Mary Mack Comic (Visualizing)

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

All dressed in black, black, black

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons

All down her back, back, back...

Remember this familiar nursery rhyme? It's also a hand-clapping game (in case you didn't know). During our ELA curriculum (Open Court Resources 2002) focus on Games, we read this poem. The teacher's guide stated that the comprehension strategy to focus on in this poem was visualizing. While we read the poem, we talked about how we imagined Mary Mack would look like. We also visualized in our heads the elephant jumping over the fence scene with a special focus on details. Some questions that were asked while students had their eyes closed to help them visualize were...

• • Where is Mary Mack watching the elephant jump over the fence?

  • Why is the elephant jumping over a fence?

  • What exactly happens when the elephant reaches the sky?

While we were having this discussion, a brilliant idea came to me. Why not have the students create Mary Mack comics? We have never had the experience of creating comics in class yet. The poem was very short and literally divided into four parts. This made for an easy four panel comic. I quickly shared my idea with the class (who were very excited about this new task). We talked briefly about how comics were mainly comprised of pictures rather than words so any words they had in their comics should be restricted in either speech or thought bubbles. I must say, the students did a wonderful job visualizing!