Haiku
select five poems
that you'd share with your classmates
publish on your blogs
Original Draft - Limerick
There once was a class to learn writing
That everyone found so exciting
They put poems on blogs
And rewrote them like dogs
Until they became more inviting
Rewritten Draft - Limerick
These poems should be from portfolios
Produced from your blood, sweat, and cardio
As exercise
You'll have to revise
And make them your best, yes indeedio
Free Verse
Each poem you choose must be on the blog twice
The original draft and then a rewrite
The difference between draft one and draft two
Will be up to the poet, who's none other than you.
This means all the poems you publish will go
on the blog from your writing portfolio
The points you receive will be left up to me
The maximum score you receive can be three
One point will show that it's up there at all
Two points or three will depend completely on how
Much you experiment with revising your draft
and showing your poetic talent and craft.
Acrostic
Don't
Under-
Estimate
Fred's (that's me)
Rigorous,
Intellectual, and
Demanding standards.
At least make an effort to improve all
Your poems. Don't just type them and think you're done
!
*See comments for grading on comments
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Spring Break "Adventure"
For this blog entry, dramatize an experience from your spring break. You must: 1) narrate in the third person; 2) apply show, don't tell to bring your experience to life; 3) employ a structure that gives your story a clear 3-part structure (beginning, middle, end)
If it hadn't been for those dinosaurs, he thought to himself, shivering. And that Dudley-Do-Right. The rain had been tolerable. In fact, it had been a blessing as the lines thinned down to a trickle. Ten minutes at Harry Potter's Forbidden Journey! It was the kind of boon that merited a Facebook status update. But now, the macho decision to forgo a rain poncho (a glorified, 7-dollar trash bag), along with ill-advised rides on the Jurassic Park River Tour and the Dudley-Do-Right Log Ride, meant a sweatshirt transformed from an insulating layer of warmth into a soaking body wrap of cold rain.
"I can't go on like this," he told his wife, who brightly removed her clear, vinyl, Universal Studios smock and sat down over her cup of steaming coffee. "I have to go find something dry to wear."
As he ventured back into the watery grayness, he remembered the laughable sight of himself in a restroom mirror: straight, black hair matted down like a shiny, plastic shell (was his head really that round?), patchy chin stubble, and his wife's thick, extra-nerdy glasses (he'd lost his professorial spectacles days earlier). Through the droplet-spattered and fogged lenses, he focused on the Marvel Studios souvenir store, the steel-clawed manimal Wolverine beckoning him inside. Yes.
He was not a big Marvel fan. Further, he stubbornly refused to spend money on an overpriced T-shirt that he wouldn't want to wear again. Not a fan of the Hulk or Fantastic Four, and always having had a natural aversion to the bright, tight spandex of Spider-Man (even implied in a hoodie or cotton tee), he scanned the racks until he zeroed in on The Shirt. Its simple chest logo appealed to his spare aesthetic sensibility. Equally important, it was a hero he would be happy to emulate, Iron Man -- cocky but lovable, smooth with the ladies but at heart devoted to his true love Pepper Potts. And more than able to kick a little tail.
He took the shirt to the cashier, already working out in his head where he could peel off his dripping top and replace it with his new geek-chic symbol. And then his eyes found the perfect protective outer shell to complete his vacation armor: a rain poncho with "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" emblazoned across the back. Seven bucks was actually a pretty good deal.
If it hadn't been for those dinosaurs, he thought to himself, shivering. And that Dudley-Do-Right. The rain had been tolerable. In fact, it had been a blessing as the lines thinned down to a trickle. Ten minutes at Harry Potter's Forbidden Journey! It was the kind of boon that merited a Facebook status update. But now, the macho decision to forgo a rain poncho (a glorified, 7-dollar trash bag), along with ill-advised rides on the Jurassic Park River Tour and the Dudley-Do-Right Log Ride, meant a sweatshirt transformed from an insulating layer of warmth into a soaking body wrap of cold rain.
"I can't go on like this," he told his wife, who brightly removed her clear, vinyl, Universal Studios smock and sat down over her cup of steaming coffee. "I have to go find something dry to wear."
As he ventured back into the watery grayness, he remembered the laughable sight of himself in a restroom mirror: straight, black hair matted down like a shiny, plastic shell (was his head really that round?), patchy chin stubble, and his wife's thick, extra-nerdy glasses (he'd lost his professorial spectacles days earlier). Through the droplet-spattered and fogged lenses, he focused on the Marvel Studios souvenir store, the steel-clawed manimal Wolverine beckoning him inside. Yes.
