Monday, December 13, 2010

In Here is a Magical Place - #258



Today I tried to write something funnier than I've been writing lately.  I like writing true things, and part of the truth of life is humor.  Well, this poem is true in our family.  Sometimes I have to call several times to get people away from their books and magazines and newspapers all stacked up on the back of the toilet!

Students - one of the most fun parts of this poem was trying to make it a surprise.  I am hoping that people who read it will not know what it's about until they get to the part where the word "bathroom" shows up.  When my husband read it aloud (that helps me revise), I could tell from his face that he was surprised, and I was happy.  If you write a poem with a surprise, you will need to think about that when you title it too.  Mysterious titles help keep secrets.  For example, if I'd titled this, "The Bathroom," you would have known what it was about from the very first line!

Here's a photograph of our upstairs toilet...see what I mean?  (I put the picture at the bottom so that you wouldn't know right away what the poem was about.)

Toilet Top
Photo by Amy LV

(Please click on COMMENTS below to share a thought.)

5 comments:

  1. Amy - you really did surprise me! I thought for sure your secret place was going to be your closet/elevator!

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  2. Susan, You would have giggled to hear our children read this. Henry knew what it was about right away! I always think about Jim Trelease saying that having books in the three B places really matters for developing readers: bathroom, breakfast table, bed. Hee hee! A.

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  3. Hi Amy --
    I'm with some 4th graders and they think this is one of the funniest poems ever! Thanks for sharing. A lot of us are going to try a surprise inside our poems today.
    Ruth
    PS Nice toilet!

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  4. Hi Fourth Graders, Thank you for laughing! That was my biggest hope with this poem. I would love to read your surprise poems if you ever want to share them. It's fun to come up with that little twist in there. A.
    ps - A bookshelf in the bathroom is a wonder to behold!

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  5. Hi Amy,
    One of my 6th grade students loved this too! He thought it was a bedroom. We've been working on inferencing, so this was great. Thanks!
    Stacey

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