Blackout Poetry Text

Instructions and Text for Blackout Poetry

You can create blackout poetry using online tools!
First, watch the instructions. Then click the Blackout poetry Maker link to try it yourself.
I'd love to see what you come up with! Take a screenshot and email it to woelmerc@aaps.k12.mi.us.

Example where the extra text is "blacked out"

Example where extra text is "blacked out" by drawing a picture

You may copy and paste the text found below on this page to use in the blackout poetry online creation tool.
The web tool will let you choose from 3 texts (including Alice in Wonderland),
but you also have the option to cut and paste other choices.

from Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White

The barn was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay and it smelled of manure. It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows. It often had a sort of peaceful smell as though nothing bad could happen ever again in the world. It smelled of grain and of harness dressing and of axle grease and of rubber boots and of new rope. And whenever the cat was given a fish head to eat, the barn would smell of fish. But mostly it smelled of hay, for there was always hay in the great loft up overhead. And there was always hay being pitched down to the cows and the horses and the sheep. The barn was pleasantly warm in winter when the animals spent most of their time indoors, and it was pleasantly cool in summer when the big doors stood wide open to the breeze. The barn had stalls on the main floor for the work horses, tieups on the main floor for the cows, a sheepfold down below for the sheep, a pigpen down below for Wilbur, and it was full of all sorts of things that you find in barns: ladders, grindstones, pitch forks, monkey wrenches, scythes, lawn mowers, snow shovels, ax handles, milk pails, water buckets, empty grain sacks, and rusty rat traps. It was the kind of barn that swallows like to build their nests in. It was the kind of barn that children like to play in. And the whole thing was owned by Fern’s uncle, Mr. Homer L. Zuckerman.

from Frindle, by Andrew Clements

Mrs. Granger kept a full set of thirty dictionaries on a shelf at the back of the room. But her pride and joy was one of those huge dictionaries with every word in the universe in it, the kind of book it takes two kids to carry. It sat on its own little table at the front of her classroom, sort of like the altar at the front of a church. Every graduate of Lincoln Elementary School for the past thirty-five years could remember standing at that table listening to Mrs. Granger's battle cry: "Look it up'! That's why we have the dictionary." Even before the school year started, when it was still the summer before fifth grade for Nick and his friends, Mrs. Granger was already busy. Every parent of every new fifth grader got a letter from her. Nick's mom read part of it out loud during dinner one night in August. Every home is expected to have a good dictionary in it so that each student 10 can do his or her homework, properly, Good spelling and good grammar and good word skills are essential fo, every student. Clear thinking requires a command of the English language, and fifth grade is the ideal time for every girl and boy to acquire an expanded vocabulary. And then there was a list of the dictionaries that Mrs. Granger thought would be "acceptable for home study." Mrs. Allen said, "It's so nice to have a teacher who takes her work this seriously." Nick groaned and tried to enjoy the rest of his hamburger. But even watermelon for dessert didn't cheer him up much. Nick had no particular use for the dictionary. He liked words a lot, and he was good at using them. But he figured that he got all the words he needed just by reading, and he read all the time.

from Dragonrider, by Cornelia Funke

I've seen one!" uttered the dwarf, without raising his face from the floor. "I've seen one, Your Goldness!"
"Seen one what?" Bored, Nettelbrand scratched his chin.
Twigleg went over to the dwarf and bent down to him.
"You'd better get to the point instead of squashing your fat nose flat," he whispered. "My master has a truly terrible temper."
The dwarf scrambled up, looked nervously at Nettlebrand, and pointed a trembling finger at the wall behind him. "One of those," he breathed. "That's what I saw."
Nettlebrand turned around. There was a tapestry on the wall, a tapestry woven by human beings hundreds of years ago. Its colors were faded, but even in the darkness you could make out what it showed - knights hunting a silver dragon.
Nettlebrand suddenly sat up. His red eyes stared down at the dwarf. "You say you saw a silver dragon?" he asked. His voice boomed through the ancient vaults. "Where?"
"On our mountain," stammered the dwarf, straightening up. "He landed there this morning. With a brownie and a human. I flew straight here on the raven to tell you. Will you give me one of your scales now? One of your golden scales?"
"Quiet!" growled Nettlebrand. "I must think."
"But you promised!" cried the dwarf.
Twigleg pushed him aside. "Quiet, stupid!" he hissed.
"Haven'y you got any sense under that big hat of yours? You can count yourself lucky if he doesn't eat you. Climb back on the raven and get out here. It's probably just a big lizard you saw."
"No, it isn't!" cried the dwarf. "It's a dragon! His scales look as if they were make of moonlight and he's big, very big."
Nettlebrand looked at the tapestry. He stood there motionless. Then he turned.
"It'll be the worse for you if you're wrong!" he said in a deep voice. "I shall squash you like a cockroach if you've raised my hopes only to dash them again!"
The dwarf bowed his head.
"Armor-cleaner, come here," growled Nettlebrand. Twigleg jumped. "The new file, the file, yes, master!" he cried. "I'll fetch it at once. I'll hurry, I'll fly like the wind."
"Forget the file," spat Nettlebrand. "I have more important work for you to do. Get on the raven's back and fly to the mountain where this idiot came from. Find out what he saw. And if it's really a dragon, then find out why he's alone, where he comes from, and what the human and the brownie are doing with him. I want to know everything, you hear? Everything."
Twigleg nodded and ran over to the raven, who was still waiting patiently at the foot of the steps.
Disconcerted, the dwarf watched him go. "So what about me?" he asked. "How am I going to get back?"
Nettlebrand smiled. It was not a nice smile. "You're going to sharpen my claws while Twigleg is away. You're going to polish my armor and dust my spines, clean my teeth and pick the woodlice out of my scales. You're my new armor-cleaner! That's my reward for you good news."
The dwarf looked at him, horrified.
Nettlebrand licked his lips and grunted with satisfaction.
"I'll make haste, master," said Twigleg, mounting the raven. "I'll be back soon."
"Oh, no, you won't," said Nettlebrand crossly. "You'll send me news by water, understand? That's quicker than flying back and forth all the time."
"Water?" Twigleg made a face. "But it could be difficult to find water on the mountain, master!"
"Ask the dwarf where to look, beetle-brain," spat Nettlebrand, turning around. Treading heavily, he lumbered slowly over to examine the tapestry with its shimmering silver dragon. Thousands of threads had gone into its weaving. Nettlebrand stood very close to it.
"Perhaps they really are back," he murmured. "After so many long years. I knew they couldn't hide from me forever! From human beings, perhaps, but not from me."