Don't Let the Pigeon Write This Book

I love Mo Willems' writing. He has a number of picture books out that are just fabulous. Not only is he a creative illustrator, but his writing is imbued with his wonderful sense of humor (the dry kind, like mine!). One of his popular books is Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.

Well, I just stumbled onto his blog tonight and found this inspiring post! It led me to imagine what the pigeon would find if he came to my school... Perhaps the principal's office, the swingset, the donuts in the staff lounge, the piano in the music room, the mailbox in front of the school...

So how's this for a writing activity?

Part One: Read a couple of the pigeon books by Mo Willems. Discuss what the pigeon wants in each book and how he goes about trying to get it. Talk about how Willems ends each story. Point out the talking bubbles or discuss quotation marks as a way to show that someone is talking. Take notes on chart paper for students to reference when they write their stories.

Part Two: Zerox and cut out a copy of the pigeon. Take photos of him sitting in various places in your school (this could be done by the teacher ahead of time or together as a class). Print the photos and distribute one to each student, or to each pair of students. Explain that this picture needs to be included somewhere in their story, either at the beginning, middle, or end. Model using one of the pictures as inspiration for a story: Think out loud as you construct an idea for a story: what does the pigeon want? Show students how you would begin your story (for younger kids, you might want to demonstrate writing the whole story). Then let the writing begin!

Of course, you will want to establish a teaching focus before beginning this lesson. Will you emphasize persuasive writing? Story form? Quotation marks? You also need to have a clear idea of what you want the final product to look like: individual stories? a class book? Think about how your students do their best writing: individually, in pairs, in table groups, or as a whole class? Perhaps you'll want to give out several photos rather than just one to each group.

If I were to do this in a first grade class (first half of the school year), I would take the whole class on a "field trip" around the school and have them give me suggestions on where to photograph the pigeon. We would then return to the classroom and go through the writing process together, crafting the story on sentence strips and putting them in a sequence that made sense. Then I would type up the story with the photographs and bind it as a class book to be enjoyed by everyone. The finished book would go home with each student, and once it had made it through each household, we would put it into our classroom library.

Since writing (and reading) can be so tedious for beginning first graders, this would give students an opportunity to contribute to the writing process and be creative without having to worry about the physical act of writing (we would of course be practicing this skill at other times). Also, once students have written a book together, they are immediately invested in learning how to read it!