Sparkle, the poet

So, Wander and I were discussing going to the Renaissance Festival. We like to go every year. Wander even dresses up. This year we plan on going to one of their School Days. When looking up the info for School Days, I stumbled across their poetry contest. Hum. Sparkle likes poetry. She's constantly coming up with rhymes. Why not?

Friday afternoon, instead of doing school work or taking a nap, I decided to have Sparkle write a poem. I start by reading her the info from the contest, which indicates that "poems should reflect Renaissance Period themes such as knights, maidens, royalty, fairies, dragons, etc." Hum, not exactly what springs to mind when I say "Renaissance," especially since we just read a biography of Leonardo da Vinci. However, Sparkle is much more familiar with dragons, fairies, and princesses than the actual Renaissance, so it's just as well.

Sparkle immediately starts coming up with rhymes about princesses, fairies, knights, and dragons. She even throws in some totally oddball rhymes (Rabbits, rabbits have bad habits.) I act as her scribe. (The contest rules say the poem must be the student's original work. I figure that as long as the words and arrangement are hers, I'm still within the rules.)

Next, I type up all of her rhymes and other random words (tuba!?) and print them. I tell Sparkle to get her scissors and she cuts up all the little lines. Next is the fun / torturesome part. I tell Sparkle to select which lines go together and re-arrange them to form a single poem. I say she can change words if needed to make them fit. Sparkle is willing to let go of the rabbits and tuba right away, but everything else is too precious to her. ("Eye, eye, you carefully spy.") She is at the stage of writing where the first draft is the final draft.

We have better success when Sparkle groups her lines according to subject. All the dragons get together ("Dragons, dragons, in the wagons"). The "Soldier, soldier, getting bolder" marches to join the knights. The "fairy, fairy, oh so merry" flies to the other fairies.

I slowly guide Sparkle to see which lines might match up with each other, and why some could use revising. Who is the knight fighting? Why does the princess need saving if she has lots of power? Sparkle ends up "setting aside" over half of her lines and changing a few words in the lines she keeps. Eventually, she has a version that makes sense, and I sternly tell myself not to bother with anything else. I print a clean copy of the poem, along with the title she has chosen. Then, I have her copy the entire poem onto a separate piece of paper.

Here it is:

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***The Knight and the Dragon***

Knight, knight
Trying to fight
Dragon, dragon in the cave
Breathing fire on him oh so brave.

Knight so brave
Trying to save
Princess in flowers
Who has no powers.
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I don't expect Sparkle's poem to do well in the contest. After all, she is on the young side in her age group (K-4th grade). However, it was a worthwhile experience that introduced her to the revising process.