Our Strategy of the Month for October 2012 is VISUALIZING:
creating a picture in your mind as you are reading.
We will practice this strategy using our Book of the Month: Duke
Ellington by Andrea Davis Pinkney.
Why VISUALIZING?
Duke Ellington summary
Visualizing strengthens reading comprehension skills
as students gain a more thorough understanding of the
text they are reading by consciously using the words to
create mental images. As students gain more deliberate
practice with this skill, the act of visualizing text
becomes automatic. Students who visualize as they
read not only have a richer reading experience but
can recall what they have read for longer periods of
time. (Harvey & Goudvis 2000)
In this colorful, oversized biography, Andrea Pinkney tells
the story of Duke Ellington's life. This "jazz playin'" man
had an exciting life making music. This 1999 Newbery
Honor book traces his life from his early years (where he
was only interested in baseball and not piano) to his famous
concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. The other members of
his well-known band and the music they played are also
spotlighted. Brian Pinkney's bold, striking illustrations make
this an entertaining book. Read and find out about the "man
with the cats" and his swingin' band.
~ from www.CMlibrary.org
http://www.cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?v=
-E-X5XhbXiY short video for teachers on visualizing
http://www.jmeacham.com/docs/readers.workshop/visualizin
g.pdf lessons for teaching visualizing
BBK (Building Background Knowledge)
Listen/Watch Duke Ellington on You Tube
Check this out!
Informational Text Resources for Visualizing
http://beyondpenguins.ehe.osu.edu/issue/icebergs-andglaciers/visualizing-to-understand-content-area-text: scroll
down to How Can Teachers Use the Strategy with
Nonfiction? and Resources for Visualizing: Literacy Set (has
an article for practicing visualizing on glaciers at three
different readability levels)
Other Mentor Texts for Visualization
(all available at RLE)
The Flag We Love (BOM in Nov 2011)
The Wall (BOM in Nov 2010)
America’s White Table (BOM in Nov 2009)
When I Was Young in the Mountains, C. Rylant
Franny K. Stein, J. Benton
The Stories Julian Tells, A. Cameron
Fireflies! , J. Brinckloe
Abuela, A. Dorros
Search You Tube (or ctrl & click link below):
“It Don’t Mean a Thing” (horn on pg. 19)
“Take the A Train” (pg. 24)
“Creole Love Call” (music only pg. 11)
“Black, Brown, and Beige” (pg. 26)
Vocabulary (Music Terms from the text)
jazz (pg. 2)
ragtime (pg. 3)
melodies (pg. 5)
orchestra (pg. 10)
improvise (pg. 14)
blues (pg. 19)
composed (pg. 24)
maestro (pg. 27)
Companion Text Resources for
Duke Ellington
Article: “All About Jazz”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/all-aboutjazz-a-unique-form-of-americanmusic/2012/05/24/gJQA4bswnU_story.html
Brief article about Duke Ellington:
http://pbskids.org/bigapplehistory/arts/topic21.html
Interactive timeline of Jazz music:
http://pbskids.org/jazz/time/index.html
Also…visit the Companion Text section in the Library.
Introduce the Strategy: Visualizing
When introducing a reading strategy, begin by providing “concrete instruction that jump-starts them into the realm of (more abstract)
strategic thinking.” ~ Tanny McGregor in Comprehension Connections. In Math, we introduce adding digits with manipulatives
(concrete), move to drawing shapes to represent the numbers, and then to the algorithm (abstract). What tangible item(s) can you use
to help your children understand visualizing?

Cardboard tubes as looking glasses to focus the student’s attention on a single item - or just place some objects at each table.
Have students spend some time looking at a chosen object through the visualizing tube; thinking about where the object
might belong and using their five senses to visualize that scene; then drawing the object in its scene. If students selected the
same object, it would be interesting to compare their drawing and discuss how our schema affects our ability to visualize.

