A Little Limerick, Anyone?

Claudia, with her recent post that includes a haiku, reminded me that April is Poetry Month. I'm not refined enough for haiku. Something edgy? Something that borders on offensive? That's more my style...

I love limericks. I especially love writing round-robin limericks. When a certain group of writer friends get together, we ask for extra cocktail napkins wherever we're dining, and each of us writes a first line of a limerick, and then we all pass in the same direction. Each person writes a line and then passes, until each napkin has a finished limerick to share with the group.

 What is a limerick? According to one source, "a limerick is a humorous poem consisting of five lines. The first, second, and fifth lines must have seven to ten syllables while rhyming and having the same verbal rhythm. The third and fourth lines only have to have five to seven syllables, and have to rhyme with each other and have the same rhythm..."

Often, limericks have made-up words (or made-up endings to words) to adhere to the rhyme scheme. Once we were in an Italian restaurant and our waiter's name was Fabio. Our table cloth was made of paper. We ended up writing a limerick for our server on the tablecloth as part of his tip. It went something like this (and honestly, I only remember the first line and the fifth line rhymes,,,The rest is made up):

There once was a man named Fabio--
Who waited on us for his jobio.
He brought food so fast--
It made us aghast.
Later, we all felt quite flabbio.

Here's a better one:

There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comments arose
On the state of her clothes,
She replied, "When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez."—Ogden Nash


I'm tossing out a few first lines for limericks. You pick one, write the other 4 lines, and include it as your comment (if you'd care to). Or (probably better yet), ignore my suggestions. Come up with all 5 lines, and share with the rest of us.

• Sweet Linda wrote and lived in the St. Lou

• There once was a lucky gambler named Val 

• There once was great baker named Lynn

• There once was a sweet dog owner named Pat

Come on... It'll be loads of fun.

A Tough Room and Back-of-the-Book Blurb Friday #54

       It was a tough room yesterday. Eighty or so middle-school students packed into one room, they hadn't had their snack yet (and it was almost 11:00)

and they were itching to shoot something down.

       Yesterday our students participated in a mock assembly of the United Nations. They represented countries that included Australia, Niger, Japan, Burma, Fiji, France and Ghana. Two of the countries from our school presented their resolutions---the way they wanted to solve a UN-worthy problem. (A middle school from Ladue and one from Webster Groves were also there.)

      The first one from our school, representing Australia, got shot down. It was a resolution concerning Aboriginal rights. The resolution was proposed, discussed, questions and concerns were addressed, and then was voted on. I felt bad for the sponsor from Australia. This was my first year doing this program, and I saw the things I should have coached her with. She'd worked hard, and had done tons of research.

      Later in the morning, the two sponsors from Ghana presented their resolution about electricity. Before they even got up, students from other schools said to Ghana, "Oh, we have a lot of questions for you guys" (because they all had hard copies of the resolutions).

      The sharks were circling.

      At one point, a sponsor from another country brought up the point, "You're proposing to pay the Ghana workers only $__, a wage that is far below the minimum wage," and inside, I cheered... 'cause I knew Ghana had done their research and their numbers were spot-on.

     When it came time to address the questions, one of the Ghana sponsors said, "Workers in Ghana only make $___ "(I think it's the equivalent of 75 cents an hour). "If we paid them more, it would inflate their economy." She had done her homework, and had even converted it into US dollars.

     Their resolution passed.

      On the bus ride back to school, I said to the student representing Australia, "I hope you don't feel bad, since your resolution didn't pass."

       Her huge grin said it all. "Not at all," she said. She'd spoken to a big group of people. She had a teacher who was videotaping her (me). She was surrounded by a blood-thirsty group of starving (they thought literally) middle-schoolers... and she'd survived.

    

My students at the Civitas General Assembly--a mock UN program

And now, onto book blurb stuff.

Look at the photo below. That is the cover of your book. You choose the genre. An informational book on car mini Mariachi bands? A crime story about little boys who form a gang of robbers? You decide.

Write an enticing blurb--150 words or less. (The title doesn't count in the word count.) Blurbs are those enticing bits that prod you into buying the book. Sometimes they're on the back cover of the book. Sometimes they're on the inside front cover. What they always try to do is lure you into purchasing the book.

