Historical Fiction/Mudbound

AGENDA:

Morning reflection: Raina

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqZR3pqMjg


Listen to interview:
http://www.thewrap.com/mudbound-tiff-2017-video/

Post a comment to questions 5, 6, and 7 (for Friday)

5. What is the significance of the title? In what ways are each of the characters bound—by the land, by circumstance, by tradition, by the law, by their own limitations? How much of this binding is inescapable and how much is self-imposed? Which characters are most successful in freeing themselves from what binds them?

6. All the characters are products of their time and place, and instances of racism in the book run from Pappy’s outright bigotry to Laura’s more subtle prejudice. Would Laura have thought of herself as racist, and if not, why not? How do the racial views of Laura, Jamie, Henry, and Pappy affect your sympathy for them?

7. The novel deals with many thorny issues: racism, sexual politics, infidelity, war. The characters weigh in on these issues, but what about the author? Does she have a discernable perspective, and if so, how does she convey it?

8. We know very early in the book that something terrible is going to befall Ronsel. How does this sense of inevitability affect the story? Jamie makes Ronsel responsible for his own fate, saying "Maybe that's cowardly of me, making Ronsel's the trigger finger." Is it just cowardice, or is there some truth to what Jamie says? Where would you place the turning point for Ronsel? Who else is complicit in what happens to him, and why?

9. In reflecting on some of the more difficult moral choices made by the characters—Laura's decision to sleep with Jamie, Ronsel's decision to abandon Resl and return to America, Jamie's choice during the lynching scene, Florence's and Jamie's separate decisions to murder Pappy—what would you have done in those same situations? Is it even possible to know? Are there some moral positions that are absolute, or should we take into account things like time and place when making judgments?

10. How is the last chapter of Mudbound different from all the others? Why do you think the author chose to have Ronsel address you, the reader, directly? Do you believe he overcomes the formidable obstacles facing him and finds "something like happiness"? If so, why doesn't the author just say so explicitly? Would a less ambiguous ending have been more or less satisfying?
(Questions from author's website.)

Continue to work on stories:  DUE FRIDAY

Finish reading the book over the weekend.  Test on Tuesday

Setting in Historical Fiction/Mudbound

AGENDA:

Morning reflection: James
"A Froggy Evening" Cartoon

BOA DINE AND RHYME:  Sign up for tickets

https://www.boaeditions.org/pages/20th-annual-dine-rhyme

Little rock Nine 60th anniversary:
http://www.arkansasmatters.com/news/local-news/little-rock-nines-60th-anniversary-weekend-celebrations/817285505

Setting exercises:

http://www.the-writers-craft.com/setting-of-a-story.html
http://www.the-writers-craft.com/support-files/setting.pdf

How to Use Your 5 Senses to Create a Setting

Next, spend some time thinking about your story's setting. If it's a place you've been to, you might look at old photographs, maps or diary entries and see what jumps out at you. What made you connect to this place? If you have not been to this place, look at some books or check out the place online.

1. Start with sight, which is for many of us the most immediate sense. Write down every image that comes to mind, whether it pertains to your story or not. Free associate. It doesn't have to make sense or be grammatically correct. Just get down as much as you can. For instance, if you've been to the desert in Tucson, Arizona at night, picture the cactus, vast expanse, clay color, brightness from the night sky and mountains in the background.
2. Repeat the above for taste, smell, sound and touch. Again, don't be afraid of unconventional answers. You never know what might end up in your final story.
3. Finally, in one line sum up the feeling you hope to evoke in your readers through your setting. Is it a feeling of loneliness, menace, nostalgia, contentment?

Look at the lists you've compiled. Which elements will contribute to this dominant mood? Which elements will complicate that mood? Which will distract from it?
This exercise can also be used for imaginary settings. In fact, for science fiction and fantasy, it's even more important.

https://www.writingforward.com/writing_exercises/fiction-writing-exercises/fiction-writing-exercises-developing-setting

Short Stories Due Friday, Sept. 29 (half day)

AGENDA:

Morning reflection:  Kaneil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpaRouocBes


WORK ON SHORT STORIES DUE NEXT WEEK!

“You are not you--you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream--your dream, a creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me

In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever—for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!

Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago—centuries, ages, eons, ago!—for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities.

Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites a poor, abused slave to worship him!

You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks—in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.

