Invitation to Plant Project
I am inviting you to come write with me.
I wonder how you will like this project.
I hear you talking with your group members as you work.
I see you reading and finding needs of plants.
I want you to learn about the parts of plants.
I am inviting you to come write with me.
I plan for these to be posted on our class website.
I feel you research to understand what it gives to our world.
I touch the art you create for this project.
I worry that our plants will not grow.
I cry when you argue with your group.
I am inviting you to come write with me.
I understand this project may be a challenge.
I say you will understand the needs of plants as you watch them grow.
I dream for you to enjoy and do your best in this journey.
I try to give you books to help you as you research.
I hope you will learn to work well with your group members.
I am inviting you to come write with me.
Poetry Outline
Carla Moorefield
The Poetry Unit was implemented in a 1st grade class room.
Learning context
1st graders have been learning about plants as part of the NCSCOS for science. Information about plants has been presented in the form of powerpoints, song, picture books and video. Students have learned how plants grow and form by planting their own lima bean seed. As a class we charted our observations of what happens to the seed. As a class we completed a KWL of what we already know about plants and what we hope to learn.
- Students will complete an “I” poem together with the teacher as a guided lesson to help students understand how to use scaffolds and information needed in completing an “I” Poem. Once the class poem is complete students will complete their own “I” Poems in heterogeneous groups of four-five students per group. There will be four groups.
- Read the book Atlantic by Brian G. Karas to entire class. (this will be our mentor text)
- To engage students will plant their very own lima bean as well as learn songs from Dr. Jean “Parts of a Flower”
- During this process I will the children some questions. Some questions include: Think of things that are plants (trees, flowers, grass, etc) …What are the parts of plants that we have learned about. How would it feel to be a plant? Explain to children that just like animals and humans plants are living things.
- Connect with the question how do you think a plant feels as it drinks water, receives sunlight? Ask children to brainstorm what an I Poem is as teacher lists their answers on chart paper.
- Display the “I” Poem about Martin Luther King Jr. (composed by Mrs. Moorefield) as well as “I” Poem about Butterflies (composed by Sara Hicks). Have students discuss the poem and what they notice about both poems. Write their findings on chart paper.
- Refer back to the text Atlantic by Brian G. Karas. List observations they notice from this text on a separate sheet of chart paper. Do they notice the same things from the teacher created “I” Poems and the story Atlantic? Show students other examples such as I am Water, I’m a Seed by Jean Marzollo.
Guided Lesson
- Teacher will take the book From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons and read the story charting things noticed about plants using the graphic organizer (created by Mrs. Moorefield) As teacher reads story students will be looking for needs and parts of a plant. They will also be listening for what plants give to us and ways that plants can be described. (key vocabulary)
- Once we have read several books about plants, listened to Songs, Practiced Readers Theater, students will complete Organization Chart (created by Lydia Gwaltney) about plants as a class.
- Next we will take the information from the two organization charts and create our “I” Poem using the overhead.
Lima Bean
I hear the wind blowing
I see my roots as they sink into the soft wet soil.
I touch my skin as it swells with water and splits.
I cry for water.
I will grow very high.
I dream of growing into a lima bean plant.
I want water to make food.
I smell the grass around me.
I try to hold my flower up with my stem.
I worry about dying from not having water.
By: Mrs. Moorefield’s First Grade Class
Lesson Plan
Students will be invited to create an “I” poem about a plant from a teacher generated list. Along with their invitation students will also be given a rubric explaining what is expected of them through this assignment. Students will work in groups of 4-5 students. Each student will have a specific job in their group. Jobs include: writer, artist, leader, and time keeper. All students will complete the task of researcher. Group Topics were chosen by the teacher based on resources available from the library. Choices will include: pumpkin plant, tree, sunflower and lima bean plant.
- Each morning students will get their groups basket and work together to complete their I poem. Baskets include rubric, scaffolds, paper, pencils and books that focus on their plant.
- Day 1: Students get paper, pencil and books from their basket and research and read about their plant. They record any facts or findings on their paper.
- Day 2: Students rotate in their groups sharing their notes from their research. The leader monitors and makes sure no one dominates the conversation. The writer writes the information that group members share into the Plant Scaffold.
- Day 3: Group members look at their plant scaffold and see if they can add any new things to their scaffolds. The writer and group members begin working on finishing sentences in the I poem format (created by Lydia Gwaltney).
- Day 4: Group members continue their I poem scaffolds and look with heir group members to see where they can revise.
- Day 5: The writer will re-write the poem onto notebook paper. While the writer is writing the leader will look and read the rubric. Other members will be creating artwork that represents their plant that can be glued onto the final poem.
- Day 6: Students finish their art work. Students in group take turns typing parts of their groups poems.
- Day 7: Finish typing poems and glue on art work. Gather all drafts together.
- Day 8: Teacher copies and scans final poems. Each student gets a copy of the poem. The group members present their poems to the entire class. The class follows along as students read the poems. Students create a title page and ending page for their poetry booklets. Inside their booklets they each have four poems, one created by each group.
- Day 9: Poems are posted to webpage and in hall for the school to view.
- Each student will have a specific job as part of their cooperative learning groups that they are responsible for completing. Jobs include, writer, researcher, reader, leader, artist. These jobs have been established and practiced through various lesson prior to completing the I poem.