Lisa Ricard Claro was the original creator of this writing challenge. However, she's been busy for the last few years. Eating lunch with Cathy Hall. Up to her armpits with work from her editing business. Working on her own writing...

Include your blurb in a blog post. Include a link to this post. Also, link your post to Mr. Linky. Mr. Linky is easy. If you've never done it, you'll be impressed with how simple he is. And then, check out the other blurb(s). It's interesting to see the different directions writers take, given the same photo.

Here's the book cover, along with my blurb:

photo by pixabay

An Orange Stranger From a Strange Land

America is angry. Paris is pissed. Even the gods are sending down lightning bolts of rage.

The country that was once gifted a beautiful iron woman, cloaked in copper, might now close her borders. The country that once welcomed the “wretched refuse” from all over the world might snatch up her welcome mat.

And it’s all because of their leader.

Thrown into a crisis that rocks the entire world, this orange alien who now controls the country spends his days golfing and his nights tweeting and spewing, oblivious to the damage that’s being done to the nation.

Will the country survive? Will the leader’s duties interfere with his golf, causing him to resign? Will the people demand that the orange man goes back to where he came from--back to his gold-coated planet. Or will his thumbs become paralyzed from too much tweeting, and then the paralysis spreads to his brain? (150 words)

And for those bloggers who want a sneak-peek at next week's photo, here it is:

photo by pixabay

Be Careful What You Wish For...

In my previous post, I wrote about the wonderful rejection I received. I had submitted to an educational journal (not something I read these days, and definitely not something I've ever written for). I was disappointed, but got paragraphs-worth of specific suggestions on how to improve my piece.

What I didn't tell you was a fellow teacher named Katie was the one who told me about the journal's call for submissions. She submitted a piece she wrote with another educator and--unbeknownst to me until a couple of days ago--is on her fourth revision.

Great news, right? They want it, and Katie and her colleague are fine-tuning it.

Well, it doesn't sound so great.

Reviewer # 1 loved their article. Reviewer # 2 hated it (they of course did not use such blunt words), so the two of them worked on completely revamping the piece. (With this publication, the reviewers/editors always work in pairs.)

They sent it back.

photo by pixabay

With reviewer # 3 and #4, more revisions were asked for. They worked on it and it's been looked at by a third wave of editors. Again, more revisions are being asked for.

Currently, if she is honest, my friend said, "We're on our 20th draft." She admitted that if the piece is not accepted this time, they're through. 

One of the reviewers requested more of a "how to" article. How can we teach writing? Add water and stir? Do #1, #2 and #3 and your students will be writers? Absolutely not.  

They're battling with how-can-we-voice-what's-really-in-our-hearts-while-at-the-same-time-appeasing-our-editors? In their latest draft, their piece talks about the paradigm shift teachers must make (they must think of themselves as writers and see writing as a process and not a product), that there is no laundry list of steps a teacher can take.

Will the 20th time be the one that gets a yes? We'll see...  

Rejected--With Lots of Feedback, and Back-of-the Book Blurb #53

I recently submitted an article to NCTE's (National Council of Teachers of English) journal for middle school teachers. (It was my first time to submit to them.) It was an article about doing NaNoWriMo with my students. The piece was not accepted, but look at the incredible feedback I got: 

Reviewer #1: I enjoyed reading this article. The challenge of writing everyday with a word count goal is one I think I would have a hard time meeting. And, I would really like to know more about your students' response to the challenge. I have a few suggestions for revisions that I think would make your piece richer and more useful for other teachers.

First, it's a little hard to know whose story this is. I think it may be really yours and the students'. To give it more depth, I think you need to provide more detail about some very important parts of the story. I would shorten up the beginning 3 paragraphs so you can get to the experience with your sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students. I would also get more quickly to the NaNoWriMo unit. Making these revisions would give you more space to explore how you and the students learned about writing, the choices you made as writers, and what you and students learned about composing in a more detailed way. For example, I'm one of those people who had to look up the Tulsa riots to remind myself about the circumstances, and you addressed how reading about it or looking old newspapers gave you new ideas for not only your writing but also as a catalyst you shared with your students. And, I wondered about the students: Did your conversations with them provide new ways of thinking about their own writing? How? The sample comments from your students are a good start. 

