Summary

Scholastic Inc.

Reading Strategies ~ Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey

Fluency:  Poetry is meant to be heard.  Encourage students to join in the unifying refrain throughout the story, “Black cat, black cat, we want to know, where is your home, where do you go?”  Younger children will enjoy clapping along with the beat of the verse.

Fluency Activities: To build students’ fluency, read the story several times, then try the following:

• Give students a copy of the poem (older students), or a portion of the poem (younger students), to perform for the class.

• Give them time to practice reading the text- making sure they are familiar with the words, and getting help with phrasing, intonation, and expression before they perform.

More information on teaching fluency:

1.       The Fluency Manual

2.     PoetryTeachers.com

3.     Improving Reading Fluency in Young Readers 

This book is an example of unrhymed, rhythmic poetry.  There are also several examples of assonance (repetition of vowel sounds) in the story.  For example:

• Creeping down our city streets

• Dancing to the banging beats of passing jeeps

• Ducking under the red circling of sirens cutting through the night

There are also examples of simile (when two unlike things are explicitly compared, usually using the words “like” or “as”- as in “she is like a rose”) in this story.  For example:

• sauntering like rainwater

• balanced like bottles

• eyes like the green of empty glass bottles

Some discussion ideas for the story:

•  Discuss how the author uses real pictures in his art.  For this book, Myers took 700 photographs (shot in Brooklyn & Harlem) and chose 50 which best represent the neighborhood.  When reading discuss which parts of the illustrations are pictures of real things & which are collage & paint.
   

• Students may make text-to-text connections about the collage artwork in this book.  Some other illustrators who use collage artwork in their books are Eric Carle, Leo Leoni, & Lois Ehlert.
   

• Have students discuss why they think the cat is roaming in the city as opposed to the country
   

• Younger students will love to point out where the cat is in every picture.  Notice things in the pictures together, notice that the cat rarely encounters anyone else- except at the basketball courts & playground.
   

• Where would students go in a city if they were a cat?
   

• The book may encourage discussion about "home" and what makes a place (or several places) like home to us.

Questioning -  Take a picture walk through the story (not reading the text, just looking at the pictures) and discuss questions students may have about the city or the cat before reading.  After reading, see if the students’ questions were answered. 

Visualizing - This story is an eye opening journey through the urban landscape.  Have students visualize exactly what a large city would look like through the eyes of a cat.  You may want to stop every few pages and have students describe what they are seeing in their minds as you are reading.  This will also help with detail recall & story comprehension.

Building Background & Making Connections - In this story, students will be able to see another way of life in America- the urban life- through the lens of a loveable cat.  Students who have visited large cities may make connections from their experiences to the images in the story.  Have students discuss cities they’ve visited and what they saw there.  For students who have not had the experience of visiting a large city, you can build background by sharing other books about cities.  Doing this before reading Black Cat will encourage children to make text-to-text connections when you read the book of the month.  Children who have never lived in the city may not be familiar with things like housing projects or playground cages.  A child totally unfamiliar to the city may have difficulty following parts of the book, as its images are urban- hot tar beaches, brick music falling, the quiet language of invisible trains.  It is important to provide background information to make the book relevant to children of more suburban backgrounds.

This is a poem that describes the cat’s journey through the place he lives- have students describe their own neighborhood.

To help build background for students on what an urban area is like, you can read other stories about city life.  Some of the titles available in our Media Center are:

1. City Seen from A to Z by Rachel Isadora - 26 black & white drawings of scenes of city life suggest words beginning with each letter of the alphabet.

2. It’s My City!  A Singing Map by April Pulley Sayre - A brother & sister head for the market for birthday party supplies, they sing a song describing the city sights, sounds, and smells as they pass along the way.

3. Alphabet City by Stephen T. Johnson - Illustrations of objects in an urban setting present the letters of the alphabet.

4. Listen to the City by by Rachel Isadora - Illustrations and simple text describe the sights and sounds of a day in the city.

5. City Fun by Margaret Hillert - As two girls explore the city, they watch buildings being torn down and built, ride the subway, visit the park, watch a parade, play games, and visit the library.

6. The Adventures of Taxi Dog by Debra & Sal Barracca - A stray dog in New York City is adopted by a taxi driver, with whom he thereafter rides and shares adventures each day. 

Venn Diagram Activity: Differences between urban, suburban, and rural life may be readily apparent to students, but it is also important to look for similarities & commonalities.  Create a Venn Diagram with your students.  Under each heading list traits that are specific to that place, in the center sections list characteristics that the places have in common.

Vocabulary Building: Before beginning the Venn Diagram activity, familiarize students with the following terms:

• Urban- of, pertaining to, or designating a city or town

• Suburban- pertaining to, inhabiting, or being in a suburb or the suburbs of a city or town

• Rural- of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the country, country life, or country people; rustic

Books to read aloud from our Media Center that will help students make connections and begin to compare/contrast urban, suburban, & rural life:

1. Moo in the Morning by Barbara Maitland - Tired of all the loud city noises early in the morning, a mother and child visit a farm, where very different noises greet them when the sun comes up.

2. Round Trip by Ann Jonas - Black-and-white illustrations and text record the sights on a day trip to the city and back home again to the country. The trip to the city is read from front to back and the return trip, from back to front, upside down.

3. Night in the Country by Cynthia Rylant - Text and illustrations describe the sights and sounds of nighttime in the country.

4. Living in a Rural Area by Lisa Trumbauer - Presents a simple text and color photos that show what homes, work, and fun are like in rural areas.

5. Town Mouse, Country Mouse by Jan Brett - After trading houses, the country mouse and the town mouse discover there's no place like home.

6. Living in a Suburb by Lisa Trumbauer - Presents a simple text and color photos that show what homes, work, and fun are like in suburban communities.

