visualization text set by hannah glass. topic: visualization objective: the objective of this text...

Visualization Text SetBy Hannah Glass

Topic: Visualization

Objective: The objective of this text collection is to provide second grade students with the great examples of how writes can use their words to create pictures throughout the readers mind using visualization. With these readings and analysis’s, the students will be able to use these examples to help them use visualization in their own writings.

Silverstein, S. (1974). Sick. In Where the sidewalk ends: The poems & drawings of Shel Silverstein. New York: Harper and Row.

This poem is just one of many from the great Shel Silverstein. The main character, Peggy Ann Mckay is a child who is giving all the excuses from the book on why she cannot go to school today. The author uses colorful and imaginative descriptions to allow the reader to create their own picture of how sick Peggy Ann Mckay really is.

“I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry, I’m going blind in my right eye. My tonsils are as big as rocks, I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox and there’s one more—that’s seventeen. And don’t you think my face looks green? My leg is cut—my eyes are blue—It might be instamatic flu.

We as readers can visualize all the different things that are making Peggy Ann Mckay so sick and why she just simply cannot go back to school. The rest of the poem goes through the other serious symptoms that Peggy Ann Mckay has but when the author reveals that today is Saturday and miraculously is feeling one hundred percent better and is going out to play.



Fletcher, R. (2003). Hello, Harvest Moon. New York, New York: Clarion Books.

Ralph Fletcher does an amazing job of making his stories come to life with his colorful and metaphorical writing. Once a year, we are graced with the presence of the Harvest Moon. During its rise, humans are all asleep but nature is slowly waking and noticing that a big change is about to enter into the country side. The author does such a wonderful job turning something so simple as the rising of a harvest moon into something magical that the reader wishes to see their selves.

The crops have been gathered. The pumpkins have been picked. The silos are busting with a million ears of corn. Tired farmers are fast asleep. But something is stirring at the edge of the world. Something is rising low in the trees. It comes up round, ripe and huge, over autumn fields of corn and wheat. Hello harvest moon! With its silent slippers it climbs the night stairs. Lifting free of the tree tops to start working its magic. Staining earth and sky with a ghostly glow.

Even at the beginning of his story, the author places us right into a country side through his figurative language. The reader could actually close his or her eyes and picture in their mind exactly what is going on because of the author’s strong adjectives throughout the story. Throughout the story we are introduced to the many different things that happen while the simple rising of this magnificent harvest moon.



Rylant, C. (1991). Night in the Country. Hong Kong: Aladdin Paperbacks.

This story allows the reader to see nature come alive in a story throughout. Here we are presented with all the different “night animals” that are awake during the night in the country. Even though the author gives the reader specific adjectives to think about during visualizing, it gives the reader a chance to see a different way of visualizing when the author forces us on what to visualize instead of letting our minds roam.

There is no night so dark, so black as night in the country. In little homes people lie sleeping and dreaming about daytime things, while outside—in the fields and by the rivers and deep in the trees—there is only night and night time things. There are owls. Great owls with marvel eyes who swoop among the trees and who are not afraid of night in the country. Night Birds. There are frogs, night frogs who sing songs for you every night. Reek, Reek, Reek, Reek. Night songs. And if you are one of those people in one of those little houses, and if you cannot sleep you will hear the sounds of night in the country all around you.

The reader is introduced to each animal and how they make their own impact on night in the country. The excerpt above is just a little sample on how the author somehow depicts exactly how each animal reacts to the night. Students not only are able to visualize but make connection to each animal especially if they have experienced hearing all the different sounds nature makes during the night. A great example of focusing on more than one reading component than just visualizing.



Wig, N. (2005). The Night Before First Grade. New York, New York: Penguin Young Readers Group.

What a great book to introduce at the beginning of the year and jump right into the different components of reading. This story lets the reader see how a little girl faces her first day of first grade without her best friend Jenn. Readers get a chance to visualize and make a step by step picture in their minds on how a first day of school is and connect with it.

At school, kindergarteners stood outside in the hall. They all looked so young, were we ever that small? While they clung to their parents we hugged Miss Sunrise, “You two grew so tall.” She said with surprise. D-d-d-ding rang the school bell. We made such a clatter as we raced to our classroom. Then Jenn said “What’s the matter?” The principal said “We have some new students so we split first grade.”… We hugged good bye sadly and said “see you later.” I had to be brave because I’m a first grader.

Throughout the story, the reader slowly see’s that this story has the same similarities of Twas the Night Before Christmas. The reader will see and make connections of the rest of the first day of school through their own visualizations and the visualizations that the author is creating with adjectives and story line.



Emberley, E. (1993). Go Away Big Green Monster. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

This book is so simple yet full of visualization. Readers are introduced to a scary big monster by the author describing its scary features through adjectives. They are given the opportunity to form their own scary monster in their mind with the adjectives given through visualization. This is a great example and model for students to see how being descriptive with simple adjectives is just as important as being descriptive with more complex adjectives.

Big Green Monster has two big yellow eyes, a long bluish-greenish nose, a big red moth with sharp white teeth, two little squiggly ears, scraggly purple hair and a big scary green face!