The experience with NaNoWriMo was intended to help students become more fluent and confident writers not so driven by form. That you shared the experience with them is a practice that has long been held as important to the teaching of writing. This challenge added a new twist, I think, to the concept in that it was not only daily but also focused on writing a significant amount every day. I'm not quite sure yet about the significance of what you learned about yourself as a writer or "how tightly-knit [your] community had become."

I'll end with a couple of last thoughts. You have a really pleasant writing voice. You hold yourself up to a writer's mirror and assess yourself with honesty and hope. What you need to do now is hone this story and make every word count--you don't have that many to use! 

Reviewer #2: I think it would be powerful to start the article with what you were noticing in your classroom with your current students. Try beginning with paragraph 3 on page 1. Starting with your own Nano experience and then moving in to comparing your old and new school distracts from the point of this article: what happens when teachers write with their students. Focusing in on this experience from the beginning will strengthen your point. I found the first two paragraphs distracting and am not sure how they support the overall idea.

I'd also like more explicit reflection on how a teacher writing with students changed the experience for the students. I love that you used student voices. The quotes are powerful. But now expand on those. If I, or any teacher, am going to try this out in my own room I need to know why I should. In the abstract you ask how writing with students might impact the teacher...but I'm wondering if you might talk more about how it impacts students.

The article as a whole is mostly narrative. I would encourage you to weave in some research on teachers as writers. More reflection and more explicit explanation about how each interaction with a student caused a change in his/her thinking about writing might be another thing to try. You talk about moving around the room, sitting by different writers, and give snippets of conversations you had. How did that kind of teaching, as opposed to not writing with them, change the students view/understanding of writing?

Wow! Of course, I'm disappointed they didn't fall in love with it and snap it up. However, I am so appreciative of the feedback. Maybe I'll get closer to an acceptance the next time I submit to them.

And now, onto this week's book blurb :

Look at the photo below. That is the cover of your book. You choose the genre. An informational book on historic neon signs? A crime story about gamblers in a flashy desert city? You decide.

Write an enticing blurb--150 words or less. (The title doesn't count in the word count.) Blurbs are those enticing bits that prod you into buying the book. Sometimes they're on the back cover of the book. Sometimes they're on the inside front cover. What they always try to do is lure you into purchasing the book.

Lisa Ricard Claro was the original creator of this writing challenge. However, she's been busy for the last few years. She's gotten published a three-novel series, and currently, is taking over the Korean children's book market. Watch out! She has sharp elbows and even sharper ideas. If you get in her way when she's on a writing roll (or if she step in her path when she's on her way to see the movie Beauty and the Beast) she might just jab you with those deadly elbows.

Include your blurb in a blog post. Include a link to this post. Also, link your post to Mr. Linky. Mr. Linky is easy. If you've never done it, you'll be impressed with how simple he is. And then, check out the other blurb(s). It's interesting to see the different directions writers take, given the same photo.

Here's the book cover, along with my blurb:

photo by pixabay

Viva Las Vegas

Elvis Presley’s alive. He’s not a hunka-hunka burnin’ love anymore but he does eat hunks of bread, deep-fried and still burnin’ hot. He might choose to wear :blue suede shoes but why bother? He can’t see his feet these days. And when he dances in his own kitchen, alone, his belly jiggles so much, it resembles a milk shake that’s getting all shook up in the blender.

When he goes shopping (which he does rarely), people have a little less conversation and make a lot more snide remarks. Don’t be cruel, he insists inside his head… but he never says it out loud.

He doesn’t live out loud, either. Elvis is forced to wear disguises and live like a recluse.

Presley decides enough is enough. He’s 82 now, people were fooled into thinking he died almost forty years ago, so it’s time to reveal the truth…

… in Las Vegas. (150 words)

And here is next week's photo, if you would like to let your ideas percolate:

photo by pixabay

Today's Young People

There's lots of talk about the youth of today. How they're self-centered. How they're shallow.

However, do we challenge them enough? Do we give them opportunities to think of others? Do ensure they have the guidance and the chance to do something selfless?

My middle-schoolers are working on resolutions for Civitas. Civitas is an organization here in St. Louis that--every year--hosts several mock-general assemblies of the United Nations. Earlier in the school year students did research, chose a country, and then studied what problems they're grappling with.

Our resolutions
All 20 resolutions from my students cannot be discussed, as there will be two other schools meeting on the same day as we do. Therefore, two resolutions have been chosen: Ghana's resolution and Australia's resolution. (Go to the link right under the photo--from last year--to see the resolutions that are "live" so far.)

