Inspiring Poetry

Today the students shared some of the riddle poems they wrote yesterday so that their classmates might guess the answers.

There were some easy ones,

I look like a lion.
I speak like a human.
You can find me in Egypt.
Speaking in riddles
To those who wish to pass me by.
What am I?

(xnihpS)

some very clever ones,

First think of the sound from an animal with a lot of wool,
That would make a basket very full.
Then think of something you say that scares,
And when you hear it you always glare.
Last think of the start of never,
The middle of Denver,
And is nowhere in lover.

Then string them together and wonder this,
What mammal would you never miss

(noobaB)

some lovely ones,

You can never touch me,
but you can see me.
I am in every classroom.
I am at the head of an arrow.
I am in the crust of pizza.
You could say very little without me.
I come in the afternoon of every day,
in the center of every place.
I am the beginning of all things.
I am on every planet.
I am in space.
What am I?

('A' rettel ehT)

and some confusing ones, too.

I wear glasses
I sound very sweet,
but I think of myself as evil, I dont know why.
You'll find me in one of your classes.
I have short hair,
I am very sweet,
i feel as human skin.

Who am i?

That last one had us stumped, and when we asked the poet for the answer, she gave me an exasperated look.

"It's you!"

What Can I Help You With?

We did riddle poems today in English. To start out with, I have a list of 13 classics that the students work together to solve. One of them is from The Hobbit.

Voiceless it cries,
wingless flutters,
toothless bites,
mouthless mutters.

"Ooh! Ooh! I know what it is!" one student whispered with confident excitement. "It's Siri!"

Annual Riddle Poem Edition

Each year my students write riddle poems. Here are a few pretty good ones from this round:

I smell as though a thousand years
I can be sad and bring many fears
Romance, fantasy I'm sometimes called
I'm creative and with me people have bawled
I make new worlds that are real and fake
I am as great as my creator make
Many shapes and sizes, skinny or plump I do come in
But the real great treasure is the one within.
A book

i am clear as a diamond
no color or shape
too much of me is deadly
but if you dont have enough of me you can die
many people try to run away from me
and they just cant because i am too fast. 
what am i?
water

Good times never last,
I should never have let you go,
I'll never forget my careless mistake,
All the time I prayed for your reappearance,
But you never floated back home.
A balloon

It is fluffy in the inside,
soft on the out.
In the night it has a head,
But when the morning comes,
then it does not.
What is this?
A pillow

The Real Treasure:
Yes, I'm partially in gold,
and in some part of diamond
Look at what it takes to get victory.
Yes I'm somewhat in money.
Check in these things
and you will see
my true identity.

What Am I?????
Love

(The answers appear in ghost post below each riddle.)

A Few Friday Favorites

Here are some of the riddle poems my students wrote this week:

i hold a face.
i make blackNess luminous.
i circle green and blue.
i Am Sometimes brimful, sometimes empty, sometimes in between.
imprints Are made, but not removed.
i spend almost all of my time in solitude.
i can be auroral during witching hour,
and vague during breakfast time.
i never make a sound, and neither can anything around me.
i am heavenly, but not made of anything special.
what am i?
(noom eht)

I have plenty of energy but can not run
Every body is spinning around me put I can't move
I make everything sizzle and sizzle
I am not the biggest and not the smallest
And I am hot but no one likes me
And I am the survival of life
So when I die you will too
Who am I?
(nus eht)

I speak not for the sky,
and not for the sea,
nor for the palace of eternity.
I speak for the land of withered stone,
and for the lands where the cacti roam.
I roll to the side to show my back,
I slide left and right,
to slither on home to an old rock stack.
What am I?
(redniwedis a)

And here's one of mine:

I  hit the road, ride the rails,
or travel along the open trails.
I've set up camp at Walking the Dog,
but when May comes I'll leave this blog.
(dnobagav a)

Three for Thursday

I.
There was a package at my door when I got home tonight. For participating in the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge in March, my name was drawn to receive the Carl Hiassen trio. The package was sent from Random House, Broadway, NY, NY, and contained hardback editions of Hoot, Flush, and Scat. My students love these books; they are consistent favorites on the independent reading log, and I know they will be hot items in the classroom library.

II.
Short attention span theater: my class is doing a series of mini-units. Last week we looked at humor, next it was a quick little fly by on why on earth a sane writer would ever bother with semicolons, colons, dashes, and ellipses, and we're rounding it out with riddle poems. Here's an example of the third:

I am inside you,
and I am underground.
I am thrown and broken.
I am a protector.
If you see me, you will cry.

(senob ruoy)

III.
Last night I woke up at 3:30. Unfortunately, that's not as uncommon as it was when I was younger. Usually, I fall back to sleep within thirty minutes or so, but not this time. I have a lot going on right now, but unlike other nights when I lay awake as one vagabond worry after another tightened its grip on my gut, I felt no anxiety. Neither could I sleep though, and my to-do list was indeed present, if not actively stressing me out. It was around 4:15 that I realized I had forgotten a promised birthday cake, and at 4:30, with no hope for sleep in sight, I rose to bake same. It's been a long day.