He was not a big Marvel fan. Further, he stubbornly refused to spend money on an overpriced T-shirt that he wouldn't want to wear again. Not a fan of the Hulk or Fantastic Four, and always having had a natural aversion to the bright, tight spandex of Spider-Man (even implied in a hoodie or cotton tee), he scanned the racks until he zeroed in on The Shirt. Its simple chest logo appealed to his spare aesthetic sensibility. Equally important, it was a hero he would be happy to emulate, Iron Man -- cocky but lovable, smooth with the ladies but at heart devoted to his true love Pepper Potts. And more than able to kick a little tail.
He took the shirt to the cashier, already working out in his head where he could peel off his dripping top and replace it with his new geek-chic symbol. And then his eyes found the perfect protective outer shell to complete his vacation armor: a rain poncho with "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" emblazoned across the back. Seven bucks was actually a pretty good deal.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
"Soundtrack to my life"
DUE: Before class Monday, April 15
INSTRUCTIONS:
STEP 1
Title this post "Soundtrack to my life"
STEP 2 (worth 5 points)
Create a 10-song tracklist that would be on the soundtrack to your life movie. The songs you choose will usually be one of two things: 1) the song that was actually playing during a specific life experience; 2) a song that perfectly fits the mood or action of your memory (think of it as 'background music' for a scene)
For each song on the list, include 3 pieces of information:
a. The title
b. The artist
c. a link to the song (if you choose a song that does not have a link - like a church hymn or a family song or some other non-famous piece - simply list as much information as you can)
STEP 3 (worth 5 points)
Choose 5 of the songs from your soundtrack and write an explanation of why this song is important in your life.
Here's an example for Mr. Cheng
Step 1
"Soundtrack to my Life"
Step 2
1. Canon in D by Pachelbel
2. Gasenhauer by Carl Orff
3. Raise Your Glass by P!nk
4. Piano Man by Billy Joel
5. Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
6. Annie's Song by John Denver (1974)
7. No Rain by Blind Melon
8. Overture to Marriage of Figaro by Mozart
9. Days of the week song (no link)
10. Amanda by Boston
Step 3
Track 6. Annie's Song by John Denver:
This was the first dance at my wedding in 1994. The second verse excerpted feels perfect for a wedding because they seem like vows ("Come let me love you, let me give my life to you..."). The whole song feels very true to my wife Shannon and me for many reasons. First of all, we both have a great regard for nature. Some of the lyrics of the first verse go, "You fill up my senses / like a night in a forest/ like the mountains in spring time / like a walk in the rain." While I would never call us "outdoorsy" types, we both appreciate and have a spiritual connection to nature. Neither of us is particularly religious, but we are awed by natural beauty. We spent part of our honeymoon at Glacier and Yosemite National Parks, and Yosemite Valley is probably my wife's favorite spot on earth. She even refers to it as "church." Some other key connects for us are that we are both children of the '70s, and this was a big hit then, so it reminds us of our childhoods. John Denver had a very squeaky clean image. He kind of represented wholesomeness and decency (his real name is Duesenberg, but he changed it Denver because he liked that city's vibe). Both my wife and I are kind of square that way. He had a popular Christmas album. That he did with the Muppets.
Anyway, Shannon and I see ourselves as kind of good, dorky folks who like things like kindness and nature and being polite, which seems out of fashion in contemporary society (that's probably more of a reflection of our insecurities than a clear-eyed judgement of American culture).
INSTRUCTIONS:
STEP 1
Title this post "Soundtrack to my life"
STEP 2 (worth 5 points)
Create a 10-song tracklist that would be on the soundtrack to your life movie. The songs you choose will usually be one of two things: 1) the song that was actually playing during a specific life experience; 2) a song that perfectly fits the mood or action of your memory (think of it as 'background music' for a scene)
For each song on the list, include 3 pieces of information:
a. The title
b. The artist
c. a link to the song (if you choose a song that does not have a link - like a church hymn or a family song or some other non-famous piece - simply list as much information as you can)
STEP 3 (worth 5 points)
Choose 5 of the songs from your soundtrack and write an explanation of why this song is important in your life.
