Will's Words: Learning to Love Language with William Shakespeare

Students are never too young to begin immersing themselves in the language of William Shakespeare. Will's Words: How William Shakespeare Changed the Way You Talk, is a wonderful place to start. Author Jane Sutcliffe and illustrator John Shelley takes us on a tour of 1600's London and its thriving theater culture, while at the same time pointing out many now-common words and phrases that originated from the quill of William Shakespeare.

The tour consists of backstage glimpses and onstage antics, while at the same time describing the scope of Shakespeare's work and his audience's reaction toward it. Students will love the images which are all-encompassing and minutely detailed at the same time. Your kids will leaf through this book again and again, searching out the secrets that John Shelley has so cleverly and humorously included in the illustrations.

Jane Sutcliffe admits that not all of Shakespeare's words and phrases were original, but are certainly recorded for the first time in his works:

We know that Shakespeare used words like no other writer before or since. The man had an amazing ear for words. At a time when the English language was changing rapidly, he noticed words in playhouses and taverns, and on London street corners. Then he put them in his plays and poems. Sometimes he was the first to write down a new word. Sometimes he seems to have made up his own. He put all those words together in extraordinary, ingenious ways.

Regardless of which activities you choose to try from below, I highly recommend Will's Words as a starting point, no matter what grade level!

But Keith... What if I don't know a lot about Shakespeare and his works? What if I hated Shakespeare when I was a student? 

In his TED Talk titled How NOT to Hate Shakespeare, actor/educator Rob Crisell explains:

For most of us in school, Shakespeare’s works were a "literary enema..." (but) he’s the world’s most famous author for good reason. No writer, not Homer, not Dante, not Cervantes, not J.K. Rowling, rivals him in terms of his art and influence. His characters have become part of our mental landscape... And how about his words? Shakespeare wrote 884,000 of them, credited with being the first to use or inventing more than two thousand of them.

So how can we explore poetry and language in the true spirit of Shakespeare? I've provided a few ideas below.

1. Featured Creatures
Suggested Grades: 3 and up

Curious as a cricket, happy as a lark, slow as a snail. See where this is going? Students enjoy creating simple similes, and their vast store of animal knowledge makes these comparisons easy.

A wonderful mentor text for this activity is Shakespeare's Zoo (Volume 1) by Laudea Martin. It was "a very old and well-loved boxed set of the complete works of William Shakespeare, which once belonged to Laudea's great grandmother... that sparked her interest in the richness of Shakespeare's written words." The author soon discovered that in many of Shakespeare's works, both famous and obscure, the Bard employed animal imagery to paint perfect pictures of human passions and pratfalls.

From the book description:

Shakespeare's brilliance shines through, not just in his most famous lines, but in every line. The tiniest snippet of his work contains fantastic wordplay and depth of imagery. This book takes some of his less-known bits about various animals and pairs them with Laudea Martin's unique illustrations assembled from textured layers.

And, like all Shakespeare, each page will become easier to understand the more you read it. The brilliant words of Shakespeare are meant to be heard, not seen, so read the words aloud and listen to the rhythm. Read them again and again, and let your imagination fill in the details of the scene.

Classroom Extensions:

• Students can search out favorite animals using the concordance at OpenSourceShakespeare. They can illustrate the lines they find, or possibly even add to them.
• Students can create biographical poems by first selecting adjectives that they feel describe them (pretty, busy, fast, etc.) and then selecting animals that match those adjectives. Students can pair the adjectives and animals in simile form, such as, "I snore like a lion when I'm really, really tired," and "I'm busy as a beaver every day when I get home."
• Creating a flip book is a fantastic way to show off and illustrate the comparisons described above, and the sizes of the books can vary from tiny to huge.
• Collect a pile of animal poem books and let students browse them and share their favorites. Then offer trade books or an assortment of animal pictures, and ask students to write a simile poem inspired by a favorite critter, perhaps using iambic pentameter to create it. The TED Ed lesson on Why Shakespeare Loved Iambic Pentameter is a fun and effective introduction to this poetry form, or use this kid friendly handout (see image to the right) from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

2. Reverse-A-Verse 

Suggested Grades: 4 and up

In Echo Echo, Marilyn Singer retells Greek myths via reverso poems, poems that can be read both backward and forward, typically revealing new meanings each time. "When read from top to bottom, each poem tells a well-known story from a world of heroes and monsters. When read in reverse, however, the very same words convey a whole new point of view!" (from the book flap) Illustrator Josée Masse creates dramatically saturated pictures which truly complement the duality of the poems.

When reading these aloud, be sure to assign each poem to a different reader, and see where the words lead you.

Classroom Extensions:

• After viewing a live production of a Shakespeare play, challenge students to write a reverso poem on any one of the play's characters. Have a script handy, as students may want to include snippets of a character's lines in their poem.
• Older students might enjoy reading Jonathan Reed's The Lost Generation, arguably the most well-known reverso poem. Genius.com does a painstakingly thorough job of breaking down this poem. After discussion, challenge students to write their own reverso poems using characters from popular culture, contemporary novels, and, of course, Shakespearean plays. 
• After studying animals for a research project, students can use that same animal as the subject of a reverso poem. In my class, I purposely assigned students those animals traditionally considered pests. As the poem is read forward, the lines recount the pest's nasty reputation, but read backward, the lines vindicate the pest for what good it may do. This Slides presentation offers a template, plus two examples.

