| 1. Count the words in the poem: |
| Mary had a little lamb, |
| Little lamb, |
| Little lamb. |
| Mary had a little lamb, |
| Its fleas were white as snow. |
|
| (At least, that's how my sister recited it when she was 5.) This example
has 20 words. |
| 2. Draw a line of boxes, one box for each word of the poem. |
 |
| 3. Identify an important word in the poem. Pollard-Gott calls this word the
root. This choice is the delicate part
of the method. |
| * The word should represent an idea, action, object, or person central to the poem. |
| *The word should occur several times in the poem. A word that occurs only
twice will reveal no pattern. |
|
| For this example, we select the word lamb |
| 4. Shade the boxes corresponding to each occurrence of the selected word. |
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