Scott Foresman Reading Street

Poetry

Examine features of a song.
Practice a test-taking strategy.
Compare and contrast across texts.

PREVIEW/USE TEXT FEATURES

Have students preview the illustrations and subheadings in "This Land Is Your Land" and scan some of the text in the song's chorus and verses. After students preview, ask:

How is a chorus different from verses in a song? (The chorus is repeated; the other verses are sung only once.)

Link to Social Studies

Have students brainstorm in groups. To help identify songs to list on the chart, hum or give clues about a few familiar songs from a songbook. Then students can name the song and consider the most suitable category for it.

Build Background In this context, land means "country." Woody Guthrie was a famous folk singer from Oklahoma who wrote more than 1,000 songs. His songs reflect the spirit of America. "This Land is Your Land" is one of his most familiar songs.

Partner Reading, 133a

Writing

Grammar

Fluency

Clauses and Complex Sentences, 133f

Review Word List, 133j

Draft and Revise, 133h

Spelling

Fluency and Language Arts

SONG

Use the sidebar on p. 130 to guide discussion.

Explain that a song is a poem set to music. Songs usually use rhyme. Point out that only the first two lines of this song's chorus end with rhyming words.
A chorus is a set of lines repeated between verses. Some songs have many verses.
Tell students a chorus may give the main idea of a song. The verses may give more details. Ask students to identify the main idea of the chorus. (The U.S. belongs to everyone who lives there.)

AudioText

Have students share their experiences and personal reactions to the areas and landforms of the United States mentioned in the song.

“This Land Is Your Land.” Words
and Music by Woody Guthrie. TRO—Copyright 1956 (Renewed),
1958 (Renewed), 1970 (Renewed),
1972 (Renewed), Ludlow Music, Inc.,
New York, NY. Used by permission.

Make a four-column chart
with the heads “Freedom,”
“Historical Events,”
“National Symbols,” and
“Landscape.” Write the
titles of other songs about
the U.S. in the appropriate
column(s).

Link to Social Studies

The song’s short phrases
are easy to sing to the
catchy melody.

This song begins with
the chorus, the part of
the song that is repeated
after each verse.

Since patriotic songs are
about a topic important
to a whole nation, they
are emotional and are
widely sung.

Songs are really poems.
The lines rhyme and have
rhythm so that they can
be sung to a melody.

Genre

Song

by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, this land is my land,
From California to the New York Island;
From the redwood forest to the Gulf
Stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.

CHORUS:

Link the song’s phrases to what you know about the U.S.

Prior Knowledge

Gulf Stream	a current of warm water in the Atlantic. It flows out of the Gulf of Mexico, north along the East coast of the United States, and then northeast across the Atlantic toward the British Isles.
redwood	a very large evergreen sequoia tree of California and Oregon coastal regions

Redwood Forest

Redwoods are the tallest trees that grow today. Two
species of redwood trees grow in California, as mentioned
in the song. Sequioa sempervirens, known as the giant sequoia,
grows in the fog belt along the northern coast. Sequoiadendron giganteum, known as the coast redwood, grows in the Sierra Nevadas. Giant sequoias can live up to 3,500 years. Coast redwoods can grow to more than 300 feet tall. The scientific name sequoia was chosen to honor the Cherokee leader Sequoyah. Redwood is used to make furniture and house shingles. Burls, or knots, are often carved into decorative objects such as bowls.