Ready-to-teach lesson
SKILL LESSON · GRADE 1 · ISH
Word Meaning and Formation
Source lesson: How Far Ish Goes
- Full lesson
- TIME
- 34 minutes
- OBJECTIVE
- Follow the word ish through the book and say what it means each time it grows.
- STUDENT PRODUCT
- A word ladder, then two words of your own
- FOCUS
- One word ending, stretched further on every page
- ESSENTIAL
- How much can you do with three letters on the end of a word?
- QUESTION
Materials
- The book
- Pages 10, 12, 16 and 18, found before the lesson
- One word ladder each
Text to mark before teaching
- Passage 10 — one drawing, taped up and still creased
- Passage 12 — drawings sweeping up off the page
- Passage 16 — a sheet of paper with almost nothing on it
- Passage 17 — lying back on a rock in the stream, sketchbook shut
- Passage 18 — the last page
Lesson sequence
1 Launch · 4 min
- Focus:
- An ending you can stick on anything
page 1
| Teacher direction: | Say vase-ish out loud and ask the class what the ish is doing to the word. Then try it on things in the room chair-ish, blue-ish, round-ish - and let them hear that it works on almost anything. |
| Prepared text: | Passage 10 |
| 2 Teacher model · 7 min | |
| Teacher model: | I follow the word through the book. It starts as vase-ish, which is about a drawing. Then Ramon is thinking ish-ly, which is about how he works. Then it is ish art and ish writing and poem-ish poems, which are kinds of thing. And on the last page he lives ishfully, which is about a whole life. The book has taken a small ending and made it bigger every time. |
| Prepared text: | Passage 10, Passage 12, Passage 18 |
| 3 Follow the word · 13 min | |
| Focus: | From a drawing to a whole life |
| Teacher direction: | Using Passages 10, 12, 16 and 18, write down each way the book uses ish, in order, and what it is describing each time. |
| Expected answer: | First it is vase-ish, printed with the ending in capitals, and it describes one drawing that does not look like the thing it was meant to be. Then Ramon is thinking ish-ly, with a hyphen, and that describes not a drawing but a way of working loosely, quickly, without worry. Then there is ish art and ish writing, and poems he knows are poem-ish, so it has become a kind of thing you can make. And on the last page he lives ishfully ever after, which is not about drawing at all. The ending stays the same and what it is attached to keeps getting bigger. |
| Student product: | A word ladder: the word, and what it describes |
| Prepared text: | Passage 10, Passage 12, Passage 16, Passage 18 |
| 4 Make your own · 10 min | |
| Focus: | A word for nearly, but not a rude one |
| page 2 |
- Teacher direction:
- Using Passages 16 and 17, write two ish words of your own and say what each one means.
- Expected answer:
- Good answers make something that is nearly the thing and are pleased about it - a house-ish drawing, a songish tune, a story-ish piece of writing - and can say what makes it ish rather than finished. The book's own examples give the test:
Ramon is not sure if he is writing poems but knows they are poem-ish, so ish means near enough to count. It is worth noticing what the word cannot do either: on the last spring morning Ramon has a feeling that even ish words cannot capture, so the book admits there are things the word does not reach.
- Prepared text:
- Passage 16, Passage 17
Teacher guidance
Why this text works: Play with the ending before you analyse it - a minute of chair-ish and blue-ish gets the whole class inside the idea, and only then is the ladder worth building. Notice the hyphens with them, because the book is careful about them: vase-ISH, ish-ly, poem-ish, and then ishfully with no hyphen at all, as though by the last page it has become a proper word. The honest edge of the lesson is on page seventeen, where the book says a feeling was beyond even ish words. Ask what that admits about Marisol's word, and a class will tell you that it is useful and not magic.
- Expected answer:
- The book takes one small word ending and makes it carry more on every page. It starts as vase-ish, with the ending in capitals, describing a single drawing that does not look like what it was meant to be. Then Ramon is thinking ish-ly, which describes how he works rather than what he makes: loose lines, springing out quickly, without worry. Then it becomes a kind of thing - ish art, ish writing, poems he knows are poem-ish. And on the last page he lives ishfully ever after, which has nothing to do with drawing. The book also marks the limit: one morning he has a feeling that even ish words and ish drawings cannot capture, and he lets it alone.
Model: I notice the hyphens change. It is vase-ISH and ish-ly and poem-ish, all with a hyphen or a capital to show the ending has been stuck on - and then on the very last page it is ishfully, joined up, as though the word has stopped being a joke and become a real one.
page 3
Support and extension
Above: The book says one feeling was beyond even ish words. Explain what that tells you about how much the word can do.
Below: Build the ladder in order, then write two ish words of your own.
Assessment
Look for:
- Says vase ish describes a drawing that is nearly a vase
- Says ish-ly describes how Ramon draws.
- Says poem-ish describes his writing.
