The Poetry Challenge today is not a popular one with my sixth graders, but I like to think of it as character building. In honor of Shakespeare's 449th birthday, I asked them to write a Shakespearean Sonnet.
For those of you who are a little rusty, that's a 14 line poem in iambic pentameter (10 syllables, with an unstressed-stressed pattern) with an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. Now you can see why the sixth graders are a little cranky, right?
As always, I don't require them to succeed on the first try; I just ask that they try. Someone did a pretty good job:
Sonnet 1
By Evan
A bird once sang on a midsummer's night,
an owl joined in, hooting rhythmically,
next a wolf howled, singing sharp notes, and bites,
and the forest became a symphony.
The evergreens withdrew their mighty thorns,
made way for ticks and mice to chant the bridge,
and hawks and crows subdued their woeful mourns
to find a place in choir along the ridge.
Beetles buzzed and foxes pawed oaken drums,
and frogs played tunes with slime and lily-pads.
Bears scratched trees with strong muscular thumbs,
and long-legs played the limbo with their dads.
The woods trembled until the very morn,
and now, all of the land is back to norm.
Oaken drums and muscular thumbs? Awesome!
For those of you who are a little rusty, that's a 14 line poem in iambic pentameter (10 syllables, with an unstressed-stressed pattern) with an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. Now you can see why the sixth graders are a little cranky, right?
As always, I don't require them to succeed on the first try; I just ask that they try. Someone did a pretty good job:
Sonnet 1
By Evan
A bird once sang on a midsummer's night,
an owl joined in, hooting rhythmically,
next a wolf howled, singing sharp notes, and bites,
and the forest became a symphony.
The evergreens withdrew their mighty thorns,
made way for ticks and mice to chant the bridge,
and hawks and crows subdued their woeful mourns
to find a place in choir along the ridge.
Beetles buzzed and foxes pawed oaken drums,
and frogs played tunes with slime and lily-pads.
Bears scratched trees with strong muscular thumbs,
and long-legs played the limbo with their dads.
The woods trembled until the very morn,
and now, all of the land is back to norm.
Oaken drums and muscular thumbs? Awesome!
I am absolutely amazed that a sixth grader could produce that sonnet. Shakespeare himself would probably be impressed.
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