"Good Conversation!" A Talk with Paul Fleischman
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Paul Fleischman
This program takes you on a fun and educational trip to Santa Cruz, CA where you’ll meet Paul Fleischman, author of the Newbery Award winning book "Joyful Noise: Poems For Two Voices."
Paul invites the viewer into his home where he talks about his writing, his family and the love he has for art. He shares where his ideas come from and talks about his inspirations.
Through the use of poetry, Paul Fleischman, educates the reader in understanding the insect world in a fun way. His use of figurative language and the reading by more than one reader brings the insect world alive for all who listen and read, The poet uses similes, onomatopoeia, metaphors, idioms, puns, and sensory language to better describe the insect world.
Questions for classroom discussion and assignments:
- The teacher will put a chart on the board/overhead labeling each column on the top with simile metaphor, onomatopoeia, idioms or sensory language. Down the side the teacher will list each poem as the class reads the poems, the students can fill in the boxes with the figurative language they have read and discussed.
- Words and drawings. The student will look for onomatopoeias in the poems. (An onomatopoeias is a word that imitates the sound it represents such as the word SPLASH.) The student will take a blank piece of paper and write an onomatopoeia that he/she read in one of the poems across the whole sheet of paper. The student will then draw an illustration that represents the word on the paper.
- Use the web design to look at examples of imagery in each poem. The name of the poem can go into the center the web. Extending from the web have examples of words that stimulate the senses of taste, hearing, sight, smell or touch.
- Each student will create his own poem in Paul Fleishman's style of two columns for two readers. The student can choose another insect The student can research the insect to learn about it. Then write all the sensory descriptive words he/she can think of that relate to the insect. The student will create a poem using the words from the chart.
- The student writes a poem, only being allowed to use 25 words in the total poem. (The teacher decides on the actual number of words.)
- Take any piece of art that appeals to the student and have the student write a poem to describe the artwork. As the class reads the poems the students can fill in the boxes with the figurative language they read and discuss.
- Classroom activity: Create a group poem in Paul Fleischman style. Go around the room and individual or teams can come up with lines. Create a class poetry book. At the end of the year each student will have his own personal copy to read again and again.
- Reading Lab Enrichment: Reluctant readers will feel more comfortable reading aloud with other classmates reading along with them. The passages are short and not overwhelming to these students. The same poem may be read over and over and this reinforcement can only benefit the reader.