Love That Dog

Every day this week we read and discuss this novel in verse - a whole story in a poem form. 

I read a section, the students reread and write noticings, questions and thoughts, and then we practice with partners and as a whole class how to have a discussion.

A boy Jack doesn't understand nor likes to write poems. At school he stll has to do it. He uses other poets as mentors to write poems, but is not willing to write his name when the poem is published. 

We discussed that may be he is embarrased to write because when you write poetry  you have to use poetic language and poetic words, maybe he is scared that others might make fun of him. We disagreed with Jack that poems are for girls only, because we know several male poems. We thought that one reason he doesn't want to write poems is because the teacher asked to write about a pet, but he doesn't have one. He used to have a dog, but not any more. We wondered what happened.

We also wondered why the author keeps mentioning a blue car.

We continued reading and discovered that Jack used to have a dog that he had got from an animal shelter. We also see Jack finding some poems he likes and slowly getting more brave to share his poems. Now he has a favorite poet and he hopes he will come to visit the school.