Friday, October 26, 2018

Bloodsucking Fiends Final Test

AGENDA:

Period 1:  Work on study guides, flash fiction, missing assignments, etc.

Period 2:   Go to Google classroom for Essay---Bloodsucking Fiends Final Test

Monday, October 22, 2018

Poetry Prompts

AGENDA:

Finish Bloodsucking Fiends.  TEST on Friday.

Finish missing work--Flash Fiction

Work on contest entries.  See below for some poetry prompts for Bennington and Hollins.  Scholastic?

Creative Writing Prompts for Poetry:
  1. Write a poem about how you assembled a puzzle or game from your childhood. Focus on the imagery, the pieces, intention and focus.
  2. Write a love poem to your favorite book. Be sure to flip through the book, focusing on what you found was most meaningful.
  3. Write a poem that incorporates both the view of the antagonist and protagonist in a fairy tale.
  4. Ask your friends to give you five random phrases. The phrases can be fragments or sentences, and should not reference movies if possible. Write a poem that incorporates these five phrases.
  5. Think of a course you have always wanted to take. Write a poem that focuses on why you find this class to be appealing or interesting. Again, this should not be a class you have taken yet. You want to write a poem that captures your raw level interest in the course.
  6. Write a poem dedicated to the dreams you remember the least. These do not have to be dreams you wish to remember, but write to them regardless.
  7. List the three most inconvenient things that happened to you today. Now write a poem about at least one of them.
  8. Write a poem about your experience in some type of vehicle used for long distance such as a car, airplane or a train. Where were you going? Was it comfortable? Who did you meet or talk to? Did you forget anything or find something? Did you arrive at the right destination?
  9. Find an unpublished poem that you haven’t looked at in years. Randomly choose three lines from the poem. Write a completely different using those lines.
  10. Think of a product or a service you dislike. Imagine you have the opportunity to convince them to take that product or service off the market. Write a poem that incorporates your message about this product or service.
  11. Take an image that you can recall from the prior week. Use this image to help you write a poem.
  12. Think about something specific a loved one does for you. This can be anything from receiving back rubs from your partner or getting seasonal cards from your aunt. Write a poem that incorporates the feelings and images associated with this event.
  13. Pick your favorite search engine. Perform a search on any word you can think of. Choose a word that does not have particular importance to you. Read through the first two pages that come up in the search engine. Pick two sentences and write a poem incorporating those sentences.
  14. Think of at least three people from your hometown that you haven’t talked to in a long time. Write a poem that is aimed to address these people for the first time in years.
  15. Think of the best independent restaurant you have eaten at recently. Write a poem about the flavors and sensations of the meal and drinks.
  16. Think about a coworker or colleague you find distasteful. Write a poem about how this person saves your life.
  17. Write a poem that admits a dark secret of yours.
  18. Write a poem from the perspective of a creature that lives in a cave or in the deep sea.
  19. Listen to a song you really enjoy. Focus on your most favorite part of the music. Write a poem about all the sensations, images, feelings, lyrics and other components of that specific part of the song.
  20. Imagine yourself living 300 or more years ago. You still have the same personality and body. Write a poem about yourself and your interactions and with the people of that time.
  21. Write a poem about the frustration or stresses a pet must feel. Pets could include household pets, circus animals, zoo animals and so on.
  22. Think about a political issue you strongly disagree with. Now write a poem where the aim is to and convince yourself to actually agree with that point.
  23. Write a poem about what you expect the end of the world might be like.
  24. Write a poem that introduces a book you dislike. You can even use a poem that you aren’t particularly happy with. Write a poem introducing that poem to readers.
  25. Write a poem about what you would do if your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend was transformed into a giant stone animal.
  26. Write a poem about an animate and inanimate object falling in love with each other.
  27. Picture a beautiful landscape. Write a poem about that landscape.
  28. Take a look at a map. Randomly select a town or city you have never been to. Write a poem about what you think it might be like visiting that place for the first time.
  29. Write a poem from the perspective of someone who is from another culture.
  30. Take a topic you feel uncomfortable writing about. Write a poem about that topic.
  31. Write a poem about a historical battle that really reverberates with you.
  32. Look up some very rare flowers in at least two different countries. Write a poem that incorporates the features of these plants and their many parts.
  33. Pick a topic in the computing sciences that you know absolutely nothing about. Do a quick search on it, and spend at least 30 minutes trying to understand it from your perspective. Write a poem either about the experience or the topic.
  34. Find one of your favorite recipes. Write a poem that utilizes some of the steps of that recipe.
  35. Write a poem about the way a specific room changes throughout a year. Focus on the objects in the room, lighting, dirt or dust, stains, smells and all the other parts that make a room.
  36. Write a poem about some aspect of the grieving or bereavement process. The loss, anger, loneliness, acceptance and moving on are all potential topics.
  37. Write a poem about positive transformations  One example might be the moment that someone you thought was unattractive or plain was suddenly beautiful.
  38. Find a cause seeking donations in your community. Imagine this cause is having an auction to raise donations. Write a poem about that auction. Mention if you would bid and what you would bid.
  39. Write a poem designed for the personals section in a newspaper or online listing. Try to incorporate the type of writing typically used in a personals section.
  40. Write a poem about a piece of clothing you would design if you had the resources and poem.
  41. Write a poem about the moment when you lose a necessary piece that is needed to make something electronic work. Some examples might include losing a charger for a computer or music player.
  42. Write a poem in which you ultimately apologize to someone or something.
  43. Try to remember some of the most memorable poetry readings you have attended. Write a poem saying thank you to those readings and the readers.
  44. Check your local news for any new gallery exhibits in the area. Attend the exhibit and write a poem that discusses some elements of the exhibit.
  45. Write a persona poem on someone that is very controversial. Consider writing a poem on a serial killer or a famous gang member.
  46. Go outside and note at least three different cars on your street. Incorporate the make and model of the car, color and other features of the car into a poem.
  47. Write a poem about cloning someone who is recently deceased. Think of various attributes of the overall cloning process such as personality differences, health problems, controversy, and the comparisons of the deceased to the new clone.
  48. Write a poem from the perspective of someone who dislikes what you do professionally.
  49. Write a poem about how you find happiness through something that actually makes you deeply unhappy.
  50. Look at the last 10 poems you have written. Pay attention to the ending lines. Use one of those ending lines to begin a new poem.

