Getting a bird’s eye view

Marisa O’Neil

This is not a good week for turkeys.

Apart from the couple of lucky birds who got a presidential

pardon, most will end up on someone’s dinner table.

With that in mind, students in Tara Anderson’s fifth-grade class

at Newport Heights Elementary School took a walk in the turkeys’

shoes -- or feet, as the case may be -- to get ready for

Thanksgiving.

Anderson started off the lesson by reading “‘Twas the Night Before

Thanksgiving” by Dav Pilkey, a story about a group of children who

visit old Farmer McNugget’s turkey farm on a school trip and liberate

the livestock. After reading the book, Anderson told her students to

write a similar poem, patterned after “‘Twas the Night Before

Christmas,” but write it from the turkey’s perspective.

Students sat at their desks, scribbling away and trying out rhyme

schemes on each other.

“So the farmer comes out, full of surprises; He opens the pen ...

,” 10-year-old Matthew Marlow started.

“He opens the pen, and the turkeys ... ,” 10-year-old Ellen Landis

offered. “What rhymes with ‘eep’?”

“Heap?” Matthew said. “In the heap.”

Across from Matthew, Anthony Barbosa sighed heavily, twiddling his

pencil between his fingers.

“This is so hard,” he lamented.

Meanwhile, 10-year-old Hunter Mitchell struggled with his poem. He

turned to Anderson for some guidance.

“Does this work? ‘That day I was shot,’ and, like, I don’t know,”

he said.

“Do you want to have a happy ending?” Anderson asked. “Or are you

going to be the dinner?”

Hunter answered without hesitation.

“I’m going to be the dinner,” he insisted, then turned to a

classmate. “Are you going to have a happy ending or get shot?”

“Mmmm,” 11-year-old Cooper Scott pondered, his chin resting in his

hand. “Happy,” he said confidently.