Teaching with Pat Mora: 2015

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Activity- Book Fiesta!

Book Fiesta! Celebration Children’s Day

Book Day Celebremos El dia de los ninos/El dia de lost libros

Theme: Pride in Literacy

Book Fiesta! is a children's book to introduce the important of reading for all students. As a read aloud, this book can be used to get students excited about reading. This book is a way for students to get involved in a literacy movement with students their own age. Keep reading to the activities section to see how reading this book in the classroom can jump start a social change movement that young students can get excited about and heavily involved with.

Possible Read Aloud Discussion Points

Make Connections- Keep readers engaged with the reading by asking direction questions how they can relate to the text. Asking students to turn and talk or think and ink, depending on their age level, will insure that all students are engaged in the lesson.

Where do you like to read?
What are your favorite types of books to read?

Celebration- What is celebration? Why do we celebrate?

Identify elements of celebration within this book
Fiesta- what does this word mean?
What do you like to celebrate?
KWL chart- what do we know about the book celebration, what do we want to know, and what did we learn?

Activities!

Investigate- How do the literacy ideas behind this book impact our community?

Engage students with helping out Pat Mora's efforts in extending literacy for all students. Host research days about organizations that they can support.
Write letters and brainstorm ideas to develop students communication and group work skills

Helping Hands- Make a difference in your community or surrounding communities who need support in their literacy development movement.

Create a book drive with students and the community. Collect books to be donated to an organization which needs support in their literacy development program.
Extend on communication skills from stage one- brainstorm, planning stages, communication skills, advertising, writing letters, presenting ideas, keep journal of activities, counting/sorting books
Cross content skills- make connecting with writing, reading, and math skills through the reporting, research and collection process.

Note: El dia de los ninos/ El dia de los libros, or Childrens Day/ Book Day, is held on April 30th every year. Since this day occurs at the end of the ear, students would have the entire school year to prepare this program. This would be a great civic engagement activity to improve the classroom community and unite the class with one project.

Other Sources for your own El Dia festivities!

Watch this video to learn more about Pat Mora's passion behind Book Fiesta!

Book Fiesta!

Watch this ANIMOTO video to learn more about book day celebrations!

El Dia!

Activity- The Desert is My Mother

The Desert is my Mother

Theme: Family and Landscape; The Desert

The Desert is my Mother is a wonderfully descriptive book for students to learn the powerful use of metaphors. The story uses elements of the desert to characterize a mother figure. Imagery illustrates nature by demonstrating what it provides us. The desert comes to life as a caring, supportive environment for the author.

Teaching with The Desert is my Mother is a great way to launch into a creative writing unit. Students can develop and understanding of how location and landscape can influence writing and culture. Realizing this connection helps students begin to broaden their horizons of what influences culture and literature.

Possible Read Aloud Discussion Points

Metaphors- It is important to address the metaphors in the story to help students understand what is being compared. Gather ideas about what the students think the methaphors mean and what elements of the landscape they connect with.

"The desert is my mother"
"I say feed me. She serves red prickly pear on a spiked cactus"
"I say hold me, she whispers lie in my arms"
"I say caress me, she strokes my skin with her warm breath"
"I say sing to me, she chants her windy songs"

Vocabulary-

Frightened
Spiked cactus
Prickly pear
Chamomile
Peppermint
Oregano
Caress
Turquoise

Activities!

Create Metaphors: Writing Like Pat Mora-

Students can mimic the style of the book's writing and create their own metaphors, connecting elements from their own familiar landscapes with their family members.

Brain storm in groups: familiar or favorite landscapes and people in their family

Create metaphor pages with written and illustrated metaphors. The class could collect these metaphor pages and create a class metaphor reference book. This collection could be stored in the classroom for students to access during other creative writing activities.

Activity- Gracias ~ Thanks

Gracias ~ Thanks

Theme: Bilingual

Gracais ~ Thanks is a picture book for younger elementary level students. The book is written from the point of view of a young boy who lists things in his life he is thankful for. His descriptions are vivid and strongly supported by the illustrations. Topics are universal and easy for students to make positive connections with.

Teaching with this short story by Pat Mora supports students who are fluent in both English and Spanish. Both languages are printed on each page. There is strong picture support to help students decode the story in both languages. Translation of the language will depend on the community in the classroom, how many students speak English and/or Spanish, and their age group.

Possible Read Aloud Discussion Points

Vocab and Phrasing-

Pincushion
Abuelita
Serenades
'Tug on my line'
'Warm mud'

Connections- turn and talk about why you say thanks

Illustrations that help to determine meaning-

thought bubbles- what does it mean?
symbols in illustration- what parts of the text do they support?

This illustration would require explanation and discussion to insure that students understand the use of the thought bubble.

Discussion of the symbols around the main character as he lays in his pajamas provides the opportunity for a discussion connecting the symbols with major ideas and themes included in the story.

Activities!