Use sensory experiences, then turn and talk about what you visualize:
- cotton balls dipped in various liquids (mouthwash, suntan lotion, lemon juice, etc.)
- sound bites (traffic, seashore, playground, airport): www.freesound.org search for sounds, click on thumbnails
- listen to an old radio show or a recorded book (or a familiar read-aloud)
- sealed bags with mystery objects inside
- create a class timeline using only pictures (from magazines, clip art, drawings)
- photographs of scenes (not just an object): http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/picture_prompts.htm (scroll
down for photos); http://life.time.com/culture/ (scroll through list on left for photo topics)
- share a wordless picture book and have students create the story to accompany it

Mini-lessons for teaching Visualizing using works of art and picture books at literacyhead.com:
http://literacyhead.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5441
Visualizing anchor charts (make charts like these WITH your students - reflecting the learning taking place in your classroom - and
make them accessible to students throughout the year: on display, in an anchor chart area, photograph for class book)
Good readers talk about what
they VISUALIZE.
I see…
I hear…
I smell…
Good readers
VISUALIZE!
They use...
+
what they
know
and
I feel…
=
the author’s
words to
create
a picture
in their
minds.
I can imagine…
When the author says
___ I can see/hear/
smell/taste/feel…
The
picture in
my head
is…
schema + text = mental
image
Before Reading
Hooks: Preview the book with some objects, photos, or music that represent the story: musical instruments like a piano, horns, drums;
jazz clubs, cars, radios from the 20s-40s; couples dancing; Duke Ellington/jazz music can be found on YouTube (see BBK on the 1st
page of the packet for links). Invite a parent or community member who plays jazz music to perform for your class.
Vocabulary: This text is written with the rhythm and style of jazz. You could focus on vocabulary in a variety of ways. Some
categories and examples to fit them are listed below.
 Word Splash with music themed words (word list on pg. 1 BBK): Write music in the center and the eight words surrounding
it. Have them select one (or more) of the surrounding vocabulary words and share (post-it or turn and talk) a sentence
predicting what that word has to do with the center word. After reading, revisit sentences to determine if predictions were
correct.
 Dialect and “jive” talk: cat (pg. 2); flashy threads and flair to spare (pg. 6); Daddy-O (pg. 16); cuttin’ the rug and solos were
kickin’ (pg. 21); main man (pg. 24) – Listen for examples of dialect, chart them, discuss why the author uses these words and
phrases.
 Multiple meaning words: cats (pg. 2); rode and keys (pg. 5); split and tracks (pg. 7); spread (pg. 23); suite (pg. 26)
 Words/descriptions for piano: piano keys and pearlies (pg. 5); ivory eighty-eights (pg. 21) – other instruments?
Pre-reading comprehension activities (from http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/): First Lines: Display the first sentence of
Duke Ellington on your board: “You ever hear of the jazz playin’ man, the man with the cats who could swing with his band?” Have
students predict what the text will be about based on this sentence. Revisit predictions after reading.
During/After Reading
Strategy Activities:
 Strategy Think-Alouds for VISUALIZING: The text lends itself to sharing mental images created with the author’s word
choice. You can stop periodically while reading to share what you visualize, or have students turn and talk to share their own
images. There are some scenes in which the author describes sounds in visual ways: “Sonny Greer pounded out the bang of
jump rope feet on the street with his snare drum. A subway beat on his bass drum…Sometimes only his drumsticks made the
music, cracking out the rattly beat of wood slapping wood.” (pg. 14). See also 17, 18, 21, and 26. You may try to look up
clips of these sounds on www.freesound.org (or another site). Use the Visualizing Thinking Stems anchor chart to
demonstrate how you share your visualizations.

Graphic Organizers to reinforce VISUALIZING: Using Our Senses and Listening for Picture Words (from Reading Power
by Adrienne Gear) and Making Meaningful Visualizations Think Sheet and Visualizing Tally Sheet (from Comprehension
Shouldn’t Be Silent by Michelle J. Kelley and Nicki Clausen-Grace). All of these can be found in the Share folder 
comprehension  2012-2013 Book of the Month.

Help students MAKE CONNECTIONS to the story by sharing your connections and having them turn and talk to share their
own connections.

