There Was A Child Went Forth

We are working on personalizing a poem by Walt Whitman in 2nd and 6th periods- the English 9 classes.

In this poem, Whitman shares how all of the things, people, and experiences in his life over the years have all become a part of him and who he is.

Using his poem as a basic model, students are substituting in their own experiences, things, and people that are important to them to create their own individualized verson of the poem.

The poem, a model for students to fill in the blanks with their own things, and an example of a student's work can be found by clicking on this link. The lines numbered in the original poem correspond to the lines numbered in the student worksheet for easy reference.

This assignment takes a lot of the students out of their comfort zone, but is a challenge that will result in amazing writing as long as they stick with it every day that we work on it together in class!