3. Write a Sonnet Upon It 

Suggested Grades: 4 and up

For this activity, I show my students actor Matthew Macfadyen's version of Sonnet 29. Upon first playing, however, I leave the volume off. I then ask students to interpret what took place. I then play it again, with the volume up, and again ask students to interpret, first verbally, and then by rewriting the sonnet in their own words.

Classroom Extensions:

• Have students write their own sonnet based on Sonnet 29. They can write it from one character to another (using a recent novel or play for inspiration), or they can write it to someone who has been meaningful in their life. This Google Slides presentation includes examples of both. Feel free to copy and adapt this for your own uses.
• A similar exercise could be done with Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?...) which is likely more familiar to students. (Both Sonnet 29 and 18 can be found here in a printable version.) If you want students to examine this in more detail before writing on their own, check out this annotated version.
• Depending upon your students' tech sophistication, they may like the idea of putting sonnets to film. In this version of Sonnet 18, the poem is read by Peter O'Toole, the film footage is sourced from "No Country for Old Men" and "The American," and music is by James Newton Howard. Students are familiar with such mash-ups, and they might enjoy a similar challenge. 
• If needed, begin with a more contemporary sonnet that uses familiar language. This lesson plan from the Folger Library using Edna St. Vincent Millay's "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why" provides a comfortable starting place.

4. Language Loopholes 

Suggested Grades: 3 and up

When I taught fourth grade, I overheard one student complaining that Spanish class was aggronizing. “Is that a real word?” I asked. He replied that of course it was, since it combined agonizing and aggravating!

Just a week or two later, one of my students paused by the door before leaving. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

“No,” she responded, “I’m just waiting for the eighth graders to pass. I don’t want to get stampled.”

“Stampled?”

“Yeah, it’s a portmanteau I invented. It’s when you get trampled by a stampede. You can use it if you want.” And off she went.

It's true that Shakespeare coined many new words and recorded many others for the first time, but students are often surprised to discover that new words are entering our lexicon all the time. Sometimes students are even inventing their own! Language isn't static; like any other discipline, it continues to evolve.

One case in point is the July 2009 announcement from Merriam-Webster regarding the addition of new words to its dictionary:

Hardworking word-lovers everywhere can now learn the meaning of the word staycation ("a vacation spent at home or nearby") along with nearly 100 other new words and senses added to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. America's best-selling dictionary offers its new 2009 entries in its updated print edition and online at Merriam-Webster.com.

"Our language evolves in many ways," said John Morse, president and publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc. "As we've seen from our Open Dictionary feature on Merriam-Webster.com, people enjoy blending existing words, like combining 'stay' and 'vacation' to make staycation. Staycation is a good example of a word meeting a need and establishing itself in the language very quickly. Our earliest record of use is from 2005, but it seems to have exploded into popular use in 2007."

Classroom Extensions:

• Many of Shakespeare's original words are simple compounds, such as bedroom, bloodstained, and moonbeam. Give students time to play around with their own original compound creations.
• Allow students to create portmanteau words to express those ideas for which no words exist. A portmanteau word is two words "jammed" together to make a new one, such as smog, staycation, emoticon, administrivia, and brunch. It differs from a compound word (where no letters are lost) and a contraction (where an apostrophe denotes removed letters). Start off by giving students a list of portmanteaus to dissect, and then allow them to create their own.
• Challenge students to define some of the latest entries to Word Spy, The Word Lover's Guide to New Words. Word Spy is a wonderful resource for neologisms, or newly coined words. Wordspy takes on a recent word such as vegangelical and not only defines and parses it (n. An extremely zealous vegan who is eager to make other people believe in and convert to veganism; blend of vegan and evangelical) but also traces it to its earliest citation (in this case, to the blog The Smoking Vegans in 2005). Wordspy is a fun site to browse, and readers are welcome to comment on entries and suggest new words as well. Its biggest strength is that it offers citations for all the words it lists. It isn't entirely G rated, however, so it's best left to the teacher to explore.
• Ask the question, "Just because someone uses a word, does it become a word?" To put it another way, "Are all neologisms created equal?" Sure, Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, and Lewis Carroll coined words all the time, but do the rest of us carry enough clout to do the same?

5. Acting Out

Suggested Grades: 3 and up

In his TED Talk titled "How NOT to Hate Shakespeare," educator/actor Rob Crisel asks the audience, "Were his plays meant to be read silently or aloud?” and then answers, “Trick question; his plays weren’t meant to be read at all; they were meant to be heard, and watched, and acted. They were meant to be experienced.” He likens most students' classroom experiences with Shakespeare to "trying to appreciate a musician by studying their lyrics, but never hearing their songs."

If you think your students may struggle with original versions of Shakespeare, or if you face time constraints, dozens of adapted scripts are readily available online, such as the Macbeth adaptation pictured here.

