Calendar of Events for November

11/2- Brainstorming and outline writing for the short story assignment.

11/4-11/10- In class writing for the short story.

11/15- Peer Review. 3 copies of the complete draft of the short story is due at the beginning of class. This is a graded assignment, only students who bring copies with them to class will be afforded credit. Please plan accordingly.

11/17- In class revision for the short story.

11/21- Short stories (final draft, rough draft and peer review sheet) are due in class.

Due on 10/31

Write the fifth setting prompt in your writer's notebook. Be sure to bring your copy of Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt" with you to class. The link to the short story is below:

http://www.juhsd.net/cms/lib010/CA01902464/Centricity/Domain/256/2016_The%20Veldt.pdf

10/25

Today in class:

• We analyzed how mood is created.
• We created a setting that evokes a mood and got some feedback about the effectiveness of the piece from our classmates.
• We chose prompt 4 or 6 from the map setting assignment and wrote a draft.

The homework was to choose a prompt we haven't completed yet, and draft the prompt in your writer's notebook. The writer's notebook will be collected and graded one more time before the end of the quarter. Be sure to be prepared.

Map Writing Assignment

Creative Writing                                                                            Name

70 points

“To put a city in a book, to put the world on one sheet of paper -- maps are the most condensed humanized spaces of all...They make the landscape fit indoors, make us masters of sights we can't see and spaces we can't cover.”
― Robert Harbison, Eccentric Spaces

Directions: You will write seven exploratory pieces to determine what stories your map has to tell. Each piece should be between 500 and 1, 000 words.

1.      Write a detailed description of a place on your map.

2.      Choose a place on the map and write the story of how it received its name.

3.      Use details from a place to help create characterization for one of your characters.

4.      Choose a place on your map and create a mood for the place using details from the setting.

5.      Write the story of a journey from one place on the map to another (maybe through several places).

6.      Write a story of a characters first encounter with a place and its inhabitants.

7.      Write a piece in which the place becomes associated with a particular concept (think about Gatsby’s mansion, Eeyore’s gloomy place, Tolkien’s Golum’s lake, J.K. Rowling’s Room of Requirement or Diagon Alley, are a few that come to mind)).

8.      Create a language that is connected to a particular place. Write a piece about the place and its language.

9.      Write the story of how the map came to be, or how the map was discovered or rediscovered.

10.   Write about a place that is purposefully left off the map.

11.    Write about an important lesson that the hero learned in a particular place.

12.   Write about the destruction of a particular place.

13.   Write the story of someone using the map for wrong-doing.

14.   Write about your character leaving a place on your map and  visiting a place on a classmate’s map.

Create your own prompt that you would like to

10/21

In class today:

• We studied how setting works by reading a series of examples.
• We completed a read/write sheet on how writers create and use setting.
• We wrote a 500-1000 words draft that uses our map (number 6 on the setting assignment sheet below).

Below you will find both the the models necessary for completing the read/write notebook. The map assignment (we did number 6 in class) can be found in the post above.

Creative Writing                                                                     Name

Writing Setting/Models/Fantasy

Harry Sees Diagon Alley for the First Time

Vampires? Hags? Harry's head was swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the dustbin.

"Three up... two across..." he muttered. "Right, stand back, Harry."

He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.

The brick he had touched quivered - it wriggled - in the middle, a small hole appeared - it grew wider and wider - a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway on to a cobbled street which twisted and turned out of sight.

"Welcome," said Hagrid, " to Diagon Alley."

He grinned at Harry's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.

The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons - All sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver - self stiring - Collapsible said a sign hanging over them.

"Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, " but we gotta get yer money first."

Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an apothecary's was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, sixteen sickles an ounce, they're mad ..."

A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emorium - Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, " the new Nimbus Two Thousand - fastest ever," There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quilss and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon ...

"Gringotts," said Hagrid.

They had reached a snowy-white building which towered over the other little shops. Stanidn beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was -

 

 

The great hall

Hogwarts great hall | Source

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind him, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Harry had never even imagined such a stange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles which were floating in mid-air over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first-years up here so that they came to a half in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there amound the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upwards and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Hermione whistper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside, I read it in Howarts: A History."

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the heavens.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first-years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house.

 

Platform 9 3/4

"How do you get on to the platform?" she said kindly, and Harry nodded.

"Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nice and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."

"Er - OK," said Harry.

He pushed his trolley round and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.

He started to walk towards it. People jostled him on their way to the platforms nine and ten. Harry walked more quickly. He was going to smash right into that ticket box and then he'd be in trouble - leaning forward on his trolley he broke into a heavy run - the barrier was coming nearer and nearer - he wouldn't be able to stop - the trolley was out of control - he was a foot away - he closed his eyes ready for the crash -

It didn't come ... he kept on running ... he opened his eyes.

A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, 11 o''clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the ticket box had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. He had done it.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every colour wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to each other in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Harry pushed his trolley off down the platform in search of an empty seat. He passed a round-faced boy who was saying, "Gran, I've lost my toad again."

 

The Hobbit: Our introduction to their world

A hobbit hole.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats - the hobbit was fond of visitors.

The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill - The hill, as all the peopl for many miles around called it - and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the nobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage.

The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in) for these were the only ones to have windows deep-set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Baggines had lived in the neighbourhood of the Hill for time out of mind.

 

 

Maps are due on Friday 10/21

10/7

In class today:

We wrote drafts of our character sketches. 3 copies of your draft is due in class the next time I see you, which is next Thursday.

