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Challenging Literacy Homework Summer 

( Please remember this is an extra challenge and is supposed to take time and effort. Please don't feel you have to do it all or print it all out- do what you can whilst you are still enjoying it).

Swan

The tickle of soft waves strokes my white feathers

as I swing my feet back and forth,

the force of water pressing against them.

The sound of my bevy quietly calling.

The sound of human children laughing on the bank in excitement.

Cool grass on my feet and another sound;

a fox ever cornering. 

Iman Begum

Go outdoors into nature, with pen and paper.

Spend some time as poetry detectives.

Choose something from nature that you see.

Look closely and finish the sentence stems – ‘I see / I notice / I wonder’.

Now imagine that you are the natural thing that you have seen (like in the swan poem).

Include in the poem everything that you can see / hear / feel / smell / taste.

Alternatively, try writing a praise poem for an aspect of nature. These Zulu women’s praise poems are  good examples of this. 

I

I am she who cuts across the game reserve
That no girl crosses.
I am the boldest of the bold, outfacer of wizards.
Obstinate perseverer,
The nation swore at me and ate their words.
She cold-shoulders kings and despises mere commoners.

II

The Bitter Tobacco leaf,
Ground and powdered by men and women.
The ants want her down;
The cockroaches refuse, they say, ‘Oh Royal Madam,
What will we eat when we’re left alone? When you say,
“I’ve finished,”
You take your spoon and stick it up in the rafters,
Then we cockroaches can have a lick.’
Comforter of the baby, and the mother is content.

Write a list of things that you feel proud of in yourself. Or compare yourself to something in nature.

Are you tall and enduring like a tree or obstinate and determined like a donkey?

How could you write about an aspect of nature in this way?