Poetry and Prose by Sparkle

Here is a poem by Sparkle. The assignment was to write a poem for the Renaissance Festival. She wrote this poem fairly quickly. I guess she felt inspired that day. Her first draft was almost three times as long, but the Renaissance Festival contest only accepts poems up to 20 lines long. So, we cut apart the stanzas and played around with them until we got this arrangement. Then Sparkle did a few more edits - mostly capitalization, punctuation, and a few minor word changes. The first draft was done on one day and the revisions on a second day.

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The Fairies

Flying with the birds,
Sitting on a snail,
Listening to it rain
On the water pail!

Hopping from a leaf,
Dancing on a flower,
Making rose buds bloom
With their special power.

Spinning in a garden
On their little toes!
Has anybody seen them?
Does anybody know?

The Fairies dance and sing.
The Fairies love to fly!
They watch it rain upon the pail
And see the world go by!



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Here is a piece of her prose writing. The assignment was the final essay from the end of The Paragraph Book 1. It took her several weeks and many, many, many drafts before we decided that it was good enough to stop working on it.

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How to Get, Peel, and Eat a Grapefruit

First, see if there are any grapefruit on the counter. If you can’t find one on the counter, go to the store to get a grapefruit. Come home from the store with the fruit. Put the grapefruit on the green kitchen table. You have the fruit.

Next, put your nails on the fruit. Dig your nails into the skin of the fruit. Make sure your nails don’t puncture the flesh of the fruit. Pull down with your nails to start peeling. You will see a hole in the skin. It is the start. Repeat until there is no skin. Rest because your fingers will be very tired! Then, you will see an underskin. It looks fuzzy and it’s whitish. Peel off the underskin. Look for any underskin on the fruit. It tastes bad. If there is still a little bit of underskin on it’s ok. You don’t have to peel all the underskin off. You have your peeled fruit.

Finally, peel off the membrane around the fruit segments. Hold a grapefruit segment up to your mouth. Do this to start eating the fruit. Bite the fruit segment and chew, and swallow. Catch any falling juice, it’s good, and spit any seeds out into a bucket or trash can. Repeat the steps. There are baby seeds too so watch out! You ate your grapefruit.

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To better appreciate the work in the above composition, here are her original frame paragraph and her first expanded draft.

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Original Frame
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How to Peel a Grapefruit

First, get a grapefruit from the counter or store. Next, get your nails in the fruit. You do it to start peeling. Then, pull down with your nails. Make sure you don’t bend your nails. Then, repeat until there is no skin left. Peel of some of the stringy skin too. Finally, eat your grapefruit.

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Original Expanded Draft
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How to Peel a Grapefruit

First, see if there are any grapefruit on the counter. Next, go to the store to get a grapefruit. You do this if you can’t find one on the counter.Then, come home from the store.Don’t forget the grapefruit. Then, put the grapefruit on the table.Put it on the green kitchen table. Finally, you have the fruit.

First, put your nails on the fruit. Next, dig your nails into the skin. Make sure your nails don’t puncture the fruit. Then, pull down with your nails. You do this to start peeling. Then, you will see a hole. It is the start. Finally, rest.

First, reapeat until there is no skin. Next, you will see a underskin. Peel off underskin. Then, look for any look like banana skin on the fruit.It tastes bad.Then, if there is still a little bit of skin on it’s ok. You don’t have to peel all the skin off.Finally, you have your peeled fruit.

First, peel of the clear skin.Next, hold the grapefruit up to your mouth. Do this to start eating.Then, bite the fruit and chew and swallow. Catch any falling juice it’s good and spit any seeds out.Then, reapeat the steps. There are baby seeds too so watch out! Finally you ate your grapefruit.

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