Finish Bloodsucking Fiends

AGENDA:

Work on your flash fiction stories.

Finish your study guide Part II/III for Bloodsucking Fiends.

Contest entries

Handout:: BSF Part III

Homework: Finish reading Bloodsucking Fiends for WEDNESDAY

THERE WILL BE A TEST ON THE BOOK!


  • Jody is totally unprepared for being a vampire. How do you think you would react to waking up one day having been changed into a vampire? Would you try to live a normal life? Once you adjusted to being a vampire, do you think youd want to change back into a human being if the opportunity was offered?
  • Jody has obviously had a tough time with the men in her life; do you think this affects how she reacts to becoming a vampire? Was the way Jody thought about herself shaped by how men reacted to her? How did you feel when Jody started to come into her own as a vampire and enjoy her powers?
  • The Emperor seems genuinely concerned about the well-being of the residents of his city, despite the dire circumstances in which he lives. What does this say about mental illness? Do you think the Emperor went crazy from being homeless, or is he homeless because he is crazy? Is it possible that being crazy isnt always such a bad thing?
  • Toward the end of the book, it looks as if Jody may run off with the old vampire. Did you think that was a possibility? If she did it for the right reason (i.e., to save Tommy), how do you think that would have worked out?
  • At the end of the book, it seems that Jody has decided to turn Tommy into a vampire. Where does their life go from there? Will they stay together? Will they stay in San Francisco? If not, how do you handle travel as a vampire, short of owning a multi-million dollar yacht? Where would you send them?
Objects
  1. Bummer - This is a dog that belongs to the Emperor of San Francisco. Bummer is sensitive to the presence of vampires and sniffs out the resting place of the elder vampire.
  2. Lazarus - This is the Emperor of San Francisco's golden retriever.
  3. Rosenante - This is Tommy's car. He drives it from Indiana to San Francisco, and it breaks down and catches fire when he reaches the city. The police use Tommy abandoning his vehicle as an excuse to arrest him and get his fingerprints.
  4. The Marina Safeway - Tommy gets a job as night supervisor at this location, where he meets the Animals, the night crew.
  5. The Van Ness Motel - When Jody realizes that she is a vampire, she gets a motel room at this motel. She uses it as a private, protected place during the day.
  6. The Loft - Tommy rents a loft in the SOMA district for himself and Jody. He falls in love with the loft because it sports a wall of bookshelves.
  7. On the Road by Jack Kerouac - Tommy's copy of this book is found with Tommy's fingerprints on it at a crime scene.
  8. French Fries - After changing into a vampire, Jody can no longer eat, and she misses eating this food. She takes Tommy to a restaurant to watch him eat these.
  9. The Freezer - Jody asks Tommy to buy this so that they can hide the homeless man's body in it.
  10. The Laundromat - Jody goes to this place in the dangerous Tenderloin district at night, and she is attacked by three men. Jody severely injures all of her attackers with no difficulty.
  11. Peary - This is the "name" of the body in Jody and Tommy's freezer.
  12. The Little Black Dress (LBD) - After a fight with Tommy, Jody goes out shopping and buys this to show off her figure.
  13. The Sanguine II - This is where the vampire sleeps during the day. At the end of the book, the Animals blow this place up, severely injuring the vampire.
  14. Scott and Zelda - These are the turtles that live with Tommy and Jody in Chinatown. His downstairs neighbor offers to take the turtles, and Tommy consents, not realizing that the sculptor intends to electroplate the two animals.
  15. Saint Francis Yacht Club Marina - The elder vampire's yacht is moored off of this marina.
  16. 754 - After buying her little black dress, Jody goes to this club, where she is brought to the front of the line by the doorman while her ex-boyfriend Kurt has to wait.

