Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Penfield Poetry & the Internal Monologue

Please prepare your poem for the Penfield Poetry Contest.

Prepare and chat with me about your Penfield Poetry entry. You should leave your name off the copy, just the title. On a SEPARATE sheet, please include the title, your name, address (with zip code), email address, cell # or phone #, School Name and grade.

Please submit your poem as an email attachment. Subject line should read: Poetry Contest. The email address is: lgrills@libraryweb.org

Today, let's attempt an internal or dramatic monologue poem (since you're writing one for the stage).

What is it?
Internal Monologue Poem: a specific character or speaker is speaking to a specific person or persons (audience) for a specific purpose (motivation) at a specific time and place. In other words, think of a situation where your character (not YOU, but your character) is speaking for a reason or purpose.

Here are some famous examples of internal monologue poems. Note that these speakers are writing about themselves as objects or in the 3rd person in some cases (the action is going on in the person's head, such as in the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock about an aging lonely guy who can't bring himself to speak to women)

Internal Monologue Poems:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot (here's a video of Eliot reading his poem)

Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath. The vocal performance read by the poet.

My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. Here's a reading of the poem.

To An Athlete Dying Young by A.E. Housman. The reading of the poem.

Miniver Cheevy by Edwin Arlington Robinson. The poem read.

Daddy by Sylvia Plath

After working on this for a bit, let's go to the library to pick up a book. We'll return to room A240 to discuss and begin reading.

Your writing task: In your journal create a character. Give them a name. When were they born, who were their parents, what happened in their childhood that was important, what happened to them as they grew up, what occupation or work did they do, who did they love, what kind of family did they have, how have they grown and matured? What is the most important event of their life?

Design a character. We will use this character 4th period.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Cat's Cradle & Mythology Discussion/Quiz

Today, during 3rd period, let's chat in small groups about both Cat's Cradle & Mythology. Afterward, we will have a quiz on Cat's Cradle.

Please get into the following groups:
Group A: Evan, Nora, Carolyn, My
Group B: Haris, Gus, Angela, Taylor
Group C: Kaisean, Ashley, Hannah, Shannon
Group D: Gabriela, Donyel, Samantae, Madelaine
Group F: Cassidy, Mariah, Desia, Desire
Group G: Temielle, Gracie, Erin, Briyana, Angela

--Please discuss the 4 "essay" questions regarding Cat's Cradle.

In addition, please discuss the story of Perseus, Theseus, Hercules, Atalanta, and the Trojan War. Refresh your minds about these stories. Each are quests and adventures. They set up the archetypical adventure and quest archetype (which we will discuss during 4th period).

During the second half of class, we will discuss the Adventure & Quest Archetypes.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Mythology - Pop Quiz Newsletter

Today a pop quiz on Mythology: the Quest for the Golden Fleece, Phaethon, Pegasus & Bellerophon, Otus & Ephialtes, Daedalus.

You may use your books and notes (journal) for this test. You may also work with a partner if you'd like.

Open a template for a newsletter. I'd suggest using Pages, but if you are comfortable with InDesign, feel free to use that.

You will be responsible for completing this assignment by the end of class today. Keep watch of time so that you are able to complete the assignment. Yes, this means that if you didn't read or complete the homework your assignment may not be as perfect as it would have been had you done your work. This is part of life.

You (and your partner) will create a newsletter (2 sided) where you complete the following:

1. Take any one of the adventure/quest stories (the Quest for the Golden Fleece, Phaethon, Pegasus & Bellerophon, Otus & Ephialtes, Daedalus) and REPORT (as if you were a journalist) the NEWS in short articles concerning the story.

2. Create headlines and then report on the story. Use quotes and details from your reading. Examples of headlines might be:
Rain of Harpies Attack the Argo!
Golden Fleece Found!
Jason & Medea Marry Despite Cadmian Opposition!
Mother Murders Two Sons!

Then write the body of the article explaining the details. Most newspaper articles interview or have short quotes from participants. Newspaper articles answer: who, what, where, when, how, and why? about the event.

Write enough articles to fill 2 pages (a front and back). You may add up to 4 photos to go along with your articles, but these should be appropriate for the story and include a caption underneath explaining the photo/picture.

The Newsletter is a test. It is due at the end of class. Please send it to the drop box with you and your partner's name on the file.

HOMEWORK: You are off next week. However, there is some reading that needs to be completed. Please complete Cat's Cradle. You should know the major characters, plot, and pay attention to the tone and style of the novel. You will be tested on this novel, so please read and take notes on the book to help you. Refer back to the earlier blog ?'s from your discussion or about Sci-fi. This may help you.

