AP English: Maurice Sendak (Part 2)

In yesterday's class, we worked on the first two parts of our creative writing project: steps 2 and 3 of our children's book assignment, here.  You selected your conflict (step 2) and organized your plot (step 3). Many of you also posted step 4, which was to identify your main characters.

For today, we will begin class by finishing Stephen Colbert's 2012 interview with literary giant Maurice Sendak (here) and I will show you my own copy of I Am a Pole (and So Can You!).

When we are finished, please get with your partners and jump into steps 4 and 5. Step 5 is now the most important: Write a rough draft. Make sure to confine yourself to twenty pages (see the back of your assignment sheet) and let me know if you have any questions.  When you are done, please post your answers to steps 4 and 5 in the comments section below.

AP English: Writing Your Own Children's Book

Part 1 of my favorite 2012 interview with Maurice Sendak (author of Where the Wild Things Are) with Stephen Colbert.

My lovely AP students, I was so moved yesterday when we went down to the library, pulled out some children's book and began to read. It felt like that day in elementary school and when your teacher says, "We're going to the library!" and every kid jumps up from their desk and says, "Yay!" As I looked around the library yesterday, you were all laughing and excited about the stories you were reading, and something suddenly became clear: some of our favorite books are not long, three-volume Victorian novels, but those written for children.

Today, we will be finishing step two of our Children's Book Project (assignment sheet here), making an outline of the story. I encourage you all to also finish step three, characters, so you are ready to jump into the rough draft tomorrow.

For today, we will warm-up by watching this 7-minute interview (Part 1) of Stephen Colbert's interview with children's book author Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are, which was first published in 1963, and very much like Lewis Carroll's Alice stories, still resonates with us today.

When we are done, get with your partner and complete step 2 (and 3 if you can) from your assignment sheet. Post your answers in the comments section below to turn in your assignment.


Standard/Rubric for this Assignment (here)
W3, "I can write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences."

Narrative Writing: Reimagining The Hobbit

This weekend, I got to thinking about the story of The Hobbit, and how it would be different if it was told from the perspective of one of the story's other characters (i.e., Gandalf, Gollum, Bombur, Thorin, you name it).  As the main character, Bilbo plays an important role in how the story is told: we are sympathetic to him, understand his logic, and find his "hobbitness" incredibly endearing and heroic.  But how would Bilbo look if Bombur described him? Would he be the same hero Tolkien describes? Or, would he seem frustrating, small, and furry if told from the perspective of an elegant elf or a burly dwarf?

For all of this week, you and a partner will be writing an imaginative piece of literature in which you re-write the story of The Hobbit from the perspective of one of the book's other characters.  Your story may be as long or as short you like and discuss any part of the book.

Please use dialogue, specific details, and setting.  Your character's perspective should be believable and give your reader a new perspective on the same story.

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Standard:

VHS.11-12.W3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Rubric:

Download here.

Port Veritas: Day 4

Today, we had the whole group back together for our period 2, AP English, writing workshop.  The senior who workshopped with Nate, Beau, and Robin shared the poem he workshopped yesterday and got feedback from the rest of the group.  The poem changed in meaningful ways since the last workshop, and it was a treat to hear the poem's implied metaphor from classmates.

Each student stood in front of their workshop table and read their favorite of the two writing prompts they received on Tuesday.

Samples from today's metaphor poems.  Some students chose to type or hand-write their copies.

Here are some of the topics workshopped today by our student writers:
1) One student wrote about time, aging, and decay using the image of chipped nail polish.  At the end of the poem, the word had a double meaning and "polish" became a representation of the polish of youth.

2) Another student shared a poem about "Otto," a dog who experiences loss and excitement as their owner comes and leaves.  Because the image was so easy to understand, we discussed the poem's metaphor as separation anxiety and loss.

3) A third student wrote about a tree that starts as a seedling and grows into a lush tree.  One of my favorite lines was this one: "Eventually the tiny tree / Has grown into a lush one / yielding more fruit than Eden."  The author wanted to convey a message of growth even with limitations that keep something from growing.  Workshop members, however, thought it might be a metaphor for the growth one experiences in high school.


