Sunday, April 7, 2013

Sunday = Funday, Mentor Text Linky: Twilight Comes Twice!



What image do you have when you think of twilight? Dusk, dawn? Both? This book uses free-verse poetry to capture the inexplicable essence of these two special times of day.

 
Since I only teacher Reading/Writing/LA I do a lot of reading. I consider myself a book-aholic.  My students love listening to read alouds on our reading rug. One of my colleagues loves reading books even more than me. I think she knows every book ever written and can tell you the title and a summary when asked. Her thirty plus year of teaching sure help this matter. When our PLC decided to focus on word choice this year, the colleague introduced us to Twilight Comes Twice by Ralph Fletcher. Not only is the imagery amazing, but there is other figurative language used throughout the book as well.  A few years ago, Mr. Fletcher came to our school to speak to the students about how he got started as a writer. It was an inspiring presentation to the teachers as well as the students.

Earlier this year I came across a phenomenal demo reading of Twilight Comes Twice. The reader's voice and tone is perfect, and I love the sound effects in the background as the gentleman reads. As much as I love reading this book and stopping to look at the beautiful illustrations, I think this video does the job just as good as me.  So if you don't have the book, the video would be great to show your class!

You can watch it below. 



While reading this book, we focused on word choice & figurative language. The words used are descriptive and colorful. It is a great mentor text to lead into writer's workshop.  The colleague, I mentioned above, does a great activity after reading the book. She took old calendars featuring landscapes and laminated the pictures. She gave a picture out to each student and the students wrote descriptive passages mimicking the amazing word choice Mr. Fletcher used in his book Twilight Comes Twice.  She featured the pictures with the corresponding descriptive passages on the hallway bulletin board and they are fantastic. We are always impressed when we see the changes in student writing just from reading and discussing a text. Give this book a try, I guarantee you and your students will love it! :)

Thanks for the linky today Amanda & Stacia! 




7 comments:

  1. I have not read this book, but we use Raplph Flether a lot in writer's workshop! I need to find this book!! It sounds great! And I love that activity that your colleague does with the calendar photos. I had every intention of doing that a few years ago, I even have all of the pictures laminated, but then I just never did it! Thanks for inspiring me to try it!

    Thanks for linking up!!!!
    Amanda
    Collaboration Cuties

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  2. Just found your cute blog through the linky! I LOVE this book! Ralph Fletcher is one of my favorite authors and he is my favorite teacher mentor! I"m lovin' the video, too! Thanks for sharing.
    Gina
    Beach Sand and Lesson Plans

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  3. Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful text! It was nice to be able to watch the video as well. :0) Glad to have come across your blog on Collaboration Cuties' link up. Just became a follower and will stop back again...

    All the best--
    Sarah @ Hoots N' Hollers

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  4. I've never read this book, but it looks awesome. I'm always looking for new books for figurative language and word choice. I'm a new follower.:)

    Kristin
    iTeach 1:1

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  5. I am so glad I found your link to the reading of Twilight Comes Twice. I use this book several times a year for different reasons. I love it and Ralph Fletcher, period! I am your newest follower, too!

    Carol

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  6. Should I be ashamed that off the top of my head I cannot think of a Ralph Fletcher book? (I'm off to amazon to see a book list next!)

    I loved the reading of this book and the writing project. I think I may have to do that calendar project before the end of the year is up! Thank you so much for the wonderful idea!!

    Christy
    Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road

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  7. I love this book and I really like your colleagues idea using old calendars. I just pinned this so I wouldn't forget. Thanks for sharing.

    Heather
    room 4 imagination

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