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Flash Fiction/Bloodsucking Fiends

AGENDA:

Continue to work on flash fiction.

Contests: Bennington, Hollins (poetry) and Scholastic

Turn in Study guide 1

Reading: Bloodsucking Fiends, testing Jody

HMWK:  Read to page 192, Part II


Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Flash Fiction writing assignment

AGENDA:

Begin work on flash fiction short story.


Complete Study Guide 1 and turn in.

Bennington entries--poem or short story? Anything from last year?  Go to website and look at winning entries.

https://www.bennington.edu/events/young-writers-awards?utm_source=google_paid_ke&utm_medium=adwords_c&utm_campaign=&utm_content=writing&utm_term=writing%20contests&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5vmDxOiK3gIVgYjICh1U1gqtEAAYAiAAEgL7FfD_BwE

Nancy Thorpe contest:
https://www.hollins.edu/academics/majors-minors/english-creative-writing-major/nancy-thorp-poetry-contest/


HMWK: Read to Ch. 20   pg. 148



Friday, October 12, 2018

Flash Fiction/Sudden Fiction


AGENDA:

Flash Fiction with "Strange" Characters.  Brainstorm ideas about writing a Flash Fiction piece (500-1000 words) involving a "strange" character using elements of magical realism.

Also, work on Study Guide 1 for Bloodsucking Fiends (Handout)
Please complete and turn in any missing work!


EQ:  What qualities of plot, character, and structure make these stories strong examples of flash fiction?  How do writers achieve compression in short short stories (aka flash fiction)? 
Please complete and turn in any missing work!

Go to:
http://flashfictiononline.com/main/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction 

http://www.100wordstory.org/ 

Flash fiction is an umbrella term used to describe any fictional work of extreme brevity,[1] including the Six-Word Story,[2] 140-character stories, also known as twitterature,[3] the dribble (50 words),[2] the drabble (100 words),[2] and sudden fiction (750 words).[4] Some commentators have also suggested that some flash fiction possesses a unique literary quality, e.g. the ability to hint at or imply a larger story.
FLASH FICTION: 3 EXEMPLARS (MODELS)

Read Margaret Atwood's "My Life as a Bat"
http://www.sweetdave.com/moon_safari.htm.


Ron Carlson's "Bigfoot Stole My Wife"



