Elementary Library

Say: Wow there are some excellent memories in this room! We all carry memories with us. Today we are going to be writing some of our memories in an autobiography and a poem.

OBJECTIVE Say: An autobiography is the story of a person’s life, as told by that person. So you can’t write an autobiography for another person, only for yourself!

Display and read objective. Display and clarify any vocabulary

DIRECT INSTRUCTION & PRACTICE Step 1: Read Aloud Ten Beautiful Things Say: Let’s start with a book about memories. Read T he Remember Balloons using best practices and the resource guide.

Say: What kind of memories were most important to James? Why? What are your most important or precious memories?

Use discussion strategies to support students speaking and listening.

Step 2: Instruction about Metaphors & Concrete Poetry Say: In The Remember Balloons, the author and illustrator use balloons as metaphors for memories. A metaphor is a symbolic way of talking about something. We are going to use a poetry form called concrete poetry to use this metaphor of a remember balloon and share your own strong memory from this school year. This memory is part of your autobiography! Let’s look at a few examples of concrete poetry. Show examples of concrete poetry. Instruct students to read and observe silently to themselves. Then tell a partner what they notice about the poem. Students may notice: ●​ Words are arranged in shapes not straight lines ●​ Shape of the poem relates to the subject ●​ Some words are bigger than others ●​ Repeating words Step 3: Student Writing Say: Your job is to write your strong memory from this year into a concrete poem. You can choose any appropriate shape you like, or you can simply use a balloon shape since this is your remember balloon. Be intentional with your word choice to make the memory clear as possible for your readers, like James can see his memories in his balloons. Your poem does not need to rhyme and it does not have to be in full sentences. Choose the most important words to get the feeling across. You may use one side of your paper as a brainstorm and rough draft. The other side will be for your finished product. While you are writing, the voice level should be about a 1. We will have time to share our favorite memories after you finish.

Distribute pencils and circulate to help students stay on task. Have sentence frames ready to 149