- On "Read, Write, Roar," discover Michigan's lumberjacks and learn how to write a blues poem, blending history and poetry to capture life's struggles.

Then explore Michigan's lumbering history from the perspectives of both lumberjacks and towering trees while crafting engaging stories.

Let's go "Read, Write, Roar."

- [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by the state of Michigan, and by, and by viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Check out this pine tree.

How many pine trees do you think are in Hartwick Pines State Park in Grayling, Michigan, where there are almost 50 acres of forest for sightseers to enjoy.

I'm Mrs. DeFauw, and when my children and I visited the state park, we couldn't count all of those majestic pines.

Another cool feature we enjoyed at this state park is the logging museum, which inspired me to write what I learned.

I started imagining stories from different viewpoints, like the lumberjacks and the trees we just showed you.

Writers craft stories from different points of view for readers.

Today, we will read two stories, one in third person point of view from a lumberjack's perspective and the other in first person point of view from a pine tree's perspective.

What does point of view mean?

Point of view is a character's viewpoint or how they experience something from their position.

When we experience different events like going to Hartwick Pines State Park, we experience that park from our own perspective or point of view, like I did.

"I loved the leftover rain that sprinkled on my kids and me as we walked through the trails."

In that sentence, I used first person point of view, which is when a person or character tells about an experience from their own perspective using pronouns like I and we.

I could also recount our visit to Hartwick Pines State Park from my children's perspective, using a third person point of view.

"My children folded their arms against the cold weather, wishing they had brought their sweatshirts."

Third person point of view is when a person or character's story or experience is told from a narrator's perspective or from another character's perspective, using pronouns such as they, he, him, she, and her.

As we read aloud, we will learn about lumbering from each character's perspective.

Let's begin with a lumberjack's story.

The lumberjack followed other loggers to the work site.

His stomach filled with pancakes, he tapped the piece of vinegar pie in his wool pocket.

Towering pine trees surrounded him.

He felt lonely as he journeyed quietly, missing his wife and children.

He knew the day's hard work of cutting the first harvest of white pine trees held danger.

Although accidents were common, doctors were not.

The lumberjack knew he had to be careful.

Yesterday, his bunkmate was injured by a fallen tree.

He needed to work through the winter with the other lumberjacks to cut the timber down.

The simple machines, incline planes, pulleys, and levers, helped the team load logs.

He knew the logs were needed to make materials like roof shingles, fence posts, and railroad ties.

Although some of his fellow lumberjacks made lumbering a career, he looked forward to returning to his farm in the spring so he could tell his children about the logging camp.

Which point of view was used in this story, third or first?

Right, third person.

Let's explore what we learned through the lumberjack's story.

We learned that he ate pancakes for breakfast, dressed in wool to keep warm, snacked on vinegar pie, faced danger cutting down pines during the winter, and didn't have access to a doctor.

His team used simple machines to load logs, which made building materials.

He was a farmer who missed his family.

Before we jump into our next story from a pine tree's first person point of view, it's important to think of this word, personification.

When a writer gives voice to a non-living thing as if it were speaking, the writer is using personification.

You'll see throughout this next story that the red pine tree has human traits or traits of a person.

A red pine tree's story.

Last night's winter storm forced me to sway, but the winds cannot remove me from the strong roots I have grown For the last 200 years.

I will live another two centuries soaking up the sun's energy, sipping the water from my roots, and feeding my pine cones.

I watch the lumberjacks cut down white pines first.

They appear so small from my viewpoint, 150 feet high into the sky.

I know I may be next when they return with their axes and saws.

I try not to think of their saws cutting through my 12 foot diameter trunk slice by slice.

If they do cut me down, I know I will be transported away from the only home I've ever known.

Instead of thinking about the lumberjacks collecting timber, I choose to stand strong.

Within this old growth pine forest, there are so many ancient pine trees like me.

Each year, a new ring grows on the inside of us.

These rings, grown year after year, will continue to tell our story, revealing our history.

Which point of view was used in this story, third or first?

Right, first person.

Let's explore what we learned through the red pine tree's story.

From the red pine tree's perspective, we learned that the tree could live another 200 years or two centuries.

