In Residence: Hungry for Poetry

It's field hockey night at the Shovan household. Julia and I won't get in until after 8 pm, so dinner is on the fly. The guys usually grab pizza on their way home. If us girls are lucky, there are a few slices leftover for us.

Every time he's in  Hoboken, my husband visits
Benny Tudino's, famous for it's giant slices of pizza.
On a recent trip, our son got to meet Benny himself!

As you can see, food is never simple. There is often a story behind the things we eat. It might be a tradition, like turkey on Thanksgiving, or it might be necessity, such as having to plan around a teenager's sports practice. Today, I'm sharing student food poems that revolve around restaurants.

When the Northfield third graders and I worked on food poems, we talked about the stories behind our meals. I asked students to aim for seven elements in their poems. Initially, we looked at the five senses -- so that we were thinking beyond how a food tastes:

1-5: Use your five senses to describe the food
1. Taste (texture, flavor)
2. Smell (connected to taste)
3. See
4. Touch (with fingers, in mouth)
5. Hear (cooking sounds, eating sounds -- opportunity for onomatopoeia)

Next, we like to include two important narrative elements.

6-7: Tell a story around your food
6. Setting (where are you?)
7. Characters/People (who are you with?)

BONUS: Include an onomatopoeia word

Our model poem for this lesson is "Good Hotdogs," by Sandra Cisneros. Here is the poem read by a student from the Wingra School in Wisconsin, which I found on YouTube.

I hope you're hungry! Here are today's third grade food poems.

Untitled
by Christopher W.

I just was at the Y,
now I am driving over
to McDonald's.
My mom goes through
the drive through.

The cheeseburger
in the wrapper
is warm. I see
the brown bun,
the yellow cheese,
the red ketchup,
and the brown meat.

Burritos
by Dustin S.

Go, go, go!
We're almost there.
Coming down the highway
and, Oh!
We just pulled up.
Ahhh... Chipotle.
The line all the way back
to the cash register.
It takes 25-30 minutes to order
but WOW! It's worth it.
Burritos!
Chicken, rice, corn,
lettuce, tomato.
I love burritos!

Untitled
by Claire W.

Warm, sunny evenings, my stomach growling loudly,
I fling open the door with a slam.
My dad follows me to the car. Beep!
I go in and see my familiar face in the mirror.
With a vroom, we head off to Red Lobster.
I walk to the restaurant door and into my nose
the wonderful scent of delicious food makes me drool!
I order this pizza with vegetables on top. It's good!
But one thing comes before -- the bread.
It's baked perfectly. Golden, crunchy layers,
brown bottoms. It tastes like heaven!
I choose the top and it crunches around in my mouth,
fresh made! Clang! The plate on the table,
my order steaming hot. It disappears in a couple of bites.
My stomach is pleased with my decisions.
My dad bundles up the leftovers for tomorrow afternoon.
We leave, and I feel a warm sensation tingling in my throat.

Thanks, Northfield poets and families for allowing me to share these wonderful food poems. I'll have more delicious verse for you tomorrow.