Bill Crawford Had Applesauce and Blood Running Out of His Nose

Like you have heard me say before, I always do the writing assignments I give my students. It gives them an example of what their final product should look like, and more importantly they see me as a writer. Poetry can be a killer for 8th graders, the boys especially. Today we wrote Cascade Poems. These poems follow a simple order. There are four three-line verses. The first line of the first verse is also the last line of the second verse. The second line of the first verse is the last line of thet hird verse. The third line of the first verse is the last line of the last verse. Simple, hug. So, today after reading an article about safety issues with hot dogs, and the alarming number of kids who choke on them (now think about some of the comments you get from 8th graders when talking about choking on hot dogs) we wrote some cascade poetry about lunch. They could write about what they eat, what they do during lunch, a favorite lunch, a memorable lunch, etc. etc. Here is one of my Efforts.


It was the grossest thing I’d ever seen
Bill Crawford had applesauce and blood running out of his nose
I have not eaten applesauce since that day

My mom said sit down and eat, your lunch is ready
Bill shoveled in the applesauce so fast it ran out his nose
It was the grossest thing I’d ever seen.

That is sick I cried and ran to the bathroom
I puked and puked as I thought about it
Bill Crawford had applesauce and blood running out of his nose.

I recovered enough to return to the kitchen
Bill was still sitting there drinking milk with blood on his chin
I have not eaten applesauce since that day.