MAKE TEXT TO TEXT/TEXT TO WORLD CONNECTIONS: share a book/article about another great musician/jazz artist
and use a graphic organizer (T-chart or Venn Diagram, for instance) to compare the texts. http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/
Comprehension Activities:
 Walk your students through a close reading of the Companion Text articles found on the cover page – mark the text, teach a
specific reading skill using the text (like main idea, summarizing).
 Use the events in this story to create a timeline of events (chronological order). Extend by allowing students to research
other important dates that pertain to Duke Ellington and add them to the timeline (or create a new one on a different jazz
artist or jazz music – see resources under Companion Texts on the cover page).
 Create a cause and effect T-chart using events in the story (or fact and opinion).
 Compare the story to a biography of Duke Ellington at http://pbskids.org/jazz/nowthen/duke.html. What were some of Duke
Ellington's early experiences with music? Were these experiences positive or negative? What were some of the important
turning points in Duke Ellington's life? What did Duke Ellington find appealing about jazz?
 Discuss the author’s message, why did she write this book? How does she feel about the Duke Ellington, jazz music? How
do you know? Extend by discussing how the story would change if she felt the opposite.
 Look for figurative language or personification within the story. Lessons also in Writing Connections.
 Other books for visualizing: http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/visual_imagery/.
 Activities for teaching with the text: http://pbskids.org/jazz/lesson/learning_through_duke.html and
http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~elbond/duke.htm.
H.O.T. Comprehension Questions to get you started:
 Page 2: What is Duke’s problem? (his parents make him practice the piano everyday, but he would rather play baseball) Have
you had a similar experience? Duke quit piano lessons; how did you solve your problem?
 Page 4: How do you think Duke feels about quitting piano lessons now? Why?
 Page 11: Before reading this page, discuss the illustration. What clues can you gather from the picture? (re: the old-fashioned
radio, no TV, family gathered together, colorful swirls of music coming from the radio) After reading the page, what is the
significance of Duke Ellington’s music to people at home? What effect did it have?
 Page 14: Talk about the language used on this page. Try to make the sounds described yourselves.
 What made Duke such a great musician (were the lessons enough or was there something else to it – natural talent,
persistence, passion)? What lesson does this teach the reader?
Writing Connections
 Create a chart of students' favorite phrases (hot-buttered, sassy cool). Encourage students to use phrases like these in their
writing.
 Look for author's tricks in the text and label them on a chart. Andrea Pinkney includes a lot of personification (objects acting
like people), for example: page 10-Lady Luck smiled pretty on the Washingtonians, page 14-the joint started to jump and
each instrument raised it's own voice. She also uses comparisons/metaphors/similes, like page 2-his piano playing wasn't
always as breezy as his stride, page 6-compositions smoother than a hairdo sleeked with pomade, page 11-spicier than a pot
of jambalaya and a musical stream that swelled over the airwaves, and page 18-curling his notes like a kite's tail. Encourage
students to be on the look out for these tricks in other texts and add them to the chart with post-its. You could also focus on
one trick for students to add to their own pieces.


Poetry: Begin with an image (photograph or imagined – a tree, a dog sleeping on porch, a worn suitcase, an old hat) and ask
students to see the image in a new way; for instance, the dog on the porch becomes a giant paperweight holding a house
down against the force of the wind or the hat hugs its owner's head afraid of --- falling on ground or being left behind. In this
way you are applying the author’s tricks lessons from above. (from Books, Lessons, Ideas for Teaching the Six Traits)
Biography Research: using the bios found at http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/, students can organize the information into a
biography graphic organizer (look in Share  comprehension  2012-2013 Book of the Month for some sample organizers).
Extend by writing the biography research report or by creating a Pizza Box Biography (can be adapted to fit your grade level
needs – see this website for ideas or google Pizza Box Bios:
http://www.cysd.k12.pa.us/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=23741&&PHPSESSID=1b21859db
c67de4341f64be993cfe2f0)
Math and Science Connection
 Connect tempo and beat in jazz to heart rate in this lesson: http://www.pbs.org/jazz/classroom/tempo.htm
Social Studies Connection
 Create a timeline of events using dates and details from the story.
 Make a partner timeline detailing other important events in the U.S. or world during this same time frame. (Take the “A”
Train was one of the greatest hits of 1941. What else was happening in the U.S./world at that time? Is this song a reflection of
that event in any way?)
Art and Music Connection
 (from PBS.com) Remind the students that in the book Duke Ellington, the author wrote that "Duke painted colors with his
band's sound." Play "Mood Indigo" for students (available on Duke Ellington's biography page within the Ken Burns' Jazz
Web site: http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_ellington_duke.htm). As they listen, ask them to think about the
shapes and colors that the music reminds them of. If it helps, they may move their bodies. Spread newspapers on the desks to
protect them from paint spills, then distribute paper, paintbrushes, and paints to each child. Explain that you will be playing
"Mood Indigo" again. As the students listen, have them try to capture the music in paint. Allow the students the opportunity
to share their paintings.
 Learn some of the dances named in the text. Search YouTube for: learn to dance the Black Bottom or the Fish-Tail or the
Suzy-Q.
Character Connection
 How do the ideas in Duke Ellington reflect Dolphin Dignity – be safe, be respectful, be responsible?
 Look for examples of other character traits in the text (perseverance, courage, responsibility). Ask students to name a time
they also reflected that character trait.