A Strange Place to Call Home by Marilyn Singer

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Singer, Marilyn. 2012. A STRANGE PLACE TO CALL HOME.  ill. Ed Young. California: Chronicle Books LLC. ISBN 9781452101200

SUMMARY:

Beyond the beauty of our earth are dangerous places.  The will to live is a powerful thing and truly defies reasoning.  Readers will learn about fourteen unusual animals who not only live in harsh conditions, but thrive to live another day.

QUALITY & APPEAL:

Age Range:  4 and up
Students will enjoy the playful illustrations.  The torn images constructed by Young are fun and inspiring to art-lovers who will be eager to emulate his work.  Young scientist will dive into the informational pages to learn about the unique animals that live in harsh environments.

Educators will find a variety of poetry structures that they can use and discuss with students:  a variety of rhyming schemes, cinquain, terza rima, triolet, and villanelle forms.  All could be used as a mentor poem and aid in students' poetry writing as they are inspired or as lesson objectives are assigned.  Research has shown boys tend to choose informational text over fiction novels.  Filling the classroom with rich informational text like this will help increase engagement from reluctant readers, such as boys.  Having informational text like this will allow teachers to integrate their content area teaching that will reinforce learning across content areas.  

SPOTLIGHT POEM:  (Excerpt from book)

FROZEN SOLID

(ice worms)

If wriggling in the richest earth,

If hiding under leaves and logs ...

If fastened to a coral reef,

If burrowed down in mucky bogs ...

If writhing in a swimming pool,

Or in a collie's water dish,

Or in a sparrow's concrete bath ...

If in the guts of cat or fish ...

If buried in the mud or sand,

If lurking in the deepest seas,

Why not beneath the glacial ice,

helped by their own antifreeze?

CONNECTION:

Read the above poem aloud as students view the poem.  Divide the students into small groups, assigning one stanza for each group.  Allow students time to reread their section of the poem, and brainstorm their ideas about how the ice worm can survive in the mentioned conditions within their stanza.  Students will research ice worms using expository books and through internet access.  Students will create a visual of their ice worm in its living environment to match their stanza.  They will list important facts found during their research, clearly labeling structures of the ice worm that enable this animal to adapt and survive in many locations. Groups will present their visual to the class, and share their interesting facts they found during their group's research.

After all groups have presented, students will write one page addressing the following writing prompts.

• What new information did you learn about the ice worm during your research and from the poem by Marilyn Singer?
• What kinds of personal (text-to-self) connections did you make during this lesson?
• What kinds of text-to-text connections did you make during this lesson?
• Discuss any other connections or thoughts that you have about ice worms.