Classroom Extensions:

• Whenever possible, use the full scripts. In the same way that we do Close Reading with other texts, do Close Acting with selected passages. If students struggle, consider using excerpts from films that portray actors speaking the lines in context.
• If students plan to act out lines written in iambic pentameter, then definitely check out this lesson on Living Iambic Pentameter.
  
• If your students struggle with full texts of Shakespeare's plays, use a resource such as Shakespeare with Children: Six Scripts for Young Players that uses original lines from the plays, but in shorter, abridged versions. These can be performed successfully in the classroom as readers' theater if time doesn't allow for students to memorize lines.
• Challenge students to use soliloquys or scenes in an original interpretation. This Levi's 501 commercial, for example, uses line from Midsummer Night's Dream Act 3 Scene 1 in an innovative way. 

6. Pop Sonnets

 Suggested Grades: 6 and up

In Pop Sonnets, author Erik Didriksen has rewritten dozens of pop songs as Shakespearean sonnets. Works by artists such as Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Lorde, and the Backstreet Boys have been cleverly reimagined and reworked in sonnets such as these:

What thou requir’st, I harbor deep inside — 
I too possess the things for which thou yearn’st. 
So if thou want’st these hungers slak’d, my pride
should not be injur’d fast when thou return’st.
I shall not cuckold thee or break thy trust;
my wish is not to leave my lover spurn’d.
But if I will not satiate my lust,
I should be shown the deep regard I’ve earn’d.
’Tis true, thy kisses are like honey sweet, 
but so’s the gold that doth my coffers fill. 
I have no need to once again entreat
thee to be shown a shred of thy good will.
        — And so, good sir, do not my heart neglect;
        when thou com’st home, pray show me some respect.
                               ~Aretha Franklin, “Respect”

A lonely maiden from a hamlet small;
a boy within a woeful city rear’d —
they both at midnight left their ports of call
t’ward any destination volunteer’d.
A public-house is where their journeys end,
where patrons’ pipes burn long and minstrels play.
The darken’d hours have made them more than friends,
the other’s smile inviting each to stay.
Look ye on those who wander through the streets
beneath the lamplight, searching for a soul —
they comb the darken’d night in hope to meet
the sweet companion that shall make them whole.
— Ensure thy heart won’t let their spirit leave;
’tis most important thou dost e’er believe.
                            ~Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’”

Can you still sing along with them? Surprisingly, yes! Some of them anyway. Give it a try, And then consider these additional ideas for using Pop Sonnets in your classroom:

Classroom Extensions:

• As a warm-up to each class, post one of Erik Didriksen's sonnets on the whiteboard. Challenge students, perhaps working in pairs or groups, to identify the modern song which inspired it.
• Challenge students to rewrite their own favorite songs in the form of a sonnet. Use the TED Ed lesson on Why Shakespeare Loved Iambic Pentameter and the handout Writing Like Shakespeare (iambic pentameter) to get students feeling the rhythm of the sonnets rather than the rhythm of the song they've chosen.
• Lay down the gauntlet for your class musicians: Now that you've rewritten the lyrics, can they be put to music that keeps the sonnet lines intact while restoring the spirit of the original song
• Check out the ideas for Hip Hop or Shakespeare below. 

7. Language Lost

Suggested Grades: 5 and up

In The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten, Jeffrey Kacirk shares hundreds of fascinating archaic words and phrases. In the Introduction, Kacirk explains:

The English language, as the largest and most dynamic collection of words and phrases ever assembled, continues to expand, absorbing hundreds of words annually into its official and unofficial rolls, but not without a simultaneous yet imperceptible sacrifice of terms along the way. Fortunately, before they're quiet disappearance, many of these reflections of antiquity, the remnants of History which casually escaped the Shipwreck of time, to use a phrase of Francis Bacon, were recorded in a variety of published and unpublished writings, including dictionaries and glossaries.

Yes, we all studied history in school, but usually just the "big picture." Often we need to turn to the scholarly work of writers of historical fiction to get the specifics. This sentiment is shared by the author who explains:

In my schooling, I found that teachers and historians, because of their socially prescribed curricular attention toward larger social concepts, often bypass the smaller and more personal expressions of social custom and conduct, often leaving the novel as the best lens with which to view forgotten elements of everyday life… Specifically, my bias has been in favor of expressions that not only offer insights into the nature of our living language but simultaneously illustrate telltale beliefs and customs.

Some words, like anywhen (meaning at any time), make perfect sense when compared with a surviving relative like anywhere. We still use the expression "out of earshot," but we've abandoned the equally useful words armshot and eyeshot to describe relative distances.

Then we find words which make perfect sense when broken into Greek and Latin roots, such as biblioklept (a book thief), ambidexter (one who plays both sides, usually unethically as in a court case), and noctuary (an account of what passes during the night, such as Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time). Other words, such as gazingstock (an object of public notice, contempt, and abhorrence), seem to simply be compounds which have been forgotten.

