Fall-Themed Writer's Craft Lesson Plans

Literature-Based Writing Activities for the Book Fall Is Not Easy

© Renee Carver

Aug 28, 2008

Select examples from a picture book to analyze elements of writing, such as structure and figures of speech. Studying the devices a writer uses to create a text helps children master these techniques for use in their own writing. This autumn, share Fall Is Not Easy by Marty Kelley [Zino Press Children’s Books, 1998] to teach circular plot structure, antonyms, personification, idioms, and metaphors.

Objectives

1. Students will demonstrate an understanding of circular story structure by identifying the circular plot in the book Fall Is Not Easy and writing their own circular, fall-themed narrative.
2. Students will increase awareness of word relationships by identifying and using antonyms.
3. Students will demonstrate an understanding of personification, idioms, and metaphors by using these figures of speech in their own writing.

Materials

• Fall Is Not Easy by Marty Kelley
• Cycle diagram graphic organizers
• Paper and pencils

Circular Story Lesson

1. Flip through the book Fall Is Not Easy to preview its contents. Have children note any changes in the seasons from picture to picture. Then. read the book aloud.
2. Ask children to compare the beginning of the story to the end. Note that the first two pictures repeat as the last two pictures, and that the first line of the story is the same as the last line.
3. Explain that a circular story forms a circle: it begins and ends in the same place.
4. Have children refer to their completed cycle diagrams from the Fall Leaf Life Cycle Lesson, or pass out a blank cycle diagram and have children fill it in with pictures and/or descriptions of what happens to the tree in each season. Then, discuss why the author used a circular plot structure for this particular story.

Antonyms Lesson

1. Explain that sometimes two terms are antonyms, or words that have opposite meanings.
2. Identify right/wrong and easy/not easy as opposite words/phrases used in Fall Is Not Easy.
3. List the following words from the book: bare, melt, start, cooler, strange, bright, thin, off, and in. Help children think up an antonym for each term, such as covered, freeze, stop, warmer, normal, dark, thick, on, and out.

Figures of Speech Lesson

1. Tell children that good writers use figures of speech to describe how things look or act.
2. Explain that personification is when a writer treats something that cannot really think or act like a person as if it can. Ask children to identify what is personified in Fall Is Not Easy (the tree).
3. Explain that an idiom is a word or phrase whose meaning is not the same as the meaning of each of its parts. Turn to the phrase "spring's in the air" in Fall Is Not Easy, and work with children to define this idiom. Discuss why the author might used it here. Repeat with "my patience begins to wear thin."
4. Explain that a metaphor is a comparison of two things that treats the things as equals. For example, the tree says its "leaves should be fire." Note that the tree is saying its leaves should have characteristics of fire, not that they should actually turn into fire. Discuss why the author chose to use this metaphor here.

Assessment

Have children use a circular plot structure, antonyms, and figures of speech to write their own short story about the events that happen to a tree (or a person, animal, place, or different kind of plant) over the course of a year.

Leave Fall Is Not Easy out for children to reread at their leisure. You can also use this book to teach literature-based lessons in science and art.

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