Onomatopoeia

This week at Belding, students read Edgar Allan Poe's Bells and talked about the many examples of onomatopoeia we use in daily speech. Each class created a list of onomatopoeic words, and filled the classroom blackboard with examples. Students then wrote their own onomatopoeic poems, focusing on the ways in which sound and musicality could be used to heighten the impact of their work.

Some student examples are below:

from Mr. Merrill's class

***

Bees Say

by Devanta

1. A bee that's kind and careful
that says all the time buzz buzz
buzz that have big eyes
as a fudge bar that have buzz
buzz buzz

2. A girl bee that is big as a whale
that says all the time the roof the roof
the roof is on fire so buzz buzz
buzz!!!

3. An old woman that was a bee bee bee
who said all the time that James
Brown is something that said
get on up get on up then after that
she says thank you thank you.

***

by Fardosa

Bang bang bang
is what I hear
drumming sounds
around the house
mailman humming down
the street, children
playing, laughing, growing
peacefully across the street
in my neighborhood. I am really bored but I
am glad to see and hear
these things today.

***

In the Pool

by Justine

When you are in the pool
you hear splash and boom
you hear laughing ha ha ha
then we go under water
and we make bubbles
you hear a pop pop pop.
When we go around in a crowd
we make a whirlpool you
hear it swooshing around water.

***

From Mr. Aivizian's class:

***

by Daniela

When say ring to
house-my aunt
dog-woof
ring-house
meow-cat
whisper-person
chime-mom
Shh-I

***

by Charmaine

The ding-dong show me it is a door bell.
The shhs show me how to be quiet.
The bang show me stop banging on my door bell.
Whisper show me you got to whisper in people's ears.
Woof like a dog barking at people and other cats.

***

by Warren

When someone rings
the door bell to come
to visit I let them in.
I love when the door bell goes
ding dong. It sound beautiful.
The people like to ring the doorbell.
And that's how the doorbell goes
ding dong.

***

from Ms. Navrocki's class:

***

Ching

by Sasha

I listen to the ching on the grandfather
clock...ching! Every hour...ching!
The chinging and ringing from the
pendulum. It is almost annoying but
then it stops and I hear a piano. It
was coming from the attic. I go up and
it stopped and I fell into a coffin. It
was over.

***

My Day in the City

by Loreyn

Hear the water in the sea, splash
splash, splash.

And the air in the sky woosh
woosh woosh

In the sea friendly sharks please
don't make the fish as a dish.

Cars in the city, pretty pretty but if
they crash dump, dump, dump.

Stars in the sky very very light then I wish
for a dish so I can eat tonight.

***

Splish splash bell

by Nathaniel

A well by the sea shore
the crab stole my sea shells

The shells sound like the bell of the
something sea floor

When the crab fell I got
back my shells

Now I can listen to my
sea shell bells.

Hope, and other things with feathers

This week at Belding, students read Emily Dickinson's Hope is the thing with feathers, and discussed Dickinson's personification, vivification, of hope. We explored the concept of personification, discussed its potential within a poem, and its uses to a poet as a tool of communication. Students responded to Dickinson's example with their own poems that gave human or animal attributes to an emotion. Some student examples are below:

from Mr. Merrill's class:

Happy

by Arnel

Happy looks like a yellow chick
learning how to walk
happy is a little chick cheeping
light sounds
happy is like a chick jumping.


***

Joy is the thing with fish

by Karim

Joy is the thing with fish
that searches for planktons
and that swims with its
lovely tunes and never stops
at all. Its fins are soft
as fluffy hair.

***

An elephant's anger

by Caleb

Anger has a tail. Anger has tusks.
Anger is in a circus
act.
And anger's name is
an
Elephant!


***

from Mr. Aivaizan's class

***

by Warren B.

Crocodile is an angry big animal.
He bites people's legs. He has blood
under his teeth. He eats somebody's
stuff. And he stomps his feet on the floor.
He also swims in the lake. And that's how
a lot of things when a crocodile gets angry.

***

Hopes was a bird

by Christopher

Because they had a lot of feathers and they eat
lots of fruit and berries and they also
fly at any single tree to land on it. The birds
were very beautiful and they had colors
on its feathers and that was
a hope for the person.

***

by Charmaine

Hope is I want
to go back
and live
with my
mom.

Hope is
scared
of
my
Godness.
Hope.

Hope is joyful
to me.

***

from Ms. Navrocki's class

***

Gale, the Strong Wind

by Katie G.

Gale, the strong wind always
whistles in the cold, rough afternoon.
If you make gale angry he
will try to destruct everything.
Horrible he is, horrible he always
will be.
If he calms down he is
as sweet as a bird
and makes the sun
shine like a beautiful shining firefly.

***

Love is a thing with hope

by Michelle

When you love
you hope she
or he likes you
and love is when
you like someone
a lot, and when you
love a animal
of hope
gets in you forever
and if he or she likes
you the animal of hope
gets in her or him.

***

Bored

by Rianne P.

"Bored" is the thing that sleeps throughout the
day. Just hangs on the tree, and
sleeps, and sleeps. It's all quiet
and it is night. As the jungle
sleeps the sloth just swings back
and forth on the tree. When
the sloth wakes up it goes back
to sleep. As the "mighty" plays and
hunts for prey the rest of the
tigers just watch and stay.