week of 4/30/13

Thursday:

Goal: Get a hold on the portfolio assignment

HW: Begin Portfolios

First Step: 

Emotional Landscape Warm-up:

• Listen to "A Blessing" by James Wright
• Write down all the words you can remember from the poem.
• Listen to "A Blessing" again, writing down the words that jump out at you during the second reading.
• Now think of a familiar journey that you take (e.g. riding the bus to school). Write a poem about the journey, integrating the words you just wrote down.
• Share some writings.

Portfolios

week of 4/23/13

Thursday:

Goal: Examine some 2nd-person writing. 

HW: Imitate either "Theme for English B" or "Girl" 

Option 1: Write a story/poem that is a list of advice to someone.

Option 2: Write a story/ poem that is a letter to a teacher. If you're angry about something, be tactful and don't use the teacher's real name, as that would be a little awkward for me.

First Step: "Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes.

Make a three-column chart on piece of paper. 

Walk around the room and talk to three different people. 

Left column:

1. Person's Name
2. Name of the city they'd visit if they could visit any city in the world.

Middle Column:

1. Their favorite line in the Poem

Right Column: 

1. Explanation of why it's their favorite line.

Then...

"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, read by Edwidge Danticat (4:00 to about 9:30 in the podcast)

If time: A few short stories?

week of 4/16

4/18/13

Goal: Short Story Day 1

First Step: Who's accountable? 

Options for the day:

Option 1. Peer Review/Appreciation

Option 2. No story? You get a "missing" grade for today. This will end up being 20% of your story grade. Get to work. If you get me something today, I will give you half of those points back. Works the same way if you are absent and don't have a good reason.

Peer Review

1. Groups of 3 or 4. 

Step 1: Fill out your rubric, briefly but thoughtfully. 

Step 2: Get in groups that I assign. Sorry, but you will be sharing out of your comfort zone today.

Step 3: Find a comfortable spot. Don't go too far, but if a few groups want to go in the hallway that's fine. 

Step 4: Go over the "active listening" questions as a group so you know what to listen for. 

Step 5: Take turns reading your stories aloud. Use the "active listening" questions on the sheet to guide your listening and feedback. Make sure everybody gets lots of feedback!!!

Active Listening Questions -- Short Stories

1. How does the story open? Is it a satisfying opening? How could it be improved?

2. Did you get an overall impression of the protagonist? What is it? Come up with two memorable facts/impressions of the protagonist.

3. Comment on how the protagonist is developed though dialogue, thinking, actions, speech, or the thoughts of other characters.

4. Does the dialogue sound natural? If not, where can you fix it?

5. What conflicts does the protagonist confront? Is the protagonist's struggle believable? If not, how could you improve it?

6. Is the story's end satisfying to readers? If not, how could you tweak it?

7. What are two significant questions you have after reading the story?

Tuesday, 4/16

Work Day on your short story. 

HW: Complete Story is due Thursday. Please bring a Paper copy. 

Here is the rubric. (Link)

week of 4/9/13

4/11/13

Goal: Look at another fiction example and work on your story.

HW: Complete Short Story due a week from today. (4/18/13)

Requirements: Your short story must have well developed setting, plot, conflict, point-of-view and theme, and at least one well-developed character.

First Step: Review Plot types. Which one would fit your character?

1. Quest
2. Adventure
3. Pursuit
4. Rescue
5. Escape
6. Revenge
7. The Riddle
8. Rivalry
9. Underdog
10. Temptation
11. Metamorphosis
12. Transformation
13. Maturation
14. Love
15. Forbidden Love
16. Sacrifice
17. Discovery
18. Wretched Excess
19. Ascension
20. Descension.

Reading: "The Bass, the River, and Shiela Mant"

If time: Work on stories. 

____________________________________
4/9/13: The snow day we got away with...

week of 4/2/13

4/4/13

Goal: We've got a character. Now, let's develop some plot.


First Step:

1. Review the character you've been developing for two or three classes now.
2. On a note card, come up with one adjective to describe your overall impression of the character. Use your phones for a thesaurus if you need to.


HW: Come in with two possible plans for a plot. Include the following in two brief outlines:

1. Character/s
2. Setting (Think about last class and be true about detail)
3. Goal, conflict or problem (inciting incident and/or trigger
4. Major events (4 or 5--rising action, climax, falling action)
5. Ending/Resolution/Denouement
6. Theme (What would an English teacher say about what your story means)


Tim O'Brien and Character/Setting Interaction

20 Plots:

Tobias, Ronald B. 20 Master Plots. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1993. (ISBN 0-89879-595-8)
This book proposes twenty basic plots:

1. Quest
2. Adventure
3. Pursuit
4. Rescue
5. Escape
6. Revenge
7. The Riddle
8. Rivalry
9. Underdog
10. Temptation
11. Metamorphosis
12. Transformation
13. Maturation
14. Love
15. Forbidden Love
16. Sacrifice
17. Discovery
18. Wretched Excess
19. Ascension
20. Descension.

