Personification: My Life as a Pumpkin

 I love this assignment that teaches students how fun it can be to explore the concept of Personification: Giving non-human things human traits.  First, we study the life cycle of a pumpkin, from seed to final cut from the stem.  We talk about how it would feel to be a tiny seed, a vine with a yellow flower, a big or small pumpkin, and how our life would end.  After we study and discuss, we story map three chapters of our life, and then present a rough draft of our story.  Finally, after some editing, we create a beautiful final copy with pictures and three chapters.  Enjoy these samples across the grades!

By Vivia, 2nd grade

by Joon (2nd grade)

My Life as a Pumpkin

By Dana (4th grade)

Ch. 1

   I woke up as just a little seed in a giant patch of  squishy soil in late spring. I saw a man staring at me. What’re you looking at? He seemed old. I was afraid that his big, black boots would crush my delicate self. If they did, I would not be happy. Anyway, I was surrounded by grass and pebbles. And bugs. Ew! I was scared. I was trapped. What was going to happen?

   I sat there for a few hours. The man disappeared. Then I became super thirsty. Where was the watering can? I needed water! I waited. And waited. And waited. I waited for so long I became quite impatient and unhappy. 

   At last, the man came back with his watering can and I was glad. He poured the water over my head and left. I just hoped he would come back soon.

   Before long, the moon was out and the air became foggy. I was cold. I tried to sleep but the crickets would not let me. Who knew crickets were so annoying? Rain began to pour. Just as I was beginning to fall asleep, a little leg sprouted off of me. Soon came a little umbrella to help with the rain. Yay!

    Finally, the morning arrived. I felt the fresh air against my face. The sun came out and the rain ceased. My umbrella was not needed. Go, umbrella, go! It did not go. As I began my exploration, I realized that I had neighbors! We talked for a while. There was Bob, Stewart, and Tom. They were all fairly nice. Except for the one to my right. He was the naughty one from the moment his seed was buried in the dirt. He was Joe. I was no longer afraid of the big, weird world. I was excited!

Ch. 2

   Days passed and summer began. My neighbors and I had few visits with the old man, but enough that we never starved. My unnecessary umbrellas seemed to grow. The times were uneventful. Until the day when my arms arrived. They stretched out into a tangled mess around the lawn. 

   Soon enough, my neighbors got them, too. We wrapped around rocks, tree branches, pipes, and even an old chair. Joe and I decided to arm wrestle. It was a terrible idea. We had fun with our new arms. Summer was not quite over.

   Many days later, we received yellow hats. They were great for summer. I guess they were so attractive that the bees swarmed around them, collecting the strange dots. I guess they wanted some style, too. 

   It was fun, but Tom told me that the stingers were dangerous. I guess he was right because the second they poked the old man, he began to howl. Poor guy. I guessed he had to be given time to recover because an old woman took over his job of watering us.

   Night came and the last heavy rain fell before the drought. I had the weirdest dream ever that night. My beautiful green color turned orange. I became big. I grew a stem. My arms wrestled no more. I had become a pumpkin. Ha!

Ch. 3

   When I woke up, I was terrorized. My dream…wasn’t a dream! I was an actual pumpkin!

   Fall came. I had a bed of crunchy, dry leaves. But not for long. A new man with a top hat and a suit came and took me and my neighbors (who were also pumpkins) away to this giant mansion. He set me on the windowsill and took my friends somewhere else. Bye, guys!

   Later that day, a big black bulldog charged at me. His head pushed me off the windowsill into the yard! Ack! I was falling through the air. The sky seemed to grow smaller and smaller. Wind rushed past me. I closed my eyes and braced myself for the end. 

   But it wasn’t the end. I landed on familiar dry leaves. I was very dizzy, but I managed to pull myself together. The sky did not shrink anymore and the friendly breeze continued. Relief filled my mind.

   I looked around. There was Tom, Joe, Bob, and Stewart! Yay! The happy neighbors were together again.

   We grew old. Like, really old. Joe became mature. I started to, well, rot. And my last words (well, more like thoughts) were “Goodbye, world! My life was great!”

My Life as a Pumpkin, by Charlotte (5th grade)

        I started my life as a small, beautiful pumpkin seed.  I felt the warm sun shine on my white rough skin.  The tulips and daffodils leaned on my light, white body.  I saw an old couple holding hands walk out of the small cottage near me.  I felt my mouth start to move.  I started to smile, grinning from ear to ear, thinking about being baked into pumpkin muffins.  My cozy garden around me brightened in the clam, glistening sun.

