D is for DRAW - Dictionary Hike

DRAW

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Once again, I was very happy to point to today's word!  (One might think that I was CHOOSING these words - they are so good - but I am not.) When I sat to write this, I first began writing about my own experience of drawing, then I wrote about drawing with a grandmother, and finally I arrived at a cavechild artist.  Prehistoric paintings enchant me, and stories swirl all around them.  And so, I started wondering, "Did cavepeople ever feel nervous about what to write and draw on their walls?"  Sometimes I'm unsure of what to write and draw.  Perhaps they were too.

You may notice two things.  One is that this is a story poem, a fiction story poem much like my poem for letter B.  This one, however, has a little moral at the end: Someday/we will all be gone./But art we make lives on and on. Consider trying this.  After writing your poem, ask, "Does this verse have a moral?  Would it make sense to state the moral directly or to let the readers figure it out for themselves?"   Each of Aesop's fables tells the moral right at the end.

Another thing you may notice is my use of italics.  Many times, I use italics to indicate that someone is talking.  I think that italics look neater in a poem than quotation marks.  So, if you were wondering, "Why those italics?" now you know.

You can see pictures and read more about cave paintings at Wikipedia, in this Google archive of photographs, or at the Bradshaw Foundation.

This week, if you visit Sharing Our Notebooks, you will be able to hear Janet talk all about how she (doesn't) keep notebooks, the way she revisits old ideas, and you (like me) will learn some great revision strategies for your own poems.  You can also leave a comment on that post through Thursday to be entered in a drawing for four of Janet's books, generously donated by Janet!

You can win these books over at Sharing Our Notebooks!

Each day of this project, Lisa V. will write and post a haiku for that day's word at her blog.  You can read all of these over at Lisa's Poem of the Week.  Please join us and share in the comments if you wish!

If you would like to read my poems for letters A, B, and C, just take a look at the upper left hand sidebar!  Tomorrow we hike to the Land of Letter E.

And if you look at the (new!) top tabs, you will see that The Poem Farm is becoming searchable by topic and poetic technique.  Slowly, I am linking to all that is here as I hope this will make this resource more valuable for teachers and young writers. If you have a suggestion for me, please share as I welcome ideas!

Please share a comment below if you wish!

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