Here's an example for Mr. Cheng
Step 1
"Soundtrack to my Life"
Step 2
1. Canon in D by Pachelbel
2. Gasenhauer by Carl Orff
3. Raise Your Glass by P!nk
4. Piano Man by Billy Joel
5. Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
6. Annie's Song by John Denver (1974)
7. No Rain by Blind Melon
8. Overture to Marriage of Figaro by Mozart
9. Days of the week song (no link)
10. Amanda by Boston
Step 3
Track 6. Annie's Song by John Denver:
This was the first dance at my wedding in 1994. The second verse excerpted feels perfect for a wedding because they seem like vows ("Come let me love you, let me give my life to you..."). The whole song feels very true to my wife Shannon and me for many reasons. First of all, we both have a great regard for nature. Some of the lyrics of the first verse go, "You fill up my senses / like a night in a forest/ like the mountains in spring time / like a walk in the rain." While I would never call us "outdoorsy" types, we both appreciate and have a spiritual connection to nature. Neither of us is particularly religious, but we are awed by natural beauty. We spent part of our honeymoon at Glacier and Yosemite National Parks, and Yosemite Valley is probably my wife's favorite spot on earth. She even refers to it as "church." Some other key connects for us are that we are both children of the '70s, and this was a big hit then, so it reminds us of our childhoods. John Denver had a very squeaky clean image. He kind of represented wholesomeness and decency (his real name is Duesenberg, but he changed it Denver because he liked that city's vibe). Both my wife and I are kind of square that way. He had a popular Christmas album. That he did with the Muppets.
Anyway, Shannon and I see ourselves as kind of good, dorky folks who like things like kindness and nature and being polite, which seems out of fashion in contemporary society (that's probably more of a reflection of our insecurities than a clear-eyed judgement of American culture).
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Character Sketch blog
The end product of our show and tell activity will be to write character sketches portraying 3 of the presentations. One of the sketches will be written in the first person about your own presentation. The other two sketches will be written in the third person about two classmates' presentations of your choice. Be sure to show versus tell through action and dialogue. Keep in mind that all authors take creative liberties. You don't have to write dialogue exactly as spoken. Just capture the spirit.
Also, each character sketch must include an explanation how what literary techniques (remember the Walter Mosley reading?) you used to show versus tell.
So here's an example of the first person character sketch (on my catapult show and tell).
Sketch I
Smile big. When I'm in front of a crowd the fallback is always to smile because then you seem friendly, and maybe it will be infectious. I look out on the sea of blank faces and hope that my "amusing anecdote" about the whimiscal object in my had - a cardboard box containing a brown, plastic, toy catapult will make some waves (of laughter, perhaps) in that impassive body. I feel my left hand looping big circles in the air as a gesticulate. I am a very active talker as I chatter through explanations of my experiences in a Los Angeles improv class. "We got 'catapult' as a suggestion," I say, wishing my audience would reflect back the toothy grin I'm beaming at them, "so I flew onto the stage like I was launched from a catapult, and that got a big laugh." Pause for big laugh. A few chuckles. Oh well, I think as my voice trails off, at least that's done.
Explanation I
extended metaphor - sea, waves, body
action - hand looping circles in the air - shows nervousness or energy
sense words - sound of a few chuckles.
Sketch II
Kyle propped the small, goldish beanie on the desk, its legs dangling over the edge. Kyle faced the class with a playful demeanor as he affectionately caressed the bear. He held his hands behind his back and shifted weight between his feet. He introduced his "faithful companion," and concluded with a description of Bernard as his most active co-pilot. The audience applauded atKyle as he scooped up his compadre and returned to his desk.
Explanation II
active verbs - "scooped," "caressed"
detailed imagery of Bernard - legs dangling over desk
compadre - "idiomatic" language
Also, each character sketch must include an explanation how what literary techniques (remember the Walter Mosley reading?) you used to show versus tell.
So here's an example of the first person character sketch (on my catapult show and tell).
Sketch I
Smile big. When I'm in front of a crowd the fallback is always to smile because then you seem friendly, and maybe it will be infectious. I look out on the sea of blank faces and hope that my "amusing anecdote" about the whimiscal object in my had - a cardboard box containing a brown, plastic, toy catapult will make some waves (of laughter, perhaps) in that impassive body. I feel my left hand looping big circles in the air as a gesticulate. I am a very active talker as I chatter through explanations of my experiences in a Los Angeles improv class. "We got 'catapult' as a suggestion," I say, wishing my audience would reflect back the toothy grin I'm beaming at them, "so I flew onto the stage like I was launched from a catapult, and that got a big laugh." Pause for big laugh. A few chuckles. Oh well, I think as my voice trails off, at least that's done.
