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!