Dr. Maya Angelou Wednesday
Welcome to our very last writing prompt in the month of February. This concludes a successful turn with the theme of Black History Month and drops hints for what will come on Friday. Today, we focus on Dr. Angelou’s power to move people through her writing. Your job is to interpret A Prayer for Peace by reflecting on your own life and the activities of current society.
Creative Idea Gal’s Thoughts
Here is the first sneak peek into what’s in store for future writing prompts found in a few quick words from me, Amanda M. Socci, also known as the “Creative Idea Gal.”
Dr. Maya Angelou is well known for her work with civil rights. Among her job titles, “poet” seems to surface in every description. I am not a fan of poetry at all and do not like the act of interpreting fictional material, though I did a ton of that in high school and college. Regardless, I selected a poem as the basis of inspiration for today’s writing prompt because its form closely parallels a prayer. It beautifully embraces elements of gratitude, hope, and urgent requests, all of which comprise the basic structure of a prayer. Hopefully, you can read between the lines and figure out what the new theme for March will be.
Helpful Resources
It has been fun creating writing prompts in such a way as to offer nonfiction writers ample opportunities to do basic research and sleuth work to figure out what I am talking about before doing the actual writing. Now, it’s time to switch things up to keep things interesting and all of you motivated to continue our 10-month marathon training. In this new section, I’ll begin to offer helpful resources to point you in the right direction and give you a running start towards the goal of completing creative, well-worded, grammatically correct nonfiction writing.
For today’s prompt, I offer:
The full text of A Prayer for Peace.
A detailed biography of Dr. Maya Angelou.
Writing Prompt 023
- Step 1: Read A Prayer for Peace. Read it several times until you gain an understanding of its meaning.
- Step 2: Reflect on this poem and think about whether it bears a special meaning within the context of your life or the current activities of modern society. Is there anything in particular going on in the world today that would inspire people to recite this poem?
- Step 3: Read, think about, and interpret this prayer. Write! Suggestion: Write an interpretation of this prayer in the form of an opinion, essay, blog post, or social media blurb (status update, post, tweet).
- Bonus Step: If you own a blog and wish to share a link to the blog post that contains your response to today’s writing prompt, we welcome your permalink and encourage you to post it as a comment below!
Note: You get major brownie points for fleshing out your writing into rich sub-parts or adding historical perspectives to your writing.
Please be sure to leave comments about this writing prompt. We want to hear from you!
About the Author
Amanda M. Socci, J.D., is a freelance writer with 14 years of experience writing professionally. Socci currently cuts her blogging chops on her personal portfolio blog, the Creative Idea Gal blog, and on an online news site, Mount Vernon Patch. Inspired by Nina Amir’s Write Nonfiction in November writing challenge, she created a unique 10-month training program for Writenonfictionnow.com and Writenonfictioninnovember.com blog visitors.
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