Explanation I
extended metaphor - sea, waves, body
action - hand looping circles in the air - shows nervousness or energy
sense words - sound of a few chuckles.
Sketch II
Kyle propped the small, goldish beanie on the desk, its legs dangling over the edge. Kyle faced the class with a playful demeanor as he affectionately caressed the bear. He held his hands behind his back and shifted weight between his feet. He introduced his "faithful companion," and concluded with a description of Bernard as his most active co-pilot. The audience applauded atKyle as he scooped up his compadre and returned to his desk.
Explanation II
active verbs - "scooped," "caressed"
detailed imagery of Bernard - legs dangling over desk
compadre - "idiomatic" language
Friday, February 18, 2011
ACCIDENTAL LESSONS BLOG ASSIGNMENT
Due Tues, Feb 22
PART I (pre-writing) - Think of 10 activities, hobbies, etc., that you participate in and think of 1 accidental lesson you've learned from each one. Create a matching quiz like mine below.
Please match the activity with the "accidental lesson" learned.
1. Tennis
2. Debate
3. Soccer
4. Band
5. Newspaper
6. Theater
7. National Honor Society
8. MC of Homecoming coronation
9. Junior Class Cabinet
10. Church Retreat
A. You learn how to be classy
B. Perception is reality / people don't read minds
C. People like me!
D. Success is at least half mental ( more like 90%)
E. I was kind of racist
F. You can't please all the people all the time
G. People respect when you stand up for yourself
H. Scouring cleans, but damages (accept imperfection)
I. You have to delegate responsibility
J. I suck at pillow fighting (be yourself)
ANSWERS
1. d 2. g 3. a 4. h 5. i 6. c 7. f 8. e 9. b 10. j
PART II - Choose 1 of the activities from your list above and write about 5 "accidental lessons" you learned from that activity. Each lesson should have an story/explanation that is at least 1 paragraph in length (as in Sarah Vowell's "Music Lessons" piece).
PART I (pre-writing) - Think of 10 activities, hobbies, etc., that you participate in and think of 1 accidental lesson you've learned from each one. Create a matching quiz like mine below.
Please match the activity with the "accidental lesson" learned.
1. Tennis
2. Debate
3. Soccer
4. Band
5. Newspaper
6. Theater
7. National Honor Society
8. MC of Homecoming coronation
9. Junior Class Cabinet
10. Church Retreat
A. You learn how to be classy
B. Perception is reality / people don't read minds
C. People like me!
D. Success is at least half mental ( more like 90%)
E. I was kind of racist
F. You can't please all the people all the time
G. People respect when you stand up for yourself
H. Scouring cleans, but damages (accept imperfection)
I. You have to delegate responsibility
J. I suck at pillow fighting (be yourself)
ANSWERS
1. d 2. g 3. a 4. h 5. i 6. c 7. f 8. e 9. b 10. j
PART II - Choose 1 of the activities from your list above and write about 5 "accidental lessons" you learned from that activity. Each lesson should have an story/explanation that is at least 1 paragraph in length (as in Sarah Vowell's "Music Lessons" piece).
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Thu, Feb 10 Blog Assignment
CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING ASSIGNMENT (Elizabeth Gilbert-inspired):
Please portray a memorable and impactful conversation you have had with someone in your family - parents, siblings, or extended relatives. Like the excerpt from "Eat, Pray, Love," this conversation should be set up with an introduction that establishes its context and concluded with related action that provides a satisfying conclusion. In other words, don't just provide a transcript of the words you said; make it a story. Even nonfiction has a narrative flow.
This assignment will be graded on the following criteria
Descriptiveness (show versus tell) 5 points
Structure (beginning, middle, and end) 5 points
Style (quality of writing, word choice, sentence variety, expressiveness) 5 points
Please portray a memorable and impactful conversation you have had with someone in your family - parents, siblings, or extended relatives. Like the excerpt from "Eat, Pray, Love," this conversation should be set up with an introduction that establishes its context and concluded with related action that provides a satisfying conclusion. In other words, don't just provide a transcript of the words you said; make it a story. Even nonfiction has a narrative flow.
This assignment will be graded on the following criteria
Descriptiveness (show versus tell) 5 points
Structure (beginning, middle, and end) 5 points
Style (quality of writing, word choice, sentence variety, expressiveness) 5 points
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
