Jointhe poetry of science
Modeling Digital Skills
Science and Children—May/June 2021 (Volume 58, Issue 5)
By Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong
Game Programmer
by Janet Wong
My aunt has the best job ever.
She programs video games.
Someone else
comes up with the stories.
Someone else
comes up with the names.
But she puts all the commands in.
She makes the games work right—
so cars will move
when you want them to,
so soldiers can see at night.
She speaks to the computer
and calculates the scoring.
My aunt has the most incredible job—
it’s never, ever boring!
Poem © 2014 Janet S. Wong from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong © 2014 Pomelo Books; illustration by Frank Ramspott from The Poetry of Science: The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science for Kids © 2015 Pomelo Books.
Take 5!
- Display the homepage or screenshot of a popular video game or app in the background as you read the poem aloud.
- The speaker in the poem lists all the tasks that make the aunt’s job as a game programmer special. Read the poem aloud again and invite students to chime in on the fun, final line of the poem (it’s never, ever boring!) while you read the rest of the poem aloud.
- Talk with students about their favorite video games and what features they particularly like about them.
- Highlight the computer science terminology used in this poem and talk about what these words mean (game programmer, programs, video, commands, computer).
- Pair this with a parallel poem about making video games with “Computer Geek / Compu-nerdo” by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand (see Online Resource) or read more about computer coding in Code This!: Puzzles, Games, Challenges, and Computer Coding Concepts for the Problem Solver in You by Jennifer Szymanski (see Resource).
Reference
Wong, J. 2014. “Game Programmer” in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science, eds. S. Vardell and J. Wong, 135. Princeton, NJ: Pomelo Books.
Resource
Szymanski, J. 2019. Code this!: Puzzles, games, challenges, and computer coding concepts for the problem solver in you. Washington, DC: National Geographic Kids.
Online Resource
“Computer Geek / Compu-nerdo” by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand
Interdisciplinary Teaching Strategies Technology Early Childhood Elementary