Practice Saying Thank You

Students will share any greetings they know in other languages. The class will brain storm a list of greetings and thank yous. Students are given 'language mingle' time, walking around the classroom or hallway, greeting each other with various languages.
Practice with multiple languages brings diversity and comfort into the classroom with different languages.

Gracias Books

Create a classroom list of things students are thankful for. Students can turn and talk to brain storm and pull ideas from the text.
Work independently or with partners to create and illustrate their own Gracias books. This could be done in any format that is accessible and comfortable for the classroom and age level. Depending on age, students could create their own books or work as a class to add pages to a full classroom Gracias book.
Students can mimic authors format or create their own. This could also be a great way to include other languages in saying thank you.

"For (fill in topic here), I say Gracias"

Possible Topics for Gracias Books

Things in the classroom
With their friends
With their family
In their community
In nature

Activity- Abuelos

A note to the reader- the following blog posts are compiled to help prepare reading discussion and activities based on a specific text. Each page contains the title and theme of the book, summary, read aloud discussion points, and activity examples. Keep reading for more!

Abuelos

Theme: Mexican American Culture

Abuelos is a story that follows two young children as they discover an unfamiliar tradition. This tradition, called Abuelos, occurs when older villagers dress up in masks and wander the village to determine who has been good and bad. Told from a students point of view, is easily accessible and a great connection to traditional literature.

Possible Read Aloud Discussion Points

Culture- This story opens conversation for comparing and contrasting familiar cultural practices with those found in the story. Comparing and contrasting can take on many different forms in the classroom, depending on age and skill level. Perhaps students can compare cultures by drawing pictures or writing descriptions. This conversation could extend into a multiple intelligence activity, giving students multiple modes to express their understanding.

Judgement of good/bad

Authority of elders

Activities!

Multicultural Celebration

Following comparing and contrasting, students can design and host their own celebration.
Students could be encouraged to incorporate elements from many different cultures into their single celebration.
Decorate with authentic decorations, sing, dance, and dress.
Invite parents, classmates, and school community with handmade invitations.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Pat Mora's Craft

Mora's Work

Now that you have expanded your knowledge of Pat Mora as an author, touching upon her personal history and common themes, its time for a book list!

The majority of Mora's work is in the area of Children's Literature. Other books my Mora, however, include poetry and non-fiction adult literature.

For a detailed list of all of Mora's books, organized by audience age, check out this site:

Books!

Here are some of my favorites:

A Birthday Basket for Tia

(Realistic Fiction)

A story of a young girl's work to create a meaningful gift for her great-aunt.

Dona Flor: A Tall Tale about a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart

(Folktale)

A tall tale story about a woman's strength and protection of her village.

The Desert is My Mother

(Realistic Fiction/Poetry)

Poetic imagery uses the desert as a metaphor for the relationship between both mother and child, and people and nature.

Agua, Agua, Agua

(Aesop Fable, Retold)

A board book for young readers to introduce this fable through repetition.

I Pledge Allegience

(Realistic Fiction)

A story about learning the Pledge of Allegience in school and for United States citizenship, this story makes connections between children and adults, relating their learning and experience.

I Pledge Allegiance by Pat Mora and Libby Martinez

These are just a few of Pat Mora's wonderful bilingual, multicultural texts.

Pat Mora's author website event outlines suggested activites for each one of her books. This is an INCREDIBLE resource and great way to jump right in to working with Pat Mora's text. Before choosing a text to use with students, check out these activities for inspiration:

Teaching Ideas Here!

What to Expect

Important Themes found in Mora's Work

A photo of a desert in Texas, a major influence on Mora's work

Awareness of major themes found within Pat Mora's work will help keep lessons and activities direct and effective. It is important to cater lessons to the discovery of these themes, helping students increase comprehension. Identification of theme within literature begins to surface in fourth grade Massachusetts ELA state standards. (RL.4.2). Mora's children's literature is a strong support for this standard.

Popular Themes!

These themes will be address in activities included in this blog

Desert/Landscape- open space, wide sky, sun, animals
Family
Hispanic writer/Mexican American Culture/Border Experience
Pride in Literacy
Bilingual

Other important themes not address in the following activities

Encourage future writers to take her approach- use culture, homes, and landscape to help increase writing creativity
Bookjoy, Mora's own invented word, and what she uses to explain the importance of increasing engagement with diverse readers

All About Pat!

So who is Pat Mora?

Before teaching with Pat Mora's literature, it is important to read and discover her background. Mora's personal experience with Mexican American culture and the Spanish language make her an insider author. These experiences have a clear influence in her work. She brings authenticity to her work, making connections for students easy and accessible.

Quick Facts:

Mora was born in El Paso, Texas, USA on January 19th, 1942
Bilingual childhood home- Spanish and English
Mora was a reader even as a child- books valued in her family
Worked as a teacher, university administrator, speaker, and consultant

Pat Mora's interview featured on ReadingRockets.com makes her contagious passion and dedication clear. These short videos are an excellent tool to gain a quick snapshot of Mora prior to teaching with her text.

