you, it's a great place, and I have visited many many countries. . .though I'm not going anyplace this year :(
• And both of us have worked very hard in our respective teaching fields, performing in various roles and positions proving our worth and versatility along the way. Ms. Fuller, from "Ms. Fuller's Teaching Adventure's started her career "at an alternative high school," where she "then moved onto an alternative/special education school" and taught multiple subjects to grades 7-12. She adds that she "taught at a charter school where I taught 7th and 8th grade. This year I'm teaching writing courses at the local community college and I love it." 
• Sara also loves "taking photographs [and] reading YA literature." Would you be shocked if I told you I did too? Yeah, I didn't think so. . .

Apparently, Ms. Fuller, from Ms. Fuller's Teaching Adventures is wonderful at making CLOSE READ Products as well. . .  

which happens to be one of my favorite activities from being in grad school and teaching college. When I saw this product and reviewed it, what really struck me was its versatility. See the pics below.

   

                           Ms. Fuller's Product (Cover)                                A Marked Up Page!


Not only does Ms. Fuller's Teaching Adventures offer 6 poems, the product is organized according to GRADE appropriate poetry, offers task cards, keys, and makes the entire process versatile (sort of like Sara herself). It seems Ms. Fuller agrees on its versatile and adds that "This is one of my very favorite products.  Though each poem has a recommended grade level they can be mixed and matched to your students' needs.  In addition there are task cards and for some poems multiple variations of the questions to allow for differentiation."

Though the cover SAYS it can be used for grade 6-12, this product has VERY SUCCESSFULLY been used at the college level. It includes five steps for understanding and analysis, "Ode on a Grecian Urn,"  "Ozymandias" and four other poems (I don't want to give away all the goodies)  and while this can be used all year long, we teachers just love using poetry at the end of the year. 

Now is the best time to pick it up  : )

My coffee is just about finished, but Sara told me she'll be having a sale. If you'd like stop by and see her store. Pop in say hi. It's very nice over there! 


VISIT US AGAIN ON TUESDAY (TpT Tips Tuesday)
And EVERY FRIDAY for Feature Friday - Secondary English Teachers from TpT!

WE'll KEEP the Coffee Brewing! 

Gina - ThePerfettoWritingRoom
Do you want you join TpT but havent? Let Me Refer you!

Take a gander at PerfettoWritingRoom's Store

When Can One Writing Activity Be Used 900 Times?? Well (if you Really Push Your Limits)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/PerfettoWritingRoom

Yes, Yes, this is ONE page. A mere single page. On the left are positive attribute adjectives, and on the right are potentially negative attribute nouns, or at the very least nouns that are frustratingly ill-fitted (on purpose, I assure you) to the words on the left!

The ENTIRE activity is SIX pages. A writer, teacher, lecturer, professor or coach, can do SO MUCH with an exercise like this!!

I have used this activity for years, and writer always always love it, not to say they don't sometimes HATE it first....but they are allowed to choose again. The light bulb always goes on.

Whether you give one page to each row or aisle, or cut them into squares and have one "noun" bag and one "adjective" bag and let the writers choose until they have a suitable pair that makes them suitably excited and inspired, it almost always leads to something bizarre, outrageous, beautiful or at least beyond what a writer felt he or she was capable of writing before attempting such an extreme assignment.

I have named this the "Extreme Perspective" Writing Activity. In total, there are up to 900 possible adjective-noun matches. Here are the directions, knowing FULL well that if you wanted, you could all just shut off the computer and make it on your own. While I am admittedly selling it (yes, the amazingly high price, if I recall properly of $5.00 bucks?), the idea, work, effort, directions and embedded freebie alone (which you'll never really know about unless you buy it, so ha) is more than worth it....

Back to the Directions -

While you have chosen a bizarre, odd, or unlikely adjective-noun scenario, write a scene in which the pairing you have chosen not only is feasible, but is downright believable and likely given your setting, atmosphere, narrator, or all three. In short, what scenario can you create in which the unlikely pairing you have makes perfect sense?

Just a few of the 900 pairings could be

Brilliant Industrialization
Fascinating Agony
Glorious Destruction

As you can already guess, such pairings have the potential to PUSH writers into lesser traveled genre or historical eras, can force writers to make less safe writing topics, choose more interesting narrators or unreliable ones, and in general make writing choices and decisions far away from what they normally would. The fact that a writer can go back every week and choose a new possibility is exciting, lending itself to portfolio or even story collection possibilities.

See the link to my store at Teachers Pay teachers at the top of this post. Happy writing, and happy teaching.