Persuasive Mem Fox Essays

To bring our Readers' Workshop Author Study of Mem Fox together with the persuasive/opinion writing we have been doing in Writers' Workshop, the children wrote persuasive essays this week about their favorite book, character or author.  Some of these young writers still tend to make connections instead of using text evidence for their reasons, but they are moving in the right direction.   Enjoy some of their writing.

I love Mem Fox because she wrote one of my favorite books, Harriet, You Drive Me Wild!  Do you know why?  Because Harriet reminds me when I was little because I was messy too.  My other reason is that Harriet was pesky.  In school I am pesky too.  My other reason is it is happy and sweet at the end because Harriet is on her mom's lap and her mom said, "I love you Harriet." Then they picked up the feathers and started to laugh.  See I told you I love, love this book because you cannot take your eyes off adorable Harriet.

Have you read a Mem Fox book?  I have read lots of her books.  My favorite is Possum Magic because I like Hush.  He is so cute.  I like his mouth and his little pink nose.  Another reason I like Hush is because Hush is afraid of snakes, just like me.  Hush goes on adventures with his Grandma, just like me and my Grandma went to the mountains.  Now you can see why I like Hush so much?

My favorite book is Feathers and Fools.  It has a sweet ending because the baby peacock and the baby swan become bffs.  I like the baby swan because he did not beat up the peacock and they become animal friends forever.  I like this book because it has happy and sad.  It has happy at the end and sad when they all kill each other.  I love, love, love Feathers and Fools

I have read so many Mem Fox books so I want to tell you about one.  And it's my favorite.  The name of the book is Feathers and Fools.  Shall we get started?  By the way it's about peacocks and swans.  Okay. now shall we get started?  So "in a rambling garden long ago and far away there lived a pride of many different peacocks. Nearby in the rushes and reeds of a clear blue lake..." Now you see how I like how Mem Fox puts her words together.  I like how Mem Fox always makes it funny because you can't really kill someone with a feather! I also like Feathers and Fools because its happy in the end when they become friends.  Instead of killing each other, they say similarities instead of differences.  That's why Mem Fox rocks. 

Favorite Mem Fox Book

As we are preparing to write persuasive essays about our favorite Mem Fox book and character, the children decided on their favorite book today.  On an index card they wrote and drew a picture on one side of the card identifying their favorite Mem Fox book, and then wrote one reason why the book is their favorite on the back.  We had to move the children from reasons such as "I liked Guess Who? because it's about a witch and my birthday is in October" to deeper more meaningful reasons!  It's not easy, but as we discuss using the text as evidence for our reasons, the children move closer to reasons that make a difference.

I think this may be the first year that Feathers and Fools has been a class favorite.  It's a dark story about peacocks and swans that fear their differences and end up killing each other.  Peace seems forever lost.  Then two little eggs hatch, one swan and one peacock,  who have no memory or experience and walk away as friends.  The kids just seemed to "get" this book.  Think we'll revisit it again before we write about favorites to see if we can draw out even more of the deeper meaning.

Anzac Biscuits and Lamington

As we read Mem Fox's Possum Magic, you could see the students' eyes glaze over as she mentioned all the different foods and cities in Australia that are so unfamiliar to our American children.  To make the places come alive for the children we reread the story as each child followed Hush and Grandma Poss's travels on a map of Australia.  Today to give the students a taste for the Australian goodies that Mem includes, we tasted Anzac biscuits (that they ate in Adelaide) - a crispy oats and coconut, maple-flavored cookie.  Tomorrow we will try lamington which made Hush visible in Hobart - or at least our Americanized version!  Our sample is a little pound cake cut into rectangles with cocoa and sugar icing poured over the top and sprinkled with coconut.  Yum! 

Next we're looking for a little Vegemite.  Any suggestions?

All About Mem Fox

Each year we do one Author Study in Kindergarten, Eric Carle, and two in first grade, Kevin Henkes and Mem Fox, and with each author study we do a chart including some facts about the author.  I've never enjoyed doing these charts because basically, I had all the information and I never could get the engagement I wanted with the students.  This year I tried something new. I sent home a homework page that was optional.  I asked the students (and their parents) to go to the author's web site and find out one fact about the author's family, one fact about one of the author's books and then one fact that they just thought was interesting.