Classroom Extensions:

• Using the Online Etymology Dictionary, students can research commonly understood words to discover their actual origins. Another great resource is the on line Merriam-Webster Dictionary, which often provides detailed word histories, such as this one for ostracize: 

In ancient Greece, prominent citizens whose power or influence threatened the stability of the state could be exiled by a practice called ostracism. Voters would elect to banish another citizen by writing that citizen's name down on a potsherd (a piece of broken pottery). Those receiving enough votes would then be subject to temporary exile from the state (usually for ten years). The English verb ostracize can mean "to exile by the ancient method of ostracism," but these days it usually refers to the general exclusion of one person from a group at the agreement of its members. Ostracism and ostracize derive from the Greek ostrakizein ("to banish by voting with potsherds"). Its ancestor, the Greek ostrakon ("shell" or "potsherd"), also helped to give English the word oyster.

• As a daily challenge, list one of the words from The Word Museum on the board, and offer up three definitions. Let students defend their choices before the "big reveal." In many cases, students are likely to have very convincing arguments for their decisions.
• Similarly, list three entirely fictional words and one from the book. See if students can guess which word really existed. Before the "big reveal," you can additionally provide a context sentence with a blank left for the real word. The sentence may provide enough context for students to not only choose the correct, genuine word, but also to ferret out its meaning.
• Have students research those words that Shakespeare coined or recorded for the first time that didn't catch on. Have students report back with their own hypotheses of why these words were forgotten when other original words weren't.

8. Hip Hop or Shakespeare?
Suggested Grades: 5 and up

Award-winning hip hop artist Akala challenges audience members at a TED Talk to decide whether a line he shares is Hip Hop or Shakespeare. More difficult than you'd imagine! The first four minutes shows this challenge, but the remainder of the video is worth a watch.

Classroom Extensions:

• Provide students with a similar list of lines, and see how they fare. Lyrics.com is a straight-forward, ad-free site which allows you to easily search lyrics by most popular searches, artist, keyword, and more. Many songs are accompanied by the music video which can play in a small screen to the left. Also cool is that each page includes a bibliographic citation at the bottom!
• Even better, challenge your students to stump one another with the Hip Hop or Shakespeare challenge. They can likewise use Lyrics.com and OpenSourceShakespeare to search up lines. Bonus points to those who can name the song or artist of the non-Shakespearean lines.

9. Shakespearean Shamings
Suggested Grades: 8 and up

I'm not sure how I feel about encouraging elementary aged students to insult each other, but for upper middle schoolers and high schoolers this could be lots of fun. I would likely start with the video If Shakespearean Insults Were Used Today, the source material for which can be found here. 

Classroom Extensions:

• Direct students to complete this TED Ed lesson on Insults by Shakespeare. Good intro activity.
• As a sponge activity, allow students to use this Shakespeare Insult Generator (printable pdf) from Shakespeare for Kids, (where you can also find fifteen minute plays from Shakespeare).
• For fun, let students try an interactive insult generator, such as the Shakespeare Insult-O-Meter. This allows you to specify male or female, and the resulting authentic insult is displayed with the play from which it originates, as well as its literal meaning.
• Challenge students to replace all school inappropriate words they've been using with some of these new phrases for at least a week's time. Check in to hear the results.

Other Resources for Creating Your Own Activities and Finding Your Own Way:

• Looking for an all-around excellent resource for teaching this Shakespeare stuff? Try How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig. Excellent for parents, home schoolers, and teachers who want to raise the bar for what children can learn from the Bard. 
• Teaching modules for high school students from Folgers (several of the plays and the sonnets, plus ideas to use with any play)
• Simple list of words coined by Shakespeare.
• Simple list of phrases coined by Shakespeare.
• 135 Phrases Coined by William Shakespeare, with meanings and origins.
• From TED Ed, Shakespearean Dating Tips.
• Shakespeare on Love, an infographic.
• The Horrible Histories William Shakespeare Song, containing many of the phrases he coined. Could be just for fun.
• The Horrible Histories - Shakespeare Goes to School video is even funnier.
• This Globe Theatre Model can be printed out on paper and assembled.
• The Virtual Globe Theatre is an in-the-round tour of the theatre, with embedded videos to better explain each part of the venue.
• Still afraid of Shakespeare? Check out the TED Talk video What would Shakespeare Think of Us? in which Dan Poole and Giles Terera discuss Shakes-spism: A highly infectious, extreme and irrational aversion to Shakespeare (William) and his plays, caused by poor teaching, and bad experiences in the theatre.

Yet Another Game to Play in Class Tomorrow!

If you're looking for a game that students will beg to play every week, this is it. I've used it in classrooms and academic enrichment programs at summer camp with fantastic results. Add this to Bug and The Mysterious Box of Mystery, and you have three solid sure-fire games for your ELA toolbox.

Big Words is an activity which promotes an increase in phonetic awareness, spelling accuracy, and vocabulary development. The game I describe below was inspired by authors Patricia M. Cunningham and Dorothy P. Hall in their book Making Big Words. The copy I purchased over ten years ago encouraged me to turn their ideas into a class-wide game which has been a huge hit ever since.

