Patricia Polacco, a renowned artist and illustrator, has written well over 40 children’s stories. Many of her characters are based off of people she knows, and in some cases her stories seem a bit autobiographical.
Growing up on a large family farm Patricia was the apple of her grandparents eye, in fact all the grandchildren were. Throughout their life she felt close to them and saw them as her guiding figures since her parents divorced while she was very young. Many of her books include an elder figure, if not a grandparent and she equates this to the fact that her grandparents were such important figures in her own life. She believes it is important to share this relationship with others. She also grew up on a large farm in Union City, Michigan, which is where she currently resides despite having moved around so much in her formative years. Her home is open to the public and she holds festivals and readings to those who are interested.
Sources of inspiration for Patricia Polacco’s works stem from many areas. Her family was riddled with storytellers, so writing children’s stories seems to have been in her blood. She has a number of childhood favorite stories as well, such as Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, The Tall Mother Goose by Fedor Rojankovsky, Grim's Fairy Tales as told by Fritz Kredel and many other classics like Dr. Suess etc.
Polacco studied art in college, but her primary artistic inspiration is Norman Rockwell. She views him as an artistic hero. Although she sites many illustrators of children’s work as secondary inspirations such as Jerry and Gloria Jean Pickney, Tommie De Paolo, Pattie Mc Kissick, and Patricia Lee Gouch to name a few.
As was stated previously, many of Polacco’s works seem autobiographical in nature. One such book is a personal favorite, Thank you Mr. Falker. Here, Polacco opens up to her readers and shows how she struggled in school, not able to read until 14 years of age, lost her beloved grandparents, and met a magical teacher who introduced the word ‘dyslexia’ into her vocabulary. This is the first book I would like to concentrate on and feel is useful at any age to share in school with children.
**As a side note: I am targeting these stories to be used at the middle grade levels and I would use these in our flex period. This is a period separate from traditional curriculum; ideally I would use these books in an advisory with students in the older grades to guide them through school by building confidence and providing guidance throughout my mentoring opportunities.
In seventh grade the students write personal narratives and present them to their class. Qualifying students then present to their team (approximately 80+ students) and those who qualify from there move onto present for the grade level. The top five students then present their narratives to the public, on stage at night. Patricia Polacco shares personal accounts of her childhood and there are lessons to be learned through her experiences. I’d like to share these stories with students to show them their life experiences not only shape them, but can have an impact on others as well. In addition to learning life lessons students will gain insight on story writing and telling by experiencing Patricia Polacco’s style.
Thank You Mr. Falker is Patricia Polacco’s autobiography as it is about her struggle to learn, coping with a horrid bully and learning to love school. She reveals her diagnosis with dyslexia and shows students that she has overcome many struggles students deal with: divorce, moving, loss of loved ones, difficulty in school, and bullying.
**The Day Before**
To introduce, Thank You, Mr. Falker I would start by asking the students to generate a class list on the board in a web with what words like famous and successful mean. (Example answers may be: rich, smart, happy, etc).
As a clarifying question I would reverse it and ask if all famous and successful people are _______ (insert what the kids say). This should lead students to think of exceptions to the rule, such as famous athletes and musicians they know who did not have all the opportunities and supports that will appear on the list. Students will need to consider that these successful, famous people they see are not perfect.
I would then channel the discussion to ask about authors, and what they would assume about a famous author. Activating this prior knowledge will reveal student biases and beliefs, which will make them more aware of the author as they embark on this author study.
**The Day of the Story**
Reminding students of what we discussed the previous day, ask the students to write on a sheet of paper anything they struggle with, doubts they have, things they worry about, etc. Be sure they DO NOT put their name on it. Ask them to fold the paper up when they are done and put them all in a container.
Read the story Thank you, Mr. Falker aloud to the class.
After it is finished I would do a chalk talk with the students first, giving them time to process the story and respond to one another. On one board I would write “The Story/Text” and on another board I would write, “The Story/Illustrations”. As a class we would sit in a circle and discuss the story and their experience hearing and seeing it. I would be interested in seeing what the students notice/remember from the story. Ask them to think like a teacher and why a teacher would want to read this to them.
