Summary

Dragonfly Books 

Reading Strategies ~ Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey

Dogteam is a beautiful book to read aloud.  For younger children the poetry will best be understood with some teacher guidance.  The sensory & descriptive words make you feel like you along for the run.  Living in the south, many of our students have never seen snow or heard of dog sledding- so this is a wonderful text to introduce them to these concepts. 

Dogteam is an example of prose poetry.  This type of poetry is meant to be read aloud; has rhythms, rhyme, assonance (repetition of similar vowel sounds), and consonance (repetition of similar consonant sounds) present in many other forms of poetry; vivid imagery and emotional effect; there is a continuous sequence of sentences without line breaks. 

Inferring from the Cover and Illustrations as Well as the Text
It is important to use all aspects of the book to infer meaning.  Picture books offer students the unique opportunity to create meaning not just from the text, but from the illustrations as well.  Early readers often use pictures to help them create meaning, especially when they come to a word they don’t know in the story.  Older students can also use illustrations to help them understand the story.  In Dogteam, Ruth Wright Paulsen’s illustrations convey moods such as excitement, fear and anxiety, exhaustion, happiness:  there are the dogs with their ears held back and noses anxiously pointing toward their run straining against their harnesses, the dogs howling and “singing” with excitement, the dogs running heads down with tongues hanging out, and many other wonderful illustrations just waiting for student interpretation. 

You can start out showing students the cover of the book and asking them what they can infer from the cover.  Students may comment on the dogs running hard and being tired, you can ask, “How do you know?” and get students to describe what in the illustration made them think that.  You can also ask students what they think a “dogteam” is.  When students offer an explanation you can ask, “Did the author tell you that?” and discuss making inferences. 

You may want to create a chart with your students to use as you read the story: 

Questioning That Leads to Inferential Thinking
In the book Strategies That Work, Stephanie Harvey gives examples of ways students can create meaning through asking questions.  She says that poetry, with its images and metaphors, provides students with ample opportunities to exercise their powers of interpretation.  Poems that are somewhat abstract and may prove difficult for students to understand often lend themselves well to using questioning as a strategy to better understand the poem.  Teachers may want to model for students their own struggle to understand the poem, tell students that you have some ideas about the poem, but aren’t entirely sure of the meaning.  Harvey says that sharing your own doubts can open up the opportunity for students to risk sharing their own interpretations & inferences.   

You may want to read the whole story aloud once, then read it again one page at a time and write students’ questions on a chart. 

Some sample questions:

• Why is it blue & white on the snow at the same time?

• What does the author mean by, “You could read in the dark”?

• Why do the dogs tremble?

• Why do the wolves run alongside the dogs?

• What does the author mean by “Pace the dogs, pace our hearts and our lives”

• What is “the blue dark”?

• What is a harness?

• What is a gangline?

After recording students’ questions, go back and discuss the questions.  Students may not always agree on the answers, the questions serve as prompts to the interpretation of the poem and inferences about its meaning.  Students may want to find out more about the author and about dog sled racing to help them make interpretations.  Students may ask more questions than they answer, that’s okay as long as their questions take them deeper into the poem and inspire a thoughtful conversation. 

Visualizing from a Vivid Piece of Text
This book includes a lot of vivid visual details, which creates a wonderful opportunity to discuss visualizing with students.  The story begins with a vivid, detailed description of what it looks like outside at night as the sled dogs are being harnessed for the run:     

          In the full moon when it is blue and white on the snow at the same time, so bright and clean and open you could read in the dark, we harness the dogs and run at night. 

You may want to read some of the descriptive passages, such as this, in the book aloud while your students close their eyes and visualize the scene.  When you finish, ask students, “Tell me about what the night you imagined looks like.”  Stephanie Harvey says that students’ comments will often reflect “the movie running through their minds”.  After discussing their images of the scene, have students draw a picture of the scene.  Student pictures may look very different as students combine their own prior knowledge with the words from the story, but this is what visualizing is all about- taking the words of the text and mixing them with the reader’s preconceived ideas to create pictures in the mind.