Bigfoot Stole My Wife
By Ron Carlson
The problem is credibility.
The problem, as I'm finding out over the last few weeks, is basic credibility. A lot of people look at me and say, sure Rick, Bigfoot stole your wife. It makes me sad to see it, the look of disbelief in each person's eye. Trudy's disappearance makes me sad, too, and I'm sick in my heart about where she may be and how he's treating her, what they do all day, if she's getting enough to eat. I believe he's beeing good to her -- I mean I feel it -- and I'm going to keep hoping to see her again, but it is my belief that I probably won't.
In the two and a half years we were married, I often had the feeling that I would come home from the track and something would be funny. Oh, she'd say things: One of these days I'm not going to be here when you get home, things like that, things like everybody says. How stupid of me not to see them as omens. When I'd get out of bed in the early afternoon, I'd stand right here at this sink and I could see her working in her garden in her cut-off Levis and bikini top, weeding, planting, watering. I mean it was obvious. I was too busy thinking about the races, weighing the odds, checking the jockey roster to see what I now know: he was watching her too. He'd probably been watching her all summer.
So, in a way it was my fault. But what could I have done? Bigfoot steals your wife. I mean: even if you're home, it's going to be a mess. He's big and not well trained.
When I came home it was about eleven-thirty. The lights were on, which really wasn't anything new, but in the ordinary mess of the place, there was a little difference, signs of a struggle. There was a spilled Dr. Pepper on the counter and the fridge was open. But there was something else, something that made me sick. The smell. The smell of Bigfoot. It was hideous. It was . . . the guy is not clean.
Half of Trudy's clothes are gone, not all of them, and there is no note. Well, I know what it is. It's just about midnight there in the kitchen which smells like some part of hell. I close the fridge door. It's the saddest thing I've ever done. There's a picture of Trudy and me leaning against her Toyota taped to the fridge door. It was taken last summer. There's Trudy in her bikini top, her belly brown as a bean. She looks like a kid. She was a kid I guess, twenty-six. The two times she went to the track with me everybody looked at me like how'd I rate her. But she didn't really care for the races. She cared about her garden and Chinese cooking and Buster, her collie, who I guess Bigfoot stole too. Or ate. Buster isn't in the picture, he was nagging my nephew Chuck who took the photo. Anyway I close the fridge door and it's like part of my life closed. Bigfoot steals your wife and you're in for some changes.
You come home from the track having missed the Daily Double by a neck, and when you enter the home you are paying for and in which you and your wife and your wife's collie live, and your wife and her collie are gone as is some of her clothing, there is nothing to believe. Bigfoot stole her. It's a fact. What should I do, ignore it? Chuck came down and said something like well if Bigfoot stole her why'd he take the Celica? Christ, what a cynic! Have you ever read anything about Bigfoot not being able to drive? He'd be cramped in there, but I'm sure he could manage.
I don't really care if people believe me or not. Would that change anything? Would that bring Trudy back here? Pull the weeds in her garden?
As I think about it, no one believes anything anymore. Give me one example of someone believing one thing. No one believes me. I myself can't believe all the suspicion and cynicism there is in today's world. Even at the races, some character next to me will poke over at my tip sheet and ask me if I believe that stuff. If I believe? What is there to believe? The horse's name? What he did the last time out? And I look back at this guy, too cheap to go two bucks on the program, and I say: its history. It is historical fact here. Believe. Huh. Here's a fact: I believe everything.
Credibility.
When I was thirteen years old, my mother's trailor was washed away in the flooding waters of the Harley River and swept thirty-one miles, ending right side up and neary dead level just outside Mercy, in fact in the old weed-eaten parking lot for the abandoned potash plant. I know this to be true because I was inside the trailor the whole time with my pal, Nuggy Reinecker, who found the experience more life-changing than I did.
Now who's going to believe this story? I mean, besides me, because I was there. People are going to say, come on, thirty-one miles? Don't you mean thirty-one feet?
We had gone in out of the rain after school to check out a magazine that belonged to my mother's boyfriend. It was a copy of Dude, and there was a fold-out page I will never forget of a girl lying on a beach on her back. It was a color photograph. The girl was a little pale, I mean, this was probably her first day out in the sun, and she had no clothing on. So it was good, but what made it great was that they had made her a little bathing suit out of sand. Somebody had spilled a little sand just right, here and there, and the sane was this incredible gold color, and it made her look so absolutly naked you wanted to put your eyes out.
Nuggy and I knew there was flood danger in Griggs; we'd had a flood every year almost and it had been raining for five days on and off, but when the trailor bucked the first time, we thought it was my mother come home to catch us in the dirty book. Nuggy shoved the magazine under his bed and I ran out to check the door. It only took me a second and I holldered back Hey no sweat, no one's here, but by the time Ireturned to see what other poses they'd had this beautiful woman commit, Nuggy already had his pants to his ankles and was involved in what we knew was a sin.
It if hadn't been the timing of the first wave with this act of his, Nuggy might have gone on to live what the rest of us call a normal life. But the Harley had crested and the head wave, which they estimated to be three feet minimum, unmoored the trailer with a push that knocked me over the sofa, and threw Nuggy, already entangled in his trousers, clear across the bedroom.
I watched the village of Griggs as we sailed through. Some of the village, the Exxon Station, part of it at least, and the carwash, which folded up right away, tried to come along with us, and I saw the front of Painters' Mercantile, the old porch and signboard, on and off all day.
You can believe this: it was not a smooth ride. We'd rip along for ten seconds, dropping and growling over rocks, and rumbling over tree stumps, and then wham! the front end of the trailer would lodge against a rock or something that could stop it, and whoa! we'd wheel around sharp as a carnival ride, worse really, because the furniture would be thrown against the far side and us with it, sometimes we'd end up in a chair and sometimes the chair would sit on us. My mother had about four thousand knickknacks in five big box shelves, and they gave us trouble for the first two or three miles, flying by like artillery, left, right, some small glass snail hits you in the face, later in the back, but that stuff all finally settled in the foot and then two feet of water which we took on.
We only slowed down once and it was the worst. In the railroad flats I thought we had stopped and I let go of the door I was hugging and tried to stand up and then swish, another rush sent us right along. We rammed along all day it seemed, but when we finally washed up in Mercy and the sheriff's cousin pulled open the door and got swept back to his car by water and quite a few of those knickknacks, just over an hour had passed. We had averaged, they figured later, about thirty-two miles an hour, reaching speeds of up to fifty at Lime Falls and the Willows. I was okay and walked out bruised and well washed, but when the sheriff's cousin pulled Nuggy out, he looked genuinely hurt.
"For godsakes," I remember the sheriff's cousin saying, "The damn flood knocked this boy's pants off!" But Nuggy wasn't talking. In fact, he never hardly talked to me again in the two years he stayed at Regional School. I heard later, and I believe it, that he joined the monastery over in Malcolm County.
My mother, because she didn't have the funds to haul our rig back to Griggs, worried for a while, but then the mayor arranged to let us stay out where we were. So after my long ride in a trailer down the flooded Harley River with my friend Nuggy Reinbecker, I grew up in a parking lot outside of Mercy, and to tell you the truth, it wasn't too bad, even though our trailer never did smell straight again.
Now you can believe all that. People are always saying: don't believe everything you read, or everything you hear. And I'm here to tell you. Believe it. Everything. Everything you read. Everything you hear. Believe your eyes. Your ears. Believe the small hairs on the back of your neck. Believe all of history, and all of the versions of history, and all the predictions for the future. Believe every weather forecast. Believe in God, the afterlife, unicorns, showers on Tuesday. Everything has happened. Everything is possible.
I came home from the track to find the cupboard bare. Trudy is not home. The place smells funny: hairy. It's a fact and I know it as a fact: Bigfoot has been in my house.
Bigfoot stole my wife.
She's gone.
Believe it.
I gotta believe it.

