Reading Like a Writer

Today:

Yay! You've finished your books. You'll be in your book groups, each group discussing their books, addressing the following prompts:

1) What is the central/primary purpose of the story? Is it important or meaningful? 

After discussing, you're going to plan for individual presentations. As this is a Craft of Writing class, you'll be analyzing and presenting your novels through the lens of writing craft! The prompt asks for the purpose of the story and whether or not it's meaningful! Use the prompt to approach your presentation planning and analysis of your chosen element of fiction. You remember the terms:

Plot/Structure

Imagery

Point-of-View

Character/Characterization

Setting

Dialogue

Theme

Genre

Tone and Mood

Diction and Syntax

Conflict

Questions to consider when addressing your chosen element of fiction:

How do I want to approach this author? What meant the most to me? 

How does the author's purpose (or a part of the purpose) shine through one of the above aspects of craft?

How is the story's importance or meaning made clear, powerful, confusing, weak, unimportant, etc. by these elements? 

Examining a writer's craft is a more careful, meticulous art versus summarizing a book. Your goal is to take one aspect each and prepare a presentation that analyzes that particular aspect of your author's writing. These will be presented on Friday, 3/28. 

This is solid list to choose from By the end of 7th period, each group member will have chosen an aspect of writer's craft to present their novel/author through. 

Your presentation is going to take some thought. You're not merely answering questions, you're exploring a novel through a writer's craft. There isn't one answer, there are many. 

8th Period:

Use this time to prepare your presentations. Visual aids are great (Prezi, PowerPoint, etc.) and quite helpful. 

Your presentation should have:

1) A title

2) A clear description of what you're presenting (author, novel, and element of fiction)

3) At least 2 examples from the text to support your point

4) Material enough for a 5-7 minute presentation

5) Visual aids are nice, but not required. If they help, use them! What does matter is the information you're presenting.

Homework:

Prepare your presentations and be ready to deliver them on Friday. 

Continued Writing and Finishing Novels

Some reminders for you in the first few sentences. The things we're getting toward in the writing process have already been reviewed. Mr. Craddock has kindly resurfaced past information to help you start, continue, and refine your writing. Hit that link to have another look at: beginnings/middles/ends, conquering write's block/getting unstuck, finding a theme, and establishing structure. Go check this stuff out! 

Today, you're at different points in the writing process. Some of you have strong beginnings of your stories and others have only started to scratch the surface. Since you know writing isn't a process where everyone will be at the same place at the same time, this is totally natural. For those of you who haven't typed a solid beginning of your story, today you're required to do so. Last class's blog gave tips on the beginning of stories, so I'll again post them here:

1) Make a declarative statement. Start bold, don't be afraid. Beginning in this way, you establish power and can grab interest quickly. It can also set the tone for the rest of the story. Beginning with a powerful statement or dialogue is a great way to grab attention. Remember hook and inciting incident. Be bold, be clear! 

2) Start with an interesting flashback. You have already practiced writing flashbacks and are familiar with how powerful they can be. They have the ability to set the reader in the fragmented nature of a character's mind. This is a powerful tool to use when beginning a story. 

3) Start with what's at stake. What's the chief crisis of your story? Start with that. Introduce the conflict, a character flaw, a secret, or a memory that pulls the reader in immediately. 

4) Don't fall into story starting cliche! Beginning stories with an information dump, boring descriptions, fanciful language, and a needless amount of questions, paths, or characters for a reader to follow are a few ways to disinterest the reader. Don't fall into these traps.

If you've not really started your story, by the end of class today, you're to have written at least 750 words. Remember, this is the beginning of your story, so it doesn't have to be perfect. You should strive for that, but recognize that's it's okay if it's not perfect. 

On the other hand...

