To my dear students.

Preview audio:

storyj.mp/agfq5uwwxwyt

You know that life isn't really a box of chocolate.

How would you explain what this means to a little child?

Sometimes life is full of fun!

And sometimes it absolutely isn't.

We think we can prepare for life,

but all we can really do is decide how WE will be...because life is like a box of chocolates...We don't know what we might get!

Turn and talk with a partner about this question:

Can you think of a time life surprised you with something you didn't expect? It doesn't have to be a big thing. In an ordinary day there are lots of things to choose from.

How did you feel about that?

Robert Francis, a poet from Pennsylvania, didn't think life was like a box of chocolates. He thought it was like a type of dog. Can you guess what kind?

Francis thought that hounds could, arguably, make a good point about life...!!!

-Do you know what hounds are used for?

-Can you think of how hound dogs and life might be similar?

Turn and talk with your partner. What it is about a hound dog that someone would compare to life? Think of three things.

If life was a chihuahua, would it be different?!

You ain't nothin' but a hound dog...crying all the time.

It's a dog's life.

Woof!

Take a walk on the wild side

In the poem that Robert Francis wrote,

-Equivocal means that you can argue for or against something.

-Rend means to rip or tear

Life,

The Hound equivocal,

Comes at a bound

Either to rend me

Or befriend me.

I cannot tell the hound’s intent

Till he has sprung

At my bare hands

With teeth or tongue.

Meanwhile I stand

And wait the event.

-Equivocal means that you can argue for or against life being like a dog.

-Rend: to rip or tear

On your poem sheet, highlight in green two words in the first stanza that rhyme.

In the second stanza, there is a consonant that is repeated frequently. Read the stanza aloud and see it you can hear the consonant and see it. Highlight the most important words you find in pink.

When a consonant sound is repeated frequently, poets call it alliteration.