This Lesson's Title:

Writing Original Nature Poetry

visualizing details to create tone and mood

This lesson was developed for WritingFix after being proposed by Northern Nevada teacher Maureen Copenhaver Arroyo.

The ideal "mentor text" that can be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the chapter book Woodsong by Gary Paulsen. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author, especially from chapter 1 of the book.

Click here to view this book at Amazon.com.

If you are a Washoe County teacher, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

The student will listen to all of chapter one of Woodsong by Gary Paulsen as the narrator describes his experience with understanding. As students listen, they will visualize and sketch images that come to mind; then students will label their sketches with key descriptive words either from the text or their own words.  One mood or emotion will then be picked by the student, focusing on the image they visualized and sketched - this emotion will act as the title of their poem (length and poetic style is at teacher’s discretion). Teachers: click here to read the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is voice as students visualize the emotions of the narrator and the experiences which happen within “the woods.” The support trait in this assignment is word choice as students consider words that lead to stronger mood and tone within their own poems.