Mentor Texts with Lynne & Rose
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If You Want to Find Brown...

4/26/2016

10 Comments

 
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If you want to find brown,
look for it in the dirt of a country road.
Feel brown in the warmth of a piece of toast or a friend’s hand.
Smell brown in the soft, rich earth of a spring garden. 
Follow the sound of brown in the flapping of a sparrow’s wings and
laughter of children clapping out rhymes in a Mt. Airy neighborhood.
Find brown in the taste of my grandma’s Sunday roast or her shoo-fly pie.
Search the vast Sonoran Desert in summer
where tossed sands create dust devils.
Find brown in the color of love on a warm winter’s night. 
Search the woodlands and swamps,
 the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains,
Or catch the notes flying from a fiddler’s fiddle
On a whiskey-soaked summer evening
If you want to find brown.
 

*My poem was written from the mentor text, If You Want to Find Golden by Eileen Spinnelli.  This book was recommended to me a long time ago by Chris Coyne Kehan, now a librarian in Central Bucks School District. I just rediscovered it when I observed Brenda Krupp’s students writing color poems after Brenda shared this text.  Brenda, a Co-director of the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project, has all her students totally immersed in writing poetry.  What an incredible writing community!  I am learning so much from Brenda and her young authors!  For more suggestions about mentor texts for writing color poems, see Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature K-6 by Lynne Dorfman & Rose Cappelli. Chapter 7 Poetry: Everybody Can be a Writer on poetry has many student examples and Your Turn lessons on writing color poems, pantoums, and haiku.


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10 Comments
Lisa Orchard link
4/26/2016 06:54:31 am

Great poem! I loved the imagery!

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Linda Baie link
4/26/2016 07:12:41 am

Just simply wonderful, Lynne. I re-read it to savor each part of 'brown" that you discovered. Love this part: "catch the notes flying from a fiddler’s fiddle". I imagine you've created a collage of images, something painted with words, but another might create in paint.

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Rose
4/26/2016 07:12:48 am

The images of brown are wonderful - an unusual color to think of, but everything fits.

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Diane Dougherty link
4/26/2016 07:27:34 am

I agree with Rose. Brown is an unusual color to choose, but all the images are apt. I like the appeal to all of the sense, especially the sound of the flapping wings of the sparrow. Great poem, Lynne.

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Tara link
4/26/2016 11:50:55 am

I, too, commend you on choosing brown...and making this unusual choice just the right one. This is a new PD book to me...now I must check it out.

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elsie
4/26/2016 01:40:04 pm

I loved the senses used to describe the color. I'm particularly intrigued by the whiskey-soaked summer evening.

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Clare link
4/26/2016 02:11:01 pm

Lynne, I love your poem! After running this morning in the rain -- I found brown up the back of my legs! I have been using your books so much lately. I had read many times, shared them with teachers, used them in PD... but for the first I am using them as a writer myself. It is so powerful to truly use mentor texts - not touchstone - but mentor texts. I am so grateful for our conversation over dinner and for your books. They are truly helping me as a writer.
Clare

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Molly Hogan link
4/26/2016 03:20:46 pm

What a wonderful poem! I love this line: Follow the sound of brown in the flapping of a sparrow’s wings. I recently read that sparrows are sometimes referred to as LBJs (Little Brown Jobs) because the different types are so subtly varied and hard to identify. I have no idea if that is accurate or not, but my husband and I now refer to all sparrows as LBJs. I love color poems and Eileen Spinelli and you can bet I'll be checking out her book, too. Thanks so much for sharing!

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Shelly
4/26/2016 03:32:43 pm

I love this poem! I will have to check out this mentor text!

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Phone Chat Pennsylvania link
5/5/2021 04:33:02 am

Your thee best

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    Lynne loves to write in the early morning hours, especially in warm weather when she can sit outside on the patio.  After a walk with her three Welsh Corgis, her mind is cleared and her spirit is inspired by the choir of birds in nearby bushes and trrees. 

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