The tree is 150 feet tall with a trunk diameter of 12 feet.

This red pine lives in an old growth pine forest that has ancient trees.

History is a story with many different points of view.

Just like the lumberjacks and the pine trees may have different points of view about lumbering in Michigan during the late 1800s, we can use point of view as readers, writers, and speakers to help us better understand different experiences.

(upbeat music) - I'm Ms. AP, here to help restore your energy.

But before we begin, let's start our warmup.

Today we're gonna do five jumping jacks.

Ready, set, go.

One, two, three, four, five.

Nice job.

Now that we have our body warmed up, we are ready to exercise.

Today, we are gonna expand on the squat movement we've learned.

Let's stand in our ready position, feet apart, hands at your sides.

Now that we are standing in our tall ready position, we'll move right into our squat movement.

Sit down into your imaginary chair, from this bent knee position, jump up, and land.

Let's try this together.

Standing your ready position, sit down into your imaginary chair from that bent knee position, jump up, and land.

Let's see how many we can do together.

Ready, set, go.

(upbeat music continues) Good job.

Give yourself a big clap clap.

Let's start our cool down.

Take two deep breaths in.

Breathe out, one.

Breathe in, breathe out, two.

Great job.

- Do you ever find complicated words when you're reading?

I know I do.

I'm Mrs. Mora.

Today we'll learn to use vowels and word parts to read and understand multi-syllabic words.

Each year, farmers collect sap to boil into maple syrup.

As you learn about Michigan's trees, you might come across complicated words.

The ESHALOV strategy helps us read long words.

ESHALOV means every syllable has at least one vowel.

This is almost always true.

Since a syllable can only have one vowel sound, vowels help us break words into parts.

Here's our word.

First, we'll mark all of the vowels.

Which vowels do you see?

Here's E, E, A, U, and E. Next, we'll join any vowel teams into one vowel sound.

Vowel teams are groups of letters that work together to make one vowel sound.

Do you see any vowel teams?

ER is an R controlled vowel that says er.

U-R-E also spells er.

Notice that this final E does not make the U say a long sound.

Now let's identify known word parts.

What do you see?

U-R-E is a noun suffix that shows an action, process, or result.

It often joins the letter T in a syllable, making this T say tch, ture.

Let's count the number of word parts to expect.

Remember, almost every syllable has at least one vowel, so we'll count the vowel sounds to know how many parts to expect.

Each vowel sound will count as one part.

Let's count, one, two, three, four, four parts.

Next, we'll break the word into parts.

Since we counted four vowel sounds, we'll need four parts.

Ture is a part because it has one vowel sound.

A syllable can only have one vowel sound, so we'll separate the other vowels.

Syllables often split between consonants, so we'll separate the first syllable between M and P. Next, E-R and A make separate vowel sounds, so they will be in separate parts.

Let's say the word, tem, per, a, ture, temperature.

Is that a real word?

Not quite.

Sometimes we have to try different letter sounds to make a real word.

Temperature.

Oh, temperature.

Or you may hear this pronounced as temperature.

Temperature is a measurement of how hot or cold something is.

Farmers collect sap when the temperature is warm during the day, but below freezing at night.

If you speak Spanish, the word temperatura can help you understand this word.

(Mrs. Mora speaking Spanish) Great work today.

Keep reading and try this strategy the next time you find a challenging word.

(upbeat music) - What do you think of when you hear the word lumberjack?

You think of two stocky dudes with thick beards and red and black checkered shirts pulling one of those long two-person saws back and forth.

That's a common image you might think of, but today, we'll learn a lot more about lumberjacks.

Michigan's known for our automobile assembly lines, Motown, sand dunes, and lakes.

But did you know there once was a thriving lumber industry here?

In fact, from 1869 to 1900, Michigan was the leading producer of lumber in the United States of America.

Today, the industry is smaller, but it's still present, and we still need lumberjacks.

Hi everybody, I'm Jeff Kass, and today, we're gonna explore the history of Michigan's lumberjacks by learning a form of poetry called the blues poem.

Blues poem come from the distinctly American music form known as the blues.

This genre or type of music developed in the South after the Civil War among formerly enslaved African-Americans and their descendants.

