Teacher Librarian Ms Jan Pocock chose to challenge her Year 3/4 Extension students in Term 1 with a reworking of Lewis Carroll’s famously fun poem The Jabberwocky. “First we talked about what the poem was about – a hero – then we wrote our own, following the pattern.” Playing with made-up and lesser known language like Carroll, the students proved that a cracking story will carry the reader along on the journey – and that inventing a word is the only solution when the ones you have just will not do!
Jawylay
By Nathan Tan
‘Twas gloomy and the gooey groys
Did eat and crumble in the sun:
All puffy were the grassdevils,
And fruits were outraged.
“Beware the Jawylay, my son!
The jaws with might, the claws that scratch!
Beware the Lugbry bird and shun
The ferociouse Grumerdumer!”
He took his deadly sword in hand;
Long time grumpy foe he sought
So he rested by the Anger tree
And he sat sleeping in thought.
And as in scary thought he sat,
The Jawylay, with eyes of ice,
Came storming through the poison wood,
And frothered as it came!
Snap, crack! Snap, crack! And chop & chop
The deadly blade went cracker-lack!
He left it dead, and with its fangs
He went galloping back.
“And have you killed the Jawylay?
Come to my arms, my perfect boy!
O happy day! Hooray! Hooray!”
He giggled in his joy.
‘Twas gloomy and the gooey groys
Did eat and crumble in the sun:
All puffy were the grassdevils,
And fruits were outraged.
Click here to listen to more of these frabjous poems read aloud by their authors.
