1. Explain to students that as a class you will be reading poetry together. Ask students to share what they know about poetry and poems. Record their ideas on the board. Then read aloud or have a student read aloud several poems from a book of their choosing, or play a recording of someone reading or reciting poetry. During this exercise, you also may want to have students read or recite poems they know well. Be sure to include in this reading examples of both simple rhymed poems and free verse. Have students share additional ideas about poetry and add these to the board. Guide students to develop their understanding about some of the differences between poetry and other forms of writing, such as fiction, nonfiction, and drama.


2. Point out to students that a single poet, Francisco X. Alarcón, wrote the poems the class is going to read. In these poems, Francisco expresses his thoughts, ideas, and feelings about the four seasons. Ask students to share what comes to mind for them when they think about the different seasons. Record or have them record their thoughts on the bulletin board display you prepared in the Getting the Classroom Ready section of this Teacher’s Guide. Ask students to think about not only the physical changes in the environment that occur during each season, but also about how the lives of people and animals are affected by the seasons. Encourage students also to share special memories of events or traditions in their own families and community that are related to each season. After the discussion, review with students all the different things that seasons can mean to different people.


3. Tell students that some of Francisco’s poems focus on the experiences of his family, who came from Mexico to live in the United States. Engage students in a discussion about family history, speaking in general terms about the types of changes that families experience when they leave one place and move to another. Guide them to look for how Francisco’s poems address these experiences as they read.

30–45 minutes

whole class; individual

Introduce one or more of the books in the series to your students. The focus of a first reading should be on listening for pleasure. Encourage students to close their eyes and listen carefully as you read aloud one or more of the poems in both English and Spanish. Tell students to listen for the sounds of the words as well for the images that they describe. To further prepare students for their exploration of the poetry in this series, try some of the following activities:

1. Point out and read the title(s) in both English and Spanish, helping students to understand any words with which they are unfamiliar.
   


2. Open one of the books to a spread with more than one poem and point out the bilingual format. Help students see that sometimes the Spanish version of a poem comes first or at the top of a page and sometimes the English version comes first. Ask students to speculate as to why this might be the case. Point out that the poet is bilingual; he speaks both Spanish and English. Read his quote from the Afterword of Laughing Tomatoes / Jitomates risueños in which he explains that he wrote some of the poems in Spanish first, some of the poems in English first, and some of the poems “in both languages almost at the same time.”
   


3. Give students the opportunity to browse through the book(s), reading poem titles, looking at the illustrations, and pausing to read poems that catch their attention and interest.
   
   
   
   Well-Seasoned Words
   Students learn academic language related to poetry, begin bilingual glossaries of season words, and discuss words used to create sensory images in poetry.
   

two or three 45-minute sessions

whole class and pairs

Paper, pencils, dictionaries (English, Spanish, and bilingual English-Spanish), Sensory Words Worksheet

1. Before students begin to read, engage them in a discussion about the features of poetry. Expand upon students’ prior knowledge as revealed during the Getting Ready for Reading section. Lead students through a discussion of poetry concepts, including the following:
   
   

   Form: the arrangement of words in a poem; sometimes used to create a certain shape Free verse: lines of poetry that do not rhyme or follow a patterned rhythm Pause: punctuation or a line-break in a poem that shows when to take a breath Rhyme (rhyme scheme): the ending sounds of words or lines of poetry that are the same and follow a repeated pattern Rhythm: a regular pattern of sounds of particular lengths within a poem Stanza: a division within a poem of two or more lines, usually following some type of pattern, such as a particular rhyme or number of syllables Verse: one line of poetry

   As a process for this conversation, use poems in one or more of Francisco’s books as examples to help students understand the concepts. Read the poems aloud and then have students choral-read the poems with you. Students can work in pairs to share what they notice about each poem’s structure before the class reconvenes to discuss the various elements they have discovered. Be sure to guide students to discuss any concepts mentioned above that they may have missed.
   


2. Assign student pairs to read poems in one or more of the books in this series. If possible, include one Spanish-proficient partner and one English-proficient partner in each pair. As students read, suggest that they begin a bilingual glossary of season words. Encourage partners to refer to the information recorded in the bulletin board display about the seasons (see Getting Ready for Reading ) for additional background about the words and concepts they may encounter while reading. Suggest that students separate the words into sections based on the seasons to which they refer. Tell them to add to their glossaries as they come across new and interesting words.
   