This year when we made the chart, the students were totally engaged.  Many of the students had been on the web site and had discovered all kinds of interesting information.  They couldn't wait to share and to add on to what their classmates said.  I added the students' names to each statement and that added to the engagement.  This is a keeper!

A Last Look at Mem

We have completed our author study of Mem Fox but as standard-based bulletin boards went up last month, Maria Mallon and Cheryl Dillard's board displayed some of the work that was done during this unit. It's worth one last look!
Having children make connections to Mem Fox' books is one of the ways that we hope to have children connect to her work. We want our children to understand that good readers activate their own prior knowledge when reading a book and that they make connections to help them understand the setting or the character or the character's motivation and reactions of particular situations that they have encountered in their own lives. Associating an experience in a book with one that the child has actually lived, helps him understand the character and the stoy. The same is true for setting, characters, moods they have read about in other books. Making those connections to the new book helps them understand, predict, analyze what is happening in the new book. The student above shows that he has made a connection between Mem's Shoes from Grandpa and There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Bat. In this case the child recognizes that both are pattern books with rhyming text that add on. Understanding the structure of the book helps the student predict what will come next.
In the work above the student sequences the major events in the story Possum Magic. Not only does this require recall of basic information but the student is also determining the most important events in the story and summarizing them into a few short sentences - all strong components of comprehension!
In the final example, the student compares a story by Mem Fox with another story that he knows. This type of comparing and contrasting helps the student analyze what happens in both stories.

All of these activities are ways that students are taught to read across the books of the same author. Knowing more about Mem Fox and the type of books that she writes, where she gets her ideas, where she is from and what is important to her will add layers of comprehension to the student's experience with her books. Comparing and contrasting and making connections to other books will also help the student understand what is happening in these new books. All of the reading and writing in an author study is to teach our students to comprehend at a deeper level and to help our children mentor themselves to the author so that they are able to recognize and to duplicate some of Mem Fox' craft in their own work. Maybe we are watching the birth of a new Mem Fox right in our own classrooms!

Mem Fox Celebration Day!

We began our Mem Fox Celebration Day by Skyping a teacher in Australia, Amanda Marrinan! It was quite an adventure! It was 1:00 am her time but she stayed up so we could have a conversation. Each class had prepared a question so the children asked everything from if she had known the Crocodile Hunter and if she had been to the Australian Zoo to what she thought of Mem Fox when she met her and her favorite Mem Fox book. She had even prepared some of the Aussie dishes that the children had read about in Possum Magic such as lamington, pavlova, minties and even Australian tim tams. We are indebted to our Technologist Melanie Holtsman for traveling around the world virtually to make the experience available to our youngsters!

Our next adventure was hearing a former Creeker play the didgeridoo, an Aboriginal wind instrument native to Australia. Sam had lived in Australia when was a first grader! He left his college classes to come share with our children. They were fascinated by the handmade instrument and it's sound and the story he told about termites carving the hollow tube of the gum tree !

Then it was back to our classroom to preform Mem Fox Readers' Theatre scripts that the children have been practicing all week. They presented Koala Lou, Hattie and the Fox and Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge to the delight of their classmates. We tasted pavlova and made some Australian crafts. We completed the day by playing Mem Fox Bingo which was a review of all of the books, characters, Australian animals and places that we had learned about throughout the four week study. While the children have loved Mem's pattern books, they equally loved her touching stories. It will be hard to say good-by to this amazing author.

When Is It Too Much?

This is one of those weeks that I wonder why I ever wanted to go back into the classroom full time!  Sometimes the load on a teacher's shoulders is almost unbearable.

First of all we've been working on a class pumpkin. The tradition is to have your class choose a favorite book and then illustrate the book in pumpkins. It's a tradition I've always loved as the lobby is adorned with pumpkin creativity. However, most teachers have worked out a system that includes having their Room Mom take on most of the responsibility for the project so as not to take away from instructional time. I'm not quite as good at that! Our room mom was already committed to a run in Atlanta to support her sister with breast cancer - a noble cause - so we've been painting and designing and hot gluing in between each lesson all week. Today someone came in and said the instructions (there were instructions?) said not to use hot glue! Too late!