For those of you who've solidly started your stories, now is the chance to do one of two things: 1) write to a decent stopping point and then re-read/edit. 2) stop where you are and re-read/edit. Why would we do any of these things? Writing process, foo. Here's some stuff to consider:

1) When starting a piece of writing, the first words on the page are sometimes a way of the author getting out the nonsense before actually getting into the meat of the story. Like when someone clears their throat before speaking.

2) Read it out loud to yourself. Or, even better, have someone else read your work aloud. When reading ou own writing, we automatically correct any awkwardness in our own heads, making us sort of blind to the imperfections in our own writing. When someone else reads your writing aloud, everything becomes much more clear. It's weird. Like when Aleah reads my blog posts out loud. I'm like, "Ugh, is that how I really sound?" 

3) Look for the unnecessary information and cut it out! In the first stages of writing, we sometimes tend to get overly excited and start going into such gruesome detail that it bogs down the pace of the story. Look for this! remember to choose only the most important pieces of information to include. You have to be disciplined with yourself and your own writing habits. Constantly ask yourself, "Do I need this? Is this important?" 

4) Share with each other. I know y'all do this anyway, but take some time to really listen to, read, and critique stories of your peers. When ideas are tough to come by, it's often just a little nudge that's needed from a friend or someone who sees things a smidgen differently. So, never say you're stuck or don't know what to write. Ask the opinion of other people. Do you have to do what they say? Nope. It helps to have ideas coming from other people. Use everything around you, twist it, cut it up, blend it, turn it into your own.

The moral of the story in today's class is that you'll have: at least 750 words written for the late starters and 750-1000 well-written words for those going through their work a second time. 

Homework:

I didn't forget about the books. You're supposed to have read for today, but I've decided today was to be a writing day. By Wednesday, both novels are to be finished completely. 

Test Review, Missed Stuff From Yesterclass

Ooookaaay, so the marking period ends tomorrow, FYI. Get your stuff done! Anyhow, you took a test last class. Y'all did fine. We should talk about a few things, though. First, talk to each other, look over your test, and ask questions. Go!


My turn.

Read. The. Instructions.

I cannot stress this enough.

Ya dig?

Essays:

1) Watch your words. I know which novel you've read, you don't need to continuously repeat the title. One time will do. Avoid generalizing! Words like "all", "every", "never", "any", etc. These are absolutes and they're dangerous. Synonyms make your writing less monotonous. What's that mean? If I started every 5th sentence with "It's likely that..." you'd probably be like "omg plz change it up already!" Right? Same. 

2) I know what happens in both novels and I made the essay questions. Do not summarize. This is a waste of space. Use only the most essential pieces of evidence.

3) Explore deeper, hidden connections. This is the stuff the book might not specifically say. Again, I know what the novel says. Use the words on the page to show me that you're looking beyond the words on the page.

Ex: "Celie first experiences love for her sister Nettie. Celie was abused by Pa at a young age. She knew that Pa was looking at Nettie funny, so she sacrificed herself to assure that nothing happens to Nettie."

Ex: "A reason why the men in this story abuse their women could be because it was the only power they had in their world. They were oppressed by the outside world around them and the only control they had was within the home. They placed their anger with the world they live in upon their women and beat and mistreated them."

Writing:

Continue your brainstorms and/or begin your stories! By the end of class, you should have a solid idea of the form you'll use and a rough beginning to your story. If you get done with this, discuss it with me or a partner. Write, write, write, my young apprenti. May the force be with you. 

Some past advice on starting a story:

1) Make a declarative statement. Start bold, don't be afraid. Beginning in this way, you establish power and can grab interest quickly. It can also set the tone for the rest of the story. Beginning with a powerful statement or dialogue is a great way to grab attention. Remember hook and inciting incident. Be bold, be clear! 

2) Start with an interesting flashback. You have already practiced writing flashbacks and are familiar with how powerful they can be. They have the ability to set the reader in the fragmented nature of a character's mind. This is a powerful tool to use when beginning a story. 

3) Start with what's at stake. What's the chief crisis of your story? Start with that. Introduce the conflict, a character flaw, a secret, or a memory that pulls the reader in immediately. 

