Don't Bring Camels in the Classroom



Don't Bring Camels in the Classroom

Don't bring camels in the classroom.

Don't bring scorpions to school.

Don't bring rhinos, rats, or reindeer.

Don't bring mice or moose or mule.

Pull your penguin off the playground.

Put your python in a tree.

Place your platypus wherever

you think platypi should be.

Lose your leopard and your lemur.

Leave your llama and your leech.

Take your tiger, toad, and toucan

anywhere but where they teach.

Send your wombat and your weasel

with your wasp and wolverine.

Hide your hedgehog and hyena

where you're sure they won't be seen.

Please get rid of your gorilla.

Please kick out your kangaroo.

No, the teacher didn't mean it

when she called the class a "zoo."

Kenn Nesbitt

A. Read and translate the poem.

B. Answer the questions.

1. What kind of sentences does the poem consist of?

2. What is happening in the classroom, according to the poem?

3. Why does the poem make the reader smile?

4. Did the teacher use literal or figurative meaning of the word when she called the class a "zoo"? What did she mean?

5. What words in the poem rhyme?

6. What sounds are repeated in the poem? How is this repetition called?

7. What effect do you think it has in this poem?

C. Imagine the animals in their natural surroundings. Think of some adjectives to characterize the animals.

e.g. The camel is a large animal. It lives in the desert. It's hot and dry there. The camel eats prickly plants. It can do without water for a long time. The camel is slow, calm, and lazy.

D. Write your own poem.

1. Think of different situations when you were angry, excited, proud, scared, lonely, lazy, hungry, tired, hot, cold, etc. Think of the setting (when and where you felt like that), e.g. doing a sport, playing a game, trying on clothes in front of the mirror, catching a bus, doing the shopping, helping about the house, writing a test, staying alone at home.

2. Compare your behaviour in these situations to the behaviour of some animals, using simile, e.g. I'm as tired as an ant carrying a large caterpillar, or I'm like a thirsty camel which is crossing the desert.

3. You can remove the words like or as, and use a metaphor instead of a simile. You can also add some exaggeration to your image, e.g. I'm an ant carrying a whale, I'm a camel which has crossed a thousand deserts.

4. Think of some unusual word combinations to make the picture more vivid. If possible, try to use alliteration (find some examples in the poems below).

5. Try to use irony and suspense. Keep your reader interested by telling him what is really happening only at the end of your poem.

|My legs are as fast as cheetah's, |I'm a tiny cockroach |

|My stomach's a howling wolf, |crawling in the dark, |

|my arms are slippery snakes, |I'm a fish among the corals |

|I'm a gluttonous gull |hiding from a shark, |

|diving into the hungry waves |I'm a skinny scared snail |

|of the dining room during the break … |shrinking in my shell. |

|Hurray! I've bought a cake! |Please don't ask me, teacher! |

| |Where is the bell?... |

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