The students will present the resolution. The representatives from the other countries will take notes, and then have a chance to voice their concerns and suggestions. Then, each one will be voted on.

This is a free program, and has gotten my students so excited about real world problems. Who knows? Some day, they might actually become a member of the United Nations...

Support and Celebration, Along With Back-of-the-Book Blurb Friday # 52

A few days ago, Lynn wrote a post about pie. She asked what her followers favorite pie was, and mentioned we'd be having pie (at our critique meeting this past Wednesday) to celebrate me making it into the Listen to Your Mother show.

I didn't reply. I knew that even if I said, "My favorite pie is Norma Rae's raisin and French fig," (a made-up pie) she'd surf the internet and then failing to find it, would improvise. Lynn is like that. She'll find out what our favorite pie/cake/candy/entree is, file it away, and then--voila--she prepares it when it's our birthday or some other special occasion.

Lynn's also a master baker. She makes her melt-in-your-mouth pie crusts from scratch.

On Wednesday, I was hoping for coconut pie. I hate coconut, which meant I could easily resist eating a piece. 

What I found (instead of coconut creme pie) was irresistible. Lynn made my grandmother's chocolate chiffon pie. It was sponge-y. It was decadent and it was spectacular. She had gotten the recipe from me years ago and--of course--had not misplaced it.

(Perhaps you can't see them in this photo, but the sign of a great chocolate chiffon pie are the tiny air pockets, which come from the whipped egg whites that are folded into the chocolate mixture. It makes a light and frothy filling. I was at least glad to hear that Lynn doubts her "folding" ability when it comes to baking because I do, too. I always wonder if I am indeed folding, or if I'm merely stirring in a screwy way, resulting in a heavier pie.)

What my critique partners know is that my story would not have been accepted as a Listen to Your Mother piece in its original form. It's a story about my son, and I worded some details that made the reader think that, well... well, the way I wrote it, it seemed like my son and I had an unnatural (and illegal) relationship. If I hadn't gotten a great deal of much-needed constructive criticism, after I auditioned, the show's producers would have called the DFS child abuse hotline on me.

Thankfully, I got the support and help I needed before the audition happened. And when we met this past Wednesday, we found we had a more important reason to celebrate: Kim has a new grandson. (Kim's daughter has been trying to start a family, she and her husband waded through piles of paperwork and created a video and two-and-a-half weeks after their story went "live" on the site, she got a call... and a baby boy.) Congratulations, Kim!

And now--onto that book blurb stuff... 

Look at the photo below. That is the cover of your book. You choose the genre. An informational book on car mini Mariachi bands? A crime story about little boys who form a gang of robbers? You decide.

Write an enticing blurb--150 words or less. (The title doesn't count in the word count.) Blurbs are those enticing bits that prod you into buying the book. Sometimes they're on the back cover of the book. Sometimes they're on the inside front cover. What they always try to do is lure you into purchasing the book.

Lisa Ricard Claro was the original creator of this writing challenge. However, she's been busy for the last few years. A three-book publishing deal. Another novel (or two) in the works. Building up her editing business...

Include your blurb in a blog post. Include a link to this post. Also, link your post to Mr. Linky. Mr. Linky is easy. If you've never done it, you'll be impressed with how simple he is. And then, check out the other blurb(s). It's interesting to see the different directions writers take, given the same photo.

Here's the book cover, along with my blurb:

photo by pixabay

Getting Rich to Get Candy

Juan and Carlos loved candy, and they loved Sour Patch Kids candy the best. When they’d do their chores or make good grades in school, they’d beg for the makes-your-mouth-pucker stuff, but their parents believed in only nature’s candy: fruit. In the Gonzalez house, it was all healthy, nutritious food, all the time.

The boys dreamed of the sugary stuff… so they came up with a plan to make some money so they could buy their own candy.

Picking a spot on the street near their home, Juan and Carlos set up their own miniature musical venue. They borrowed some accordions their uncle had up in his attic, and started playing.

Will they be able to teach themselves how to play the buttonbox? Will they learn to squeeze some pleasant tunes out of the squeezebox? Or will they start making the most money from people who beg them to stop? (150 words)

And for Val, who likes to work ahead, here is the photo for next week.

photo by pixabay