So, here is the web that I created from my T-Charts, and from the web, my students created lists of figurative language to use. 

So, for mine, I did things like:  white water, splash! splish!, smooth as glass, boat was swimming, sun was a light bulb, the river snakes through, the leaves are a green curtain, etc.  

From this, we crafted the poem.  Mine is below:

Climb into the kayak

from off the dock

I push off and start to paddle

My paddle

cuts through the water;

A knife through hot butter.

Swoosh!  Splash!  Swoosh!  Splash!

The boat is swimming to

my least favorite spot,

but it's a necessary 

passage

to open water.

This part of the Catawba is

a tangle of roots;

the water

barely deep enough

to cover them.

"Stay in the middle,"

I tell myself.

Spanish moss,

full of God-knows what,

hangs down

like a green curtain

I must part to

get out.

The river snakes through the shallow bed,

and finally a breakthrough!

--the open Catawba River.

My kayak races through the flat water,

smooth as glass.

Without white water,

I fly across the expanse toward

the big brown bridge 

that is my cue

to turn for

home.