Then there are the grades that are due on Friday. That's a big undertaking any nine weeks - especially with our on-line system (which is suppose to make it easier, but until we learn the system well, only makes it harder) but this nine weeks we have had seven new students and each of them has a different set of circumstances so we have been running around trying to find out just who needs what - driving the office nuts as we try to get the paperwork we need from states across the country. We've been making up assessments with children that have been absent and trying to make sure that our grades reflect what has actually been going on this nine weeks. We never seem to have everything we need. We've been working at every planning time- coming early, staying late. We still have comments to write for each student and the social growth and development grades to finalize before the Monday deadline.

Then there's the standard-based bulletin board that is due on Friday. My teaching partner has taken most of this on her shoulders as she prepares a Math board, but I am impressed again with the time that it all takes. Doing the student work is the easy part. It's the commentary and actually designing the board that takes the time. Even covering the board with paper and scraping the hot glue from the last board takes time! And did I mention the expected creativity and quality that is a given?

Then there's the Mem Fox Celebration Day on Friday. We are completing the four week unit which we have really enjoyed. On Friday we will be Skyping a class in Australia and then having a teacher's son play the digideroo. Then it's on to themed centers and activities and the students performing Readers' Theatre of Mem's books. We also need to look up a recipe for pavlova which is a Mem Fox dish and which we will be preparing as our Fun Friday treat. Lots of prep for the special day.

And did I mention that next Friday is our parade of book characters so we have to decide how to dress? That might be the most difficult decision of the entire week! And of course, I've been buying the supplies for our Fall Centers all week. We'll have parents in for that fun day after the parade to help so we certainly want it to be fun and organized. That night we will be dressed again and at school to give out trick-or-treating candy. It's also our responsibility to decorate the basketball toss, which is one of the games that evening.

Today we met with our RtI group and I was again reminded that we are at the end of a nine weeks. One fourth of the year has flown past. Have we done enough to make sure every child is getting what they need? Because in between all of the other "stuff" we are suppose to be teaching! It's the teaching that can't suffer, no matter what else is going on.

I know I'm at a school where much is expected of teachers. I sometimes think so much is done that it begins to be more expected than appreciated, but I wouldn't want to be at a school where we were satisfied and didn't want to do more for our students. It's just important that the fluff doesn't overpower the important stuff - that teachers stay true to their main mission - that when teachers have to let something go because it's just too much that it's the extra things that go - not the strength and depth of instruction. If we keep our mission in mind, all the other pieces will fall into place...won't they?

Class Poll - Our Favorite Mem Fox character

We are deep in the midst of a Mem Fox Author Study. This is our third week and children are digging deeper as they are comparing and contrasting books, retelling the stories in pictures and words, and are talking about the descriptive way in which Mem Fox describes her characters. For this week's survey, I thought I'd ask each student which was their favorite Mem Fox character and why. We discussed the characters and then each child joined a table group and wrote characteristics of one of the characters. We shared out the results. Then they each took a index card and and drew a picture of their favorite character on one side and on the other side wrote why that particular character was their favorite. Finally we graphed the results.

Looks like little Hush from Mem Fox' Possum Magic is the class favorite. I'm not surprised. He started out as invisible so the snakes couldn't see and harm him and when he wanted to become visible so he could see himself. Grandma Poss traveled with him all over Australia trying native foods until she figured out exactly what would break the spell. Hush is adorable, knows what he wants, and loves an adventure. Hmmmm...sounds a lot

like the kids who voted for him!

Boo to a Goose

It took Mem Fox ten years to get Boo to a Goose published. It didn't take our class ten minutes to fall in love with the lyrical lines and memorize most of the rhyming text! It is yet another of Mem's pattern books that includes repetition, so it is a natural for an innovation. After reading the book a couple of times - until the children joined in on the last line on each page without any prompting - we told the children that we would be writing our own innovation of Mem's picture book for young children. Since our theme is the farm, we listed all the farm animals that we could name. I chose "duck" as my example and "wrote in the air" my own lines of "I'd sit on a duck if you'd give me a buck... but I wouldn't say 'Boo!' to a goose!" Each child worked with a teacher to help refine his lines before writing them down and illustrating, and before you know it, we had our own class innovation of a Mem Fox book! Enjoy some of the examples below.

