Things Inside of Me

This poem is traditionally written by students in the Spring of their fifth grade year at Germantown Academy. It corresponds with their study of intergenerational relationships and figurative language as experienced through the novel The Lilith Summer, a novel by Hadley Irwin, and with their study of nature and poetry through the Endangered Earth Interdisciplinary Unit.

Pre-writing activities and lessons which occur simultaneously throughout the mini-unit and which provide necessary background and skills include:

• An analysis of figurative language, specifically personification, metaphor, simile, and exaggeration, as defined in Writer's Express.
• Reviewing adjectives, adverbs, and powerfully descriptive verbs.
• Reading, and related discussion of The Lilith Summer up to page 85 where Lilith says, "All of us are many people: the people we once were, the people who have loved us, even the people who have hurt us. We're pack rats. We store away bits and pieces and somehow they turn into selves that become an I."
• Listing the similes, metaphors, and other figures of speech in The Lilith Summer.

At the point in the novel where "All of us are many people..." appears, more formalized pre-writing preparation and actual writing of the poem should occur. The following activities are listed as they should be introduced:

• Brainstorm a list of human emotions. "Page 306. Feelings" in The Social Studies Teacher's Book of Lists is helpful in building vocabulary. (Class activity)
• In their writing journals, the children should then list at least 10 emotions they have experienced in their lives, which have made them "who they are today." (Activity begun in class, finished for homework) Remind them that we are indeed a compilation of all that we've experienced. The children should include a specific event which precipitated each emotion; e.g., sorrow (when my pet cat, Mr. Fuzz was run over) or embarrassed (when I slipped and fell on the ice in the schoolyard and everyone laughed at me) or frightened (during the big wind storm last week when I thought the huge tree near my house was going to crash down on my bedroom)

Read the poem, "Wilderness" by Carl Sandburg to the children. Discuss the metaphors. (Class activity)

Students add to their "emotions lists" a metaphor for each emotional experience...an animal or natural object which will stand for the emotion; e.g.,

sorrow a weeping willow in the rain

anger the ocean on a stormy, gray day

fear a lost child

Explain the form this poem will take, one similar to "The Wilderness."

There's a ___(noun)_____ inside of me.... a , ___(adjective)___ , ___(adjective)__ ___(noun)_____....

it __(verb)___ and ....__(adverb) (verb) ... when I'm __(adjective)_____when __(adjectives, nouns, verbs) (explanation of what causes the emotion)

I keep (it) because________________. (optional...combination of adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs)