Graduation was yesterday, so for two blissful weeks I will be without homework. There will be no papers to grade, no lessons to prepare, no reports to write. Come this time of year I am tired of the homework. For my friends in public schools and all their darling students, they feel this weariness as well. Given this, I thought it might be a fine time to write a poem about homework.
So, there's your challenge. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
So, there's your challenge. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Homework
ReplyDeleteMy teacher assigned me to write a report
on the habits of honeybees.
I wish she had asked about habits of kids—
I know a lot more about these.
For example, "Please tell where the animal lives."
I know just where kids can be found.
They spend time in classrooms, or on monkey bars,
dangling their heads upside down.
What do they eat? Hamburgers with catsup,
or pizza, taquitos, and chips.
Plus ten kinds of candy and slurpies and slushees
that give them strange colors of lips.
We have to report on communication,
and kids do a whole lot of that.
"No, you can't make me go to the dentist!"
Plus meowing right back at the cat.
Behavior: kids play on computers and text
or spend time interacting with balls.
They can also be seen with markers of green
writing words on the living room walls.
Too many people write about bees
and their boring behavior in the wild.
But I would be happy to write a report
on the habits of the human child.
--Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved
What fun, Kate! Now I am going to be observing the habits of my own children and imagining them as report fodder. It's especially funny because students are always writing reports including these exact headings!
ReplyDeleteHomework Spot
I have a desk up in my room
with a lamp
a drawer
and a chair.
It's quiet.
No one interrupts
but I can't do homework there.
I work at a table in our kitchen
downstairs
with everyone around --
Mom making dinner
dog on my feet.
I ask
"How does this sound?"
Everyone listens
as I read my poem
or my problems
from math
that day.
You might work at a desk
in your room
but I like to be in the way.
© Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
NO HOMEWORK
ReplyDeleteBy Steven Withrow
No ravenous dog.
No Martian invasion.
No thirty-mile slog
To a family occasion.
No sudden swine flu.
No CIA visit.
I’d homework to do.
You wonder, “Where is it?”
No grandmother died.
No nibbled by mouses.
No night trapped inside
The most haunted of houses.
No transformer crashed
Blacking out my whole block.
No asteroid smashed
Shelling me such a shock
That the part of my head
Where I store my assignments
Was tattered to shreds
And knocked out of alignment.
No bully’s reprisal.
No baby bro’s vomit.
No search of the skies
For a hundred-year comet.
No freak springtime snow.
No lottery winnings.
No open bus window.
No game past nine innings.
You say, “Give it here.
No lies. No excuses.”
Is this the cold fear
That NO HOMEWORK induces?
Home Work
ReplyDeleteReading Log: Friday 6:35 am
The Great Brain, Chapter One
Read "The Magic Water Closet"
out loud in the bathroom
while first-grader
with mercenary tendencies soaks
filthy fingernails in the tub.
Upper Elementary Media Studies: Saturday 8:30 pm
In 90 minutes, conceive, cast, script, make up and costume four amateur actors for a short film entitled "Small Talk: the YouTube talk show about everything too insignificant to matter!" Extra credit for including a theme song to the tune of "Heart and Soul."
Advanced Logistics: Saturday, 10 am
If travel time from home to
Camp Open House Destination A
is 30 minutes and travel time from there to
Camp Open House Destination B
is an additional 20 minutes,
and if Soccer Game A begins at 1:30
and Soccer Game B begins at 12:50,
1)how many cars are needed,
2)which Camp Open House Destination should be visited first, and
3)at what time should each Parent-Child pair depart for soccer?
Math Basic Facts: Sunday 12:20 pm
Mother's Day Smoked Salmon Spread
12 ounces smoked salmon =
16 ounces cream cheese.
Our smoked salmon says "NET WT 4 OZ".
How much cream cheese should we use,
which of the half-dozen plants
in the herb garden is the dill,
and where does the Wizard of Oz
come in?
Ha! Wonderful poems so far! On school visits, I always share with kids the writing homework my editor gave me that I wasn't too thrilled about. So that's the homework I wrote a poem about:
ReplyDeleteHomework: Become a Snake
My editor said,
“Write a poem
about this picture”
Slithery snake
wearing a sly smile…
two tiny pink mouse feet
and one whip-slip tail
disappearing down
the snake’s throat
Couldn’t I just conjugate
“to swallow” in Latin?
Or write a 500-word report
on the habits and habitats of corn snakes?
Or diagram snake anatomy,
including spine and stomach, heart and fang?
But I am a writer, a poet, a magician.
I must be the snake,
undulate my muscles across fields,
soak August sun into my scales,
and feel the crunch of fragile mouse inside my mouth
and like it
--Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved
NOT AGAIN
ReplyDelete©By Mary Nida Smith
Ah, Mom
Homework
Not again tonight.
I know,
You told me before
If I do all my homework
I’ll be smarter tomorrow.
Ah, Mom
I am already smart.
I don’t have time,
There is much
To do outside
Like exploring
And learning
About nature.
Ah, Mom
Can’t I have any fun?
Yes, Mom, I’ll hurry
I’ll do my homework
So, I’ll be smarter
Tomorrow.
Ah, Mom
When I grow up
I’ll never do homework.
I’ll play and explore
While I tell
My kids that story,
Do your homework
You’ll be smarter tomorrow.
Ah, Mom
Not again!
A tanka:
ReplyDeletehis pencil breaks...
he slips out of his seat
to hug the dog
and to be reassured that
he's still a good boy
Very funny stuff! It's amazing how central homework is to our lives--even now. (Lesson planning definitely feels like homework, for example.) And Amy, parent as anthropologist sounds most entertaining!
ReplyDeleteComing Soon (I Hope)
ReplyDeleteBy Liz Korba
Someway, somewhere, someday
I know
They’ll make a homework pen.
Someway, somewhere, someday
For sure -
(Can hardly wait ‘til then.)
And YES
I will be buying one
Somehow, right there, that day.
This pen will do my homework –
Oh, at last, free time to play!