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Text Structures From Nursery Rhymes

Teaching Reading and Writing to Young Children

By: Gretchen Bernabei, Kayla Shook, Jayne Hover

Illustrations by Andrea Cotham

In 53 lessons centered around classic nursery rhymes, this groundbreaking book offers a straightforward framework for guiding children to write in any style, from narrative to persuasive.

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Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-12
ISBN: 9781506387963
Published By: Corwin
Series: Corwin Literacy
Year: 2017
Page Count: 280
Publication date: September 20, 2017

Price: $39.95

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Description

It’s one of education’s greatest challenges: How do we shape our youngest students, who often are just learning how to hold a pencil, into capable writers within the span of a single school year?

Text Structures from Nursery Rhymes offers the solution: a clear and actionable framework for guiding young students to write successfully in any style, from narrative to descriptive to persuasive.

The key to the strategy lies in using familiar text structures to break down a story into its main components — for example, “Where I was,” “Who I saw,” and “What I thought” — in order to immediately thrust students into the role of the writer.

This groundbreaking book provides 53 lessons, each centered around a classic nursery rhyme, and all the tools you’ll need to

Capitalize on the story’s rhythm and rhyme to make an instant connection with your students
Convey the story’s text structure using the lesson’s whimsical illustrations, providing a visual model that resonates with children
Lead the classroom in creating new stories — in words, pictures, or both — utilizing the text structure you’ve defined
Put each nursery rhyme to work as a springboard for important language-arts topics
Fine-tune your approach at every step based on your preferred teaching style and students’ progress

Put Text Structures from Nursery Rhymes to work in your classroom and discover how text structures, already a remarkable success in later grades, can also have a profound impact on younger students’ progress.

Bonus!
Includes eight downloadable paper dolls—1 man, 1 woman, 1 girl, 1 boy, and 4 animals. Your students can use the paper dolls to retell the nursery rhymes, illustrate their own stories based on a nursery rhyme, or even to act out stories from other books in your classroom library.

Author(s)

Gretchen Bernabei

A popular workshop presenter and winner of NCTE’s James Moffett Award in 2010, Gretchen Bernabei has been teaching kids to write in middle school and high school classrooms for more than thirty years. In addition to four other professional books and numerous articles for NCTE journals, she is the author of National Geographic School Publications’ The Good Writer’s Kit, as well as Lightning in a Bottle, a CD of visual writing prompts.

Kayla Shook

Kayla Shook, also known as Texas Teaching Fanatic, has been teaching 4^th grade for 9 years in central Texas. She works with teachers throughout the state to implement successful writing strategies. She lives with her husband and son in San Marcos, TX.

Jayne Hover

With more than 30 years in education, Jayne Hover has taught elementary, middle, and high school and been an administrator in several roles. She loves helping kids develop confidence through writing and has been instrumental in improving scores drastically on state-mandated tests. Jayne is a co-author of Crunchtime (2009, Heinemann), Text Structures from Nursery Rhymes (2018, Corwin), and Text Structures and Fables, Teaching Students to Write About What They Read (2023, Corwin). She lives near San Antonio, Texas and enjoys spending time with her husband, Jim.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

LESSON 1

Structure: Not What I Thought Would Happen

Nursery Rhyme: A Diller, a Dollar

LESSON 2

Structure: Spotting Someone Famous

Nursery Rhyme: As I Was Going by Charing Cross

LESSON 3

Structure: More Than One

Nursery Rhyme: Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

LESSON 4

Structure: Something I Used to Have

Nursery Rhyme: Betty Pringle

LESSON 5

Structure: Someone Left

Nursery Rhyme: Bobby Shaftoe

LESSON 6

Structure: Big News!

Nursery Rhyme: Brave News Is Come to Town

LESSON 7

Structure: Where Did They Go?