Blues songs generally featured a solo artist who plays guitar and sings, and they're inspired by religious hymns, folk songs that had been sung during field work, but mostly just the idea that sometimes, life is hard, and singing about it can be a way to work through that struggle.

Some of the most famous blues practitioners include Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lead Belly, and BB King.

Most of the songs followed a simple lyrical pattern where each verse consists of three lines.

The first line introduces the topic.

The second line repeats the first line, sometimes with a slight variation.

The third line comments on, expands, or offers an idea in conflict with the two previous lines.

And the last word in the third line rhymes with the last word in the two previous lines.

An example of a verse from a blue song, it might go something like this.

♪ My dog got lost last night in the storm ♪ ♪ Oh, I said my dog got lost last night in the storm.

♪ ♪ Wow, I sure hope she found some place to keep warm ♪ You see how line one introduces the topic?

"Last night, my dog got lost in a storm."

Then line two repeats line one, but with a little remix.

Then my third line expands the topic in line one.

"My dog was lost in the storm and I hope she found somewhere warm."

As you can also see the last word in line three, warm, rhymes with the last words of lines one and two, storm.

So now let's talk about the blues poem.

This form was popularized by Langston Hughes, the famous poet from the Harlem Renaissance.

It imitates the form of the blues song and creates several three line stanzas that explore a particular struggle or challenge.

So what's a stanza?

A stanza in a poem is a little chunk of lines that belong together, kind of like a verse in a song or a paragraph in a book.

Now, let's think about lumberjacks of Michigan.

We wanna write a blues poem about them, but first, you're gonna have to do some research to understand the struggles they might have encountered.

(dramatic music) Some things I learned about lumberjacks from my research were that most of the tree cutting happened in winter, and that there were no roads through the forest.

So people couldn't just drive in from their houses for their day, cut trees, and then go home to their families for dinner.

What do you think they might have done instead?

If you guessed they had to stay at the work site, you're right.

Loggers built camps that the lumberjacks would live in for months at a time, and they wouldn't be able to see their families.

That sounds hard, and we're talking about the 1800s here, so there wasn't any electricity in the camps or running water or anything like that.

The men worked long hours, often waking at four in the morning and working until eight or nine at night.

It was also very dangerous.

Loggers were killed every year by falling trees landing on them, by ax or saw mishaps, disease, or sometimes even by freezing to death.

Not that it was all miserable.

The food in the camps was apparently plentiful, bread, potatoes, beans, tea, and pork, and men would spend downtime telling stories, singing songs, or playing cards.

All this research has got me ready to start my lumberjack blues poem.

First, I made a list of words that are related to Michigan lumberjacks.

How about this?

Road, cold, logs, trees, saw, ax, camp, tents, alone, boots, and wood.

Then I thought about words that rhyme with my first set of words and I added them to my list.

For example, snowed rhymes with road, and cramp, lamp, stamp, those are all words that rhyme with camp.

Now I'm gonna work on an opening stanza for our blues poem, keeping in mind the lyrical pattern for writing.

I think I'll write something about the camp itself.

How about this?

"Michigan Lumberjack Blues Poem."

I feel so lonely in this frozen camp.

Oh man, I feel so lonely in this frozen camp.

Can't even read at night, we ain't got no lamp.

Now it's your turn to connect some of this Michigan history while writing a blues poem.

Write your own lumberjack blues poem that describes what Michigan lumberjack life is like.

For your first stanza, talk about camp life.

Go ahead and use the stanza that we wrote together if that helps you get started, or write your own if you prefer.

For the second stanza, write three lines describing how lumberjacks may have missed being home with their families.

For the third stanza, write three lines about food at camp.

Make the last stanza a topic that you choose.

Once you're done with your blues poem, read it to a friend or a family member.

Pretend you're in front of a campfire sharing your writing with fellow lumberjacks while their hands hover over an open flames.

Let your words keep them warm.

- Hello, friends.

I'm Ms. Audra, and today we're going to a construction site.

So think about what it might sound like when a building is being built.

Hammers, things being chiseled, there's nails, there's big cranes like lifting big steel beams into the air, people shouting direction.

There's lots of things happening.

