Follow these instructions to create your own found poem, based on the short story “What Happened During the Ice Storm.” When you complete your poem, write it in your Reader/Writer Notebook. Reread: Return to “What Happened During the Ice Storm” from Unit 1 and underline language that “shows” instead of “tells.”

Focus: Decide to focus on one aspect of the narrative for your found poem.

Copy: Find words, phrases, and lines from the story that relate to what you want to write about. Copy them onto a fresh sheet of paper, leaving plenty of room between lines, so that you can study the language easily. Or, cut apart the words and phrases you've copied to form individual slips that you can physically manipulate.

Cut: Eliminate any words that seem unnecessary, do not sound quite right, or are distracting from your poem's focus.

Don't: You are not allowed to add your own language; you have to work with the words from the story.

Do: You have the freedom to repeat language, change punctuation, change capitalization, change line breaks, and experiment with spacing.

Read aloud: Read aloud your found poem, pausing briefly at the line ends, line breaks, and punctuation (commas, semicolons, periods). If something sounds wrong, edit the line breaks, punctuation, or spacing.

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Title: Give your found poem a title. “What Happened During the Ice Storm” is already taken!

Finalize: Write the final version of your poem in the following space.