Mother's day

Here’s an idea -  Mother’s Day comes in this final month and all of us can conjure up how our students might write a message to probably the most important audience in their live – their Mom. I think most kids can hang their writing hats on the following idea.

The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown could be used as a mentor text to show students how authors like Brown developed a message and to create a written Mother’s Day message for their own mothers.   Brown selects several mundane important things/events and builds the case for why each is important.  She opens giving a strong reason explaining why the thing/event is important. She continues building a case for its importance with several other reasons.  And she ends each description with the same sentence as the first.   Listen to the oral reading, and you will see and hear the effectiveness of the message that is set in a poetic rhythm.

I have given you a verse using Margaret Wise Brown’s pattern about my own mother:

The important thing about Ma is how she shows her love through food.
She makes chili and leaves out the beans when I am trying to shed a few pounds.
She makes flat iron steak stir fry just because it’s one of my favorites.
She often hands me a “goodie” bag of several meals ready to heat up at the end of a long day.
She makes entrees stuffed red peppers with cheese for me and without cheese for my wife.
But the important thing about Ma is how she shows her love through food.