7. Anastasia Again! by Lois Lowry - Twelve-year-old Anastasia is horrified at her family's decision to move from their city apartment to a house in the suburbs.

8. Tooter Pepperday by Jerry Spinelli - Hating to leave her familiar surroundings, Tooter resorts to sabotage when her family moves from their suburban home to Aunt Sally's farm.
 

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

Christopher Myers’ Black Cat is a lyrical poem that follows a stray cat along his journey through New York City.  From the city streets to the subway, to basketball courts and urban playgrounds, we follow Black Cat as he slinks his way through days and nights in the city. 

Black Cat is an outstanding example of the SENTENCE FLUENCY trait, with wonderful rhythm and perfectly selected phrases that communicate the mood of the poem. 

As always, there are some words that should be defined for your students before you read Black Cat to your class.  And because it is set in New York City, it might be helpful for your students to learn some urban vocabulary as well.

·         saunter – to walk about in an idle or leisurely manner

·         tar beach – refers to Faith Ringgold’s book entitled Tar Beach; a building rooftop where residents could go to relax and get away

·         bodega – a usually small grocery store in an urban area; specifically : one specializing in Hispanic groceries

·         project – a usually public housing development consisting of houses or apartments built and arranged according to a single plan

·         platform – a usually raised horizontal flat surface; especially : a raised flooring

·         subway - a usually electric underground railway

·         graffiti – usually unauthorized writing or drawing on a public surface

·         bricked-in windows – window openings that once held glass windows, but have now been filled with bricks, probably because the building is no longer inhabited

·         fire escapes - a metal stairway attached to the outside of a building that residents use in the case of a fire

* Teaching Sentence Fluency *      

“Words are to writers as notes are to musicians…music begins one sound at a time, adding up to a combination of sounds that creates the melody, harmony, and rhythm,” Ruth Culham explains.  So, too, it is with writing.  Writing is about combining the right words, phrases, and punctuation marks to create sentences that are just right.  And it’s also about creating a piece that sounds good to the ear and doesn’t just look good to the eye.  “Sentence Fluency is the auditory trait,” Ms. Culham says.  So we need to really listen to our students’ writing, and encourage them to listen to their own writing and the writing of their peers.  And to the writing of wonderful authors like Christopher Myers.

When you’re teaching Sentence Fluency, Ruth Culham has distinguished three different skills that are the
components of the trait:         

 Lesson Idea for Sentence Fluency:

Black Cat is written as a long, flowing, rhythmic poem.  Each page reveals to us new phrases and stanzas.  If we study those stanzas, we see how Christopher Myers uses interesting verbs and verb phrases to describe Black Cat’s home among the city.

1. Begin by reading Black Cat once aloud, sound so that your students can hear and appreciate the sound of the story.  Then discuss what you learn about Black Cat’s urban home in New York City.  What kinds of places and objects does Black Cat encounter?  (city streets, sirens, subway trains, housing projects, concrete sidewalks, chain-link fences, etc.)  Begin a T-chart, listing the things from Black Cat’s city home in one column. 
2. Now, consider our own neighborhoods or that of our school.  Complete the T-chart with a list of the places and things that Black Cat would see or hear if she lived in Powder Springs.  Would she see green grass and trees?  Cars and traffic?  Would she hear the sounds of birds and kids playing?  Would she climb wooden fences and playground benches? 
3. If you’d like, go ahead now and write your own poem about Black Cat, this time as if she lived in Powder Springs.  You might begin it with “black cat, black cat, cousin to the southern heat, creeping down our winding streets, where do you live, where will we meet?”   Then use your list of Powder Springs characteristics to create phrases that describe what she would hear, see, and do in our environment.
4. If you really want to enhance the fluency, reread the story again, this time listening out for the verbs that you hear.  Create a chart, and list the interesting verbs that you hear as you read, including creeping, sauntering, ducking, dancing, and chasing.  In discussion, note that Christopher Myers never uses a verb on its own.  He always enhances his verbs with a phrase that better paints the picture or tells the story.  That’s what makes this poem so powerful!
5. As  you create your own version of Black Cat, ask your students to incorporate the verbs that you charted, or other interesting verbs, as they describe Black Cat’s journey through Powder Springs.  And challenge them further to carefully select the phrases that they use to tell Black Cat’s story.

Additional Idea:

·        Tie this story into your social studies unit about urban/suburban/rural communities.  Have groups of students detail Black Cat's journey through each type of community.  Include drawings or collages of the types of environments the cat would experience. 

(See the Sentence Fluency chapters of 6+1 Trait of Writing and 6+1 Traits of Writing for the Primary Grades for more teaching ideas!)
 

• Watch the video interview of Christopher Myers and find out how reading touches every part of his life!

• Have students make their own black cat hats by following the instructions at the Enchanted Learning site.  When they are finished, have them put their hats on as they explore their school community or read their own Black Cat in Powder Springs poem they created in the writing lesson!

• Show the video Black Cat (PRO E BLA) after reading the story.  Christopher Myers introduces the book and tells about the illustrating process and the story background.

• Black Cat was a stray without a name.  Let your students use their creative minds to think of names for a variety of cats, including Black Cat!  Open Kidspiration - Click on the More button - Click on the Here Kitty template.  Follow the directions on the template.

• Show the Reading Rainbow video, Tar Beach (PRO 304 TAR), to show students an example of an "urban oasis."

• To provide further background knowledge into urban environments, share the book Alphabet City (411 Joh).  The letters of the alphabet are presented using illustrations of objects found in an urban setting.  Challenge your students to create an Alphabet School book.  Have teams of students use the digital cameras to photograph different objects around the school and grounds that depict the shape of letters.  Display the finished results in a Power Point slide show or a Word document.