Finish Short Stories/ Finish Mudbound for Tuesday TEST

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection: Asher

Complete short stories.
Finish reading Mudbound for Tuesday TEST---Identifications and Essay

Rochester Reads selection--Master class

http://wab.org/2018-rochester-reads-author-announced/

BOA Dine and Rhyme

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1107881243163&ca=00d2a602-d054-4141-b9e7-3bfa32136967

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

Mudbound--Multiple Perspectives/Historical Fiction

Mudbound--Multiple Perspectives/Historical Fiction

Mudbound by Hilary Jordan

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection Emani :

To This Day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY

http://academyofamericanpoets.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/y/34E1CD9CE148F714/FF0EB04BBFA2CA21A2432AF2E34A2A5F

 http://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english?language=en

Sign up for Morning Reflections

Go to website:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88195380

Listen to interview on NPR
Read excerpt

Interview with Hilary Jordan:

http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/1538/Hillary-Jordan

More about Mudbound:

http://www.hillaryjordan.com/books-mudbound.php

About this book

In Jordan's prize-winning debut, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal. It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm --- a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not --- charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.

The men and women of each family relate their versions of events and we are drawn into their lives as they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale. As Barbara Kingsolver says of Hillary Jordan, "Her characters walked straight out of 1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and love reside, leaving my heart racing. They are with me still." 

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?

Crtical Praise

"A supremely readable debut novel... Fluidly narrated by engaging characters . . . Mudbound is packed with drama. Pick it up, then pass it on." 

— People, Critic’s Choice, 4-star review

"A compelling family tragedy, a confluence of romantic attraction and racial hatred that eventually falls like an avalanche... The last third of the book is downright breathless... An engaging story." 

— Washington Post Book World

"In Hillary Jordan's first novel, Mudbound, the forces of change and resistance collide with terrible consequences." 

— The New York Times

"Stunning... You are truly taken there by Jordan's powerful, evocative writing and complex characters." 

— Boston Globe

Hillary Jordan reading an early chapter of Mudbound

Follow along

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hillary+Jordan&FORM=HDRSC3#view=detail&mid=053D91D37942704B565D053D91D37942704B565D

Multiple Perspectives:

http://www.the-writers-craft.com/point-of-view-in-literature-perspectives.html 

Objective: Part 1 The author of this book wrote in a first person narrative. These first chapters introduce us to all the different the narrators, and we learn that this book will be told through their perspectives.

1) Genre Introduction: Give a short introduction about first person narrative and other POVs. Explain what it is, how it is used, and why an author might choose this form of narrative for a story like this one.

2) Personal Reaction to Text: Read the introduction with the class. How does this kind of narration make you feel? Do you like it? Do you think it will enhance the plot? Why or why not? What do all the different viewpoints do to the narrative? Why is this not through the eyes of one main character?

3) Small Group Activity: Split the class into groups and assign each group a different form of narrative -- i.e.: third person, second person, omniscient, etc. Have each group re-write this short chapter using their assigned form of narrative. Have each group present their work. Discuss which one was the most effective. Do you think the author made the right choice? Why or why not?

Historical fiction

Objective: Part 1 "Mudbound" fits into a unique genre of literature called Historical Fiction.

 1) Introduction of Genre: Introduce to the class the concept of the historical fiction style of writing. Present the pros and cons of this style of narrative and list some of the reasons why an author would choose this style to write in. Present some examples of this style from books that they have read, or will read later with the class.

2) Group Activity: Split the class into groups and assign each group a different part of these chapters. Have each group study their portion and work together to write a short response to the historical fiction style of that portion. Allow each group some time to present their prepared information.

3) Class Discussion: Read aloud with the class the part where the narrator, presents the different facts about the climate in the south at this time -- i.e.: the politics, the war, the different occupations, the crops, the weather, the relations with the north, etc. Discuss this with the class. How does this language enhance the historical fiction style of the book? How does this make this information a little more believable? Why do you think keeping this informational tone was so important to the author? What did you learn through this dialogue that helped you understand this book and setting better?

WRITING:

Print out "Why I Write" and place in envelope.  Print Goldberg 2

HOMEWORK:  For Wednesday: Read to pg. 48 in Mudbound

Welcome Back, Juniors!

AGENDA:

1. Review Course Criteria/Welcome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH3akqBwYfo 

 

Morning Reflection:  Suli Breaks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5vb5L7nOsc

 

Quickwrite: Your thoughts and post a comment

2. Read Why I Write and Write Your Own Why I Write Letter to Your Self

Why I Write: Jane Hirshfield Writes about Life's Profound Mystery

Date: October 10, 2011

Summary: Prize-winning international poet, translator, and essayist Jane Hirshfield's poetry speaks to the central issues of human existence: desire and loss, impermanence and beauty, and the many dimensions of our connection with others. She tells NWP why she writes.

JANE HIRSHFIELD

Why do I write?

I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being. Any new metaphor is a telescope, a canoe in rapids, an MRI machine. And like that MRI machine, sometimes its looking is accompanied by an awful banging. To write can be frightening as well as magnetic. You don't know what will happen when you throw open your windows and doors.

To write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery.

Why write? You might as well ask a fish, why swim, ask an apple tree, why make apples? The eye wants to look, the ear wants to hear, the heart wants to feel more than it thought it could bear...

The writer, when she or he cannot write, is a person outside the gates of her own being. Not long ago, I stood like that for months, disbarred from myself. Then, one sentence arrived; another. And I? I was a woman in love. For that also is what writing is. Every sentence that comes for a writer when actually writing—however imperfect, however inadequate—every sentence is a love poem to this world and to our good luck at being here, alive, in it.

 https://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3660

Joan Didion:
http://genius.com/Joan-didion-why-i-write-annotated

RELATED ARTICLES ON NWP.ORG

• Why I Write: A Celebration of the National Day on Writing
• Poet Laureate Kay Ryan: Poet as Teacher, Teacher as Poet
• Billy Collins: A `Reader's Poet' Reads at NWP's 2009 Annual Meeting

About the Author Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven collections of poetry, including After (shortlisted for England's T.S. Eliot Prize and named a "best book of 2006" by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the London Financial Times), Given Sugar, Given Salt (finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award), The Lives of the Heart, and The October Palace, as well as a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. Her most recent book, a collection of poems entitled Come, Thief was published in August 2011. Hirshfield has taught at UC Berkeley, Duke University, Bennington College and elsewhere, and her many appearances at writers conferences and literary festivals in this country and abroad have been highly acclaimed.


4. Natalie Goldberg's "Test 2"