On a clear autumn day, one bare tree stands as bones in a house of death.
***
I wrote this poem in response to the Wea’ve Written Weekly prompt on Skeptics Kaddish. This week’s prompt poem is “It’s a Stretch” by Steven S Wallace. If you would like to read the poem or participate in the prompt, visit the post here: https://skepticskaddish.com/2022/08/31/w3-prompt-18-weave-written-weekly/
Writing is a mysterious thing that doesn’t happen all at once, and it seldom happen in the right order. Writing is a process of digging through your knowledge and life experience in an attempt to discover what it is you actually believe. In fact, writers often don’t even know how they think about their subject until they have finished writing about it. And most writing happens when you are rushing out the door in the morning, driving home from class at the end of a long day, or washing your hair in the shower. So always keep a notebook nearby to jot down your genius ideas before they evaporate back into dust they came from.
Prewriting:
Prewriting is the process of coming up with ideas. It consists of brainstorming, questioning, freewriting, and outlining. You can use any of these techniques at any point of the writing process, but I will explain them in the order that seems to make the most sense to me.
Brainstorming:
Brainstorming is the process of coming up with as many ideas as possible. When brainstorming, allow yourself the freedom to write bad ideas as well as good. The point is to get your ideas out of your head and down on paper.
There are two types of brainstorming: listing and clustering.
When listing, you just jot your ideas down in the order that they come to you.
For example, if I were responding to the prompt: Should wild animals be protected? I might brainstorm a list like this:
Animals in overcoats Hunters and hunting Bad weather
Animals with umbrellas Habitat loss Predators
Animal protection agencies Bears Mountain lions
When clustering, you group your ideas together in a meaningful way.
Bad weather: Animal protection agencies: Predators:
Umbrellas Hunters Bears
Overcoats Habitat loss Mountain lions
Predators
Questioning:
Questioning is different from brainstorming because you are giving yourself specific rules for the ideas that you are trying to generate. While you can and should ask questions at all points of the writing process, directly after brainstorming is a particularly useful time to ask them.
Using the prompt about protecting wild animals, you could ask:
Do I think animals should be protected?
Do I have enough ideas to write about?
Do animals with umbrellas and overcoats matter to my topic?
What do animal protection agencies do? How do I feel about them?
Should I write about prey animals as well as predators?
Free writing:
Free writing is the process of putting your ideas about your topic onto paper in the form of sentences. Allow to write them in any order. Do not worry if they are good ideas or not at this point in the process.
Going back to the topic about protecting wild animals, the prewriting process could look like this:
Why do we need dog catchers? Too many people allow their dogs to run free in my neighborhood. There are a lot of woods where I live. Do the dogs kill a lot of wild animals? What kind of animals need help? Are hunters doing a lot of damage to the animals that live near me? I sure do have a lot of dear that eat the plants in my garden. I bet if we had more bears the deer wouldn’t eat all of my cantaloupes. Doesn’t cantaloupe sound like antelope? I wish we had antelope in this part of the world. Wouldn’t it be funny if you were walking through a park on a rainy day and all the squirrels are wearing raincoats and holding umbrellas and one of them comes over and bums a smoke off of you?
Scratch outline:
A scratch outline is the place where you start to get your ideas in the order. You are not quite ready to make your first draft yet, so your ideas do not have to be full sentences yet.
For example:
Protecting Wild Animals
I think wild animals should be protected.
Animal protection agencies can help.
Say something about squirrels in overcoats.
Hunters can kill too many animals.
Predators can kill too many animals.
Study how many animals there are.
Find how many animals are needed.
Animal protection agencies are helpful.
We should protect wild animals.
Formal Outline:
The formal outline is where you start turning your rough ideas into full sentences. A formal outline usually has a title, atopic sentence, a listing of the main points, any support for the main points you may have, and a conclusion sentence. It is fine not to know everything you are going to write about at this point in the process, but the more full sentences you write the easier your first draft will be.
For example:
Title: Protecting Wild Animals
First main point: First, animal protection agencies can help by studying the rate of habitat loss.
