 Below the high falls, | One strategy that I found helpful in teaching was the use of different writing-to-learn activities. In using such activities, basic skills such as comparing, contrasting, describing, defining, summarizing, and organizing are being exercised while the content topics are being taught or tested. Over the course of several years, I encountered a number of verse forms that lend themselves to writing in a biology class: cinquain, diamante, haiku, sijo, waka, tanka, acrostic, biopoem, double-dactyl, limerick, Tom Swifty, prepositional poem, and more. This haiku is for you; it is entitled Cataract. |
Here is a selection of verses that have a biological bent since they were written to illustrate the various writing forms for my students. I hope that you enjoy them.
| Alimentary, Watson | Intestinal Fauna | Enteric Water Loo | Friend or Foe |
| Higgledy-Piggledy | Higgledy-Piggledy | Higgledy-Piggledy | Higgledy-Piggledy |
| Taenia solium, | E. histolytica, | Vibrio cholerae, | Strychnos nux-vomica, |
| Tapeworm that lives within | Nasty amoeba in | Spread through excreta in | Friend of Lucrezia |
| Pigs and man, too, | Stool sample smear, | Water supplies, | Borgia and kin, |
| Dies from a remedy | Acts as a parasite | Roils the intestine with | Poison of preference |
| Pharmacological: | --Sesquipedelian | Pathogenicity; | Machiavellian, |
| Male fern's the Rx for | Agent of suffering-- | Practice good hygiene, or | Swiftly will rid one of |
| What's eating you! | Causing "dire rear." | Cork it, you guys! | Vermin ... and men. |
Did you like those? Then here is a web site on Double-Dactyls that might interest you!
sour, sharp biting, stinging, burning red litmus ----- blue litmus slippery, soapy, alkaline bitter, caustic base (example) | green, silent sleeping, living, changing breathes, grows --- shrivels, dies burning, shifting, waiting bright, arid desert (a student composition) | lush, verdant rolling, swaying, fertile food farm ----------- fish farm wet, marshy, muddy soaked, squishy wetland (a student composition) |
globular, spiny creeping, gnawing, clinging delicate, prickly, ornate test echinoderm (example) | flat, treeless comforting, nurturing, rippling home, mystical, innocence, quietness prairie (a student composition) | green, gigantic growing, towering, dying sad, joyful, upset, enthusiastic evergreen (a student composition) |
| Cumulonimbus -- A threat or promise of rain -- Man heeding Nature (example) | As we gasp for air, The forest's soul is dying Because of man's greed. (a student composition) | Slashing machetes ... A tropical rain forest Vanishes from view. (a student composition) | When the nights grow long And summer comes to an end The leaves slowly turn. (a student composition) |
| Mama Ridley Without conscious knowledge, Out of the surf, Throughout the ages, (example) | The Leaf Within the branch (Wanda Regalado) |
| There once was a babe born on Cyprus, Impaired by a small, faulty thymus. With no T-cells for immunity, Germs invaded with impunity, And soon he succumbed to a virus.
| Beta cells form islets in the pancreas; Insulin governs glucose inside of us. But if it does not, One likely has got Juvenile diabetes mellitus.
| There once was a youth from St. Paul Who grew up exceedingly tall. When asked about his plight, He replied "Oh, my height? My pituitary's at the base of it all." |
Are you curious about writing-to-learn activities? Write to me for more information.