Have students write an online review of the book:  http://www.buildingrainbows.com/ 

Have students use the Internet to research the Iditarod race:
http://www.utmsi.utexas.edu/staff/dunton/k12/k12%20Iditarod%20activity.htm

http://www.cabelasiditarod.com/trail.html

Reader's Theater
If you’ve never tried using Reader’s Theater in your classroom, this would be a great opportunity!  Where’s the Boss? is a Reader’s Theater play that tells the story of one musher & his loyal dog sled team. 

Script:  http://web.archive.org/web/20031227090411/http://www.iditarod.com/boss-script.html

Lesson plan:  http://web.archive.org/web/20031227090705/http://www.iditarod.com/bosslesson.html

Teacher’s Guide for Reader’s Theater:  http://www.loiswalker.com/catalog/teach.html 

Another great site with more Reader’s Theater information & scripts to use:  http://www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm

The Media Center also has some Reader's Theater books that can be checked out!
 

Writing Strategies ~ 6+1 Traits of Writing by Ruth Culham

“Close your eyes and try to imagine the feeling of driving a dog sled on a cold, crisp, clear night.  Gary Paulsen recreates this image through the rhythm and cadence of his writing,” Ruth Culham praises.

And we enjoy the ride alongside the dogs as Gary Paulsen gives us a chilling, powerful example of the Sentence Fluency trait.  He alternates very quick and concise sentences and phrases with lengthier, very descriptive, almost rambling sentences.  His sentences mimic the feeling of a long, cold night run with his dogs.  In the quiet still of the night, the dogs’ movement is very repetitive, the cold wind unchanging, and too his sentences have an element of repetition and steadiness to them.

Before reading this book aloud to your students, it would be a good idea to provide them with a little information about Alaska at least, if not the Iditarod race itself.  Mr. Paulsen actually ran the Iditarod, and spent years training dogs to run that race across the state of Alaska.  This story is an account of the night runs that he used to make with the dogs that he was training for the Iditarod.  Try to conjure up images and feelings of the bitter cold, of the stillness of a winter’s night, of the look and sound of snow covering the ground.  The actual race usually takes between 9 and 17 days to complete, and the dogs must have the strength and endurance to run, pulling the Musher, the sled, and all their gear, for more than 1,100 miles.  Having that background will give your students a better understanding of the story he tells. 

Here are a few definitions that will help your students to better understand the story...

• Iditarod – An 1,100+ mile dog sled race through Alaska

• tremble – to shake involuntarily (as with fear or cold)

• gangline – The gangline is a single line to which each dog is attached, usually in pairs, and it keeps the dogs in a tight formation ahead of the sled.

•  pace – to set or regulate the speed of

* Teaching Sentence Fluency * 

According to Ruth Culham, one reason that teaching Sentence Fluency is a challenge is that what sounds right doesn’t always look right.  We are trained, and we train our students, to recognize and create sentences that look correct, with capital letters, subjects, predicates, commas in all the right places.  But the trait of Sentence Fluency teaches us that every sentence does not need to “look correct” in order to fit! 

Dogteam is a perfect example of this.  And to be honest, I had to reread the book three or four times before I could get past the fragments and run-ons and hear what Mr. Paulsen was saying.  Take a look at these examples from the text…

•  “But silent.”

•  “The dance.”

• “Through the trees, in and out, the sled whipping after them through the trees with no sound but the song of the runners, the high-soft-shusshh-whine of the runners and the soft jingle of their collars.”

• “Into the night.”

Mr. Paulsen uses a great variety of sentence lengths and patterns, and many of his “sentences” aren’t really “sentences” at all!  But they work.  They all work together to give us a sense of the run, of the cold, of the excitement and the exhaustion and the love that these dogs have for the race.  As the audience, we take off with the dogs as they first break through the snow, and we hold on for the long and exciting ride!  This story must be read aloud in order to hear how the sentences really work, because simply looking at the words doesn’t do them justice. 