"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream—a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought—a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!”
― Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

tags: mark-twain-mysterious-stranger

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Young Arts   http://www.youngarts.org/


HMWK:  Read Part II in Mudbound for Monday!  pg. 212

Mudbound/Historical Fiction

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection: Mariangelis
(Will Smith)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q__aQFmhig


Work on Mudbound Reading Quiz--Open book 25 multiple choice questions

Continue writing your historical fiction short story in 3 voices

Writing Contests/Mudbound

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

Go to:

http://www.artandwriting.org/

Bennington Young Writers Contest

Go to:
https://admissions.bennington.edu/register/youngwriters

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection: Asher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v4R2ZcxPlA

1. Read over article:

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Historical-Fiction

2. Conduct research.  Create a padlet of images for setting and character descriptions.  Sketch out your characters and the conflict.  Fill out "Exit ticket" for today

3. Work on your short story.

4. HMWK:     Read to page   107   for Tuesday. . 

Mudbound Short Stories

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection: Fadumo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZRw91uNMq0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpPASWlnZIA

Work on short stories, collect images on padlet,  and think, pair, share QUESTIONS 1-4 below.  Post your responses as comments.

Discussion Questions
1. The setting of the Mississippi Delta is intrinsic to Mudbound. Discuss the ways in which the land functions as a character in the novel and how each of the other characters relates to it.
2. Mudbound is a chorus, told in six different voices. How do the changes in perspective affect your understanding of the story? Are all six voices equally sympathetic? Reliable? Pappy is the only main character who has no narrative voice. Why do you think the author chose not to let him speak?
3. Who gets to speak and who is silent or silenced is a central theme, the silencing of Ronsel being the most literal and brutal example. Discuss the ways in which this theme plays out for the other characters. For instance, how does Laura's silence about her unhappiness on the farm affect her and her marriage? What are the consequences of Jamie's inability to speak to his family about the horrors he experienced in the war? How does speaking or not speaking confer power or take it away?
4. The story is narrated by two farmers, two wives and mothers, and two soldiers. Compare and contrast the ways in which these parallel characters, black and white, view and experience the world.
5. What is the significance of the title? In what ways are each of the characters bound—by the land, by circumstance, by tradition, by the law, by their own limitations? How much of this binding is inescapable and how much is self-imposed? Which characters are most successful in freeing themselves from what binds them?
6. All the characters are products of their time and place, and instances of racism in the book run from Pappy’s outright bigotry to Laura’s more subtle prejudice. Would Laura have thought of herself as racist, and if not, why not? How do the racial views of Laura, Jamie, Henry, and Pappy affect your sympathy for them?
7. The novel deals with many thorny issues: racism, sexual politics, infidelity, war. The characters weigh in on these issues, but what about the author? Does she have a discernable perspective, and if so, how does she convey it?
8. We know very early in the book that something terrible is going to befall Ronsel. How does this sense of inevitability affect the story? Jamie makes Ronsel responsible for his own fate, saying "Maybe that's cowardly of me, making Ronsel's the trigger finger." Is it just cowardice, or is there some truth to what Jamie says? Where would you place the turning point for Ronsel? Who else is complicit in what happens to him, and why?
9. In reflecting on some of the more difficult moral choices made by the characters—Laura's decision to sleep with Jamie, Ronsel's decision to abandon Resl and return to America, Jamie's choice during the lynching scene, Florence's and Jamie's separate decisions to murder Pappy—what would you have done in those same situations? Is it even possible to know? Are there some moral positions that are absolute, or should we take into account things like time and place when making judgments?
10. How is the last chapter of Mudbound different from all the others? Why do you think the author chose to have Ronsel address you, the reader, directly? Do you believe he overcomes the formidable obstacles facing him and finds "something like happiness"? If so, why doesn't the author just say so explicitly? Would a less ambiguous ending have been more or less satisfying?
(Questions from author's website.)

HMWK"  Read to pg. 93 for Friday

Mudbound Writing Assignment

EQ: How does reading Mudbound relate to your major writing assignment? 

Mudbound and the other literary works we will read are models for your writing.  They are EXEMPLAR TEXTS.  Your writing assignments correspond each marking period to aspects of contemporary style and themes.
STYLE:   Multiple perspectives and historical fiction
THEMES: Racism post WWII in the American South, families,
African-American soldiers in WWI, life in the Mississippi Delta farming 

DUE DATE: week of Sept. 26, first draft 

What we're actually looking for in your short story now that you have brainstormed an idea and have begun working on it: 

1. Length: minimum 5 pages, Times New Roman 12 pt. font, double-spaced

2. Historical Setting: Set your story in the time and place you are interested in and have done research about.  The details of this time period should be apparent in your story.  Use a padlet or the graphic organizers to take notes.
http://padlet.com/wall/ihgzk6ztes 
http://education.ed.pacificu.edu/sweb/537fri/histfiction/ 
http://www.elizabethcrookbooks.com/articles/historical_fiction.htm

3. Characters:  Just like Mudbound, your story should have multiple perspectives and be told by at least 3 characters whose voices are interwoven throughout the story.
Switch between characters by skipping a space and putting the character's name in capital letters centered above his or her section.   Write in the first person point of view from each character's unique perspective.

4. Conflict:  Your story should have a significant conflict or incident that involves your characters.  Create a key moment for the characters to interact if possible.  Be sure to resolve the conflict.

5. DETAILS: As always, SHOW, DON'T TELL