        I felt my vine leaves cover my greenish, hazel eyes.  Bees were buzzing and coming extra close to my proud face.  "I am gonna be a muffin!" I whispered to myself excitedly.   I heard birds chirping and saw butterflies flying over my head.  Jocelyn poured cold water on me, making me shiver.  

        Days and days had passed.  Suddenly, I noticed long tendrils coming out of me.  They grasped onto the pretty tulips and daffodils held them hard.  "Let go of me!" the flowers say in a small, squeaky voice.

        My flowers danced around while one stayed on my head, like a sun hat.  Small brown bunnies hopped around me; their cute eyes met mine, and my heart fluttered.

        Months and days had passed.  It was November, and I was in a hot box.  It was an oven!  Suddenly, the oven opened and I saw Jocelyn greet my beautiful orange muffins with a warm smile.

        Jocelyn carried me out onto a long wooden brown table, with smiles all around.  Laughing and chattering filled the happy room.  The big turkey next to me winked happily, and so did the plates and utensils.  Happy tears filled each of my muffin's small eyes.

        "I had a great life," I thought gratefully.

I had a group of students in grades 4-8 that received a similar, but different, assignment.  Their job was to explore the concept of "Show not tell."  This is a crucial skill to learn in order to achieve that next level of writing.  An example of telling is:

"They put a candle inside me."

An example of showing is:

"After my smiling face was carved, my owners placed a chunky red candle inside my newly hollowed-out orange cranium.  The warmth of the flickering candle brought me comfort, and I felt happy."

As you can see, it is challenging to write in this way.  Enjoy these samples!

Pumpkin Life, by Siwon (4th grade)

        I am a we-be-little pumpkin, and I am in the horrifying kitchen on Halloween eve!

        The owner is getting ready to slice and carve me!  The wonderful owner's wife is getting her songs ready for this horrible "trick or treating."  Then I feel and hear a big "snap" from my body.  The blood drips from my body!

        He paints me, cuts and slices me, and scoops and hammers me really hard!  I am screaming inside out.  Now the giant lifts me to the wonderful porch and puts a royal blue candle in me!

        An hour later, I start burning to death.  Good-bye earth!  I cross over the rainbow bridge.

Life as a Pumpkin, by Alex (8th grade)

Surrounded by pumpkins, I am just one of hundreds lying on the ground, ready to be taken wherever pumpkins go. Giants are roaming about the land, and every so often one of my fellow pumpkins that I have known for many of my miserable pumpkin-years is kidnapped and then never heard of again. Everyone here knows that they will eventually be snatched, and it is only a matter of time until each and every one of us disappears.

Suddenly, the ground drops away as a pair of huge hands lifts me into the air; it is now my turn to go. I am jerked around as the giant carries me toward the skyscraper where every pumpkin disappears. I am dropped roughly on the flat surface, and the giant that grabbed me and the giant at the skyscraper have a verbal exchange. Then, I am lifted off the skyscraper roof and carried over to a giant metal machine. I am thrown in the back and, as the door shuts, the last bit of sunlight disappears.

One pumpkin-day later…

The door opens, waking me from my sleep as a beam of blinding light lances into my enclosure. I am grabbed yet again and lifted many pumpkin-feet off the ground as I am carried to a gigantic house. The giant puts me down on the towering grass in front of the concrete steps and, to my surprise, I see three of my pumpkin friends who had left a couple pumpkin-days before.

The entrance opens, and out comes three more giants, each wielding a sharp metal object that gleams in the sunlight. Each of the four takes a pumpkin; I am lifted off the ground yet again, and carried a pumpkin-mile to another portion of the grass, where I am put down and the giant leans over me. I think about my life, have I lived enough? Was it worth it? Then, a blinding flash of pain, and I find out what happens to every other pumpkin that I have seen grabbed before my eyes.

I feel searing heat around my stem as the top of my head is removed. Then, a scoop comes in and starts scraping out my brain. I don’t feel any pain except from the hole in my head, as my brain does not have any nerves. It is still a weird feeling though; I can see what is going on, but I don’t feel. These final seconds are relatively painless, and my passing is swift.

The Life of a Pumpkin by Brody (8th grade)

Surrounded by darkness and my fellow pumpkin siblings, I sit in the cardboard box that will carry me to my Doom. Honk! Honk! I feel myself flung across to the left side of the box as the truck I’m in does a sharp turn. The truck makes another sharp turn swinging me to the right. My stem hits the side of the box pushing the flaps open and ripping the tape. I feel air rush against my orange skin as I get flung into the sky before landing gratefully onto a padding of lush green grass.