The first objective of the game is to create as many words as possible from a given set of letters. To play, each student is given an envelope containing a strip of letters in alphabetical order, vowels listed first and then consonants. The student cuts these apart so that the individual letters can be easily manipulated on the desktop. Moving the letters about, students attempt to form as many words as possible. Beginners may only be able to form two-, three-, and four-letter words, but with time and practice will be able to use knowledge of word parts and blends to form much longer words.

The second objective is to spell a single word (the Big Word!) with all the letters. In my class, that Big Word very often relates to an upcoming trip, project, or special event, and thus serves double-duty to build excitement and enthusiasm.

As Big Words is used on a regular basis, the teacher can discuss strategies for increasing word counts. Some of these strategies include rhyming, changing single letters at the beginning or ending of each word, using blends, homophones, etc. Many additional words can also be generated through the use of -s to create plurals, and -e to create long vowel sounds. Some students will discover that reading their words backwards prompts additional ideas. Additionally, the teacher can discuss word parts which can help students to understand what they read (such as how the suffix -tion usually changes a verb to a noun, as in the word relaxation).

While the book emphasizes individual practice, we prefer to play Big Words as a class game. I've outlined our procedures below. You can also access these directions as a printable Google Doc.

BIG WORDS Game Play

1. Have students cut apart the letters, and then begin forming as many words as possible using those letters. Remind them to not share ideas with partners, and to not call out words as they work (especially the Big Word). 
2. After about fifteen minutes, have students draw a line under their last word, and then number their list. They cannot add to or change their lists, but new words that they hear from classmates should be added once the game starts.
3. Divide the class into two teams. Direct students to use their pencil to “star” their four best words which they would like to share. These should be words which the other team might not have discovered.
4. Determine how the score will be kept (on a chalkboard, interactive whiteboard, etc.). The teacher should also have a way to publicly write words as they're shared so that students can copy them more easily.  Here are links to a PowerPoint scoreboard or an online scoreboard.
5. Hand a stuffed animal or other object to the first student from each team. This tangible item will help the students, and you, to know whose turn it is to share. Tell students that only the player holding the stuffed animal may speak. Other players who talk out of turn will cost their team one penalty point. These penalty points should be awarded to the opposing team, not subtracted from a score. This will greatly reduce unnecessary noise. 
6. Play takes place as follows: The first student shares a word, nice and loud. He or she spells it out. If any player on the opposing team has that word, they raise their hand quietly and the teacher checks to see that it is the same word. (It doesn't matter if any student on the speaker's team has the word or not). Every player who has it should check it off, and every player who does not have it should write it into their notebook. 
7. If no player on the opposing team has the word, then the team scores 3 points. If anyone on the opposing team has the word, then only 1 point is scored. 
8. If a player shares a word which has already been given aloud, their team is penalized 2 points! This helps everyone to pay better attention to the game. 
9. Ironically, the Big Word counts for as many points as any other word. Feel free to change that if you prefer, but I discovered that if I make it worth more points, students waste an extraordinary amount of time trying to form the Big Word alone, while ignoring the creation of any smaller words. 
10. Play until a predetermined time, and then if the Big Word hasn't been formed yet, provide students with the first two or three letters to see who can create it.

Enjoy the game! I know your students will.

Another Game You Can Play in Class Tomorrow!

I received some nice emails about the Bug game our class designed, so I wanted to share what we played this past Friday. I call it The Mysterious Box of Mystery.

Worst name ever.

I know, but my students loved it. Well, the game, not so much the name. Surprising, since they all lost! But they see the potential for winning, so they're psyched about playing it again.

The game is simple. Find a box, tissue-box size or somewhat larger, in which you can hide an object. Ask students to number a page one through eight, and then prompt them to ask questions about the hidden object that can be answered yes or no. Each time you provide a yes/no answer, students write a new guess, or rewrite the one they've previously recorded if they feel it's correct.

Simple, right? Perhaps you've probably played something like this before. But to increase the "mystery" of it, I created a rhyming script that I read for each of my three classes, and I never deviated from the script. One student mentioned that it made Mystery Box "really scary," and another students mentioned that it built the suspense.

Cool. But the script was truthfully designed to achieve the first objective of the game: to build better listening skills. By sticking to the script, the game proceeded without interruption, and students were incredibly attentive throughout.

When students failed to name the object in each of the classes, I revealed the objects to them: a spork for Period 1, a candle for Period 5, a clothespin for Period 7. Each time when I asked, "Was it possible for you to actually guess this with just eight questions?" students reluctantly admitted yes.

"Possible, but not probable..." mused one student.

"Not with the dumb questions we asked," responded another unhappily. "We needed to ask better questions."

"We did waste a couple of guesses," added another.

And there it is, the second and more important objective of the game: to learn to ask better questions. For example, one student asked, "Is the thing in this room?" and the answer, of course, was yes. But what she meant was, "Is this thing observable to our eyes anywhere in the classroom right now?" That question would have cut down many possibilities and likely caused all students to change their guessing strategies.

So while students were disappointed, none complained that the game was unfair or impossible. Instead, many began discussing strategies for the next time the game was played. I did promise students that I would never use an object that was rare, unique, or unknown to them; they did fear, after all, that I would make the objects harder to guess as they became better guessers.

