Comments on: Poetry Friday: Dice http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/08/24/poetry-friday-dice/ Talking about children\'s books and gender issues in stories and media Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:33:28 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Eva http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/08/24/poetry-friday-dice/comment-page-1/#comment-2383 Eva Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:53:47 +0000 http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/08/24/poetry-friday-dice/#comment-2383 Assuming you came up with a good system for generating the random letters from die rolls (I'm thinking a d20 and a d8 should do it), you might consider using the letters as a more indirect suggestion. For example, you could roll two letters pick a word that contains both of them and write a poem about that topic. Alternately, you could roll a few more letters and write a poem where each line starts with a rolled letter (for optimal challenge, they should be in the order you rolled ;). It also crosses my mind that using boggle dice or just drawing scrabble tiles from a bag might be a good source of random letters that are more balanced towards letters that are common/easy to use in English. Assuming you came up with a good system for generating the random letters from die rolls (I’m thinking a d20 and a d8 should do it), you might consider using the letters as a more indirect suggestion.

For example, you could roll two letters pick a word that contains both of them and write a poem about that topic. Alternately, you could roll a few more letters and write a poem where each line starts with a rolled letter (for optimal challenge, they should be in the order you rolled ;) .

It also crosses my mind that using boggle dice or just drawing scrabble tiles from a bag might be a good source of random letters that are more balanced towards letters that are common/easy to use in English.

]]> By: John Mutford http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/08/24/poetry-friday-dice/comment-page-1/#comment-2362 John Mutford Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:49:04 +0000 http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/08/24/poetry-friday-dice/#comment-2362 Sort of like Poetry Meets Inkblots, isn't it? Interesting idea for sure. I wonder if a Scattergories die could be used somehow too... Sort of like Poetry Meets Inkblots, isn’t it? Interesting idea for sure. I wonder if a Scattergories die could be used somehow too…

]]> By: Katie http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/08/24/poetry-friday-dice/comment-page-1/#comment-2354 Katie Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:58:23 +0000 http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/08/24/poetry-friday-dice/#comment-2354 20-sided dice are for games like Dungeons and Dragons. They are extremely useful. 30-sided dice are actually generally considered something of a joke in gaming and thus hard to find, but might be good for a project like this. The problem would be that the sides are almost always too small to write on. It's also slightly more difficult and expensive to find other blank standard gaming dice (d4, d8, d10, d12, and d20) than it is to find blank d6s, especially in larger more word-friendly sizes. Chessex is a big dice company that makes a huge variety and I know they do sell decently sized blank ones in a variety of sizes and shapes (probably not d30s though, since nobody actually uses those). There are 100-sided dice as well, but, again, they have really tiny sides that are hard to write on. d20s come really big, although I'm not sure if you can get big blank ones (I would assume someone is selling them, though) and that might work too. For a poetry project, though, it seems like a bunch of d6s would be great because then you roll all of them and end up with a variety of words to use at the end. d4s might be even better and are easy to write on too. As for letters of the alphabet, I've just worked out a way of combining other dice to randomly roll a number from 1-26 and translated that to a letter when I wanted to. I just think a d26 with letters would be cool, if it were possible in a non-stupid way (which I don't think it really is or some educational games publisher would have made it by now). 20-sided dice are for games like Dungeons and Dragons. They are extremely useful. 30-sided dice are actually generally considered something of a joke in gaming and thus hard to find, but might be good for a project like this. The problem would be that the sides are almost always too small to write on. It’s also slightly more difficult and expensive to find other blank standard gaming dice (d4, d8, d10, d12, and d20) than it is to find blank d6s, especially in larger more word-friendly sizes. Chessex is a big dice company that makes a huge variety and I know they do sell decently sized blank ones in a variety of sizes and shapes (probably not d30s though, since nobody actually uses those). There are 100-sided dice as well, but, again, they have really tiny sides that are hard to write on. d20s come really big, although I’m not sure if you can get big blank ones (I would assume someone is selling them, though) and that might work too.

For a poetry project, though, it seems like a bunch of d6s would be great because then you roll all of them and end up with a variety of words to use at the end. d4s might be even better and are easy to write on too. As for letters of the alphabet, I’ve just worked out a way of combining other dice to randomly roll a number from 1-26 and translated that to a letter when I wanted to. I just think a d26 with letters would be cool, if it were possible in a non-stupid way (which I don’t think it really is or some educational games publisher would have made it by now).

]]> By: Elizabeth Z. http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/08/24/poetry-friday-dice/comment-page-1/#comment-2353 Elizabeth Z. Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:49:18 +0000 http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/08/24/poetry-friday-dice/#comment-2353 Although there are sets of d6 available, and 20-sided ones (WHY?), the real answer is "30-sided", like this: http://www.planet.eon.net/~boxcars/prdts2.htm There are also dice with words, but generally dull ones. Although there are sets of d6 available, and 20-sided ones (WHY?), the real answer is “30-sided”, like this: http://www.planet.eon.net/~boxcars/prdts2.htm

There are also dice with words, but generally dull ones.

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