Have a nice weekend!

Character Sketch Assignment: 10/5

Today in class we:

• Reviewed techniques that create well-developed characters.
• Reviewed the character sketch assignment.
• Brainstormed using the question connected to the character sketch.
• 3 copies of the rough draft of the character sketches are due in class for peer review on 10/13. Students will receive a homework grade for having 3 complete copies of their rough draft. Students who leave class to print out copies will not receive homework credit.
• The character sketch is attached below:

THE CHARACTER SKETCH

 Descriptive Writing/ 100 points

 

When you write a character sketch, you are trying to introduce the reader to someone. You want the reader to have a strong mental image of the person, to know how the person talks, to know the person's characteristic ways of doing things, to know something about the person's value system. Character sketches only give snap shots of people; therefore, you should not try to write a history of the person.

A good way to write a character sketch is to tell a little story about one encounter. If you do that, you could describe a place briefly, hopefully a place that belongs to the person you are describing, focusing on things in the scene that are somehow representative of the person you are describing. Describe how the person is dressed. or facial expressions. From time to time, describe the person's gestures to put words into the person's mouth in direct quotations.

As you work on this sketch, you should decide what kind of emotional reaction you want the reader to have in relationship to this person. What kind of details can you select to create that emotional reaction? Avoid making broad characterizing statements; instead, let the details you give suggest general characteristics. Let the reader draw her own conclusions

Example Sketch

Eudora Welty’s Sketch of Miss Duling

 

Your Assignment

 

Write a character sketch. Avoid telling everything about the person, instead, select two or three outstanding traits to illustrate with incidents and examples. Use description to convey the impression.

 

You may use first person or third person.

 

You may find it helpful to follow the pattern of the model by beginning with an incident showing the person performing a typical action or having an interaction with a minor character. Remember we understand character through showing details and dialogue is a form of showing too.

 

Is it important that the reader see the person? If so, give details of physical appearance. After finishing the sketch, reread it to be sure that it creates a vivid impression, making any revisions that you feel will make it more effective

Paper Requirements:

Ø  Typed Size 12 Font, Standard Margins (1 inch all sides)

Ø  2 pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-writing Questions

1. What purpose does this person have in your story?

 

 

2. What places or objects are associated with this character? How do these objects or places help us understand the character?

 

 

 

3. What do other characters think of this person? What might other people say about him/her?

 

 

 

 

4. What are your character’s motivations? How did the character develop these motivations?

 

 

 

5. Picture this person. Describe him/her in as much detail as you can. Include facial features, physical appearance, clothing, manner of speech.

 

 

 

 

6. How does his/her appearance reflect his/her personality?

 

7. When you picture this person, what do you think of him/her doing? Include descriptions of facial expressions, gestures, etc.

 

 

 

7. When you hear this person, what do you hear them saying?

 

 

 

 

 

8. What are unusual habits, traits, interests, etc. of this person?

 

 

 

 

9. What minor character might help you enhance this character’s traits?

 

 

Friday 9/30

In class we:

• Read the characterization of Tom from The Great Gatsby.
• Analyzed the strategies Fitzgerald uses to create his character sketch.
• Completed the chart/notes and handed them in to be graded.
• Excerpt and chart are below.

Creative Writing                              Name

Character Sketch

Model Study

 

Directions: The following excerpts are taken from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. They are from the first pages of the novel where we are introduced to Tom Buchanan.

 

Your task is to read the excerpts and to annotate the text for strategies that Fitzgerald uses to create, extend and deepen our sense of Tom’s character.

 

 

 

 

Tom Buchanan Excerpt 1

 

 

Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg

glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins

on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom

Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I'd known Tom

in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in

Chicago.

 

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of

the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven--a

national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute

limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of

anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy--even in college his

freedom with money was a matter for reproach--but now he'd left Chicago

and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for

instance he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest.

It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy

enough to do that.

 

Why they came east I don't know. They had spent a year in France, for no

particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever

people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move,

said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it--I had no sight

into Daisy's heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking

a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable

football game.

 

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East

Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was

even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian

Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach

and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over

sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens--finally when it reached

the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the

momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows,

glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy

afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his

legs apart on the front porch.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired

man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.

Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and

gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not

even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous

power of that body--he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he

strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle

shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body

capable of enormous leverage--a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of

fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in

it, even toward people he liked--and there were men at New Haven who had

hated his guts.

"Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final," he seemed to

say, "just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are." We

were in the same Senior Society, and while we were never intimate I

always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like

him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

 

"I've got a nice place here," he said, his eyes flashing about

restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the

front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half

acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped

the tide off shore.

"It belonged to Demaine the oil man." He turned me around again,

politely and abruptly. "We'll go inside."

 

Tom Buchanan Excerpt #2

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently.

"I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read

'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

"Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if

we don't look out the white race will be--will be utterly submerged.

It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

"Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy with an expression of

unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them.

What was that word we----"

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her

impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us

who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have

control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously

toward the fervent sun.

"You ought to live in California--" began Miss Baker but Tom

interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are

and----" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a

slight nod and she winked at me again. "--and we've produced all the

things that go to make civilization--oh, science and art and all that.

Do you see?"

 

Strategy	Examples in the Excerpts	Effects of the Strategy on Characterization
	·            ·            ·	·                ·

 

This note sheet will be graded in conjunction with the class discussion.