Beginning to finish, the game took ten minutes. The script was especially helpful in keeping me, the facilitator, from veering off course. In the future, when students are allowed to facilitate the game using their own objects, the script will likewise keep the class focused.

Give it a go, and let me know how it works out for you.

If you're looking to get more games into your reading and writing classroom, I highly recommend Peggy Kaye's Games for Reading and Games for Writing. I've used both books extensively in one-to-one instruction, but many of the games can be played with little planning in the ELA classroom. These games are also a huge help if you're seeking activities that a substitute can implement that will be highly engaging for your students.

POST EDIT: We decided that students would bring in objects,and use the script to facilitate the game. They're excited for the prospect, and I 'll let you know how it goes!

A Game Your Students Can Play Tomorrow

Games are the most elevated form of investigation.  ~ Albert Einstein

I just finished reading Cathy N. Davidson's wonderful Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work and Learn. I'll need to reread it, to be honest, because too often my mind began drifting to my own classroom as I read. I began asking myself if I was doing all that I could to engage students, and the answer was a sad and resounding no. My classes are severely lacking in game play.

According to Davidson, "Games have long been used to train concentration, to improve strategy, to learn human nature, and to understand how to think interactively and situationally." In the classroom, games capture and focus attention, increase motivation, and allow for complete, overt engagement.

My most often downloaded resource, in fact, is a Theme Game I created on Google Slides. At least one of my readers a day downloads this activity, which means that other teachers are seeing the value of game play in the classroom.

I readily admitted to my students that I created Bug, and it would have some, well, "bugs" that needed to be worked out. But students were eager to help in this regard, and our finished game is best described through the Google Slides presentation below.


What We Learned Together

1) We decided that certain modifications were allowed (simple switch, blend mend, one letter better) since they were sophisticated and advanced the game, while others were not allowed (adding a simple s to create a plural, adding both a vowel and a consonant together, reconstructing a word that has already been spelled). Students likewise dismissed the possibility of allowing prefixes and suffixes, deciding that those modifications didn't truly change the words enough.

2) We learned that four to five minutes was a suitable time for each round of play. Once each round finished, players could challenge their current partner if the match ended in a tie, or winners could challenge other winners and losers could challenge other losers, or, simply, anyone else could challenge any other classmate. Students didn't care whom they played; students simply wanted to play! My period one class of only eight students played using a traditional bracket to decide a final winner, but other classes were content to engage in free range play.

3) Students did begin to employ strategies. One clever student used "shrug" as her first word each time, instantly earning a power up and leaving her partner with a difficult word to manage. When her second partner countered with "shrub," this student needed to quickly adapt and used her earned power down to create "scrum." Scrum? Yes, this game encourages vocabulary development as well.

4) By game's end we concluded that, catchy name aside, every new game couldn't begin with "bug." Too many students were trying to play the same words each round, and too many rounds fell into the same predictable list of words. We decided that each new game should start with a different three letter word.

5) We played our games with large (12 x 18) paper and colored markers, but for a future game we're likely to play with standard sized paper and colored pencils. Students liked the visual separation that two colors provided, but the size format probably won't be needed in the future.

We would love to hear your recommendations, variations, and success stories! Want more word challenges? Try the Word Challenges posted at The Book Chook!

Failure IS an Option; A Really Funny One

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made by Pearls Before Swine strip creator Stephan Pastis is a hilarious new title guaranteed to win big with fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dear Dumb Diary.

I read it with much amusement and delight, but thought that perhaps my own immaturity and snarkiness prevented me from qualifying as an unbiased judge of its greatness. I therefore turned to an expert on books of this type: my third grade daughter Mackenzie.

I decided Mackenzie could serve as an impartial judge due to the following qualifications:

1. Timmy Failure is aimed at her demographic, 
2. She's a voracious reader of this genre,
3. She regularly discusses and swaps books with her third grade posse, and 
4. She stole the advance review copy the day it arrived at our house before I even had the chance to open the cover.

I also felt I owed it to her after she scoured the shelves of our public library looking for Number Two in the series. I believe Mackenzie suffered intense emotional damage upon learning that the follow-up wouldn't be available for quite some time. Nonetheless, she graciously agreed to be interviewed.

Me:  So what's Timmy Failure all about?

Kenzie:  It's about this boy who's really bad in school that decides to open up a detective agency. The problem is, he's really bad at being a detective and he misses lots of obvious clues. And he owns a fifteen hundred pound polar bear named Total.

Me:  Is the polar bear real, or stuffed?

Kenzie:  It's real! (She shrugs her shoulders and lifts her hands up, palms to the ceiling  as if to say. "Duh!").

Me:  You're sure it's real?

Kenzie:  What does it matter?

Me:  Good point. So apart from this polar bear, does Timmy have any friends?

Kenzie:  He has one friend name Rollo, but Timmy thinks he's not that smart, which is crazy, because Rollo studies all the time and gets really good grades, and Timmy doesn't.

Me:  Any other friends?

Kenzie:  Well, he has an archenemy (speaking with increased enthusiasm now) and her name is Corinna Corinna, and what's funny is that at first he won't name her or even let you see her face. She has her own detective agency and Timmy thinks she's reeeeeally annoying.