4) Don't fall into story starting cliche! Beginning stories with an information dump, boring descriptions, fanciful language, and a needless amount of questions, paths, or characters for a reader to follow are a few ways to disinterest the reader. Don't fall into these traps.

This is creative fiction, so have some fun (this beat is sick) and create something you'd want to read! If you need help talk to each other. Or talk to me, my brain is weird. You're surrounded by creative people, talk to them. Write!

Remember the advice of this guy:

#Imagination

Homework:

The Color Purple - Read to page 225

Slaughterhouse-Five - Finish the book

Halfway Test, Continued Brainstorming, Starting Stories

Last time, you did some brainstorming for the stories you'll be creating. Today, I'm giving a test for the first period and then returning your brainstorming notes with my comments. Some of you weren't here and weren't able to begin brainstorming. If you weren't here, visit last class's blog post, review what we did (read the post), and begin brainstorming. 

If you were here and you're getting comments back. You may choose to talk with me, continue brainstorming (in the case that you need more time for development), or begin the drafting process. Reconnect with your notes, though. Change, edit, add, subtract, etc. Don't merely begin writing a story because you seek to finish it faster. Some tips on actually beginning to write:

1) Make a declarative statement. Start bold, don't be afraid. Beginning in this way, you establish power and can grab interest quickly. It can also set the tone for the rest of the story. Beginning with a powerful statement or dialogue is a great way to grab attention. Remember hook and inciting incident.

2) Start with an interesting flashback. You have already practiced writing flashbacks and are familiar with how powerful they can be. They have the ability to set the reader in the fragmented nature of a character's mind. This is a powerful tool to use when beginning a story. 

3) Start with what's at stake. What's the chief crisis of your story? Start with that. Introduce the conflict, a character flaw, a secret, or a memory that pulls the reader in immediately. 

4) Don't fall into story starting cliche! Beginning stories with an information dump, boring descriptions, fanciful language, and a needless amount of questions, paths, or characters for a reader to follow are a few ways to disinterest the reader. Don't fall into these traps.

Beginnings

Alright, you've been reading your new books and they're pretty awesome. Last time, we looked at and spoke about how both authors use aspects from their own lives/experiences to influence their writing. It feels like it's been too long since you've written, so we're going to begin something larger scale today. 

Over the next few weeks (my last weeks here #sadface), you'll be crafting a longer piece of fiction. You'll be doing this alongside the reading of your books. Why, you ask? Because reading other work helps us form ideas, model style, and dive into examples of finished works of fiction. 

You're not limited to any specific writing craft. It may be a play, film script, poem cycle, short story (longer), or whatever. If you've got a more obscure idea, let me know and we can talk about the possibility. If there's anything that you want to do that you're unsure of, pleeeease talk to me! 

Today, you're going to begin a story. How? Like this:

Choose (invent) a character and subject you'd like to address. Fiction needs to begin with this, before it can plunge into the depths of the story being told. Give it reason, give it a point. Remember, genre is completely up to you. This is a brainstorm.

Subject:

1) What do I want to say? How do I want to say it?

2) What am I getting at? What is the purpose of me saying this?

3) What kind of message do I want to get across? In the end, what do I want my readers to walk away with?

Character:

1) Appearance. Allow the reader to see your character. Paint a picture with words. Don't go overboard, this shouldn't eclipse action by any means. Classical use of the descending catalogue of physical traits, head-to-toe physical description, aka effictio, is fine as long as it's not too much. You'll be able to tell what too much is when you arrive at that point.

2) Action. Don't merely describe what your character looks like, show what kind of person he/she is by showing actions. What do they do? How? In what manner? What do they like doing? Dislike? Prefer? 

3) Speech. Dialogue. Real people speak. Make your character a real person when he/she speaks; let us get to know their spoken ideas. How do they speak? What do they talk about? Attitude? Tone?