Finally, please read pages 141-201 in your mythology books. In your journal take notes of the following: who are: Perseus? Medusa? Theseus? the Minotaur? Hippolytus & Phaedra? Hercules? The Labors of Hercules (list them)? Atalanta? Helen? Castor & Pollux? Paris? Achilles? Patroclus? Menelaus? Agamemnon? Odysseus? The Trojan Horse? Diomedes? Hector? Priam? Cassandra? Hecuba? Andromache? Aeneas?

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Love Poem/Ode & Myth Project

Take a look at this short poem:

Orpheus by Rod Wooden

They had almost reached light.
And as he walked, a space
was left behind in the air
like a keyhole in a door
but him-shaped.
And the door of the air
was opening, opening so wide
he had to turn to close it.

Your turn: Choose one of the romance myths: Cupid & Psyche, Pyramus & Thisbe, Orpheus & Eurydice, Ceyx & Alcyone, Pygmalion & Galatea, Baucis & Philemon, Endymion, Daphne, and Alpheus & Arethusa. Choose a single moment in their story or tale. Write about this single moment in poem form. For those of you more advanced, use this single moment of the story as a METAPHOR for a contemporary poem. In other words, write a love poem or ode (a poem of praise) using the single moment of one of these myths as a way of deepening your theme about human love or devotion. Your speaker, setting, etc, would not have to be a repetition of the original myth in this case. You have 20 minutes to work on this exercise. Your poem should be lyrical, aim to create imagery.

After 20 minutes (and the exercise) please wait for further instructions concerning archetypes and the myth project.

One benefit of learning mythology is that you are beginning to notice literary archetypes. When we include a romance in a story, we are including all the possible combinations of the romance. The Cupid & Psyche myth is found in the story of Cinderella, for example--or in the various Jane Austen and Bronte or Romance novels. A female hero falls in love, but cannot receive her love until she goes through some sort of trial or tribulation to show her dedication to the guy.

The myth of Pyramus & Thisbe is really Romeo & Juliet (and therefore West Side Story, among many others). Whenever the girl or guy dies or the lovers don't get each other at the end, we have to think of Pyramus and Thisbe in their unfortunate circumstances. The same goes for Euridice & Orpheus.

The Love Story Archetypical plot and the Sacrifice plot are similar and are the following:

• The protagonist falls in love with another character (the object of affection)
• There should always be an obstacle that prevents the object of affection from getting together romantically with the beloved
• The first attempt at romance is always thwarted or delayed and put off
• Characters are often caught up in their personal emotions and problems
• Lovers are tested by a series of problems or conflicts (often from the outside)
• If the love is "forbidden," then the characters also have to come to terms with the society or culture that is preventing them from being together
• Lovers will usually get together at the end of the plot (in forbidden love plots, however, usually they don't)

Sacrifice
• The sacrifice should come at a great personal cost
• Protagonist undergoes a major transformation during the course of the story, moving from a lower moral state to a higher moral state
• Events and rising action often forces the protagonist to decide how to act
• All events should be a reflection of your protagonist. Rising action is supposed to test and develop your main character.
• There is a strong moral dilemma at the center of the story

HOMEWORK: please read The Quest for the Golden Fleece & 4 Great Adventures (pg. 117-140) in your Mythology books. You should be familiar with these plots and characters.

Friday, April 9, 2010

How to Read a Science Fiction Novel

Some advice about approaching a science fiction novel (particularly for those of you who are "REALISTS")

First off, you need to know that science fiction and fantasy are two genres often lumped together. They are considered special MARKETS in the publishing world. It has been found that people who like sci-fi & fantasy will read a lot of it. People who don't like it, rarely will. So the sci-fi/fantasy market is specific. In order for publishing companies to make money, they will advertise specifically TO markets.

Remember that sci-fi & fantasy are intended for FANTASIST readers. Readers who want to escape or forget their world and consider other things. They want strange events and weird characters. What you need to know is that these weird characters and strange events are just like normal events in real life, except that characters have neat names or take place in exotic locations, or deal with situations that are unlikely, but often, sometimes possible.

All sci-fi is what we call SPECULATIVE FICTION. A speculation is an idea or belief or thought that is developed. All speculative fiction hinges on a single question: "What if?"

What if the world were destroyed?
What if aliens landed on earth?
What if time travel were possible?

The speculative idea, then, is central to understanding a sci-fi novel. You should be able to answer: what is being examined as the central speculative idea in the story?

