Read Actively

Persona Poem & Haiku

Title : name of the author of the poem

Line 1: first name/nickname of the person in the poem
Line 2: 4 adjectives which describe the person
Line 3: X of Y formula, about an important relationship to the person
Line 4: 3 things s/he loves
Line 5:3 things that scare her/him
Line 6: 3 things s/he wants to see
Line 7: resident of...a place or time or concept
Line 8: last name of the person in the poem Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry. It often centers around nature.

HAIKU

Haiku poems don’t rhyme; they follow a pattern. The pattern for haiku is the
following:

Line 1: 5 syllables
Line 2: 7 syllables
Line 3: 5 syllables

Examples:

Here's a Haiku to help you remember:

1. Haiku

I am first with five
Then seven in the middle --
Five again to end.

2. The Rainbow

After summer's rain
God's promise is remembered
glorious rainbow


3. Snowflakes

Snowflakes are our friends
They descend when winter comes
Making white blankets

Poetry

Elements of Poetry

More PowerPoint presentations from TanyaTravis

Sensory Images
Very Earlyby: Karla Kusskin

When I wake in the early mist
The sun has hardly shown
And everything is still asleep
And I'm awake alone.
The stars are faint and flickering.
The Sun is new and shy.
And all the world sleeps quietly,
Except the sun and I.
And then beginning noise start,
The whirrs and huff and hums,
The birds peep out to find a worm,
The mice squek out for crumbs,
The calf moos out to find the cow,
And taste the morning air
And everything is wide awake
And running everywhere.
The dew has dried
The fields are warm,
The day is loud and brighter,
And the I'm the one who woke the sun
And kissed the stars goodnigt.


Rhyme

Bugs and worms come out in spring
They wiggle, squiggle,fly,and sting
Some are brown and some are green
Some so small they can't be seen.

Fuzzy wuzzy,creepy crawly
Catepillar funny
You will be a butterfly
When the days are sunny .

The soft white snow
Like cotton fell
Covering the earth
From head to ___________.

The rabbits hopped
The horses shied
While in the tree
The robins ___________
To listen to the spring.

There is no one in the world like Pop.
I laugh at him til I can't ___________.
He's round and fat and jolly, too.
There's nothing that he cannot ___________.




Alliteration and Onomatopoeia

1)The firecrackers snapped in the dark light
While sizzling sparklers flashed bright light.

2) When the attic floor creaked
Flashes of moonlight streaked
Across the ancient window
While thunder beat a crescendo.

3)The mighty surf crashed the shore
The bubbles bursting in foam
Angry gulls cried overhead
And they wheeled away toward home.

4) As the parade passed by
The trumpets blared
And the drums beat a rapid tattoo
The crowd roared and saluted the flag
Waving banners of every hue.

After Twenty Years

THE COP MOVED ALONG THE STREET, LOOKING strong and important. This was the way he always moved. He was not thinking of how he looked. There were few people on the street to see him. It was only about ten at night, but it was cold and there was a wind with a little rain in it.

He stopped at doors as he walked along, trying each door to be sure that it was closed for the night. Now and then he turned and looked up and down the street. He was a fine-looking cop, watchful, guarding the peace.

People in this part of the city went home early. Now and then you might see the lights of a shop or of a small restaurant, but most of the doors belonged to business places that had been closed hours ago.

Then the cop suddenly slowed his walk. Near the door of a darkened shop a man was standing. As the cop walked toward him, the man spoke quickly.

“It’s all right, officer,” he said. “I’m waiting for a friend. Twenty years ago we agreed to meet here tonight. It sounds strange to you, doesn’t it? I’ll explain if you want to be sure that everything’s all right. About twenty years ago there was a restaurant where this shop stands. ‘Big Joe’ Brady’s restaurant.”

“It was here until five years ago,” said the cop.

The man near the door had a colorless square face with bright eyes, and a little white mark near his right eye. He had a large jewel in his necktie.

“Twenty years ago tonight,” said the man, “I had dinner here with Jimmy Wells. He was my best friend and the best fellow in the world. He and I grew up together here in New York, like two brothers. I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty. The next morning I was to start for the West. I was going to find a job and make a great success. You couldn’t have pulled Jimmy out of New York. He thought it was the only place on earth.

“We agreed that night that we would meet here again in twenty years. We thought that in twenty years we would know what kind of men we were, and what future waited for us.”

“It sounds interesting,” said the cop. “A long time between meetings, it seems to me. Have you heard from your friend since you went West?”

“Yes, for a time we did write to each other,” said the man, “but after a year or two, we stopped. The West is big. I moved around everywhere, and I moved quickly. I know that Jimmy will meet me here if he can. He was as true as any man in the world. He’ll never forget. I came a thousand miles to stand here tonight, but I’ll be glad about that, if my old friend comes too.”

The waiting man took out a fine watch, covered with small jewels.

“Three minutes before ten,” he said. “It was ten that night when we said goodbye here at the restaurant door.”

 “You were successful in the West, weren’t you?” asked the cop.

“I surely was! I hope Jimmy has done half as well. He was a slow mover. I’ve had to fight for my success. In New York a man doesn’t change much. In the West you learn how to fight for what you get.”

The cop took a step or two.

“I’ll go on my way,” he said. “I hope your friend comes all right.

If he isn’t here at ten, are you going to leave?”

