An ode to alliteration

Andrew Edwards

What do bouncing bunnies, wicked weasels and tiny turkeys have in

common?

The fictional animals are all featured in original poems written

by second-grade children in Carolyn Sczech’s class at Smith

Elementary School. When writing their short poems, many of the child

authors wrote about favorite animals engaged in humorous adventures.

Sczech concluded a series of lessons on poetry by asking her

children to write alliterative poems -- one-liners in which all the

words begin with the same letter. The lesson came after the class

learned about other poetic styles, like haiku and couplets.

Sczech started her children off with a few selections from

“Animalia,” an illustrated book of alliterative poems about animals

that cover the entire alphabet.

After Sczech read a few samples to the class, the children,

equipped with dictionaries and their own creativity, went to work on

their own creations.

The class’s assignment was to write several poems and then to draw

a picture of their favorite.

One of the first children to complete a line was 7-year-old

Victoria Loi, who wrote “Billions of bunnies bounced by the bay.”

Victoria provided a simple explanation of why she chose to write

about bouncing bunnies. “Because they’re my favorite animal,”

Victoria said.

Another student who got off to an early start was 8-year-old

Harrison Fitch, whose line, “One wicked weasel whipped a walrus,”

made the class laugh.

“Can you just picture what he’s going to draw?” Sczech asked the

class.

Harrison said he thought a weasel could use its tail to bother the

unfortunate pinniped in his poem. The idea, he said, came out of his

own imagination.

“I was thinking mostly in my head,” Harrison said.

Marisa Rapp, 7, was busy on a line about “tiny turkeys” and Texas.

“I just thought of a state and I put it together,” she said.

Several students flipped through dictionaries as they looked for

the perfect words to finish their poems. Christina Karidakis, 7, was

looking for words beginning with the letter “p” while trying to

complete a line about polar bears.

“I like snow animals,” she said.

After the children complete their poems and drawings, their

parents will be able to see the young poets’ literary achievements

after they are compiled into a book shown at Open House on May 27.