I sit there for a couple pumpkin hours watching the autumn leaves fly by when suddenly I get picked up by a giant creature who has probably taken interest in me, scanning my body with huge brown and white eyes. I get brought inside a gigantic house by the giant.. I get placed on a dark brown table by the Giant. Finally feeling safe, I decide to take a nap,  happy and cozy in this new home.

Rudely awakened from my slumber, I feel a stinging pain in the top of my head slowly sneaking its way around my stem. Just like that the top of my head vanishes. Before I can comprehend what just happened, an arm reaches inside my body, pulling out all of my pumpkin organs and pumpkin children. I look up and see a giant arm toss my guts in a bin like garbage. I don't feel pain, only large amounts of sadness. The giant takes my pumpkin children and spreads them out on a pan and shoves them in a hot metal box. 

My sadness turns into anger, directed at the giant who lured me into a false sense of security before cutting me open, burning my children alive, and scraping out my guts. Now I feel empty and angry. In my pumpkin rage I rock back and forth, my stem like a metronome, until I fall off the table and splat on the hardwood floor leaving a mess of pumpkin fragments and orange goop.

In my dying thoughts I think about how my life as a pumpkin was not the best, but my childhood was nice, sitting in the fields of green grass eating up the sunlight and water like a ravenous bear. Oh well, at least my children will provide happiness to the giant.

Final Days, by Kyle (8th grade)

My pumpkin friends lie next to me in the field. The big, yellow circle is at its peak in the sky. Humans roam the patch, each about two pumpkins tall. A tall man, about two and a half pumpkins tall, snatches my friend. “Nooooooooo!” I yell. “Not Ben!” Ben was my best friend. We've known each other for five whole days, which is the longest I’ve known any pumpkin. 

Ben gets taken over to a big, blue metal monster. The monster has four circular black things on the bottom, keeping it from touching the ground. The man magically opens the back, and Ben gets tossed inside. 

A few hours later, the big, yellow circle isn’t as high, and it’s my nap time. Right as I’m falling asleep, a miniature human runs up, pointing a chubby little finger at me. He makes the same, weird human noises I often hear. Another, normal sized human, grabs me with both hands. He brings me over to another human. This human is a bit shorter than usual. They exchange pieces of green paper. Because, apparently, I’m only worth pieces of green paper. The human takes me over to another big metal monster. The back half of the monster swings outward, and the human puts me inside. The cushion under me is soft and bouncy, perfect for a nap. My eyes soon close, and I’m drifting off to sleep.

When I wake up, I find myself lying on the steps to a huge house. The sky is magically pumpkin orange again, and the big, yellow circle is shining directly at me. The wind picks up, blowing leaves and twigs onto my face. A black bird perches on my stem. It drops off something white and sticky on my head, before flying away into a tree.

The man that brought me to this horrid place, brings out a very, long green snake thingy. All of a sudden, water shoots out of its mouth, splashing me very rudely. The snake stops shooting water at me, and the human takes out something metallic. It reflects the yellow circle in my face, temporarily blinding me. I open my eyes, and I see the human leaning overy me. Pain suddenly flashes through my head. Black overcomes my eyes, as the pain knocks me out.

When I come to my senses, the sky is black, splattered with a few white dots here and there. In the sky, the big, yellow circle is replaced by a smaller, white semi-circle. I see a few small humans walking up the steps, and then they stand in front of the wooden door. One of the small humans is wearing a black robe, along with glasses, and he’s holding a stick. On the black robe, there is a red and yellow patch, displaying a lion. They press a yellow button on the side of the door, which makes a very loud sound. The door magically disappears, and the man who took me, takes out some brown and red rectangles to give to the small humans. 

Ah, I remember this. This is Halloween! The pumpkin elders told me about this event, where small humans walk up to big humans’ houses, demanding the big humans to give them rectangles. Humans have some very weird traditions. I see many small humans come and go, until eventually, they don’t come anymore. I drift off to sleep again. (What? A pumpkin sleeps a lot, okay?)

When I wake up, the big yellow circle is back, and the sky is back to its normal blue color. The man walks out of the magical door, and then he picks me up. He takes me over to a green box, which is next to a blue box and a black box. He magically opens the top (still don’t know how they do it), and drops me inside. The bottom is very squishy, with a bunch black, plastic bags, filled with stuff that I don’t know, nor want to know about. He closes the top, and now I know: I will never see the sky again.