Poetry Mentor Texts: A Rock Can Be by Laura Purdie Salas
Illustrated by Violeta Dabija
On Tuesday, my students and I had a Skype visit with Laura Purdie Salas. Just hearing her talk about her process was so encouraging to all of us. In preparation for her Skype visit, we studied Laura Purdie Salas’ work. We wrote poems using her books A Rock Can Be, A Leaf Can Be, and Water Can Be as our mentor texts. We’d been studying weather, so students wrote their poems as “A Cloud Can Be…”
One of the things I love about Laura’s series of books is that she captures the beauty of poetry, nuance in language, and still manages to teach facts in a subtle way. The back matter in each of her books can be used to connect the poem to standards in Science.
Each spread follows the pattern, “A rock can be…”
My favorite spread is:
“Lake skimmer
Building trimmer”
This book would be good a mentor text for:
* Word Choice
* Rhyming words
* Specificity
* Word Play
Here is my poem using Laura’s form as a mentor text.
A Cloud Can Be…
By Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Inspired by Laura Purdie Salas’ Can Be … books
A cloud is a cloud—
It’s water, air, dust
When weather starts changing
It’s the clouds that we trust.
A cloud can be a…
Sleet maker
Snow shaker
Sun shader
Star fader
Shaper shifter
Dust lifter
Drizzle downer
Garden drowner
Storm grumbler
Tornado rumbler
Sky crawler
Rain hauler
A cloud is a cloud
Droplets above sea
When clouds tumble-bumble
A cloud can be a…
Rainbow revealer
Moon concealer
Hail pelter
Thunder belter
Swimming spoiler
Plan foiler
Lightning dasher
Party crasher
Balloon catcher
Dream hatcher
A cloud is a cloud—
Look up and see
Now go and discover
What else it can be.
Check out my other posts about Laura Purdie Salas’ work:
Water Can Be.. and A Leaf Can Be…
Laura also has new poetry collections available. I had the privilege to write the teachers’ guide for RIDDLE-KU.
Other Poetry Month Friday posts:
For more poetry resources, check out this page.
3 Comments
Laura Purdie Salas
Marcie, this is amazing! So much evocative language and info. Wow–it was hard to pick a favorite, but I think mine is “Lightning dasher / Party crasher.” That just puts such a great image of chaos into my mind. Thanks, Marcie!
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Thank you so much! You have been so kind and encouraging to my class and me! 🙂
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