Me:  Any favorite parts?

Kenzie:  I like when he tries to solve cases, because he always ignores really obvious clues. This one time a boy named Gunnar hires him to find out who ate all his candy. On Timmy's way out, he peeks in the room and sees Gabe, Gunnar's brother, his face all covered with chocolate, sitting on his bed surrounded by candy wrappers. You think he's solved the crime, but all Timmy does is write in his notebook, "Gabe: Not tidy."

Me:  Any other favorite parts?

Kenzie:  Well, I think it's funny that the librarian is really, really tough, and he has "Dewey" on a tattoo...

Me:  You mean like, the Dewey decimal system?

Kenzie:  Yeah. You don't really expect a librarian to look like that.

Me:  (picking up the book) I noticed some pretty hard words in here. Did you understand them all?

Kenzie: Yeah. If you read the book, you can tell what the words mean.

Me:  Really? All of them?

Kenzie:  Well, most of them. But you don't have to understand every word to get the story. Plus, I think that sometimes even Timmy doesn't know what the words mean. He names his detective agency Total Failure, Inc. because the polar bear's name is Total, but he doesn't even get why that's a really bad name for a company.

Me:  So who would enjoy this book?

Kenzie:  Anyone who likes funny stories. Every day I show funny parts to my friend, so she wants to borrow it next. And then her friend wants to borrow it... yeah. You might not get it back.

Me:  So is Timmy a failure?

Kenzie: Yes. Actually, no. He's not a failure. He's just clueless. Are we done yet?

# # #

There you have it: the insightful and thought provoking reflections of a third grader.

One point on which we both agree is the vocabulary. Stephan Pastis intersperses fantastic vocabulary throughout the book, purposefully heavier at times to indicate moments of importance. Check out how in the following short excerpt he combines specific vocabulary, repetition, sentence variety, and even sentence fragments, in a wonderful way:

But that greatness did not prepare me for what I would see at the Weber residence.

For today it is the scene of total devastation. All marred by the remnants of someone inhumane. Someone determined. Someone whose weapon of choice comes in packs of six, twelve, and twenty. If you are squeamish, look away.

Toilet paper. It is everywhere.

And this isn't one isolated and out-of-the-ordinary passage; this is how he writes the entire book. For that reason, I would definitely recommend this book for middle schoolers, and certainly reluctant and struggling readers. I could even see myself using several portions as mentor texts to teach sentence and paragraph structure, understatement, satire, and word choice.

So pick up a copy of Timmy Failure for yourself, or visit the official Timmy Failure site for fun extras such as wallpapers, interviews, and videos.

Valentines for Vermin: Love Poems for the Unloved

Looking for a fun writing activity that integrates well with Valentine's Day? Then look no further than Vulture Verses: Love Poems for the Unloved.

This book is a funny and fact-filled collection of "friendship notes" written to some of the most unlovable creatures one could imagine. Through her poems and accompanying facts, author Diane Lang helps us see that even bats, turkey vultures, spiders, skunks, and mosquitoes (to name but a few of the animal dignitaries) deserve some love.

The friendship note to the fly, for example, reads:

Oh fly, though no one seeks to ask,
Recycling is your secret task.
You eat the things that die or spoil
And make them part of growing soil.
So, though I shoo you from my plate, 
You're someone I appreciate!

Below that we read:

Flies are specialists at eating things that are dead and decaying, getting them ready to become part of new, healthy soil.

Lovely paintings by Lauren Gallegos illustrate each animal at its most industrious, making even the most scream-worthy of the lot seem noble, or, at the very least, tolerable.

Extensions:

• The book closes with a request: "So many cards to write! So many animal friends! I may need some help. Do you know someone who is misunderstood? Will you help me write friendship notes, too?" Such a fantastic suggestion! Working in pairs or teams, students can research basic facts about other unloved animals that "scuttle, slither, buzz, and sting." Why are these creature seen as so horrible? What makes them worthy of our admiration? See if your students can write similar poems to change the loathsome to the lovable. Picture books such as Melissa Stewart's marvelous Animal Grossapedia will provide ample information and inspiration for even the most reluctant writers.
• As an additional challenge, ask students to write the above poems in the first person, as if they are the animal. They must defend themselves to humans, and justify the "bad rap" which they've been given. Students could be further challenged to write these poems without naming themselves (the animal could be identified at poem's end or in the title alone). Students can then read the poems aloud, and classmates can guess the identity of the nefarious narrator.
• What role do these animals play in other stories, whether fables, myths, or folktales? With what traits have they been branded? Have students create original fables using one of the creatures from Vulture Verses: Love Poems for the Unloved, or from their research project above. See my earlier post Animal Attractions for more ideas and suggested titles for fables.
  
• Diane Lang uses fantastic vocabulary in both her poems and follow-up facts. Discuss some of these words and challenge students to define them, using context clues alone. Why did the author choose these and not their simpler synonyms? If students completed any of the above activities, ask them to revisit their writing to substitute words that are more exacting and creative for those which are overused or ordinary.