More workshopping tips from today:
1) Cut repetition for the sound of the poem.  For example, "Those cracks and those chips" could be "Those cracks and chips."  It sounds better and has a clearer meaning.

2) You don't have to start poems with word banks.  In fact, you can do a free write on a topic, image, object, or idea, and go back and do a word bank.  When we heard about the tree that yielded "more fruit than Eden," for example, we discussed making a word bank about Eden so that the biblical imagery could appear elsewhere in the poem.

3) Write with confidence! We talked a little bit about this yesterday, but I think the discussion today was even more helpful.  Phrases such as, "almost like," should be, "like," to create authority in the writing.

Tomorrow, we will focus on speaking and reading poetry out loud to wrap things up.

Welcome Port Veritas!

AP English: Discovering the Sonnet

The Sonnet: a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter (five feet of stressed and unstressed syllables).  

As we get ready for a visit from the lovely poets at Port Veritas next week, we've started to read poetry--lovely, concise, perfect poetry.  From the Greek verb poiein, meaning "to make," poetry is one of our oldest genres of literature, positioning the writer as a "maker" of rhythms, images, and verse.  In fact, many scholars surmise that poetry historically grew out of the rhythmic chanting and singing of oral traditions.  It is possible that poetry is one of our oldest modes of communication, and it is rooted in the human drive to communicate clearly, concisely, and with great feeling or meaning.

Poetry's link to oral traditions.

Yet what's really interesting about poetry is the way in which it allows the writer to use language in its most condensed form.  While it might take me 500-words to explain an idea, it might take a poet fifty or a hundred words to communicate the same thing.  Because of this compression, I have often thought that reading poetry required more work, but with greater benefit.  Poems don't always make their meaning obvious to readers, and they require a level of collaboration with the text that you don't usually see when reading a novel by Charles Dickens.

"Collaboration with the text?"

Basically, becoming involved in the creation of a poem's meaning.  By nature, reading is a passive act, but poetry doesn't allow its readers to be passive.  Readers go back, ask questions about a poem's meaning, look for repeating images, sounds, ideas, and "unpack" a text as they work their way through its short lines and intentional movements.

Here is an example of a poem our class worked with on last year, "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room" by William Wordsworth:

Wednesday's poetry explication: "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room" by William Wordsworth.

I put the poem on the board as a way to show how readers shouldn't just read a poem--they have to have a relationship with it.  This relationship is especially important because Wordsworth's poem is a sonnet, a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter with alternating end rhymes for each line of the work.

This particular example by Wordsworth is a Petrarchan Sonnet that is divided into two parts: an octave, or 8 lines, at the beginning, and a sestet, or six lines, at the end.  Usually, the octave will suggest a situation or an idea and the sestet will comment on that idea, offering a solution.  In the image above, our class identified the rhyme scheme (abba, abba, cddccd), the main idea at the beginning: nuns, hermits, students, maids, and bees are happy in their monotonous, "restricted" lives, and the solution or resolution at the end: the "speaker" believes that the "prison unto which we doom / Ourselves, no prison is" (lines 8-9).  This argument is a lovely way of contradicting the idea that nunneries/monasteries, cells, and citadels, just like the Sonnet form (line 11), are not places of restriction but opportunities to express meaning in a structured way.

Ultimately, Wordsworth is using the Petrarchan sonnet form to explain why he (or any poet) uses the sonnet form: its classical restrictions still offer modern poets (nineteenth century) the ability to express themselves.

Could our class have gotten to Wordsworth's argument without first annotating his poem?  Maybe, but not likely.  Like most poems, sonnets beg to be poured over and engaged.  It's one of the things I love about poetry and the reason for tonight's homework!

Homework 
Rough Draft: DUE Friday, March 31, 2017
Revised Draft: DUE Monday, April 3, 2017
Write a 14-line sonnet about a topic of your choice following the Shakespearean model: three quatrains (4-lines each) and a rhymed coupled (two lines at the end of the poem).  The turn in the Shakespearean sonnet occurs at the end of the third quatrain with the rhymed couplet commenting on (or resolving) the topic/issue/idea your sonnet is about.