The FARM

“BOO!” to a Goose

Adapted from Mem Fox’ Boo to a Goose

by the R&T Farmhands

I'd sit on a cat and I'd give him a hat... But I wouldn't say "BOO!" to a goose.

I'd sit with a pony and marry a phony... But I wouldn't say "BOO!" to a goose.

I'd sit on a dog and I'd croak like a frog... But I wouldn't say "BOO!" to a goose.

I'd sit on a sheep if you give me a jeep... But I wouldn't say "BOO!" to a goose.I'd dance with a bunny if you give me some money... But I wouldn't say "BOO!" to a goose.

Retelling Mem

!As we have been studying Mem Fox' books in our class, the children have begun to practice writing retellings of the books. After watching the teacher model a retelling of Koala Lou, the children then divided into partners and chose a different Mem Fox book to retell. They divided their papers into three section and referred to the attributes chart to make sure they had the details correct. They discussed what they should put into each section and how they should say it and then one of the partners began writing. Before you know it, they had an entire retelling!

Comparing and Contrasting Mem Fox Books

Comparing and contrasting books is a good way for children to begin to understand books across a single author. Today I demonstrated the way that Koala Lou and Possum Magic, both books by Mem Fox, are alike and the ways that they are different by using a Venn diagram. For the active involvement of the mini-lesson the students were divided into partners and allowed to select two other Mem Fox books to compare and contrast using their own Venn diagrams. We helped the partners either chose two of her pattern books or two of her story books so the books would have more in common. As children use the graphic organizer to help them understand the Mem Fox books, it helps them organize their thoughts and begin to talk with a partner - the first steps in accountable talk.

Mem Fox' Shoes for Grandpa

Shoes from Grandpa is a delightful cumulative text about the clothes that a family buys for Jessie. In order to understand the sequence of this book, today the children drew the sequence as I read the text. It helped the children understand the characters and setting, the sequence and the cumulative way that the text works. Understanding this book will help them understand and predict other books by Mem Fox and also other books that have the cumulative story structure.

Night Noises

Night Noises is another delightful book by Mem Fox that revisits the elderly characters that she so often incorporates into her stories and a nighttime theme. As we move more deeply into Mem's work, we want our students to be able to retell her stories. Night Noises is full of the onomatopoeia (writing craft) that Lily Laceby hears during the night as her family sneaks up on her to wish her a surprise "Happy Birthday!" To retell this story the students used a worksheet and wrote each of the sounds that are in bold red type from the story. Then they went back and recorded the event that made the sound in the same box. After the children had completed their illustrations, they practiced retelling the stories using their drawings. You can find a copy of this graphic organizer at the grade level wiki under the subsection "Author-Mem Fox." Enjoy one child's drawings below!

Mem Fox Innovation

We started our study of Mem Fox this week by reading her delightful night time story, Time for Bed. In hopes of bridging the curriculum from pattern books to Mem Fox we chose a Mem Fox book that is a pattern book. The children loved this lyrical repetitive book about night time animals going to sleep. Next we decided to take a look at Mem's pattern and write a similar pattern of our own. The children decided instead of writing about going to bed, they would choose a pattern about waking up and since our theme this year is the farm, they wanted to have the animals wake up on the farm. Next we brainstormed all the farm animals we could name. The children divided into partners and each partnership chose one of the animals from the chart. The children decided on the pattern, Good morning little ____, little ____. Next the partners brainstormed all of the real words that they could think of that rhymed with their animal name. Each group wrote a rhyming sentence to complete the couplet. Since this book was going to be a story that all the children would read, the teachers opted to type the couplets with corrected spelling and punctuation.

The second day of this two day project, the teachers talked about matching the words to the pictures before the children went off to illustrate their rhyming couplet. After the pictures were complete, the children came back together to talk about an ending for their book and to illustrate the final page. What a delightful way to begin an author study - by adapting the writer's style to a class story!