Children's literature series - Dear Greenpeace

Dear Greenpeace

by Simon Jones

source:booktopia.com.au

Simon Jones’ classic picture book, Dear Greenpeace, is another written in letter format. Emily writes letters to Greenpeace to seek advice on caring for the whale she believes is living in her pond. Greenpeace replies to Emily’s letters, each time refuting her claims with increased vigour.  This ridiculous scenario, and Emily’s insistence that there is indeed a whale in her pond despite Greenpeace’s dismissal of her claims make this a fun story that children in the mid-late primary years enjoy dearly. This is an excellent book to use alongside the teaching and learning of persuasive writing or science and geography themes relating to sustainability and ecology.

Discussions, teachable moments and tasks within the classroom: 

• Fact vs opinion.
  Teachable moment: A fact is something that can be checked and backed up by evidence. An opinion is a belief or a view. When writing to persuade an audience, arguments become more convincing when opinions are supported by facts.
  Learning experience: Identify facts within Dear Greenpeace. Examples - “whales don’t live in ponds, but in salt water”; “whales don’t get lost, they always know where they are in the oceans”; “Blue whales are blue and they eat tiny shrimp-like creatures that live in the sea.”; “whales are migratory, which means they travel great distances each day”.
  Learning experience: Identify opinions within Dear Greenpeace.Discussion: How do you know they are simply opinions (they are not supported by fact)?
• Modality in persuasive writing.
  Teachable moment: Modality helps someone take a position in relation to a topic. Modality is used as a tool, in persuasive writing. Writers usually use ‘high’ modality words when they are trying to persuade their audience.
  Learning experience: Identify high, mid and low modality language used in the text. Compare the modality of language used between Emily’s and Greenpeace’s letters. Examples - Emily: “think”; “might”; “knew”; “hope”. Greenpeace: “I’m sure”; “won’t”; “can’t”; “don’t”; “always”; “must”; “much too big”; “must”; “quite forcibly”; “in no way”; “impossible”.
  Discussion: Does the modality increase or decrease through the story? What impact does modality have in the exchange between Emily and Greenpeace?
• Word work: Contractions.
  Teachable moment: Contractions are types of words that abbreviate longer forms by omitting letters from the middle of the word, eg. the contraction for ‘is not’ is ‘isn’t’.
  Learning experience: Identify contractions within the text and write their long forms. 
• Writing task: In Dear Greenpeace, Emily writes to Greenpeace about the whale in her pond, which is obviously preposterous! I used equally ridiculous scenarios for a persuasive writing task, such as “There’s a giraffe in my soup” (based on the book); “There’s a T-Rex in my garden”; “There’s a polar bear in my freezer”. I prepared fact sheets on giraffes, polar bears and T-Rexes that would support opinions for students to argue that these scenarios would be impossible. For example, in the polar bears fact sheet I had information about their habitat, so that students could use that fact to support their argument.
  Learning experience: Choose one scenario from: “There’s a giraffe in my soup”; “There’s a T-Rex in my garden”; and “There’s a polar bear in my freezer” and write a persuasive text with three reasons that argue against this scenario being possible. Use the fact sheet to identify important information to support these reasons.