This chapter, like chapter 7 invites us into Ray’s library. This time she gives us specific details and a name for these “wonderous ways with words”.
I want to have some fun. You will have until February 3rd to respond.
Get into your library-class or personal. Find some words that just sound good to you. Share them here, tell where you found them, and try to fit them into a category found in Chapter 8. Such as the category “Make-Your-Own-Words” where the author combines words or word parts that are familiar to make a their own meaning.
These “wonderous words” of yours may not fit into a category from Chapter 8, so you may make up your own category.
Also, these words do not have to come from a book, maybe a song or another type of literature.
Enjoy! I’m excited! 
I feel that most of my words would go in the category “Striking Verb”. I chose to use phobias because I feel that our culture is afraid of everything. There is always some type of phobic trend going on in our society. For example, first we were told that eggs were good for us, then we were told that they had too much cholesterol and were bad for us, now we are being told that they are good for us again. So, which is it? I am confused! LOL
These are just some interesting phobias that I found:
anthrophobia – The fear of people
anuptaphobia – The fear of staying unmarried
barophobia – A fear of gravity
bathysiderodromophobia – Fear of subways
coulrophobia – The fear of clowns
gymnophobia – A fear of nudity
logophobia – The fear of words
I also found this one. It has nothing to do about phobias but it is still funny!
logorrhea – Excessive talking (or verbal diarrhea)
Growing up, I have always liked stories that were humorous and quirky.I guess I just liked to be entertained.
Now that I am a teacher, not much has changed. I love to use humorous stories or poems with my kids and see what they can pick up on when I’m reading. Here are a few examples of some funny phrases from books I have read to my class:
Alexander and the Terrible,Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day:
“I hope the next time you get a double decker strawberry ice-cream cone the ice-cream part falls off the cone part and lands in Australia”
The Stinky Cheese Man and and other Fairly Stupid Tales:
“So stop now. Quit reading. Turn the page. If you read this last sentence, it won’t tell you anything.”
Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business:
“Yesterday a very wonderful thing happened! And it’s called-I had pie for dinner!”
The Fantastic Mr. Fox:
“..and as for Bean, the fumes of apple-cider hang around him like poisonous gases.”
For me these are all examples of humor in stories that I find very entertaining. I especially love when stories made for young children have the characters use language that is common for someone in their age group. For example: in my first quote the author uses a runaway sentence because Alexander is upset and that is exactly what he is thinking. In the Stinky Cheese Man, the narrator uses a direct-contact sentence to address his audience and grab their attention. In Junie B., Barbara Park makes use of the word “and” combined with a dash to turn her sentence into something childish that all 5/6 year olds can relate to. Finally, in my last example, Roald Dahl’s vivid language gives the reader a clear image of just how badly the third farmer reeks. I think all of these elements are important when attempting to grab a child’s attention..especially when they are first discovering the joys of reading.
These are some made up words…
Cept-n-less: except/unless combined
My sister and I used this at the beach one summer. “You can take your turn cooking tonight, cept-n-less you don’t want to do it today.”
A favorite is…fantabulous: fantastic and fabulous combined
(I’m not sure where we got that one)
I also love the word my son Kevin, says “Ginormous” alot…gigantic and enormous combined…
Mugg-another word Kevin uses…He’ll say “I’m tired as a mugg”…??? It’s cute when he says it!
I believe I have a variety of books that go with many “ways of words.” I just pulled some of my favorites to show some examples.
The Old Woman Who Named Things by Cynthia Rylant has a lot of examples!
Repeating Sentence Structure
Ex- She named the old car she drove “Betsy.” She named the old chair she sat in “Fred.” She named the old bed she slept on “Roxanne.” And she named her old house “Franklin.”
Whispering Parentheses
Ex- One day when the old woman was out soaping some mud off Besy, telling her that Franklin wouldn’t want to be seen with a car that didn’t keep its bumpers a little cleaner,a shy brown puppy came to the old woman’s gate. (The old woman had not named the gate because two of its hinges had rusted off and she could tell the gate wasn’t long for this world.)
Commentary Dashes
Ex. And every night Roxanne was sure to make herself plenty wide enough for a shy, brown, lucky dog — and the old woman who named him.
Ramona Forever by Beverly Clear
Make your own Words
Ex- “Yup, wonderful, blunderful me,” she said and was happy. She was winning at growing up.
Interesting Italics
Ex. – She’s never nice and is always blaming me for something I didn’t do. I don’t care what you do to me. <>
And, last but not least, examples from my favorite series, Harry Potter by JK Rowling.
Make-Your-Own Words
Death Eaters- the monsters from the Dark Side who suck your soul and every last bit of hope and happiness from your body
Quiddich – wizards game of football/soccer
Disapparating – disappearing from one place to the next with a loud CRACK
Super Colon
Ex. Moving though the towering black figures was terrifying: The eyeless faces hidden beneath their hoods turned as he passed, and he felt sure that they sensed him, sensed, perhaps, a human presence that still had some hope, some resilience…..
I could do more from Harry Potter because they’re such an incredibly written books, but I think you get the idea of my assortment of “ways of words” in my personal collection of favorite works.
