The Relatives Came

We just finished up a unit of study focused on "Reading like Writers." We began the study by immersing ourselves in Cynthia Rylant's The Relatives Came. We identified striking places in the text - places that made us smile, think, feel, or places that we just liked the way the words sounded together. Small groups of students got together and created poems using the striking places they found in the text (that video is below). After this immersion, we started to identify the writing techniques and tools Cynthia Rylant used. We hypothesized why she used these tools, gave these techniques named, and then envisioned ourselves using them in our own writing. I was so impressed with all the tools and strategies our kids were able to identify. They really developed their ability to "read like writers."

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