For lessons on teaching students to vary the lengths of their sentences, see the Sentence Fluency chapters of 6+1 Traits of Writing and 6+1 Traits of Writing for the Primary Grades.  “Standing Sentences” and “Grandma Is…” are two great ideas for primary students.  “Sentences and Fragments Bee” and “Picture Your Sentences” are good for intermediate grades. 

Additional Ideas: 

1. Have your students describe a time when they were so cold, it hurt!  Could they feel the cold air tingling in their lungs?  Did their hands hurt from the cold?  Were their fingers stiff?  Did their nose sting from the wind?  Ask them to describe how the bitter cold made them feel!
2. Do a little research on the Iditarod, and then have your students write a journal entry as if they are a musher.  You don’t have to go too far to find some great online resources for information about the race, and it’s easy to see how challenging the weather is in Alaska.  Try http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/iditarod and “Explore the Trail” for a description of each checkpoint, and the terrain that the mushers must cross on their way to each stop. 
3. Ask your students to pretend that their parents have informed them that the family is going to Alaska for spring break!  At http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/iditarod check out “All About Alaska”, and ask your students to respond to their parents’ announcement in letter form.  Are they up for the challenge, or would they rather head somewhere warmer for their vacation?  If they like the idea, they should use details and factual information in their agreement.  If not, they should explain the specific concerns they have.
4. Keep a log of current weather conditions both in Powder Springs, and at each checkpoint along the Iditarod trail.  Go to www.iditarod.com and click on “Go to Weather Center” at the top of the page.  You’ll see a list of each of the checkpoints and their current conditions.  You could even throw in a little math, and have the students compare the rain/snow fall and the temperatures in both places.
    

• The dogs show self-control as they stand to have their harnesses put on, even though they want to run.

• The dogsledder knows that the dogs are trustworthy and can be counted on to get the job done.

• The dogs respect the authority of the dogsledder and they do as he asks.

• The dogsledder is grateful dogs will do their job and the dogs are grateful the dogsledder takes care of them.  

• The dogsledder and the team show perseverance as the team continues to run through the night in the cold and dark.

• They exhibit courage as they run with the wolves beside them.

• The dogs show loyalty to their master as they follow his direction and commands

• The team shows motivation as it strives to reach its destination.

•  The dogsledder shows leadership of as he guides the dogs through the woods and across the ice.

• Scholastic has an outstanding website called Iditarod:  Race Across Alaska.  Don't miss the links that allow students to explore the race trail and learn about a sled dog's life!  There is an interactive quiz in the "Activities" section and a writing workshop activity will guide students in writing a persuasive essay on how the sled dogs are treated.

• The author of Dogteam, Gary Paulsen, has actually participated in the Iditarod race twice.  Click here for an interview conducted by Scholastic to learn more about his experience.

• View the Reading Rainbow video, Snowy Day:  Stories and Poems.  The episode takes viewers to Alaska to find out about the Iditarod.  Click here for the teacher's guide for the video.

• Have students try their luck at harnessing up the dog team on this match puzzle.  To find the definitions for the dog locations on the gangline, check the "Mushing Vocabulary" page or share "The Anatomy of a Dog Team" website with your class.

• Take the "Yukon Quest Math Challenge" and solve the word problems!

• Take your students on a treasure hunt in Alaska!  Go to the Cobb Virtual Library - Elementary - Grolier Online - America the Beautiful to find the treasure in Alaska.  Click here for the worksheet.

• Need some ideas for writing activities?  Check out this link to language arts connections to the Iditarod!

• Do your students want to learn more about dogsledding?  Go to Dogsledding 101 to learn about the best dogs for dog sledding, what commands to use, and what equipment is needed!

• Balto is probably the best known dog from the original "great race for mercy" that was the origin of the Iditarod race.  Nome, Alaska had an outbreak of the disease diphtheria that threatened to become an epidemic. Dog teams relayed antitoxin serum from Nenana to Nome, Alaska.  Share the book Togo (E BLA) by Robert J. Blake with your students.  Have the students write a point-of-view essay to support their decision of which dog was the most important in delivering the serum to Nome.

• Don't miss "Mush Rush", an opportunity for students to navigate a dogteam through obstacles to complete a sled race!