Support sentences: Less land equals less animals
Hunting might help
Second main point: Second, animal protection agencies can determine which animals should be hunted and how many should be hunted in any given year.
Support sentences: Find a good population of deer.
Predators might kill deer.
Third main point: Third, animal protection agencies can study the population size of predators and how many of what prey items they need to survive.
Support sentences: Balanced echo-system
(place holder until I find another support sentence)
Rough draft:
The rough draft of your paper is where you take all of the prewriting you have generated and form it into a paper. The rough draft doesn’t have to be pretty, but it should be written out in complete sentences.
For example, here is how a rough draft responding to the prompt about protecting wild animals might look:
Squirrels in overcoats and Animal Protection Agencies
Wild animals need help to protect themselves from habitat loss, over hunting, and overpopulation of predators; animal protection agencies are a good step toward protecting wild spaces and the animals in them. Imagine walking through the woods on a rainy day and every squirrel there is wearing an overcoat and holding an umbrella. How did the squirrels get these things? The animal protection agencies handed them out. Well, maybe squirrels don’t wear overcoats, and animal protection agencies don’t hand them out to wild animals. However, animal protection agencies do good things for wild animals. First, they can help wild animals by studying the rate of habitat loss. When they know how fast the habitat is declining, they can take steps to help protect the animals there. When the size of the habitat decreases, the healthy size of an animal population should decrease as well. Second, animal protection agencies can determine which animals should be hunted and how many should be hunted in any given year. If they were to wee that the local population of deer was growing out of control, they could increase the limit of deer a hunter could harvest each year until the trend changed. Third, animal protection agencies can study the population size of predators and how many of what prey items they need to survive. If animal protection agencies simply raised the limit of hunting tags without studying the population of animals that prey on deer, the population could drop much faster than anticipated. Therefore, these agencies need to keep track of predator populations as well. These agencies are important, but they can make mistakes if we don’t keep them funded properly. Please remember, animal protection agencies are dearly needed the keep populations of wild animals alive and healthy in this everchanging world.
Example Paragraph
Student’s Name
Teacher’s Name
The Name of the Class
21 August 2022
The Importance of University Sporting Events
Sports are important for the proper function of a university, but they are not the most important reason to go to a university. Sporting events do three important things for a university: they bring in revenue, help students develop a sense of community, and allow students to relax after hours of intense study. First, university sports, especially football, are a powerful recruitment tool, and if a university attracts more students, it can collect more revenue from tuition. With more revenue, the university can build a better learning experience for all its students. Second, sports allow university students to come together as a community. Attending sports events and rooting for their team along with other students from the same university brings the students together as a whole. When students are bound to the university they attend, they are more likely to work together and help each other work to the best of their abilities. Third, university sports are a good stress release for students who have been devoting all their energy to earning a good education. Going to a university is fun; it is supposed to be fun. But attending a university is hard work and can be stressful. Therefore, the university has provided many types of entertainment, like sporting events, for its students to allow them to take a break when they feel the need. However, students spend many thousands of dollars to attend a university, and they borrow this money from their parents, the federal government, or private loan companies. No matter how much they may enjoy attending sporting events, students spend all this money get an education not to attend sporting events.
Breakdown of the Example Paragraph
Student’s Name
Teacher’s Name
The Name of the Class
The Current Date
Your name and class information goes on the top left.
The Title
The Importance of University Sporting Events
The title is a very short description of the paper.
The Topic Sentence
Sports are important for the proper function of a university, but they are not the most important reason to go to a university.
The topic sentence is states exactly what the paragraph is going to be about.
Follow up to the Topic Sentence
Sporting events do three important things for a university: they bring in revenue, help students develop a sense of community, and allow students to relax after hours of intense study.
(You will not be expected to write more than one sentence for your topic sentence)
The Main Points
Point Number1:
First, university sports, especially football, are a powerful recruitment tool, and if a university attracts more students, it can collect more revenue from tuition.