From this speculative idea (or perhaps because of it) writers of speculative (Sci-fi) writing use the idea to make a metaphor. They are suggesting that one thing represents another. Aliens, for example, represent outsiders (hence their popularity with a group of readers who, themselves, feel like outsiders). The end of the world represents the fact that all of us (and our societies...whether we like it or not) will come to an end. Many times sci-fi deals with themes of transcendence, religion or religious issues, and the flow of memory and time.

Realist fiction does the same thing, but they tackle these themes literally. The sci-fi, speculative fantasist does this FIGURATIVELY (or metaphorically).

So for you realists, don't be thrown with a story about Xygort from the planet Hegamelonia who has found that a secret weapon is being used to destroy the universe so he has to time travel to stop this from happening. This is just Steve, the pimply 9th grade wall-flower who can't get a date, until he uncovers the truth about himself by searching his past.

Brochure Due!

Today your brochure is due by the end of class. Please complete the project today and send it to the drop box with your name on it and the word BROCHURE if you cannot print a copy.

Afterward, please do one of the following:

1. Keep reading Cat's Cradle.

2. Read about the following in your MYTHOLOGY books: Cupid & Psyche, and the lovers (pages 92-116). Please look up and record the following info in your journal: Who was Cupid & Psyche? How are these ideas used in today's world? Who are: Pyramus & Thisbe, Orpheus & Eurydice, Ceyx & Alcyone, Pygmalion & Galatea, Baucis & Philemon, Endymion, Daphne, and Alpheus & Arethusa? You will need to know these people for a new assignment next week.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Cat's Cradle discussion (small group) & Pamphlet project

Please get into the following groups (by first name):

Group A: Erin, Ashley, Angela R., Donyel, Cassidy, Hannah, Evan

Group B: Madeline, Taylor, Samantae, My, Desire, Mariah

Group C: Gus, Haris, Carolyn, Gracie, Angela B., Temielle

Group D: Kaisean, Desia, Gabriela, Shannon, Nora, Brianna

Discuss Cat's Cradle using the following questions to stir up a conversation. One person from the group should take conversation notes (listen for instructions on this):

Study Questions:
• Find three examples of Allusion in the book.
• Explain the plot archetype. Does Vonnegut's book remind you of any other movies or books? Discuss some of the similarities (character, plot, setting, etc.)
• Discuss the major themes in the book. What point is the author tyring to make (theme)? How do the characters help illustrate or exemplify these themes?
• Discuss the structure of the book. What parts of the book have you enjoyed or found difficulty with? Why?
What other issues (regarding the writing style, characters, plot events, setting, verisimilitude, sentence construction, genre, etc.) do you find interesting or challenging in this novel?

Additional study questions (some of these will not be possible to answer fully if you haven't gotten to them in the book yet):

--How does Bokononism try to solve the problem of violent, religious dogmatism?
--How does Felix mock the prevailing notion that "evil" is humanity's biggest problem?
--How does the commencement speech delivered at Frank's high school graduation mock the valorized status that science occupies as a means to discover "truth?"
--Jack, the proprietor of Jack's Hobby Shop, showed John an exquisitely detailed model that Frank constructed. How does this model serve as a metaphor for Frank's careless, indifferent, irresponsible attitude toward the real world? How does it serve as a metaphor for John's careless, indifferent attitude toward San Lorenzo?
--How do Hazel and Lowe illustrate the irrational grouping behaviors of human beings?
Why are the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy ironic?
--How does Vonnegut satirize the human will to power in Cat's Cradle?
--What does Mona symbolize about the human character?
--What is the essential difference between Julian and Bokonon's philosophies of life?
--How does Vonnegut satirize humanity's obsession with the "truth?" Why does he satirize it? Why does he think it is dangerous?

After our discussion, please continue either reading Cat's Cradle or complete your brochure project.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Vonnegut Response, Children's Book Editing & Brochure

Work on three things today in the lab:

1. Continue to work on, edit, proofread, and prepare your brochure. You should be nearing completion of this project by the end of class.

2. Continue or complete the editing, revision, or proofreading of your children's story.

3. Today, by the end of class, please respond to Kurt Vonnegut's "advice to writers" using what you have read so far in Cat's Cradle as evidence.

Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that the greatest American short story writer, Flannery O'Connor, broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.

While Vonnegut is referring to his short fiction, please comment how he follows (or does not follow) his own advice in Cat's Cradle. Choose a few of his bits of advice and comment, using the novel as evidence to support your opinion and thesis.

HOMEWORK: Please continue reading Cat's Cradle. Next class please bring your books with you as we will be using it.

The Graveyard Book - Discussion Questions

  In your discussion groups, please answer 5 of the 10 discussion questions. Choose a member of your group to record your answers. Make sure...