Personification Exercise: The City

by I-Mars

This is a class poem focusing on personification as a literary device. Each I-Mars student was asked to write one line about the city and what it does.

The city wakes up early to give us a brand-new day
It starts the day anew with a yawn at dawn
It is awakened by the rising sun,
It is awakened by the rumbling of the cars.

The city feels these sounds crawl past as rays of light touch the paths
It gets busier and busier as seconds and minutes pass
It moves with hurrying people - old or young
It moves through the overpass into the students' class.

The city is always in a hurry like a father going to the office
It rushes to its job after taking a bath, when it looks neat and smells good
It smiles like a baby searching for its mom
It smiles after surviving a powerful storm.


The city plays with the children on the streets
It dances with the music that surrounds it
It sings with the people on the road
It sings with the jeepneys and the radios.

The city finds difficulty in breathing polluted air,
But it eats everything it wants from the fastfood chains
It follows the fashion of the time
The city is a lot of fun.

The city grows from its small state
It is changed by good leaders who care
Sometimes it stays up late to celebrate
But tonight it sleeps early, tired from all the day's work.

Nothing But the Truth: A Note from AVI

Here's a note from AVI (Edward Irving Wortis) about his novel "Nothing But the Truth."

When detectives and lawyers work on a case, they try to gather together all the evidence so as to get to the truth. That collection of evidence is called "Discovery." Discovery, was the title of this book when I was first working on it. For what I set out to do is put the reader in charge--like a detective--by presenting all the evidence pertaining to an event that happened--or did not happen--in a school. It's all fiction of course, but it reads very realistically. What's more, it asks the reader to decide what really happened in the story. You have to decide for yourself. You have to read very carefully to decide what actually happened. After all, when you're asked to swear that you will "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," every body says they will. And yet they do not agree about what happened. That's what this book is all about, the complexities of truth.

Who is AVI?

from wikipedia

Edward Irving Wortis (born December 23, 1937), better known by the pen name Avi, is a prominent American author of young adult and children's literature. He is a winner of both the Newbery Honor and Newbery Medal.

Avi and his twin sister Emily Wortis Leider (also a writer) were born in New York City to Joseph Wortis, a psychiatrist, and Helen Zunser Wortis, a social worker. In the year after Avi's birth, his family moved to San Antonio, Texas. When he was young his sister gave him the nickname "Avi," which he adopted as his pseudonym. Two of Avi's grandfathers were writers, and one grandmother was a playwright. In interviews, he recalled his mother reading to him and his sister every night, and going to the public library on Fridays. He is also the first cousin of the Academy Award-winning actor Alan Arkin.

After he failed Stuyvesant High School, Avi's parents transferred him to Elisabeth Irwin High School, a smaller private school. There he studied with a tutor, Ella Ratner (whom he credits for his writing success), and found that he had dysgraphia, a condition causing him to reverse or misspell words.

Avi is a prolific author, having written over 60 books for young readers. He has written books for different age groups and in many different genres. Perhaps his most famous books fall under the category of historical fiction, but he has also written fantasies, comedies, mysteries, ghost stories, adventure tales, realistic fiction, and picture books. Avi has won many prestigious awards for his books, including a Newbery Honor for The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle in 1991 and another for Nothing But the Truth in 1992. His fiftieth book, Crispin: The Cross of Lead, was awarded the Newbery Medal in 2003. As of the end of 2005, Avi has published 58 books, all written for children/young adults. In 2006 Avi wrote a sequel to Crispin: The Cross of Lead titled Crispin: At the Edge of the World. After living in Providence, Rhode Island, in the 1980s and 1990s, Avi now lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife, Linda Cruise Wortis.

On-Line Quiz 10: Verb Forms

Substitute the past or past participle form of the verb inside the parentheses, whichever the sentence requires.

1. The fishermen (cast) the net early this morning.
2. Kriss and Kathy (begin) answering the quiz.
3. We had (creep) out of the door before they noticed us.
4. The boys (dress) their best for the dance.
5. Have you (forgive) us?
6. Kissin' Kate Barlow (hide) her loot.
7. Stanley Yelnats (dig) several holes under the scorching sun.
8. Finally, the sun has (rise).
9. His feet (swell) to an incredible size.
10. As children, we were (teach) to be respectful.

Metaphor Exercise

These are from the September 17 Demo Fest lesson on the use of metaphors in writing prose. They were given ten minutes to write their paragraphs.

An older sister is a book of tips. She's gone through everything you're going through as of the moment, from peer pressure to catfights. She'll give you tips and how-to's on every teenage girl's problem you could possibly think of. She will be your guide when it comes to identity crisis. She'll help you escape when you're stuck in a sticky predicament. Sure, she could be pretty annoying sometimes, especially when she starts tattling to your parents, but remember, she's only doing that so you could be taught a lesson. So thank God for older sisters.

~ Joanne Paulette F. Miraflor


The storm was a blitzkrieg raging toward our barracks and ruining others. All the people were locked in their houses, all scared to be bombed by the flying roofs, branches, etc. They were hopelessly waiting for a hero who will save them from the disaster.

~ Benedict Rey M. Serrano


Life is the running water. It is something that is continuously moving. Sometimes there are also stones that obstruct the flow. They are the struggles we encounter in our journey. But we can also see the running water as a lesson. It teaches us to go on, to move on, that after encountering these stones, we get delayed but we do not stop. We continue again, flowing.

~ Maria Sushmita L. De Leon