Poetry in Your Pudding

My students recently read through and discussed Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street to learn the lesson's it teaches about great writing.  We have then been using those lessons to write our own stories called "Nothing Ever Happens in Miss Staudt's Class" and they are a riot!  Asking 'what if?' questions to guide our brainstorming lead to some incredibly hilarious story starters - including my favorite singer coming in the room and me fainting!  Another one that caught me off guard and had me laughing began with the idea that we came into the room and there was a large deer standing on my desk!  We did some peer editing today and will be typing our final copies tomorrow and then I'll be sure to share some of the funnies!

But for now, I'll share some of the anchor charts we made about figurative language.  The base text of each of my charts came from the information shared on printable posters here, but as we explored each idea we then made up our own examples to add to the charts.  We've got them hanging up on our back white board right now because we're referencing them - later they'll be moved to a different wall.  In Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street they gave the advice to "put some poetry in your pudding" - make things unexpected and play with the language - that's what you do with figurative language devices and we are having such fun with them!

Also, isn't "put some poetry in your pudding" just a fun phrase to say?? :)

*Don't mind our 'West' sign - we labeled our walls early in the year when we were reviewing the cardinal directions in social studies!