BRAINLIST Write a poem about one of the topics above, using precise words to explore a topic and create an effect. First, select a topic. Then, make a list of very precise words that would help you describe the scene. Next, write several lines using the words you selected. Then, put those lines together to form sentences, and divide the sentences into lines.

Your poem can be any length, and it does not need to rhyme. Let the precise words you chose guide you in shaping a poem.
Topics are a fireworks display, Friday night football, a solar eclipse, and a holiday parade

Read the excerpt from "mother tongue." those tests were constructed around items like fill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such as “even though tom was mary thought he was ” and the correct answer always seemed to be the most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, “even though tom was foolish, mary thought he was ridiculous.” well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what tom could have been and what mary might have thought of him. so i never did well on tests like that. how does tan build a central idea of her story in the excerpt? tan discusses the types of questions on achievement tests to support the idea that the tests limit students’ ability to write well. tan explains a question on a language achievement test to support the idea that the tests should include more interesting content. tan gives an example of her experience with achievement tests to support the idea that they are not always accurate measures of language ability. tan considers how her mother might answer a question on a test to support the idea that nonstandard english limits a person’s ability to communicate.