JOYCE SIDMAN “Writing helps us understand the world; we'd be lost without it.”
Jul 10, 2015
JOYCE SIDMAN
“Writing helps us understand the world; we'd be lost without it.”
Born and raised in Connecticut
BIOGRAPHY
Currently lives in Wayzata, Minnesota
Enjoys snuggling with her dog and reading
Earned Bachelor’s Degree in German from Wesleyan University
Spent a lot of time as a child in the Poconos area: -deer watching -blueberry picking -tractor riding
Volunteers at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, MN
She has written close to 100 books! (eleven are published)
• As well as: -Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night (Newbery Medal nominated)
-Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors
-Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems
-Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry
-This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness
-The World According to Dog: Poems and Teen Voices
-Eureka!: Poems about Inventors -Just Us Two: Poems/Animal Dads
-Like the Air: Poems
-When I Was Young and Old
-Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night
WORKS INCLUDE:
WRITERLY
Techniques • voice of poem told from a historical
figure or an animal • sometimes in shape of an animal • obvious rhyme scheme • alliteration • easy to follow language • image • narrative poem
Themes • natural world • outdoor setting • animals • Insects • appealing to those who love being
outdoors and adventure
EXAMPLE’S OF SIDMAN’S POEMS
Welcome to the Night To all of you who crawl and creep, who buzz and chirp and hoot and peep, who wake at dusk and throw off sleep: Welcome to the night.
To you who make the forest sing, who dip and dodge on silent wing, who flutter, hover, clasp, and cling: Welcome to the night!
Come feel the cool and shadowed breeze, come smell your way among the trees, come touch rough bark and leathered leaves: Welcome to the night.
The night's a sea of dappled dark, the night's a feast of sound and spark, the night's a wild, enchanted park. Welcome to the night!
Grass I grow in places others can’t,
where wind is high and water scant.
I drink the rain, I eat the sun;
before the prairie winds I run.
I see, I sprout, I grow, I creep,
and in the ice and snow, I sleep.
On steppe or veld or pampas dry,
beneath the grand, enormous sky,
I make my humble, bladed bed.
And where there’s level ground, I spread.
CONTENT CONNECTION: Welcome to Night TEKS Connection: §112.12. Science, Grade 1, Beginning with School Year 2010-‐2011. (b) Knowledge and skills. (10) Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms resemble their parents and have structures and processes that help them survive within their environments. The student is expected to: *(A) investigate how the external characteristics of an animal are related to where it lives, how it moves, and what it eats;
Activity: Complete Graphic Organizer Students could complete the following graphic organizer after the teacher reads the poem to the class. She may ask questions along the way to prompt student’s knowledge about nocturnal animals. Students could complete the following organizer with their table. Nocturnal Non-Nocturnal
Examples of different animals:
Characteristics: