Messy Room, by Shel Silverstein

Thanks to Nicole for sending in this idea:

I've done this with a few of my 5th and 6th grade classes, but it has been kind of a bust in one larger class that has problems staying on task and being quiet.

I printed out sheets with the following poem on it:

Messy Room
by Shel Silverstein
from A Light in the Attic

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!

First we define the words poem and poet, and in most of my classes we have just the right amount of people for everyone to read a line. So we go through it once, stopping after each line to work on words they don't understand, and then one more time practicing reading with expression in our voices. Then I ask them to draw a picture of this room using each line as directions...I check to make sure their pictures correctly reflect the prepositions used in the poems (eg: scarf and one ski beneath the TV, not next to).

This usually takes close to 45 minutes. I'm being optimistic and hoping with my 7th and 8th grade classes we won't draw pictures, but rather everyone will create one line describing something in a messy room for an entire class poem.

My younger brother claims Shel Silverstein got his start drawing cartoons for Playboy. (True; according to Wikipedia he also lived in the Playboy Mansion for "an extended period of time")

Good luck and thanks for all the other good ideas.