3. Point out that poets often appeal to different senses when creating the images in their work. Have partners examine the poems they are reading for words, phrases, or verses that appeal to the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Ask them to record their findings in the chart provided on the Sensory Words Worksheet.

A Poet’s Thoughts and Feelings
Students read and analyze poetry with a focus on content.

45-minutes

individual; whole class

CA English-Language Arts Standards Reading—3.1: Distinguish common forms of literature (e.g., poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction); 3.4: Determine the underlying theme or author’s message in fiction and nonfiction text.

Paper, pencils, Poetry Analysis Worksheet

1. Assign each student a poem from one of the books in this series to read and analyze. You might have students select their favorites, or choose and assign poems that touch on a variety of the themes that appear in the series, such as transformations, family, community, history, and celebrations.
   


2. Have students each read their assigned poem several times, including at least once aloud. Then provide students with the Poetry Analysis Worksheet to help them analyze the poem. Have them respond to the section that focuses on the content of the poem. In this section, they are directed to answer the following questions:
   

   What is the poem about? How do you think the poet feels about the subject? How does the poem make you feel? What does the poem make you think about?



3. Ask students to respond to the poem by creating a poster in which they copy the poem and then create original artwork that shows what the poem means to them. Then have students take turns presenting their posters by reading the poems aloud, showing their artwork and giving their answers to the questions about the poem.
   

Variations on a Theme
Students read two poems and compare and contrast their form and content.

1 hour

individual

CA English-Language Arts Standards—Reading 3.1: Distinguish common forms of literature (e.g., poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction); 3.5: Recognize the similarities of sounds in words and rhythmic patterns (e.g., alliteration, onomatopoeia) in a selection; Listening and Speaking 1.4: Identify the musical elements of literary language (e.g., rhymes, repeated sounds, instances of onomatopoeia)

Paper, pencils, Poetry Analysis Worksheet, Comparing Poems Worksheet

1. Ask each student to select two poems from the books in this series to compare and contrast. Suggest that students choose poems that deal with the same topic or theme, such as the weather or family celebrations, or poems with either a very similar or a very different form. A few possible pairings include:
   

   “Dew/El rocío” (p. 4) and “First Rain/Primera lluvia” (p. 10) (both in Laughing Tomatoes / Jitomates risueños) “1. Angels Ride Bikes / 1. Los ángeles andan en bicicleta” (p. 24) and “2. Angels Ride Bikes / 2. Los ángeles andan en bicicleta” (p. 26 & 27) (both in Angels Ride Bikes / Los ángeles andan en bicicleta) “Prayer of the Fallen Tree / Plegaria del árbol caído” (p. 30) (in Laughing Tomatoes / Jitomates risueños) and “We Are Trees / Somos árboles” (p. 29) (in From the Bellybutton of the Moon / Del ombligo de la luna) “Ode to Corn / Oda al maíz” (p. 15) (in Laughing Tomatoes / Jitomates risueños) and “Ode to My Shoes / Oda a mis zapatos” (p. 31) (in From the Bellybutton of the Moon / Del ombligo de la luna) “Our City / Nuestra ciudad” (p. 2) and “Los Angeles / Los Ángeles” (p. 3) (both in Angels Ride Bikes/Los ángeles andan en bicicleta) and “City of Bridges / Ciudad de puentes” (p. 7) (in Iguanas in the Snow/Iguanas en la nieve)



2. Have the students read the poems several times, including at least once aloud, paying careful attention to the rhythm of each poem and to how the words sound. Then provide students with copies of the Poetry Analysis Worksheet (from the Second Time Around: Reading Comprehension section) to help them analyze the form and content of the poem. Questions on the worksheet direct students to think about aspects of a poem’s form:

   What type of poem is this? Does it rhyme or is it free verse? Does it have a particular shape? What words, phrases, or images in the poem are particularly striking or memorable?



3. Once students have completed the analysis of each poem, ask them to use the Comparing Poems Worksheet to show the ways in which the two poems are alike and different by filling in a Venn diagram. Students can then use the completed diagram to write an essay comparing and contrasting the two poems.