4) Thought. Human beings speak a lot, but think a lot as well. Show us what's happening on the inside of the mind of your characters. What do they struggle with? Love? Hate? Fear?

This is a brainstorm (the first step in the writing process), so use this time to develop the previously mentioned things. Use your authors to help you gain ideas on how to establish these things. How to they do it? 

By the end of class, you're to have a developed and typed up plan as to the subject you're going to address and the character(s) you'll use to get at the subject. If you complete this, try and think of the form you'd like your fiction to take. About 2-3 pages, double-spaced. 

If you've "done" this, read. Or write. Always read or write! 

Homework:

The Color Purple - Read to page 125

Slaughterhouse-Five - Read to chapter 6

Stay classy, enjoy the long weekend.

The Color Purple and Slaughterhouse-Five

Now that we've chosen the novels we'll be reading, you will be reading in groups together. Here are the groups:

The Color Purple
Radezia
Grace 
Yasmine 
Karlamarie
Tyshon
Jaymee

Slaughterhouse-Five
Austin
Izzy
Tyshay
Jacob 
Mitchell
Aleah
Josh
Saisha

The beginning of class is going to be dedicated to each student finding specific, relevant information about their author to be shared with your classmates. Every group member is required to present two pieces of substantial and unique information to the class. Gathering important information from the life of an author helps us to see their perspective in writing the story that they write. Human beings write from experience, reinventing the ways in which they've experienced certain things, applying them to a new story. 

When looking for information regarding your respective authors, keep what you find in mind as you begin to read the novels, looking for connections between their experiences/lives and their writing. Keep this in mind, especially, when considering your own writing. The books have two distinctly different styles, yet connect greatly to the lives of the authors. 

Groups: 

Begin reading together. Whether this be silent or aloud, start reading the book together. Ask each other questions, ask me questions, read critically, and, most importantly, think about the way the novels are written. The distinct style of each novel truly shows the vastness of the craft of writing. Together, these group roles will help you discuss the work as you read:

Discussion Director

• Creates questions to increase comprehension.
• Asks who, what, why, when, where, how, and what if...

Vocabulary Enricher

• Clarifies word meanings and pronunciations.
• Uses research resources.

Literary Luminary

• Guides oral reading for a purpose. Our purpose is to analyze the craft of writing.
• Examines figurative language, parts of speech, and vivid descriptions...

Checker

• Checks for completion of assignments.
• Evaluates participation.
• Helps monitor discussion for equal participation.

Homework: 

The Color Purple

Read to page 50

Slaughterhouse-Five

Read Chapters 1 and 2

Novels and Democracy

Happy Friday, friends! 

Reminders:

1) Your GEVA 10 minute plays are due today, so please submit those. They should be submitted to youngwriters@gevatheatre.org with a title page that includes the following: name, address, phone number, and email. Again, the deadline is today. We need a copy, too. 


7th/8th: 

The moment of truth has arrived. Today you're choosing a book. It's been terrible for me to take a huge list and cut it down to five books. It almost killed me, but I think I'll be okay. You'll be glad that I used your suggestions of genre to select the books on the list, but it's not going to be so easy as just choosing one and reading it.

The list you're going to receive has the five books on it, with the authors. In the lab, you'll be searching for reviews on the selected books. Good places to check are Amazon, Good Reads, Google Books, etc. A little less easy is actually selecting things while thinking about what you'll actually want to read. 

Some ways to make informed decisions regarding books to read. Using the list of books provided, you should consider the following:

1) What kind of books do you like? What authors? What genre(s)?

2) What are your interests? Think about them when you're researching the novels selected. 

3) Ask other people what they like to read. This will help you expand your own mind. 

4) Consider the little details: how long is the book (pages)? How is the language? How/what is the subject matter? Think about yourself! Honestly evaluate whether or not a book will work for you.

5) Research all of the books. You never know what you might discover! 

