Animal Poems by Valerie Worth, Illustrated by Steve Jenkins

     

Worth, V. (2007). Animal poems (S. Jenkins, Illustrator). New York, NY: Farrar Straus Giroux.

Summary: Valerie Worth's poems about animals are paired with Steve Jenkins multi-textured artwork.

Review: Worth's poetry ranges from simple to very difficult. Lots of vocabulary will be challenging for younger children but what a great vehicle to teach vocabulary and description.

Suggestions for Teachers: Older students could deconstruct and analyze poems. Younger students will enjoy hearing these poems read aloud. Individual poems could be paired with a science unit as an interactive read aloud. Students can use these poems as models to create their own animal poems. Art teachers can use the artwork as examples or models for students to create their own animals.

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: Lexile 1720L, ATOS Book Level 12.0, Flesh-Kincaid 23.6 Readability Grade Level 21.1, RMM N/A
2. Qualitative:  This is an extremely complex text. As an adult, I struggled with visualizing because much of the vocabulary is content-specific to the animal itself. When testing the poem "Jellyfish" through the quantitative analyzers, I wasn't surprised to see this as grad school level. While the poems are short, they are filled with lots of dense, unfamiliar vocabulary. Other poems like "Cockroach" incorporate a first person narrator and other poems like "Groundhog" have two line stanzas. The structure and perspective shifts between poems. Poems have few complete stops and will take multiple reads to fully understand. Figurative language will also make poems challenging. The artwork is essential in making these poems more accessible.

Content Areas: English, Science, Art

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.7
Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.5.4.A
Use context (e.g., cause/effect relationships and comparisons in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.5.5
Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Relevant links: Scholastic

Subjects/Themes: poetry, animals, art

Awards: N/A

Series Information: N/A

Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution by Steve Jenkins

Jenkins, S. (2002). Life on earth: The story of evolution. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

Summary: Using beautiful pictures, Jenkins presents evolution. He illustrates how life has evolved over the past 4.5 billion years from single-celled organisms to complex modern human beings. Captions next to attractive pictures of species starting with how many billion years ago show this change from simple to complex. Jenkins also discusses evidence of how species have changed over time through Darwin's theory of natural selection or survival of the fittest and explains variation and mutation. Lastly, a 24-hr timeline analogy shows the how truly old the earth is.

Review: Jenkins' artwork and layout make this book really eye-catching and easy to understand. The art showing the finches' various beaks explains adaptation well. The example with the frogs shows natural selection clearly. Also, the timeline will help students grasp how long billions of years really is.

Suggestions for Teachers: This picture book could be used with various grade levels. It could be used as an interactive read aloud for students for an evolution unit. Teachers could also photograph pictures and have students put them in order as part of an anticipatory set or after as an informal assessment. Art teachers may use the art as models for creating art with various mediums.

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: Lexile 810L, ATOS Book Level 5.3, Flesh-Kincaid 4.9 Readability Grade Level 6.5, RMM 8.3
2. Qualitative: The text structure is slightly complex as connections between ideas are made clear through pictures and captions. The graphics and captions definitely are necessary for young students in accessing content and comprehension. Jenkins works hard to make the language conventions straightforward and easy to understand. Once again, content-specific vocabulary like natural selection, variation and mutation are understood with the dependence of graphics. As a first pass at evolution, the purpose is clear, but re-reading with young students would be necessary to help cement the theory of evolution. Knowledge of cells, organisms and species would be helpful to comprehension. If students, have strong beliefs in creationism, they may struggle with the ideas in this text but Jenkins addresses that argument with lots of evidence.

Content Areas: Science, Social Studies, Art

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.2
Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.3
Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.4
Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.5
Compare and contrast the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or more texts.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.6
Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.8
Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point(s).

Relevant links: Scholastic, Children's Literature, Teaching Books, 

Subjects/Themes: evolution, darwinism, natural selection, variation, mutation, beginning of the world

Awards: Horn Book, starred review

Series Information: N/A

Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

Heiligman, D. (2009). Charles and Emma: The Darwins' leap of faith. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Summary:  Heiligman chronicles the marriage between Charles Darwin and his wife, first cousin, Emma Woodhouse.  Through Charles' and Emma's diaries and letters, Heiligman captures the beginning of the relationship when Charles is deciding if he is the marrying kind or if his scientific lifestyle will be burdened by marriage.  Over time, we see the true companionship of Emma and Charles as their family grows, faces tragedy and as Charles is beginning to make public his unpopular ideas of evolution.  Throughout it all, Emma, a devout Christian, not only stands by her husband, but holds him up.
Review:  Heiligman's work is a well-researched text.  She captures the Darwins' marriage well and gives backstory to a major figure who has influenced the way we think about our existence.  This isn't an easy read.  Many of my 7th graders struggled with it independently.  I think it could be excerpted well or used as an instructional text in middle or high school.
Suggestions for Teachers:  This text would work well for an interdisciplinary project among high/middle school English, social studies and science teachers.  Students could study the art of research and citing textual evidence in an English class.  They could also analyze the effects of narrative non-fiction.  This text could be compared to an expository text on evolution.  A social studies teacher could have students look at the historical events during Darwin's time through the course of reading this text and anticipate what kind of societal pressure Darwin was facing when publishing his ideas.  Science and social studies classes can look at evolution through a timeline of organisms that have evolved.  They can also examine animal variation and analyze the adaptations animals have made as a result of "survival of the fittest".   Social studies classes could also argue whether or not Charles and Emma's marriage was consistent with the time period.
Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: Lexile 790L, ATOS Book Level 7.0, Readability Grade Level 7.7, Flesh-Kincaid 6.2, RMM 7.2
2. Qualitative:  The text structure is moderately complex; it is told in chronological order.  The connections between ideas are clear.  The photos included in the center of the book help give understanding to the text and help the student keep track of the many children the Darwins had.  Heiligman includes a lot of direct quotations from Emma and Charles' diaries.  Some of the language is spelled differently and the phrasing is different than we use today.  These direct quotes do feel archaic.  However, Heiligman's prose is simple and fairly easy to understand. Heiligman's purpose is moderately complex and she wants to us to understand the marriage behind the man who posed such revolutionary ideas.  There are complex knowledge demands of the reader who will have to use schema of 19th century England to help fully understand the text.  

Content Areas: English, Science, Social Studies

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.3
Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social science.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.5
Analyze how a text uses structure to emphasize key points or advance an explanation or analysis.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.6
Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.8
Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author's claims.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.9
Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.

Relevant Links: Teaching Books, Scholastic, Deborah Heiligman's website

Subject/Themes: evolution, Darwin, 19th century England, natural selection, research, marriage, relationships

Awards:

2010 National Book Award finalist

2010 Michael L. Printz Honor book (Watch a video of my Printz acceptance speech)

L.A. Times Book Prize Young Adult Literature finalist

First-ever 2010 YALSA excellence in nonfiction award

New York Times Editor’s Choice – Click here to read the entire review.

2010 CCBC Choices List

Oprah’s Book Club 2010 Kids’ Reading List: 12 and Up

Series Information: N/A