Follow Up Sentence for Point Number 1:
With more revenue, the university can build a better learning experience for all its students.
Point Number 2:
Second, sports allow university students to come together as a community.
Follow up Sentences for Point Number 2:
Attending sports events and rooting for their team along with other students from the same university brings the students together as a whole. When students are bound to the university they attend, they are more likely to work together and help each other work to the best of their abilities.
Point Number 3:
Third, university sports are a good stress release for students who have been devoting all their energy to earning a good education.
Follow up Sentences for Point Number 3:
Going to a university is fun; it is supposed to be fun. But attending a university is hard work and can be stressful. Therefore, the university has provided many types of entertainment, like sporting events, for its students to allow them to take a break when they feel the need.
Conclusion:
However, students spend many thousands of dollars to attend a university, and they borrow this money from their parents, the federal government, or private loan companies. No matter how much they may enjoy attending sporting events, students spend all this money get an education not to attend sporting events.
This two-sentence conclusion restates the topic sentence in different words.
(You will not be expected to write a two-sentence conclusion)
MLA Format
General Formatting
Page Number
Put your last name and page number is in the header on the top right.
Name and Class Information
In the top left corner of the page put
It should look like this:
Student’s Name
Teacher’s Name
The Name of the Class
21 August 2022
Title
The title should be centered on the line directly below the date.
The Paper
You smell like freedom.
Like motor oil, pimples, and back hair.
Like a firework and potato salad fart.
Like the wrong change at the Walmart register.
Like a greasy spoon restaurant on some Podunk backroad.
Like lightning and rain on the wind.
Like the greasy smell of gun oil on steel
And the taste of the barrel in your mouth.
***
Is it cheating since I didn’t write this one in cascade form? Is it cheating to post two?
I wrote this poem in response to the Wea’ve Written Weekly prompt on Skeptics Kaddish. This week’s prompt poem is “Calcutta Calling” by Punam Sharma. If you would like to read the poem or participate in the prompt visit the post here: https://skepticskaddish.com/2022/08/17/w3-prompt-16-weave-written-weekly/
Nothing says freedom like a bottomless pitcher of margaritas.
Nothing says freedom like grilling by the pool.
Nothing says freedom like Freedom Pools cascade color.
.
Nothing says freedom like a fourth of July family backyard pool party cookout.
Nothing says freedom like drunk parents and kids in the pool.
Nothing says freedom like a bottomless pitcher of margaritas.
.
Nothing says freedom like burgers cooking on the grill.
Nothing says freedom like tequila straight from the bottle.
Nothing says freedom like grilling by the pool.
.
Nothing says freedom like a drunken family pool party.
Nothing says freedom like a child floating face down.
Nothing says freedom like Freedom Pools cascade color.
***
I wrote this poem in response to the Wea’ve Written Weekly prompt on Skeptics Kaddish. This week’s prompt poem is “Calcutta Calling” by Punam Sharma. If you would like to read the poem or participate in the prompt visit the post here: https://skepticskaddish.com/2022/08/17/w3-prompt-16-weave-written-weekly/
Thirty minutes before class staring into the whiteboard
Wondering how I am going to keep the class engaged
Until the students come. Then, it’s free sailing.
Is there something in
The twilight air keeping children
From their homework?
***
A haiku is a three-line, 17-syllable poem that is often written in lines of five, seven, and five syllables.
Sometimes, college art
Is two rooftop antennas
Caught in a swordfight.
***
A haiku is a three-line, 17-syllable poem that is often written in lines of five, seven, and five syllables.
Five limp, pickled jalapen(is)o rings
Where the life happen(i)s
To let the whiskey open(is) up
Kick the door open(is) with your pants around your ancles
Ears twitch with eyes open(is) for a second
Just a man with a pen(is)chant for midnight mass
In fact, they spen(is)d most of their time on fire
***
A free verse poem has no set pattern for line or stanza length. Rhyme is not used, or it is used sparingly. The line length and the rhythm or the lines are dictated by the natural rhythm of speech or other concerns such as emphasis on a particular word, image, or idea.
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