Eureka!

Swan Song

Publication Information

Author: Lewis, J. Patrick

Illustrator: Wormell, Christopher

Title: Swan Song

Date: 2003

Publisher: Creative Editions

City: Mankato, MN

ISBN, paperback: 1-56846-175-5

ISBN, hardback:

Recommended audience:

ABE/ABLE: Yes

ESOL:

Family:

Young Adult:

Picture: Yes

General Information:

Book Type(s): poetry

HSE Descriptor(s): science

Summary:

The poet and artist collaborated to create poetic, humorous post-mortems for extinct creatures. A timeline crawls across the bottom margin and back matter provides more information about the creatures and their habitats.

Teaching Ideas:

This book would make an enjoyable introduction to environmental issues. Readers' Theater or Read Aloud strategies would maximize the effectiveness of the poetry. Readers may want to research extinct species online and then write a short poem or paragraph about them. Readers can explore what efforts are being made to save the animals from extinction and plan a service or action project on behalf of saving the animals. Unsent or real letters can be written addressing activist organizations. Cause-and-effect charts could be developed to organize the events of extinction to explore further what occurred and continues to occur to cause creatures to disappear. Begin with these web sites for further study: www.nature.ca/notebooks/englihs/enexpg.htm; library.thinkquest.org/11922/extinct/extinct.htm; and eelink.net/EndSpp.old.bak/ES.lists.html. Asking why the author included the timeline should lead to a lively discussion.

Teaching Strategies: