Teachable Texts

101. Heartland by Diane Siebert

October 6, 2009 at 8:52 pm Leave a comment

Retell: A celebration of the Midwest, told in rhyming verse and gorgeous illustrations.

Topics: rural communities, landforms, plains, farming

Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area

Habits of Mind: responding with wonderment and awe

Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, envisionment

Writing Skills: creating metaphors,  personification

My Thoughts: At the moment my class is learning how readers interpret maps.  They have difficulty envisioning what places look like.  In their minds, New York State is just one gigantic city.  I plan on reading this book aloud to help my ‘citified’ students envision what rural areas look, feel and sound like.  It will be great to use this as a mentor text in a few months during the Content-Area unit when some students may choose to write nonfiction poetry.

Entry filed under: Female Authors, nonfiction, Picture Books, poetry. Tags: content-area, envisionment, farming, landforms, metaphors, monitoring for sense, nonfiction, personification, plains, responding with wonderment and awe, rural communities.