So think about how the sounds that might be happening, and I want you to use your imagination, whatever that sounds, that could be a truck backing up, dumping tons of earth.

Think about those things as we take a big breath together.

Here we go, breathe in, and breathe out, another breathe out like a chainsaw today.

(Ms. Audra imitating chainsaw) Breathe in, and hold in any way you want.

Have a chainsaw (imitating chainsaw) Nice job.

So remember, think about some sound you might hear at a construction site while something's being built.

You're gonna make your sound, but don't forget to make a movement.

All right, so on the count of three, we're gonna do it together and I'm gonna listen and then add my sound.

One, two, three.

(gentle music) And now I'm gonna add my sound.

(Ms. Audra vocalizing) Nice job, on the count of three, we're gonna pause.

One, two, three.

All right, good.

All the great sounds that we made together as a group of what it sounds like to build.

Before we say goodbye, let's take that last cleansing, calming breaths together.

Here we go.

And hold and go out any way you want.

I'm gonna be my light chainsaw today.

(Ms. Audra imitating chainsaw) Nice job.

All right, we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - Hey there, it's Ms. Meg.

I had fun this weekend, and I ate lunch today, which was pretty good.

If you read that in a story, you'd probably think that was pretty boring or maybe even confusing, right?

I know I would.

That's why I'd say, "Hey there, it's Ms. Meg.

On Saturday, my best friends took me to see a hilarious movie about talking animals on an adventure.

Of course, we made sure to buy warm, buttery popcorn that nearly spilled out of the bucket.

We laughed so hard, we cried tears of joy."

Or I might say, "Today, I had the best tacos for lunch.

Two of the crunchiest shells with the best ground beef ever, juiciest tomatoes, a handful of shredded cheese, and the most flavorful guacamole I've ever had.

Every bite felt like a fiesta."

That's pretty specific, right?

We're gonna learn how to write stories using vivid imagery, using concrete language.

Let's go.

Concrete language isn't language we use to describe concrete, like the sidewalk here.

Instead, concrete language is specific words that describe something so that others know exactly what we're talking about.

Concrete words are things we know because of our senses.

So instead of just telling you I had a fun time and a good meal, I went into detail that appealed to our senses.

I use sensory images or images that are vivid and descriptive and appeal to our five senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell.

When I talked about my Saturday, did you see a handful of cheese or even hear the laughter or taste the tacos I described, or what about smell the popcorn of the movies?

When you use concrete language, readers better understand what is written because they can create pictures in their minds by tapping into the five senses.

Here's an example.

Let's say my parents went out shopping and they got me a new outfit for the first day of school.

I might say they got me a sweater, jeans, and shoes.

What picture do you have in your mind of my sweater, jeans, and shoes?

There are lots of ways that you might picture these new items.

Now let me use concrete language and you think about what you picture.

"My parents returned from their adventure to the store with new clothes for me.

They brought home the softest sweater that's bluer than the ocean, a pair of black jeans that are so soft, they almost feel like velvet, and a pair of new shoes.

The shoes are bright red with yellow laces, so they kind of look like clown shoes, and that's exactly what I was hoping for.

I can't wait to wear them on the first day of school."

Now, what picture did you create in your mind of my hoodie, jeans, and shoes?

Can you see how much clearer the imagery or picture in your mind was when I used concrete language?

I created sensory images through my descriptions using concrete language.

Now let's play a game to master our concrete language skills.

I'm going to say two sentences and ask you which writing best uses concrete language.

"Her bedroom was a total mess, and you couldn't see anything on her floor."

Or, "The bedroom floor was covered in piles of clothes, dog toys, and stacks of books."

(bright music) That's right, although they are very similar.

The second sentence is more concise or specific and lets us know more about the setting.

Today, we learned about concrete writing.

Getting specific helps readers engage with a story and see things clearly.

Using sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell, we can have fun writing detailed stories and creating sensory images for our readers.

Practicing concrete language is as simple as talking to your friends and family.

Be descriptive and have fun with it.

- Thank you for watching.

For videos, activity guides, and more, please visit our website, MichiganLearning.org.

And don't forget to "Read, Write, Roar."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by the state of Michigan, and by, and by viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music) (bright music)