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Here is a website with a ton of writing prompts (501 to be exact!). Also included are samples of student writing which has been separated by a score based on a 6-traits rubric.

http://www.learnatest.com/LearningExpressEBooks/download.cfm?b=1576854388&CFID=953&CFTOKEN=d2bd354358213bd2-DE2FEF68-E7F2-093F-99D148DED586A160

Metaphor and Simile

Monday, January 26, 2009

Rich in metaphor and simile and captivating in theme, this group of poems is ideal for helping students identify and analyze the comparisons which make poetry so meaningful.

When my students find a metaphor or simile, they write a complete sentence to explain the comparison. The structure I teach them looks like the following:

__________ and _________ are being compared because ___________________.

An example taken from "Dream Deferred" would end up saying, "A raisin in the sun and a dream deferred are being compared because both lose the life which makes them motivational."

“Dream Deferred”

Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

“Fire and Ice”

Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if I it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry—

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll—

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human soul

Rhyme Scheme

Monday, January 26, 2009

Though rich in other literary elements, I use these poems with 10th grade students to focus on rhyme scheme.

Each poem has a different rhyme scheme and each poem has unusual characteristics with rhyme.

I teach my students to write about the rhyme scheme in a complete sentence:

The rhyme scheme is _________________________.

An example would be the following: "The rhyme scheme is ABAB, CDED, FGHG.

“Cross”

Langston Hughes

My old Man’s a white old man

And my old mother’s black.

If ever I cursed my white old man

I take my curses back

If ever I cursed my black old mother

And wished she were in hell,

I’m sorry for that evil wish

And now I wish her well.

My old man died in a fine big house.

My ma died in a shack.

I wonder where I’m gonna die,

Being neither white nor black?

“Incident”

Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore

Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,

I saw a Baltimorean

Keep looking strait at me.

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger,

And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue, and called me, “****.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there

That’s all that I remember

“Love”
Anonymous

There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,

And the love of a staunch true man,

And the love of a baby that’s unafraid—

All have existed since time began.

But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,

Even greater than the love for Mother,

Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love

Of one dead drunk for another.

“The Road Not Taken”

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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English teacher at Kofa High School in Yuma, Arizona

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