Your sonnet can be on any topic you like, but it must be 14-lines and use the following rhyme scheme:

line 1 - a 
line 2 - b
line 3 - a
line 4 - b
line 5 - c
line 6 - d
line 7 - c
line 8 - d
line 9 - e
line 10 - f
line 11 - e
line 12 - f
line 13 - g
line 14 - g

Creative Writing: "Critical Role" and Complex Characterization

Writing Warmup:
As part of our discussion of role playing games and fantasy genres, it's time to look into the world of role playing games with real people playing real games.  After watching this video, please answer the discussion questions below.

1. What are the character types portrayed in the show?
2. How do the actors portray those character types?
3. What have you learned about roleplaying and characterization?

Creative Writing: Final Project (Art + Literary Analysis)

Bell Ringer Activity: 
In Wednesday's class, we discussed a final project idea that you will be doing for your summative score in Creative Writing: An Art + Literary Analysis of the paintings you created based on the works of ancient Greek mythology, John Keats, John Milton, and others.

For today, I'd like you to post your pre-writing about your Pandora painting along with a quote from the original myth you'd like to use in your portfolio.  If you'd like another copy of your portfolio assignment sheet, you can download it here.

Creative Writing Warmup: Paradise Lost by John Milton

Bell Ringer Activity:

In yesterday's class, we started reading Paradise Lost by John Milton.  For today, I'd like you to pick a selection of lines from our readings and identify the speaker, purpose, characterization, theme, and tone.

For example, 

• Lines 17-19: "O Spirit, that dost prefer / Before all temples the upright heart and pure, / Instruct me, for Thou know'st;"
• Speaker: the poet/voice of Paradise Lost
• Purpose: to ask the muse to instruct the speaker at his/her task (telling the story of Paradise Lost)
• Characterization: the speaker seems need help or guidance because of the request; the spirit (muse) is "pure" and knowledgeable because it is able to instruct the speaker.  Also, the spirit has an "upright heart," which means that she is kind and warm.
• Theme: guidance
• Tone: a sense of yearning, need

Make sense?

Creative Writing: Persephone and Demeter (9/14/16)

Bell Ringer Questions:
1) In this artist's rendering of the Persephone and Demeter myth, what do you think is happening?
2) Does it tell part of the story you read on pages 14-20 for today? If so, which parts?
3) What symbols or visual cues seem important in this rendering?


For the second half of today's class, we will be taking a bit of a departure...

For today's discussion of Greek mythology--specifically, the Demeter and Persephone myth--I'd like to watch a very...unique...YouTube version of the classic myth.  In this 7-minute video, The Myth of Demeter and Persephone, some high school age kids tell Persephone's story in an amateur production they made for English class! This version of the myth is both accurate and highly over-acted.

Enjoy?!

Creative Writing: The Myth of Prometheus (9/9/16)

A recent Hollywood depiction of Prometheus in the 2012 film, Prometheus.

In yesterday's class, we discussed the myths of Prometheus and Pandora and watched a clip from the 2012 film, Prometheus.  As you may have noticed, the movie version has a lot in common with the original myth while still taking its own departure (funny faces, anyone?).

Bell Ringer Writing Activity:
1) How is Prometheus depicted in the story from The Age of Fable? How is he depicted in the 2012 clip? Describe any important similarities or differences.

2) And--this is for you Carmen!--here is a depiction of Prometheus from a Grecian urn that I found online.  What do you think is happening in this image? We haven't yet discussed the myth associated with this picture, so put on your John Keats writing cap and show me what you see:

Creative Writing: Prometheus and Pandora

John Waterhouse's depiction of Pandora (1903).

For homework, you read about "Prometheus and Pandora" (14-20) and learned how Man and Woman were created in Greco-Roman mythology.  According to the author, Pandora was given two containers: one, a jar, in which "plagues for hapless man" were kept, and the second, a box, in which marriage presents were kept (16).

Bellringer Questions:
1) What is hope?
2) Why do you think hope was the only thing that remained in both of Pandora's boxes?

Creative Writing: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats

An artist's rendering of John Keats and "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

In creative writing today, we will be discussing Greek mythology and the way we think about myths.

Bell-ringer: Read John Keats's poem (here) and free write what you think each stanza is describing or about. We will discuss the language and form.