Elephants – large creatures, tusks, big flappy ears, rumoured never to forget and to be scared of mice. But what do they mean to you? Do you have an eccentric aunt who collects them but believes the old superstitions and will never accept any elephant ornament as a gift? Or what about the saying “the Elephant in the Room”?

Spend ten minutes brain storming – take a sheet of paper and write ELEPHANT in the centre if you want you can enclose the word in a circle or cloud and yes different coloured pens are allowed!

Now write things you associate with elephants around it. You can circle these and attach them to the word elephant with a line. Some of the words maybe related to each other in which case you can connect those words with more lines.

Use the mind map to do ten minutes of writing from – you may find more of a formal structured poem arises from this sort of exercise!