Pen

• Review the meaning of personification (the description of a nonliving thing as if it were alive). Ask students to read the title and look at the illustration and then predict what might be personified in the poem.
• Remind students that different readers sometimes interpret the same piece of writing differently. This is often the case when reading poetry.
• Build engagement by asking students if they have ever created their own characters in stories or drawings. Ask: How did you know how this character should look and speak? Did you take time to make this character up, or did it seem to come to life on its own?
• Ask a volunteer to read aloud the Up Close box for the class.

• Read the poem aloud, or play our Read-Aloud to hear a Storyworks editor read the poem.
• Ask students to underline words, phrases, or lines from the poem that they enjoy or have questions about. Invite your students to share what they underlined and why in small groups or in a whole-group share-out.
• Discuss the poem together by answering the questions that follow.

1. What do the “noisy people” in the poem want? (key details) The noisy people want to talk about who they are and what they think. They want their stories to be told.
2. Who or what do you think these noisy people are? (key idea) Answers will vary but may be similar to: The noisy people could be doodles sketched on a page. They might be characters (or ideas for characters) who will be part of a story, play, or poem that’s being written. Or they could be both.
3. Who do you think the speaker in this poem is? Why do you think this? Note that different people might have different ideas. (interpreting text) Answers may vary but could be similar to either: The speaker refers to “my white paper” and “my yellow pad.” Based on this, I think the speaker in the poem is the paper that’s being written or doodled on. Or: The speaker tries to put the cap back on a pen after using it to write or doodle in a notepad. Based on this, I think the speaker in the poem is a person who is writing something, perhaps a story.
4. Read line 10. What do you think a “river of words” means? (figurative language) Answers will vary, but may be similar to: A “river of words” seems to describe the stories the speaker’s characters want to be a part of. I think this because a river moves without stopping over a distance in a way that is similar to how a story flows along until its ending.
5. What is the mood, or feeling, of the poem? How does the artwork illustrate this mood? (mood/text features) The mood of the poem is playful, lighthearted, and energetic. The characters chatter and move around the page. The illustration reflects the poem’s mood with bright and colorful drawings full of characters who seem eager to tell exciting stories.
6. Reread the final three lines of the poem. Why do you think the speaker calls the voices stubborn? (Hint: A stubborn person is someone who doesn’t easily change their mind; stubborn can also describe something that is difficult to move or control.) (vocabulary, inference) The speaker probably calls the voices in the pen stubborn because they aren’t easy to control. They insist on being heard and becoming characters on the speaker’s page.
7. Reread the poem. What things are personified in it? How do you know? (personification) Answers will vary but may be similar to: The ideas for characters in stories (and the doodles of them) are personified because they are described as “noisy people” who talk and move around the page. The pen speaks, and this human action tells us that the pen is also personified in the poem. Some students might say that the paper that is being written and drawn on is also personified because characters leave marks on its white pages and squeeze between its lines.
8. Why do you think the poet chose the title “Pen”? (interpreting text) Answers will vary but should be similar to: The poet probably chose the title “Pen” because it’s where the noisy characters come from. Without the pen, these characters—and the stories they want to tell—wouldn’t exist.

Distribute or assign the Poetry Kit, which will take students on a deep dive into the poem and offer opportunities for students to connect the poem with other stories in the issue.