- Students will use the two graphic organization charts that we used in class as well as books about their plant. Once the poems are complete teacher will help students editing their poems looking for the best word choice and asking if it makes sense.
- Explain to students that just like we use the five step writing process in writing we use that process in composing poems as well. We must pre-write using graphic organization charts, write, edit, re-write and then publish. Once the teacher has helped students editing their I poems the recorder from their group will begin typing the handwritten copy of the poem.
Trees ~ Group Work Sunflower~ Group Work
Final Poem from each group!
References
Gibbons, G (1991). From seed to plant. New York, NY: Holiday House.
Jordan, H (1992). How a seed grows. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.
Kalman, B (1997). How a plant grows. New York, NY: Crabtree Publishing Co.
Marzollo, J (2000). I am a star. New York, NY: Scholastic .
Marzollo, J (1996). I am water. New York, NY: Scholastic .
Marzollo, J (1996). I’m a seed. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Nayer, J (1994). A tree can be. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Karas, B. (2002). Atlantic. New York, NY: Puffin.
Carla Moorefield
RE 5130
April 25, 2009
As I began the endeavor of teaching my students I poetry, I remember thinking, “This will never work.” Teachers often tend to be “close minded” about new ideas and concepts in the world of teaching. During the third week of the poetry project I was taken by surprise to see my students finished work. My observations were surprising as were the outcomes of their final projects. I believe my students were successful in learning about plants, writing and learning new vocabulary. In the future I desire to try this same type of lesson plan only with a different form of poetry.
Plants were the topic that I chose for my students in order to meet our standard course of study requirements in science. I began the project weeks prior by marinating my children in various forms of poetry. I would read several poems a day. After a week I began discussing the poems. We came up with our own definition of poetry. It was interesting to see what they thought poetry was before and then how they came to understand it after our study. After marinating them in different forms of poetry I began sharing poems such as Atlantic, I am Water, and I am a Seed. We wrote down the things that we noticed about an I poem. I shared with students my I poem about Martin Luther King Jr. Students already had an understanding about Martin Luther King Jr. because we had studied him previously in the year. Students were amazed to see that their teacher had created a poem. We discussed each line as we read it talking about how that each line related to Martin Luther King Jr.
After I shared different I poems with the class as well as my own I distributed the I poem invitation to my students. They were so ecstatic to open up an invitation. I read it and explained every line to them. I heard them read their invitation over and over to themselves. This was the second invitation I had completed with this group of students and I was amazed at the excitement and motivation that it seemed to create for the project.
Before beginning the project I decided to have students complete the poetry project in small groups rather than on their own. Cooperative groups and the roles within them had been established earlier in the year. I felt that students could work on so many skills together while writing their I poems. During the first week that students were split into their plant groups to complete the assignment things were chaos. Even though jobs were established students argued and didn’t agree. Some students didn’t like the job that they had been assigned and some students just wanted to sit and do nothing. After I saw students doing this I took the next day to sit in a group and model group work while creating an I poem. I explained to them that no matter what they all have a job in their specific groups. I also explained that this had to be their best work in order to be posted onto the class website that is accessed from the school website.
Aside from several frustrations on my part and their part, things went pretty well. During the same time that I was conducting poetry projects I was also conducting an action research project on writing. As part of the project I chose to implement our poetry projects into my research project in the form of assignments and student surveys. I also looked to see if students were engaged or not engaged during poetry time. My results were shocking. While journal writing was their favorite form of writing, 74% of my students said they liked poetry (this is out of a class of 19 students) their third quarter writing assessments grew in their sentence structure, vocabulary and the amount of words that they used in journal entry. All 19 of my children went from a level 1, 2 or 3 in writing to a level 2, 3, or 4. During this period of time I implemented several different writing ideas to aid my students in the writing process and poetry was one of them.
I hope to integrate poetry along with my science curriculum. During the last several weeks of school I plan to teach my students about rocks, insects and magnets. I want to use acrostic, I and haiku poems with my students. Implementing poetry along with my science curriculum with my students has proved to be successful. Poetry proved to be a successful way to expand my children’s vocabulary while they were researching about their topic. I am encouraging many of the teachers that I work with to use I poems in their teaching. I feel the key to helping my students be successful with a challenging assignment is to model with them and provide them with the appropriate scaffolds.
Rubric for “I” Poem about Plants
Plant________________________________________________
|
Things Needed |
|||
|
Needs of plant |
Identifies all 4 needs of the plant chosen.- air, water, light, space. | Identifies 3 needs of the plant chosen.air, water, light, space. | Identifies 2 or less of the needs of the plant chosen.air, water, light, space. |
|
Parts of Plant |
Identifies the 4 parts of the plant chosen. (stem, root, leaves, flower) | Identifies the 3 parts of the plant chosen.(stem, root, leaves, flower) | Identifies 2 or less of the parts of the plant(stem, root, leaves, flower) |
|
I poem model |
Used the I poem chart and model and included all 12 parts of the I poem and drew pictures. | Used the I poem chart and model and included at least 8 of the I poem. | Used the I poem chart and model and included 4 or less of the Ipoem. |
|
Something the plant gives us |
Poem tells readers several things the plant gives to us. | Poem tells readers one thing the plant gives to us. | Poem does not tell readers what the plant gives to us. |
I can investigate the needs of a variety of different plants. Science 1.01
Group Names:
Date:________
