Tuesday, March 11th, 2014

CREATIVE WRITING

Happy Tuesday!

March 11^th, 2014

When You Come In

1.      Sign in.

2.     Grab your manila folder.

3.     Make sure your computer is bagged when the tardy bell rings.

Big Ideas for Four Days This Week

1.      Revision and Rubrics (Tests)

2.     We are going to PUSH this week:

a.     We go see our Writing Buddies Thursday (no time to work in class).

b.    This weekend is your last large chunk of time before portfolios are due (a week from Friday).

c.     Tomorrow is a 1:10 Dismissal/shortened class.

Workshop Time—Revisions/Tests

I’m going to tell you about this and have you prepare all your materials, then we’ll get organized and talk portfolio.  That way, people can move on to the Revision/Test as soon as they finish organizational work and portfolio prep.

Get out the following papers:

a.     Advice for Revising and Editing Poetry

b.    Vocabulary Variety

c.     Russian Tailor Rubric (Completed today by 3:20, or not at all)

d.    Ghosts, Monsters, Bullies Rubric (due when tardy bell rings tomorrow, or not at all)

Follow the directions on the rubrics for turn-in.

Ø If you are absent from class for any reason, print the two rubrics yourself.

Ø Your work is still due by 3:20, if you are here at school today.

Organization

1.      Get back the following RUBRIC/TEST items, and see how you’re doing.  If you want to do better, do better!  If you want to maintain, maintain!

2.     Review your manila folder, and consider everything you’ve written this term.

3.     Commit to TEN pieces you will include in your portfolio.  Let’s make a list of items people don’t have paper copies of, but they have on google, and could definitely be contenders for the portfolio.

a.     Around the Block

b.    Fifty-Word Stories

c.     WE #6

d.    WE #7

4.     Fill out the spreadsheet for the TEN pieces you’ll include in your portfolio.

5.     Fill out the OTHER spreadsheet about your portfolio idea.

6.     Check your grade in powerschool, and you will see what grades remain to be earned between now and next Friday.  Adjust your work ethic as needed.

When You Finish Stellar Work

on the Two Poems for Today

Start revising the following:  (I’ll get you the paperwork tomorrow.)

1.      Musical Memory

2.     WE Personal Essay #2, #4, #6 or #7

Homework

1.      Ghosts, Monsters, Bullies Revision

2.     Portfolio Planning and Material Gathering

3.     Re-read the Portoflio packet I gave you last week (grading criteria, reflection direction, table of contents)

4.     Update the Portfolio Planning doc in our class google folder.

Turbo-Advanced Creative Writing

Happy Tuesday!

Organization

Ø  Sign in, please.

Ø  Grab your manila folder.

Ø  Leave your computers bagged until after lunch.

Ø  Get a few papers back.

o   Fifty-Word Stories (Read my comments on your doc later during workshop time, please!  J 

o   Reflection:

Ø  Question #1

Ø  My favorite piece of work that I’ve written this year is my pinterest poem, titled Escape. This poem is about someone who’s trying to write an essay but they are chained to their desk by the same boring ideas with no motivation to finish it. They have to learn how to escape from that feeling and write with passion and direction. This poem offers good diction, different writing techniques, and a theme that empowers a writer to think beyond the walls we put up around our thinking.

Ø              Examples of good diction in my poem include words such as: desolate, lethargy, vacancy, vibrant, parasailing, and luminosity. These are good words because they show and describe what I’m trying to say, rather than the boring words that just kind of sit there. I spent a lot of time on Thesaurus.com trying to find the right words, and I think it paid off. I also had a lot of different writing techniques. Examples of this include alliteration, personification, allusion, imagery and metaphor. I had wanted to use lots of writing techniques because they add so much to the poem. Sometimes you don’t even realize you’re reading a technique, but your mind is making the association between certain points in the writing. I also think that the theme of this poem is what makes it one of my favorites. I love the theme because it slightly represented me when I wrote this. I was out of ideas and stuck on the boring side of thinking. When I read the quote of which I based my poem off of, it inspired me so I decided to write about empowering yourself in your writing.

EB SUBS!

Ø Photo Memory

Ø Childhood Memoir

Ø Pinterest Poem

Ø Class Poem Revision

Ø Cinquains

Ø Fifty-Word Stories

Ø SHORT STORY!!  J

Ø One Poem, Three Ways

Ø I Had the Weirdest Dream

Ø What I Did on a Rainy Day

Big Idea = SHORT STORY!

Short Story Element Lesson:  Connotation

1.      Let’s do some review (page 34).

2.     Let’s read two poems about cockroaches—yeah!

3.     Let’s talk bout the questions on page 35.

Exercise: 

Ø  Connotations Among Synonyms (page 36) with a partner

Ø  NOW—get back to work, peeps!

Ø  Whole-class discussion at 12:45-ish

Quiet, Independent Writing Workshop—Move if you think you’ll be chatty.  Silence is supreme today.

1.      LENGTH:  Total of six pages due TOMORROW

2.     CHARACTER:  Incorporate your CHARACTER pages into your story!  Maybe you use every detail, or maybe you just KNOW it, even though you don’t explicitly state it.

3.     CHARACTER:  Incorporate your Describing People one-hundred words.

4.     SETTING:  Incorporate your Visualizing Setting Details (page 72) into your story.  Maybe you use every detail, or maybe you just KNOW it, even though you don’t explicitly state it.

5.     DIALOGUE:  Revise your story using what you learned/reviewed about dialogue on pages 69-70.

6.     CONNOTATION:  Revise your story using what you learned/reviewed on pages 34-36.

Upcoming Short Story Lessons

1.      Style                                       (Wednesday)

2.     Which Famous Author Do You Write Like?  http://iwl.me

3.     Analyzing Your Own Style: http://writing.mit.edu/wcc/resources/writers/analyzingyourownstyle

4.     Metaphors and Similes        (Wednesday)

Review

1.      Style (pages 58-9)—upcoming = style analysis MONDAY!  J

2.     Point of View (pages 62-3)—which POV did you choose, and why?   Fill out blog form before lunch.

3.     Dan Harmon’s Story Circles (page 64)—did anyone use any part of this?

4.     Creating realistic characters:  detail and description, humanity

5.     Have you incorporated your DESCRIBING PEOPLE assignment into your story?

6.     Setting (page 71)

7.     Get out your Visualizing page (72).  Have you incorporated these details into your story?

8.     “Building a Scene with Dialogue (page 70)

9.     “You Talkin’ to Me?” (page 69, through “Quiz”) 

10.   Think about CONNOTATION when you write and revise.