Yolanda’s GeniusBy: Carol Fenner :
Yolanda’s GeniusBy: Carol Fenner
~Read how Carol Fenner described Aunt Tiny for her readers. :
~Read how Carol Fenner described Aunt Tiny for her readers. Aunt Tiny had a laugh as rich and flaky as biscuits and gravy. She wore gorgeous clothes – reds so bright and whites so pure and spanking clean. She would fix ribs, baking them slow in the oven and serve them with red beans and steaming rice. She cooked the beans slow, too, with giant slabs of clove-studded onion.
Slide 4:
Tiny’s hands were pretty as Momma’s, only her nails were very long, squared-off at the tips, and polished to a shiny red. She ate with delicate bites, nibbling daintily, mincing her way through rib after rib, wiping her mouth with her napkins, not getting any of the barbecue sauce on her blindingly white slacks. She smelled wonderfully of perfume and food. When she surrounded Yolanda in a big, soft hug, Yolanda could have stayed there forever, inhaling Aunt Tiny’s sweetness.
Teaching Point :
Teaching Point *Notice how Fenner appeals to all our senses in providing this portrait of Aunt Tiny. She invites us to hear her laugh, see her bright clothes, smell and taste her cooking, and feel the warmth of her “big, soft hug.” These selected details allow us to fill in the rest of the picture. We know from this description that Aunt Tiny is warm, friendly and feminine. Yolanda loves her. The author doesn’t tell us any of this directly, but we know it because we have a living, moving picture of Aunt Tiny in our minds. Lesson taken from: Fletcher, R., Portalupi, J. (1998). Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.