You will write a poem about any subject of your choice using any of the forms and styles that you read about.

Part A
Spend some time brainstorming a topic that you’d like to explore in a poem. Write down your ideas and the topic you ultimately select

Part B
Next, select a style, form, and structure for your poem based on the information in this lesson. Briefly explain why you made those choices

Part C
Now that you’ve selected a topic and a structure, write a draft of your poem.

Part D
If possible, share your poem with someone and get feedback. Show it to a classmate, a friend, a parent, a teacher, or another available reviewer. Then think about the feedback you received. Did the person you shared your poem with understand it? Did they like it?

Part E
Reflect on your poetry writing process. How do you think the structure and style of your poem will affect readers? Does the topic seem to fit with the structure? What was the biggest challenge you faced in writing your poem?

Read the passage, then answer the question that follows. no one could have seen it at the time, but the invention of beet sugar was not just a challenge to cane. it was a hint—just a glimpse, like a twist that comes about two thirds of the way through a movie—that the end of the age of sugar was in sight. for beet sugar showed that in order to create that perfect sweetness you did not need slaves, you did not need plantations, in fact you did not even need cane. beet sugar was a foreshadowing of what we have today: the age of science, in which sweetness is a product of chemistry, not whips. in 1854 only 11 percent of world sugar production came from beets. by 1899 the percentage had risen to about 65 percent. and beet sugar was just the first challenge to cane. by 1879 chemists discovered saccharine—a laboratory-created substance that is several hundred times sweeter than natural sugar. today the sweeteners used in the foods you eat may come from corn (high-fructose corn syrup), from fruit (fructose), or directly from the lab (for example, aspartame, invented in 1965, or sucralose—splenda—created in 1976). brazil is the land that imported more africans than any other to work on sugar plantations, and in brazil the soil is still perfect for sugar. cane grows in brazil today, but not always for sugar. instead, cane is often used to create ethanol, much as corn farmers in america now convert their harvest into fuel. –sugar changed the world, marc aronson and marina budhos how does this passage support the claim that sugar was tied to the struggle for freedom? it shows that the invention of beet sugar created competition for cane sugar. it shows that technology had a role in changing how we sweeten our foods. it shows that the beet sugar trade provided jobs for formerly enslaved workers. it shows that sweeteners did not need to be the product of sugar plantations and slavery.