- Says ishfully describes how he lives.
- Makes an ish word and explains it.
- Short version
- TIME
- 18 minutes
- OBJECTIVE
- Follow the word ish through the book and say what it means each time it grows.
- STUDENT PRODUCT
- A word ladder, then two words of your own
- FOCUS
- One word ending, stretched further on every page
- ESSENTIAL
- How much can you do with three letters on the end of a word?
- QUESTION
Materials
- The book
- Pages 10, 12, 16 and 18, found before the lesson
- One word ladder each
Text to mark before teaching
- Passage 10 — one drawing, taped up and still creased
- Passage 12 — drawings sweeping up off the page
- Passage 16 — a sheet of paper with almost nothing on it
- Passage 17 — lying back on a rock in the stream, sketchbook shut
page 4
- Passage 18 — the last page
Lesson sequence
1 Launch · 3 min
| Focus: | An ending you can stick on anything |
| Teacher direction: | Say vase-ish out loud and ask the class what the ish is doing to the word. Then try it on things in the room chair-ish, blue-ish, round-ish - and let them hear that it works on almost anything. |
| Prepared text: | Passage 10 |
| 2 Teacher model · 4 min | |
| Teacher model: | I follow the word through the book. It starts as vase-ish, which is about a drawing. Then Ramon is thinking ish-ly, which is about how he works. Then it is ish art and ish writing and poem-ish poems, which are kinds of thing. And on the last page he lives ishfully, which is about a whole life. The book has taken a small ending and made it bigger every time. |
| Prepared text: | Passage 10, Passage 12, Passage 18 |
| 3 Follow the word · 7 min | |
| Focus: | From a drawing to a whole life |
- Teacher direction:
- Using Passages 10, 12, 16 and 18, write down each way the book uses ish, in order, and what it is describing each time.
- Expected answer:
- First it is vase-ish, printed with the ending in capitals, and it describes one drawing that does not look like the thing it was meant to be. Then Ramon is thinking ish-ly, with a hyphen, and that describes not a drawing but a way of working loosely, quickly, without worry. Then there is ish art and ish writing, and poems he knows are poem-ish, so it has become a kind of thing you can make. And on the last page he lives ishfully ever after, which is not about drawing at all. The ending stays the same and what it is attached to keeps getting bigger.
page 5
| Student product: | A word ladder: the word, and what it describes |
| Prepared text: | Passage 10, Passage 12, Passage 16, Passage 18 |
| 4 Make your own · 4 min |
- Focus:
- A word for nearly, but not a rude one
- Teacher direction:
- Using Passages 16 and 17, write two ish words of your own and say what each one means.
- Expected answer:
- Good answers make something that is nearly the thing and are pleased about it - a house-ish drawing, a songish tune, a story-ish piece of writing - and can say what makes it ish rather than finished. The book's own examples give the test:
Ramon is not sure if he is writing poems but knows they are poem-ish, so ish means near enough to count. It is worth noticing what the word cannot do either: on the last spring morning Ramon has a feeling that even ish words cannot capture, so the book admits there are things the word does not reach.
- Prepared text:
- Passage 16, Passage 17
Teacher guidance
Why this text works: Play with the ending before you analyse it - a minute of chair-ish and blue-ish gets the whole class inside the idea, and only then is the ladder worth building. Notice the hyphens with them, because the book is careful about them: vase-ISH, ish-ly, poem-ish, and then ishfully with no hyphen at all, as though by the last page it has become a proper word. The honest edge of the lesson is on page seventeen, where the book says a feeling was beyond even ish words. Ask what that admits about Marisol's word, and a class will tell you that it is useful and not magic.
page 6
- Expected answer:
- The book takes one small word ending and makes it carry more on every page. It starts as vase-ish, with the ending in capitals, describing a single drawing that does not look like what it was meant to be. Then Ramon is thinking ish-ly, which describes how he works rather than what he makes: loose lines, springing out quickly, without worry. Then it becomes a kind of thing - ish art, ish writing, poems he knows are poem-ish. And on the last page he lives ishfully ever after, which has nothing to do with drawing. The book also marks the limit: one morning he has a feeling that even ish words and ish drawings cannot capture, and he lets it alone.
Model: I notice the hyphens change. It is vase-ISH and ish-ly and poem-ish, all with a hyphen or a capital to show the ending has been stuck on - and then on the very last page it is ishfully, joined up, as though the word has stopped being a joke and become a real one.
Support and extension
Above: The book says one feeling was beyond even ish words. Explain what that tells you about how much the word can do.
Below: Build the ladder in order, then write two ish words of your own.
Assessment
Look for:
- Says vase-ish describes a drawing that is nearly a vase.
- Says ish-ly describes how Ramon draws.
- Says poem-ish describes his writing.
- Says ishfully describes how he lives.
- Makes an ish word and explains it.
page 7