Click here for authlete instructions.
Voter Instructions:
- The countdown at the bottom of each pairing indicates how much time is left to vote.
- When voting closes, timer will disappear.
- Read both poems as many times as you like.
- Mark the poem you like best by clicking the circle next to its name.
- Press the “Vote” button to record your vote.
- Votes are counted in real time and cannot be changed once entered.
- You can only vote once from a given IP address.
- Classrooms should submit one vote as a class.
- Students can then vote again individually from home.
Things to Consider in Making a Choice:
- How well the poem incorporates the authlete’s assigned word.
- Technical elements: meter, rhyme, form, shape, and other poetic standards.
- Creativity: wordplay, imagery, unusual approach, etc.
- Subtle elements that make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
- Your overall response: emotional reaction such as admiration, tears, laughter, terror, or some indefinable feeling.
Here are the poems:
5-palpable
Spelling Rules?
by Debra Shumaker
A palpable problem, that’s true.
When spelling’s not easy to do,
And teachers won’t let us make-do.
I know that it’s “i” before “e.”
Except when it comes after “c.”
Then please explain “species” to me.
vs.
12-sequitur
IN CONCLUSION …
by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes
Kids of the jury, believe me,
if you had a sister like mine,
you, too, might be bucking authority—
her conduct was way out of line.
She kidnapped my Captain America
and threw him in Barbie’s pink jail!
So it seemed like a sensible sequitur
to place the ad: “SISTER FOR SALE.”
