Wood_cover.qxd (Page 1) - National Council of Teachers of English

90 Chapter 4Hands are used as tools to open doors and mend soles in thispoem so maybe Mora is saying that the hands are the mostimportant part of the speaker.This poem is about showing pieces of the speaker’s day or lifethrough specific images. Pat Mora might have decided that sheneeded to focus up close on one part of the speaker instead ofshowing everything.Students were able to interpret this poem using detailed examplesfrom the text so this project became more than just an exercise in convertingwords to images. It enabled students to work closely with apoem to create something of their own and to more effectively usetextual evidence to defend their points of view.ExtensionWriting from National Geographic PhotosThe photographs found in National Geographic magazine are exceptionaltools to get students to write from images. Play a game by spreading apile of National Geographic photos on a table and letting students chooseone. Tell them that their task is to tell a story about the picture or describethe picture in detail without giving away its contents. Then, pickup all the pictures and redistribute them, making sure that everyonehas a new photo. Now pick up the descriptions that the students wroteand read the first one aloud. As soon as someone thinks they have thepicture that goes with the description, they should stand up and yell“Bingo!” Whoever guesses correctly gets to read the next descriptionunless they don’t want to or the handwriting is too illegible. The gamecontinues this way until all the pictures have been matched up with theirdescriptions. This is a great way to share students’ work without requiringthat they read it in front of everyone.