Watch her interviews here!

Interview with Pat Mora

My suggestion? If you're crunched for prep time, watch the second video in her interview playlist, titled "A Vein of Gold". This 2:00 minute video will get you excited to help students make these cultural discoveries and connections through Pat Mora's literature.

Calling all Teachers- get multicultural!

It's RELEVANT

It's DIVERSE

It's INCLUSIVE

It's MULTICULTURAL TEXT!

As a classroom teacher, it is important to provide children's books that all students can make connections with. It is vital to give all students with text where they can make connections to characters, family structures, and experiences.

So what do you include? The multicultural genre is so immense, looking for strong text can make you feel like drowning. How do you pick strong authors to include while creating this multicultural classroom library?

This blog is here to help start the creation of a multicultural library with the introduction of bilingual text. Pat Mora is an amazing author who represents Mexican American culture in all of her books. This blog will help by providing information like...

Background info
Common themes
Author's craft and genre
Lessons and activities linked to specific texts

Keep reading and find out more about the amazing children's book author Pat Mora and get MULTICULTURAL!

Personal Response Paper

A classroom library is an unlimited exploration ticket to a world of diverse people and culture. With thought and effort, this space in the classroom can become a getaway for students, as they read and discover the world around them. As a future teacher, is it vital that I begin to think about the development of my classroom library. Exploration through multicultural text is an important step in this thought process.

Multicultural text serves two major purposes. The first is to provide students with text within which they can make strong, personal connections. Reader’s look for characters, settings, and conflict within books that is similar to what they experience. Connecting with these characters is important for young readers to develop and understanding of relationships. Readers observe characters actions and dialogue, connecting it to their own experience. Multicultural text is a strong tool in creating these experiences, as the diverse characters and settings represented help connect with a wide range of students.

The second purpose of multicultural text is to provide students with an opportunity to explore cultures with which they are unfamiliar. Providing students with text from around the world turns the classroom library into a plane ticket. Students can read and experience the culture, characters, practices, and relationships of different groups of people from the comfort of their desk char. Reading diverse, multicultural text prepares students for future encounters with cultures other than their own. They develop and understanding, appreciation, and respect for the diversity of our world.

As I explored multicultural authors for my author study blog, I looked for these aspects of multicultural literature. I wanted to study an author who provided both experiences for readers. When I came across Pat Mora and her children’s books, I knew she would be a fabulous author to study.

One of the strongest elements of Pat Mora’s text is that the majority of her children’s books are bilingual. This text feature is a strong example of how multicultural text can help support students in making personal connections to literature. Perhaps there is a student who speaks Spanish at home and is looking for a book to read in both Spanish and English. My awareness of Pat Mora’s literature would help me to help this students, perhaps introducing them to the book “Gracias ~ Thanks”. This bilingual text would allow the reader to connect to familiar cultural elements, increasing both their interest and comprehension of the text.

Pat Mora’s text also provides a great opportunity for readers to discover cultures other than their own. Mora’s book entitled “The Desert is my Mother” is a great example of how readers can converge on a familiar topic told from the point of view of an alternate culture. This book uses metaphors of the desert to describe the importance of nature to our lives. Mora uses desert imagery to compare the desert to a mother figure, highlighting all it does for human kind. A young reader could open Mora’s book to learn about how landscape impact our approach to the world. This opportunity to talk about different metaphors would be a great conversation starter in comparing and contrasting different cultures.

In an effort to communicate these benefits of multicultural literature, specifically by Pat Mora, I created a blog for educators. I wrote this blog, entitled Teaching with Pat Mora, as a reference for other teachers to access if they were interested in using Pat Mora’s text as a teaching resource. The blog has two major parts. The first is a set of four blog posts that serve as a personal introduction to Pat Mora. The posts contain a list of favorite titles, biographical information, and common book themes and ideas. It is important for those interested in teaching with Pat Mora’s work to read this section. Learning about Pat Mora’s life and major themes helps develop a strong understanding of her work as an author rather than individual titles.

The second half of the blog is dedicated to the exploration through four different children’s books. Each blog post includes a short summary of the book and multiple ideas of application in the classroom. These activities range from short, read aloud discussion points to large, group analysis projects. The text and activities span a wide range of both age and skill lever, making the blog an effective tool for teachers of all grade levels. Links within these pages of the blog bring the visitor to other sources that provide an ever larger list of Pat Mora’s text and classroom activity connections.

Reading Pat Mora’s work has contributed to my interest in using multicultural children’s literature in my future classroom. My research has opened my eyes to the influences that help shape and create multicultural text. In the future, I hope that my blog, Teaching with Pat Mora, will help both myself and future teacher in their effort to respect and highlight multicultural text in the classroom.