6) Look out for wacky resources, they're sometimes very helpful. YouTube is full of book reviews, etc. 

The handout you've been given should be handed in by the end of class. Your responsibility is look up reviews on each book, record notes on the paper, and make a research informed decision on the novel you'd like to read. There's a poll on the side of the blog. Vote. Then we'll discuss and make a decision together.

Democracy.

'Merica.

Writer's Workshop and Shorter Fiction

Some reminders:

1) Play script submissions for the GEVA contest are due on Friday 3/7. If you have a play, revise and finish it. A contest won't glaze over the little mistakes, they'll discard your draft. 

Yesterday was Fat Tuesday and National Grammar Day; I'm sad I missed celebrating them both with you. Especially National Grammar Day. So, we'll celebrate a day late. Not Fat Tuesday. 

Last time, we reviewed some of the most common and easily made grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes. You know these mistakes enter into your writing more often than you'd care to admit. Luckily, you're practicing the craft of writing, so things like this are easy to fix. However, they aren't easy to fix if you never make an attempt to fix them. Here's a quick refresher of what we did Monday:

1) Simple words to understand and never forget. Ever.

2) An entertaining comic on how to use apostrophes.

3) Semicolons. The scariest of them all.

4) An animation on commas. 

5) Using simple words is a good thing!

Did you think I was just going to leave these alone? Hilarious. Today you're going to really practice the craft of writing. You have your drafts with my marks on them. During 7th period you're going revise all mistakes and have your short story ready to be part of your portfolio. You'll be looking specifically to correct mistakes having to do with the problems addressed above (semicolons, commas, using correct words, apostrophes, and choosing the right words).

Somebody Teach Me How to Grammar

Now that you've done some writing, let's talk about it a little bit. It's not too difficult a process, it just takes sitting down and actually doing it. When we write, we like to think of our writing in our own internal voices. Oftentimes our inner voices correct the mistakes that we've made on paper. Why? Because we know what we mean by our written words. This might not be the case when other people read your work. Let's talk about things we notice and things we wonder.

Here are some things I've noticed in your writing that are awesome:

1) You've actually written words on paper. Even better, the creativity is flowing and the ideas are diverse.
2) There are well-developed, relate-able characters within intriguing story lines.
3) I can hear your voices in your writing. That is cool. 

Here are some things y'all should keep an eye on in your writing:

1) The little stuff matters. Proofread, proofread, proofread. If it looks perfect to you, read it out loud. If it sounds perfect, have someone else read it out loud. The little things slip through the cracks. You have to look for them. 
2) Semi-colons, apostrophes, and commas. We'll get to this stuff in a bit.
3) Simple words.
4) Really any of this stuff can be fixed by proofreading carefully. Remember that we're here to help with these little rules and specifics.

Ever heard of George Orwell? 

Say hello.

He's got some good ideas when it comes to writing. Simple stuff, really. I considered having you read the essay these ideas come from, but it's like 90 pages. So, I've linked the important points here and paraphrased it below. You're welcome.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence to be written, will consider at least four questions:

1) What am I trying to say?

2) What words will express it?

3) What image or idiom will make it clearer?

4) Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

Possibly two more questions:

1) Could I put it more shortly?

2) Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

No matter how adept we are at writing, there will always come a time when we doubt the effect of word or phrase. There are a few rules to rely on in this case:

1) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. 

2) Never use a long word when a short one will do.

3) If it is possible to cut a word out, cut it out.

4) Never use the passive voice when you can use the active.

5) Never use a foreign phrase, scientific word, or jargon if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6) Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous. 

8th Period:

I'm most definitely done talking. You've taken time to write lengthier shot stories, so today we're going to change things up a bit. In your discussion groups you're going to look at the following topics.

1) Simple words to understand and never forget. Ever.

2) An entertaining comic on how to use apostrophes.

3) Semicolons. The scariest of them all.

4) An animation on commas. 

5) Using simple words is a good thing!