Rather than strictly going over syllables of different words, students can use that knowledge to determine syllable use in poetry. Also with syllables in mind, this could even be a creative way to work with those. I ended up keeping post it notes with me at all times, so when an idea for a line popped into my head, I could write it down before I forgot. Thank you so much for your suggestions too! The brainstorming sheet is a wonderful idea, especially because even I struggled with that. As I wrote this poem I had to be sure I had the correct number of syllables for each line and definitely struggled at times. A format I discovered was that each line contains 8 syllables (except for 'what's that? What's that you say?'). Since he does not have one specific format for all of his poems, I just kept reading 'Sick' over and over. They definitely remind me of my childhood! At first it took me a while to figure out what his format was. Thanks for your comment Nichole! I grew up on these poems too. I just suggest this because poems can be hard to write and Shel Silverstein writes long poems with interesting words. One suggestion that I would have is to create a brainstorming sheet that the students can use to help them create a poem or give them a template that they can work off of (just to get them started). I just have one question for you, how did you know what format to use for this particular poem? When you introduce a poem unit into your classroom you can definitely use this as an example to read to the class and shed to light on personal background (student's just love getting a glimpse of your life sometimes). In fact I have the books 'Where the Sidewalk Ends', 'Falling Up,' 'The Missing Piece,' and 'A Light in the Attic.' I can clearly see what your inspiration was to write the poem.

You did a great job with the Shel Silverstein poem format.

I was enjoying it the whole time while I was reading it it was thoroughly entertaining and so relatable. My laptop crashed, ‘blue screen of death’,

Sick poem from where the sidewalk ends