(I would do all chalk talks on giant paper and with markers so that we could re-post previous days chalk talks to help with the comparisons and contrasts.)
**The Day After the Story**
I would ask the students to generate at least 3 goals for themselves to help them be more successful in life. We would discuss what a goal is, it’s purpose and how to write a good goal. (Some goals need further breaking down, ex: Lose Weight: What are 3 things you can do to achieve this goal?)
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The next story I would like to study with the students is, The Lemonade Club. This is a story about two best friends in fifth grade who have a loving, and inspirational teacher. One of the girls becomes very sick with Leukemia. Her classmates ban together and all shave their heads in support of her return to school. Soon the students notice that their teacher has not grown back her hair, and she has breast cancer. In the end, both teacher and student survive their cancers and all three in turn inspire one another. Both girls become flower girls in Miss Wichelman’s wedding and their classmates attend the wedding. Polacco knows this story because it was her daughter’s best friend who battled cancer, while in fifth grade with Miss Wichelman.
** I think this could be read with books like, Jodi Piccoult’s My Sister’s Keeper and with parental permission take the students to see the movie. Granted Piccoult’s story has a very different ending students could draw comparisons to both stories based on their dealings with cancer and supporting those who are ill. There would be special circumstances for me to use this story within the confines of an advisory.
I would want to read this story and ask the students to fill out a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the two stories, Thank You Mr. Falker and The Lemonade Club.
After the story is finished, but before the Venn Diagram I would do a chalk talk with the students first, giving them time to process the story and respond to one another. On one board I would write “The Story/Text” and on another board I would write, “The Story/Illustrations”. As a class we would sit in a circle and discuss the story and their experience hearing and seeing it.
(I would do all chalk talks on giant paper and with markers so that we could re-post previous days chalk talks to help with the comparisons and contrasts.)
After completing the Venn Diagram I would ask that each student take a piece of paper and write their name on it. We would all tape the papers to our backs and walk around. Classmates will need to write something positive about that person on their paper. In the end each person takes home their “Complimentary” sheets to keep with their goals.
The final story, P
The purpose of reading this is to show the ways in which friendship transcends time and place as the setting of this story is almost 150 years ago. This story also shows that the written word is a form of document
At the end of the author study I would ask that students reflect on the year and their journals and create their own life-experience story, just like Patricia Polacco. In the end it would be great if the students could use their story as their personal narrative
Works Cited
Polacco, Patricia. "Patricia Polacco." Patricia Polacco.com. Patricia Polacco. 16 Jul 2009
Polacco, P. Pink and Say. New York, NY: Philomel Books, 1994. Print.
Polacco, P. Thank You, Mr. Falker. New York, NY: Philomel Books, 1998. Print.
Polacco, P. The Lemonade Club. New York, NY: Philomel Books, 2007. Print.
Patricia Polacco's biography is really interesting. I think she would be a great choice for an author/illustrator study unit because students would see that even though she struggled in school when she was younger, she learned to succeed and eventually become a very successful person in life.
ReplyDeleteI also found Patricia Polacco's biography really interesting. I first read Thank You Mr. Falker in my reading methods class and fell in love with her work. I think her books are great and can be read to children from elementary school all the way through middle school.
ReplyDeleteSue,
ReplyDeleteI loved your unit!
Patricia Polacco was the subject of an author study that I did with my class of third graders. It lasted from the beginning of the school year until about Thanksgiving time. We, too, opened with Thank You Mr. Falker as it is a personal favorite of mine because of the way she overcomes adversity and becomes successful despite her complete failure as a student. I wanted my third graders to be kind and compassionate and see the brilliance in those students in the class that had IEPs and needed extra attention.
I also loved the memoir aspects of her books. They are great for teaching children to make text to text connections and for following the different characters as they pop up in the various books.
I had the privilege of hearing her speak. She spoke about NCLB and made no bones about how awful she thought it was. She is not afraid to tell it like it is! She is a woman of convictions and uses her fame to spread her message of tolerance.
I havn't read many of her books, but I definitly want to now! I have read a few and those have been interesting and they always seem to have great pictures for kids to look at as well!
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