As the story continues, we see the narrator pull away each description that makes this monster so scary. This shows that when all the adjectives are pulled away there is nothing scary left. It also shows the reader without the details and adjectives, we would not have anything to visualize.



Fletcher, R. (1997). Twilight Comes Twice. New York, New York: Clarion Books.

This is a great story to show the reader about something that happens in nature twice during the day but how it takes on different features at morning and at night. We are introduced to the story on how twilight ends the day and its called dusk. The reader is given different adjectives along with metaphors to really capture how it really is in nature during this time of day.

Twice each day a crack opens between night and day. Twice twilight slips through the crack. It stays only a short time while night and day stand whispering secrets before they go their separate ways. Dusk is the name for evening twilight. Dusk gives the signal for night to be born. Dusk deepens the colors in ordinary things. Even the common grass takes a muster that makes you stop and look. In the summer dusk hisses on the sprinklers. It flushes out millions of mosquitos and armies of bats to eat them. Fireflies appear swimming through the air writing bright messages in secret code.

The reader keeps reading the story and gets to see how twilight is seen in the morning or what we know as dawn. Here the author takes something such as twilight and shows the reader through his writing that one thing can take on two meanings. Readers see comparisons and contrasts through visualization within the story on how twilight is perceived in nature.



Raczka, B. (2001). Fall Mixed Up. Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing Group.

This story is silly yet full of adjectives that readers can connect with to help with the visualization process in their reading and writing. The author creates a world where the season fall gets all mixed up and has to get fixed. Readers are engaged throughout the story with all the topsy tervy adjectives to make the season so mixed up. It shows the reader that they can have a creative side with their writing and visualizing even if it just might not make sense.

Every Septober, every Octember fall fills my senses with scenes to remember. Apples turn orange and pumpkins turn red. Leaf’s float up into blue skies overhead. Bears gather nuts. Geese hibernate. Squirrels fly south in big figure eights. Scarecrows stand guard for candy corn sprouts. Milkweed pods open and monarchs fly out. Touchdowns are hit. Homeruns are kicked. Kids leap in big, heaping piles of sticks.

Eventually the reader gets to see fall fix itself and all of those silly adjectives get placed back to where they are supposed to be. With this silly story the reader can let their imagination fly and also give them a creative bug with this unique story.



Brinkloe, J. (1986). Fireflies. Hong Kong: Aladdin.

What a great story for students to connect with. The author takes something that we have all done when we were this age and almost places us within the story with using adjectives and allowing the reader to visualize but visualize through connecting their own memories with the story.

On a summer evening I looked up from dinner, through the open window to the backyard. It was growing dark. My treehouse was a black shape in the tree and I wouldn’t go up there now. But something flickered there a moment—I looked and it was gone. It flickered again, over near the fence. Fireflies! … I called my friends in the street. Fireflies! But they had come before me with polished jars and other were coming behind. They sky was darker now. My ears rang with crickets and my eyes stung from staring too long. I blinked hard as I watched them—Fireflies! Blinking on, blinking off, dipping low, soaring high above my head, making white patterns in the dark.

The reader keeps on going through this night journey that we all know so well in summertime. The author proves to the reader by taking her own memories and placing them into the story is a great tool for writing with visualization.



Mr. Peabody's Apples. (2003). New York, New York: Callaway Editions.

Madonna has made a great book to use for multiple comprehension and reading strategies. For visualization, the reader is placed into a small town USA known as Happville. We meet several characters and through different details and adjectives they find themselves getting into more trouble than what they expected because of the gossip throughout Happville.

The Saturday after that Mr. Peabody was standing all alone on the baseball field wandering were everybody was. Then he saw Billy walking toward him with a bad look on his face. “Hello Billy, I’m glad you’re here but where is the rest of the team?” asked Mr. Peabody. Billy remained silent. “What is it Billy?” he asked again. Billy didn’t look up. “Everybody thinks you’re a thief.” He said to the ground. Mr. Peabody looked confused.

The reader later finds out the it was w big misunderstanding and that Mr. Peabody was not a thief but had been paying for the apples in the morning and picked up the apples in the afternoon. Readers are introduced to a different type of visualization on how the characters feel with the use of adjectives like in the excerpt above.



Rockwell, A., & Rockwell, L. (1989). Apples and pumpkins. New York: Macmillan.

One of the many reasons fall is so appealing to a lot of people are the activities that come with the season. In this book, the reader is given the opportunity to go apple picking and pumpkin picking with a girl and her family to a local farm that they go to every year. Using colors, new and known vocabulary words help the reader place themselves into the story.

When red and yellow leafs are on the trees we go to Comstock farm. To pick apples and pumpkins. Mr. Comstock gives us a bushel basket to put our apples in. Geese, chickens and a big fat turkey walk with us on our way to the orchard where apples grow. My father picks apples, my mother does too. I climb into a little apple tree and pick the reddest apples of all.

The reader is taken through how the family gathers their apples and pumpkins along with some friends along the way. Taking a simple family vacation to the farm and placing it into a story creates a great model for the students to use in their writings and help with using colorful words to help the reader create his or her own images in their mind.

visualization text set by hannah glass. topic: visualization objective: the objective of this text...

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