_____________________________________

Tuesday:

Goal: Begin to flesh out characters. Consider setting. 

HW: Finish the Character Map (see below)

First Step: Sherman Alexie! Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Review the characters you developed in the weeks before spring break. Find the person I assign to you. Take out a lap top. Share something about your character from your blog with this person. (One assignment, for example)

Setting Map: 

Draw a map of on setting that your character inhabits. Really consider the space this character occupies. 

This is a map, but I care much more about the words than the drawings. Don't stress about making this look good unless you really want to. 

If you'd prefer to make a list, make sure that you are showing not telling. In other words, give the reader a hint that is based on an image or detail.

The purpose of this assignment is to get you thinking about showing details rather than telling them. 

Your map must include the following:

1. A hint as to the location (town, city, state, country, etc.)
2. A hint about the time of year (season)
3. A hint about the time of day
4. A hint about the mood (example: lighting)
5. A hint about the climate or weather
6. A hint about the time period (present, past, future)

Specifics: (Be as detailed as you can possibly be)
7. A hint about the mode of transportation that the character uses
8. A hint about some personal grooming habit that the character has
9. A hint about this character's sense of cleanliness or lack thereof
10. A hint about a relationship this character has with a family member, romantic interest, co-worker, or someone else
11. A hint about an inner conflict this character has.
12. A hint about something that makes this character happy.
13. A hint at some "dark" element of your character
14. A hint about something this character believes in deeply. 

week of 3/19/13

3/21/13

Goal: Outwit, outplay, outlast. More on characters.

Homework: Catch up over break if you need to. Don't wait on Infinite Campus! Go back over the blog ( http://ahscreative.blogspot.com/ ) and make sure you've done all assignments!

First Step: Think about the character you have been working on. Describe your character's face and body in as much detail as you can. 

Then, have the character describe his or her own face and body in 1st person.

Then, on the top of a separate sheet of paper, 
Write one interesting line of dialogue. Make it something your character would say. 

For example, if my character was a "sixty-year old man" who "cut his finger off on a table saw today,"
the line of dialogue might be, 

(Yelling up from the basement)"Hey honey! You pick up that wood glue?"  

Dialogue activity based on A Clean Well lighted place. 

Make a circle of about 4 or five people.

This is a "write and pass" activity based on your first line of dialogue.

1. First piece of dialogue
2. Response from the next person's character
3. A line or two of narrative.
4. Line of dialogue
5. Line of dialogue
6. Line of dialogue
7. Line of dialogue
8. Line of dialogue
9. A line or two of narrative
10. A line of dialogue.
11. Give it a creative title.



3/19/13

Goal: Revisit Character Sketches, talk about dialogue.

First Step: Some character sketches to read?

HW For Thursday: Post on your blog: Dialogue sketch using the character you wrote over the weekend.

Example of Dialogue:

A Clean Well-Lighted Place


Listening for Dialogue:

Watch for how Hemingway does the following: 

The following tips come from "Top 8 Tips for writing dialogue"

1. Really listening to speech: notice how people basically communicate. Do they have to explain a lot, or is much understood? Do they talk in complete sentences or fragments? How does rhythm come into play in everyday speech? Also pay attention to how little it takes for you to understand what they're talking about.

2.  Not exactly like real speech: Alfred Hitchcock said that a good story was "life, with the dull parts taken out." This very much applies to dialogue. A transcription of a conversation would be completely boring to read. Edit out the filler words and unessential dialogue

3. Not too much info!  It should not be obvious to the reader that they're being fed important facts. Let the story unfold naturally. You don't have to tell the reader everything up front

4. Break it up with action. Remind your reader that your characters are physical human beings by grounding their dialogue in the physical world. Physical details help break the monotony of dialogue.

5. Don't overdo the dialogue tags. Veering too much beyond "he said/she said" only draws attention to the tags — and you want the reader's attention centered on your brilliant dialogue, not your ability to think of synonyms for "said."

6-8: Read widely, avoid stereotypes, and punctuate properly. 

3/12/13 (TCAP Week)

One Day Only This Week...

Tuesday:

HW: Post a brief 1st person character "voice sketch" on your blog. 

Goal: Begin to delve into characters.

First Step: Papers due. Remember that I need a paper copy this time. 

Characters. Back to this. "Carnivorous Plants"

_________________ is ___________ years old.

He/she ____________________ today.

(Then continue in first person). Go for voice. How would this character actually talk?