Writing Exercise

Go to Wikipedia.org and click the “random article” link on the left side bar. What new facts do you learn from the article that appears? (You may have to click “random article” more than once, since some articles aren’t really articles, but DON’T just keep clicking until you find an article that you are already interested in.)

Once you’ve found your new facts, write a first-person account in the voice of a person who has experienced those facts.

Examples from my own completely random article search:

• The Northern Arizona Wranglers is an announced professional indoor football team to be based in Prescott Valley, Arizona…The team hired Dominic Bramante as the inaugural head coach after previously serving in the same role with the Duke City Gladiators, winning the Champions Indoor Football title in 2018 and 2019. On October 6, 2020, the team name was announced as the Northern Arizona Wranglers.

– You might write about Dominic Bramante and his move from Duke City to Prescott Valley. Big question: If he led the Gladiators to the championship two years in a row, why did he leave the next year for the Wranglers? There must be a story there.

• Farewell Priory was a Benedictine nunnery near Lichfield in Staffordshire, England. Although it received considerable episcopal support, it was always small and poor. It was dissolved in 1527 as a by-product of Cardinal Wolsey’s scheme to establish a college within Oxford University.

– What would it have been like to be the last Prioress of Farewell Priory (Elizabeth Kilshawe) when it was dissolved in 1527? How would you feel about Cardinal Wolsey and his scheme to establish a college within Oxford University? And isn’t Farewell Abbey a perfect name?

• The IAR-23 and IAR-24 were low-wing monoplane light multipurpose aircraft with a conventional undercarriage, built by IAR of Romania…The IAR-23 was created in 1934 by the Romanian company Industria Aeronautică Română (IAR) as an attempt to design a next-generation fighter[1] for the Royal Romanian Air Force, but because its low power, it was classified only as a civilian touring aircraft.

– What would it be like to be a Romanian test pilot in 1934? Or what if you were a Romanian aeronautical engineer, disappointed by the realization that the fighter jet you designed will only ever be a civilian touring aircraft?