“I am not!” said the other. “I’ll wait half an hour, at least. If Jimmy is alive on earth, he’ll be here by that time. Good night, officer.”

“Good night,” said the cop, and walked away, trying doors as he went.

There was now a cold rain falling and the wind was stronger. The few people walking along that street were hurrying, trying to keep warm.

At the door of the shop stood the man who had come a thousand miles to meet a friend. Such a meeting could not be certain, but he waited.

About twenty minutes he waited, and then a tall man in a long coat came hurrying across the street. He went directly to the waiting man.

“Is that you, Bob?” he asked, doubtfully.

“Is that you, Jimmy Wells?” cried the man at the door.

The new man took the other man’s hands in his. “It’s Bob! It surely is. I was certain I would find you here if you were still alive. Twenty years is a long time. The old restaurant is gone, Bob. I wish it were here, so that we could have another dinner in it. Has the West been good to you?”

“It gave me everything I asked for. You’ve changed, Jimmy. I never thought you were so tall.”

“Oh, I grew a little after I was twenty.”

“Are you doing well in New York, Jimmy?”

“Well enough. I work for the city. Come on, Bob, We’ll go to a place I know, and have a good long talk about old times.”

The two men started along the street, arm in arm. The man from the West was beginning to tell the story of his life. The other, with his coat up to his ears, listened with interest.

At the corner stood a shop bright with electric lights. When they came near, each turned to look at the other’s face.

The man from the West stopped suddenly and pulled his arm away.

“You’re not Jimmy Wells,” he said. “Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to change the shape of a man’s nose.”

“It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one,” said the tall man. “You’ve been under arrest for ten minutes, Bob. Chicago cops thought you might be coming to New York. They told us to watch for

you. Are you coming with me quietly? That’s wise, but first here is something I was asked to give you. You may read it here at the window. It’s from a cop named Wells.”

The man from the West opened the little piece of paper. His hand began to shake a little as he read.

“Bob: I was at the place on time. I saw the face of the man wanted by Chicago cops. I didn’t want to arrest you myself. So I went and got another cop and sent him to do the job.
JIMMY.”

Parts of Speech

Pronouns

Nouns

The Open Window

 

Title: The Open Window
Author: H.H. Munro
Pre-reading: Vocabulary



1. endeavored: to make an effort to do something : Try, attempt
2. flatter: to judge favorably
3. migrate: to move from one country or place to another
4. moping: to become dull, dejected, or listless
5. communion: a sharing of something with others
6. rectory: the residence of a rector or a parish priest
7. tragedy: a disastrous event : also : MISFORTUNE
8. moor: : an expanse of open rolling infertile land
9. treachery: violation of allegiance or trust
10. bog: wet, spongy, poorly drained, and usually acid ground
11. faltering: to hesitate in speech : STAMMER
12. creepy: having or producing a nervous shivery fear
13. shudder: tremble : QUAKE
14. bustled: to move or work in a brisk busy manner
15. ghastly: horrible : SHOCKING
16. avoidance: to keep away from
17. acquaintance: a person whom one knows
18. burdened: to increase the weight of by adding something
19. dimly: not seeing or understanding clearly
20. bolt: to move suddenly (as in fright or hurry)
21. snarl: to growl angrily or threateningly


The Open Window
By: H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)

My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."

Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing

"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.

"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."

He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.

"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.

"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's time."

"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"

"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favorite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window--"

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.

"She has been very interesting," said Framton.

"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men folk, isn't it?"

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who labored under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.

"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention--but not to what Framton was saying.

"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.

"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."

Romance at short notice was her specialty.

Editing Marks

Capitalization Rules

1) Capitalize the pronoun I.

Example: Jennifer and I went to the movies yesterday.

2) Capitalize the first letter of the first word of each sentence.

Example: Learning to capitalize correctly will improve your writing.

3) Capitalize the first letter of names of people, organizations, and
     places.

Example: Juan went on a trip to Tokyo, Japan for his company, General Motors Corporation.

4) Capitalize the first letter of adjectives that are made from the
     names of people and places.

Example: I like Mexican food.

5) Capitalize initials

Example: My brother's favorite author is H.G. Wells.

6) Capitalize the first letter of directions only when they are used
     to designate actual places, not when they point in a direction.

Example: When we visited the Southwest, we actually had to drive north.

7) Capitalize the first letter of the names of months and
     the days of the week.

Example: My birthday will be on a Friday next June.

8) Capitalize the official title of a person (including abbreviations),
     but only when you use it with the person's name.

Example: Did Clarissa recommend Dr. Montoya to you?

9) Capitalize words used as names or parts of names.

Example: Did Uncle George call my mom to tell her our grandmother is with Dad?

10) Capitalize the first letter of important words in a title of a
      book, magazine, story, essay, etc.

Example: I enjoyed Mark's essay, "The Truth About Being a Good Student."

11) Capitalize historical events and documents.

Example: The Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the Civil War.

12) Capitalize the name of languages, races, nationalities, and
      religions.

Example: I learned in Spanish class that several Hispanics are Catholic.

13) Capitalize acronyms. (An acronym is a word formed by the
      first, or first few, letters of words in a long name of an
      organization.)

Example: CARE is the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere.

14) Capitalize initialisms. (An initialism is similar to acronym, but
      a word is not formed from the letters.)

Example: The Central Intelligence Agency is simply known as the CIA.