Do you have a favorite reading or writing activity to celebrate Valentine's Day? If so, please leave a comment below!

And if you haven't entered yet, be sure to get in on the raffle for one of three animal picture books happening on this blog (scroll to the bottom of that page).

Picture Books: Alive and Well

Some time ago I read a post titled Rescuing Picture Books from Extinction. In that post Kim Yaris expresses dismay that picture book sales are seeing a decline, but she goes on to explore why, and also provides a personal anecdote.

I, too, have heard that picture books will fall at the feet of e-readers and that the era of the printed picture book is dead. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, "Reports of their death have been greatly exaggerated."

Want proof that picture books are alive and well? Check out some of the latest Scholastic titles to hit the shelves. These are the types of books that beg to be read in their original large-size format. These are also the types of books that prove that the language of picture books is just as challenging as equivalent-grade (or higher!) chapter books.

In the tradition of The Steadfast Toy Soldier, Captain Sky Blue tells the tale of a favorite toy that once lost, finds its way back to its owner through a series of misadventures. In addition to Richard Egielski's bright illustrations, young readers will love the "pilot talk" liberally mixed throughout the narrative. Aviation terms such such as wilco (I will do it), jink (a quick move to escape danger), spooled up (excited), and brain housing group (a comic term for the skull) introduce students to the idea that jobs and activities have a specialized jargon all their own.

Extensions:

• Ask students to interview parents or other relatives to collect a list of terms which are job specific. Share these in class and discuss why people have developed these lexicons within their vocations. Students may want to share other precise terms they know from sports, music, and other free-time pursuits.
• Assign students a term for research. To what activity or vocation does it refer? What are its origins? Hat trick, for example, refers to three points or consecutive wins by the same player, whether in ice hockey, cricket, or horse racing. Its origin is the hat traditionally bestowed for this accomplishment in cricket (via Wordnik, a pretty cool online dictionary).
• Two themes of Captain Sky Blue are Loss and Determination. Share and discuss other books which explore either of these themes. Challenge students to write their own tales, using one of the mentor texts as a model.

Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow retells the classic story in which Robin Hood, disguised as a one-eyed beggar, bests the Sheriff of Nottingham's favorites to win an archery contest, a contest designed for the sole purpose of catching Robin and his Merry Men. To us this is a familiar tale, but to many students it's brand new!

Author Robert D. San Souci describes his source material in an afterward, and I'm pleased to see that he references Howard Pyle. Howard Pyle's retellings are those that I read as a boy, and to this day my ragged copy is a part of the classroom library. But E.B. Lewis' saturated illustrations make this tale new even for me, and I can't wait to share this book with my students.

Extensions:

• Ask students if they can name other books in which one character devises a plan or mischief to catch another. Why are these stories such fun to read? What makes us root for one character or another? Why in this book did Robin Hood reveal his identity to the Sheriff of Nottingham instead of maintaining the ruse?
• Share other Robin Hood tales with students. Equally famous is Robin's chance meeting with Little John at the middle of a log crossing a stream. Neither man will give way. After reading this tale, ask students: What else could they have done to solve this problem? Can anyone suggest a possible compromise? If they hadn't disagreed in this manner, would their resulting friendship have been as strong?

Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer, the author and illustrator of The Phantom Tollbooth, team up again in The Odious Ogre. This story of an ogre who is "extraordinarily large, exceedingly ugly, unusually angry, constantly hungry, and absolutely merciless" contains some of the most amazing language I've seen in a picture book in a long time!

You see, the ogre in question has "an impressive vocabulary, due mainly to having inadvertently swallowed a large dictionary while consuming the head librarian in one of the nearby towns."

In his own words:

"No one can resist me... I am invulnerable, impregnable, insuperable, indefatigable, insurmountable."

While the lesson of this book (kindness wins over odiousness) might be a selling point for some, it's the language that wins me over.

Extensions:

• Use this book to introduce students to adjectives and adverbs. I'll admit, at first I was staggered by the words Juster employs, yet they work! How do I know? My first read through was with my seven year-old, who selected the book from the stacks of dozens beside my desk. As she listened to me read the book aloud, she didn't know what several of the terms meant, yet she "felt" what they meant, and she only asked me about a couple of them in a second reading. Truly a testimony for the power of learning vocabulary in context!
• Assign each student one of the book's wonderful words to research, define, use in a context sentence, and illustrate.
• If you haven't already done so, create a "Said is Dead" wall. Revisit The Odious Ogre to collect wonderful speaking tags such as whimpered, sobbed, offered, assure, grunted, admit, mumbled, and insisted. Then ask students to revisit a narrative of their own to revise the dialogue with more exacting language. Instead of she said sadly, a student might write: she lamented, she whined, she whispered with dismay. Each of these expresses sadness, but in different ways.
• Discuss the book's message. The book's last line reads, "She also understood that the terrible things that can happen when you come face-to-face with an Ogre can sometimes happen to the Ogre and not to you." What does that mean? Can this book teach us a lesson about how to respond to people who treat us with odious manners or words?

I look forward to seeing more fabulous picture books from Orchard Books and Michael Di Capua Books. Glad to see that Scholastic is still in the game!