"A lot like whom we used to be"

"A lot like whom we used to be" 

by Heba Raed Abu Nimer
Comprehensive School"A", Village of Maghar

When time is on
We play for fun
On the beach, and under the sun
There is no limited time
If we are late, it's not a crime
If we're bored…we buy ice-cream
Enjoy it…sing and scream
Without feeling lazy...just getting crazy
Run as fast as we can
Not as a woman and not as a man
But like a children who run fast and free
'till we get to the blue sea
Play in salty water...if we get wet, it doesn't matter
We play hide and seek
Our happiness is like a fling streak
At the end of the day
Near the beach we lay
Watching the sunset
The sky is burning ... but no fire yet
It's time to say goodbye
To the sand and the blazing sky
We are home now… tired, and start to yawn
Lights are shut… sun goes down
Now...we might be in our beds
but the lovely memories... still in our heads

"...my mother's hair, my mother's hair, like little rosettes..."

This short story is one of the many wonderful vignettes found in Sandra Cisnero's The House on Mango Street. After reading and discussing this poem in class, students were drafted thier own version of this story by describing how they see their siblings' and their parents' hair.

He said, "NO to plaid!"

This poem was an exercise in "pronunciation": the crazy pronunciation rules that make up the English language. We often think that we know how to pronounce a 'new' word because it looks like a word we're familiar with... but we're not always right. Take a look at this poem and see if you can read it correctly. Don't get your tongue all tied up!

The Chaos
By Gerard Nolst Trenité 

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! 10
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say - said, pay - paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak...

... Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

More Than Just A House

We are in the middle of reading "The House on Mango Street" with a couple of groups. Students were asked to create questions about the story their reading, partly to get them out of the routing of reading-and-answering-questions, and to give them ample time to compose, edit, and pose questions to one another, and, of course, to work on their answers. They were encouraged to come up with questions that require more than a one-word response, beyond a simple 'name', 'date', 'place', or 'yes/no' answer. They struggled at first, but, with time on their side, they were able to generate appropriate questions that encourage their partners to make inferences based on the text, instead of merely looking up an answer that is spelled out for them in the story.