Responses will vary; check that students have used details from the poem to support their ideas.
CONNECT TEXT TO TEXT
Reading Across Texts
Discuss how the rock collector feels about rocks before students discuss what they think he would feel about the ten rules for finding a rock. Remind students to use details from both selections to support their ideas.
Writing Across Texts Have students choose a rule they think the rock collector would think is most important and jot down some notes explaining why on a separate piece of paper. Then have them write their ideas into sentences that make sense. Remind them to use details to support their ideas.
I happen to have a rock here in my hand. . . .
All right, that’s ten rules. If you think of any more write them down yourself. I’m going out to play a game that takes just me and one rock to play.
The thing to remember about shapes is this: Any rock looks good with a hundred other rocks around it on a hill. But if your rock is going to be special it should look good by itself in the bathtub.
The shape of the rock is up to you. (There is a girl in Alaska who only likes flat rocks. Don’t ask me why. I like them lumpy.)
You’ll find out that grown-ups can’t tell these things. Too bad for them. They just can’t smell as well as kids can.
Always sniff a rock. Rocks have their own smells. Some kids can tell by sniffing whether a rock came from the middle of the earth or from an ocean or from a mountain where wind and sun touched it every day for a million years.
You have to
make up your own mind. You’ll know.
I’ve seen
a lizard pick one rock out of a desert full of rocks and go sit there alone. I’ve seen a snail pass up twenty rocks and spend all day getting to the one it wanted.
Don’t ask anybody
to help you choose.
Writing Across Texts Which rule do you think the rock collector would think is most important? Write some sentences telling why you think that.
What do you think the rock collector in Rocks in His Head would think of the ten rules in “Everybody Needs a Rock”?
Reading Across Texts
Try to create a picture in your mind of the perfect rock.
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