Picturing Penguin

6th graders have wonderful visualization skills when paired with poetry. Last week (before our half day and field day) they started working of how to visually describe a poem in only pictures. Visualization is important because it means you have to infer using pictures. When readers visualize, students construct meaning by creating sensory images. I started with poetry to help my students gain a deeper understanding of inferring.

As a group, we started with Eloise Greenfield's "Honey, I Love and other Love Poems." Rope Rhyme helped students begin to think outside the box. I put both poems on an chart paper without the title. I wanted to group to infer a title before I told them. The group keyed into important words like "jump right in" and "clappedy-clappedy sound" to infer the poem was about jumping rope.  As we worked through the poems as a group, we created a list of things they saw. This list would then become the list of pictures they would go and find.

I also used "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to help a new student access the concept. She was able to see the poem and create a list of items that she could find pictures for. She list was more literal but with the help of the others in the group she added a space shuttle, moon,and  planets. The students each picked out their own poem to create a list of pictures that they could go and find that described the poem.

Once they had the list of pictures, they went looking for them on Google. When they have their pictures, they will go to Glogster to create the poster of their poem. The only words they can use are their name, the title and author of the poem. Nothing else. Pictures to come. How do you teach student visualization? Which mentor text have you found to be the best?

My new student joined us from out of state four weeks before the end of the year. I created both of these hand outs to help her classroom teacher understand Autism.
Tips for Working With Student With Autism Teaching Students With Autism