Well I didn’t mean to actually USE Italics but found out how on accident by trying to put my italicized words in a bracket woops!
When looking through my personal childhood books, I found that I enjoyed texts that were written with striking words. For example:
In Class Two at the Zoo: They saw parrots “squabbling” in the sky, but they didn’t see..
They didn’t see that “twisty” beast..
The rest of Class Two all “heaved” and “tugged”
And if you see the anaconda open an eye and start to wander, don’t even for a second “ponder”..
From the book Where the Wild Things Are:
“gnashed” their terrible teeth
let the wild “rumpus” start.
I find these books to be great examples to use in my classroom to show my students how to choose different words. I love using these examples as teachable moments.
I have always loved books that rhyme. The sound and flow make me happy like a kid again. One such story that I love to read to my little boy is called “Dinosaurumpus” by Tony Mitton and illustrated by guy Parker-Rees. It may not be a quality book and it may not fit neatly into any of KWR categories but I love the way it has with words.
A few things that stand out to me in the book are the text shape, the flow of the main stanza, and all the striking adjectives.
The text has a shape to it that seems to convey the message of the loud, fast, and awkward dance that the dinosaurs are doing.
The main stanza that is repeated several times goes like this ‘Shake, shake, shudder…near the sludgy old swamp. The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp.’
Some of the many wonderful adjectives or words that describe sound are: thundery, donk, bomp, clatter, rattle, zoom, snip-snap, eek, twist, roar, wallop, stomp, zing, jump, jiggle, and sizzle.
I like poems when authors use many different words to describe something these are some of the ones I like
Down
down
down
Red
yellow
brown
Autumn leaves tumble down,
Autumn leaves crumble down,
Autumn leaves bumble down,
Flaking and shaking,
Tumbledown leaves.
Skittery
Flittery
Rustle by
Hustle by
Crackle and crunch
In a snappety bunch.
Run and catch
Run and catch
Butterfly leaves
Sailboat leaves
Windstorm leaves.
Can you catch them?
Swoop,
Scoop,
Pile them up
In a stompy pile and
Jump
Jump
JUMP!
Eve Merriam
The leaves had a wonderful frolic.
They danced to the wind’s loud song.
They whirled, and they floated, and scampered.
They circled and flew along.
The moon saw the little leaves dancing.
Each looked like a small brown bird.
The man in the moon smiled and listened.
And this is the song he heard.
The North Wind is calling, is calling,
And we must whirl round and round,
And then, when our dancing is ended,
We’ll make a warm quilt for the ground.
Anonymous
The first one has a few made up words, but people know what they mean by them even if they are not real words. The second I just like the way the words flow.
I’ve been reading a book that a student loaned me. I felt compelled to read it since she’s read several of the books I’ve done as read alouds in class or suggested to her personally. I found several ways with words in the book she gave me. There are even a few that would fall into some of the other categories, but I can’t relocate them in the book.
By the way, I can’t figure out how to do italics, so forgive any confusion you may have under the italics sessions.
Make-your-own Words & Interesting Italics
“Ohmygoodness!”
Make-your-own Words
“All-too-perfect appearance”
“This time there wasn’t an awkward silence at my presence. Instead there was an equally awkward everyone-talking-perkily-all-at-once.”
“I started to lie down, and Nala popped in through the kitty door, leaped up on my bed, and instantly began me-uf-ow-ing at me.”
Interesting Italics (as well as possibly a different category where you aren’t making up a word, but rather trying to help the reader know how to pronounce it)
“I love you, too, u-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa.”
Whispering Parentheses
“The cement was definitely still wet, and there was a lot of laughing going on as we made our prints and then used twigs Jack ran out to collect (the kid was certainly handy to have around) to write our names.”
Commentary Dashes
“I still liked Damien’s idea of putting the handprints in the courtyard outside the dinning hall – kinda like weird stepping stones.”
Super Ellipses
“I know. Tell him…tell him…that I’ll, uh, talk to him when I get back.”
Striking Adjectives, Make-your-own Words, Items in a Series
“There must have been ten cop cars, along with a fire truck and two ambulances parked with lights flashing red and blue and white against the empty, snow-curtained night.”
I like books like Junie B. Jones because they are humorous and you can act the part of the character and the kids love it! I love when she says the wrong words. And I am sorry I don’t have a book in front of me right now because they are all at school but when she says something wrong it is so funny!
I also like the book Dooby, dooby, Moo. The way the autor wrote it was neat because the animals are all singing and the words are bigger and in bold print going around the pages , sort of like notes.
Pout Pout Fish is another really cool book with neat words. There is a fish that is alwyas down in the dumps because he has a frown naturally on his face, so he goes around and he tells all the fish that he is gloomy. And he makes noises and the the words are Blub, BLUUUUUUB, BLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUB! and when you read it it is really funny because they keep repeating. I am a pout pout fish, that is just what I am I can’t be happy, then on the next page the author shows really funny picutures and BLUB BLUUUB BLUUUUUB. The kids love it! I am at home and most of my books are at school so if I have time tomorrow before class I wil post more.