Nursery Rhyme: Bye, Baby Bunting

LESSON 8

Structure: We Don’t Have What We Need—Problem/Solution

Nursery Rhyme: Cock a Doodle Do

LESSON 9

Structure: Something Happened

Nursery Rhyme: Fiddle-De-Dee

LESSON 10

Structure: Getting Caught

Nursery Rhyme: Georgie Porgie

LESSON 11

Structure: Travel Map

Nursery Rhyme: Goosey Goosey Gander

LESSON 12

Structure: What Everyone Was Doing at the Time—A Four-Person Snapshot

Nursery Rhyme: Hey Diddle Diddle

LESSON 13

Structure: Jump Scare

Nursery Rhyme: Hickory Dickory Dock

LESSON 14

Structure: What My Pet Might Do

Nursery Rhyme: Higglety Pigglety

LESSON 15

Structure: For Sale

Nursery Rhyme: Hot Cross Buns

LESSON 16

Structure: An Accident

Nursery Rhyme: Humpty Dumpty

LESSON 17

Structure: Someone Borrowed My _________

Nursery Rhyme: I Had a Little Pony

LESSON 18

Structure: What If

Nursery Rhyme: If All the World Were Apple Pie

LESSON 19

Structure: All About Something—A Description

Nursery Rhyme: I’m a Little Teapot

LESSON 20

Structure: Try, Try Again

Nursery Rhyme: The Itsy Bitsy Spider

LESSON 21

Structure: Ouch! That Hurt!

Nursery Rhyme: Jack and Jill

LESSON 22

Structure: Helping Someone

Nursery Rhyme: Jack Be Nimble

LESSON 23

Structure: Win-Win

Nursery Rhyme: Jack Sprat

LESSON 24

Structure: News Report

Nursery Rhyme: Ladybug, Ladybug

LESSON 25

Structure: Something Is Lost—Problem/Solution

Nursery Rhyme: Little Bo Peep

LESSON 26

Structure: What a Mess! Help!

Nursery Rhyme: Little Boy Blue

LESSON 27

Structure: Good Job!

Nursery Rhyme: Little Jack Horner

LESSON 28

Structure: Defining a Feeling

Nursery Rhyme: Little Jumping Joan

LESSON 29

Structure: My Short Story

Nursery Rhyme: Little Miss Muffet

LESSON 30

Structure: Three Questions

Nursery Rhyme: Little Tommy Tucker

LESSON 31

Structure: I Lost Something!

Nursery Rhyme: Lucy Locket

LESSON 32

Structure: Prized Possession

Nursery Rhyme: Mary Had a Little Lamb

LESSON 33

Structure: Polite Q and A

Nursery Rhyme: Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

LESSON 34

Structure: All About Someone—A Character Analysis

Nursery Rhyme: Old King Cole

LESSON 35

Structure: A Disappointment

Nursery Rhyme: Old Mother Hubbard

LESSON 36

Structure: Making Something

Nursery Rhyme: Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake

LESSON 37

Structure: Three Ways It Can Be

Nursery Rhyme: Pease Porridge Hot

LESSON 38

Structure: Happy Ending

Nursery Rhyme: Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater

LESSON 39

Structure: Change of Plans

Nursery Rhyme: Polly, Put the Kettle On

LESSON 40

Structure: Small Talk

Nursery Rhyme: Pussycat, Pussycat

LESSON 41

Structure: I Don’t Want That Right Now

Nursery Rhyme: Rain, Rain, Go Away

LESSON 42

Structure: From Good to Bad

Nursery Rhyme: Rock-a-Bye Baby

LESSON 43

Structure: Who’s That?

Nursery Rhyme: Rub-a-Dub-Dub

LESSON 44

Structure: New Job

Nursery Rhyme: Seesaw Margery Daw

LESSON 45

Structure: No, You Can’t Have My Things—A Dialogue

Nursery Rhyme: Simple Simon

LESSON 46

Structure: Something Crazy Happened

Nursery Rhyme: Sing a Song of Sixpence

LESSON 47

Structure: Fun Word Story

Nursery Rhyme: There Was a Crooked Man

LESSON 48

Structure: Problem That Can’t Be Fixed

Nursery Rhyme: There Was an Old Woman

LESSON 49

Structure: Going Shopping

Nursery Rhyme: To Market, to Market

LESSON 50

Structure: Somebody Broke a Rule

Nursery Rhyme: Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son

LESSON 51

Structure: The Fight

Nursery Rhyme: Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee

LESSON 52

Structure: Talking to Something—Personification

Nursery Rhyme: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

LESSON 53

Structure: Too Bossy

Nursery Rhyme: Wee Willie Winkie

Appendices

1. Complete Collection of 53 Text Structures

2. Text Structures for a Busy Town

3. Text Structures for Caring About Others

4. Text Structures for Feelings

5. Text Structures for Problem Solving

6. Text Structures for Travel

7. Text Structures for Unfairness

8. Text Structures Just for Fun

9. Text Structure Templates

10. Stationery Templates

About the Authors

Other Titles in: Literacy, K-12 | Writing (Primary/Elementary) | Literacy (Primary/Elementary)

Select Format:

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Request Review Copy

When you select 'request review copy', you will be redirected to Sage Publishing (our parent site) to process your request.

Related Resources

Access to companion resources is available with the purchase of this book.