"Where the Sidewalk Ends," the poems and drawings of Shel Silverstein, is a book filled with funny, heartwarming, irrational, and, believe it or not, educational poems. Children of all ages fall in love with the words in this book. I have used this book in lesssons before, for reading, but now I would like to put it to use as a writing teacher.
This mini lesson is appropriate for grades 6-8.
Page 98 of the book holds a poem called, Point of View. Read the poem aloud to the class. Ask them to consider the point of view of the "subjects" in the poem. Read each section again, noting the points the author makes about the subjects' feelings.
Next, ask the students to pick one of the subjects from the poem and write a brief argument for their feelings. This is a quick and fun way to intoroduce persuasive writing (persuading the reader/diner not to eat the subject). Advise them that they will be using a combination of facts and opinions to validate their argument.
As a quick extension to the lesson, you can have students write on the other point of view...the diner!
(Ohio's Academic Content Standards: Informational, Technical and Persuasive Text Standard ~ Recognize the difference between cause and effect and fact and opinion to analyze text)
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