Bruce Holland Rogers "Murder, Mystery"
http://flashfictiononline.com/author_bruce_holland_rogers.html

The Dead Boy at Your Window

This story is an illustration of a fixed form as described in Bruce’s column for November 2008. It’s a little long for flash — about 1,300 words — but it illustrates his points nicely and it’s a multiple-award winner: the Bram Stoker in 1998 and the Pushcart Prize in 1999.

In a distant country where the towns had improbable names, a woman looked upon the unmoving form of her newborn baby and refused to see what the midwife saw. This was her son. She had brought him forth in agony, and now he must suck. She pressed his lips to her breast.

“But he is dead!” said the midwife.

“No,” his mother lied. “I felt him suck just now.” Her lie was as milk to the baby, who really was dead but who now opened his dead eyes and began to kick his dead legs. “There, do you see?” And she made the midwife call the father in to know his son.

The dead boy never did suck at his mother’s breast. He sipped no water, never took food of any kind, so of course he never grew. But his father, who was handy with all things mechanical, built a rack for stretching him so that, year by year, he could be as tall as the other children.

When he had seen six winters, his parents sent him to school. Though he was as tall as the other students, the dead boy was strange to look upon. His bald head was almost the right size, but the rest of him was thin as a piece of leather and dry as a stick. He tried to make up for his ugliness with diligence, and every night he was up late practicing his letters and numbers.

His voice was like the rasping of dry leaves. Because it was so hard to hear him, the teacher made all the other students hold their breaths when he gave an answer. She called on him often, and he was always right.

Naturally, the other children despised him. The bullies sometimes waited for him after school, but beating him, even with sticks, did him no harm. He wouldn’t even cry out.

One windy day, the bullies stole a ball of twine from their teacher’s desk, and after school, they held the dead boy on the ground with his arms out so that he took the shape of a cross. They ran a stick in through his left shirt sleeve and out through the right. They stretched his shirt tails down to his ankles, tied everything in place, fastened the ball of twine to a buttonhole, and launched him. To their delight, the dead boy made an excellent kite. It only added to their pleasure to see that owing to the weight of his head, he flew upside down.

When they were bored with watching the dead boy fly, they let go of the string. The dead boy did not drift back to earth, as any ordinary kite would do. He glided. He could steer a little, though he was mostly at the mercy of the winds. And he could not come down. Indeed, the wind blew him higher and higher.

The sun set, and still the dead boy rode the wind. The moon rose and by its glow he saw the fields and forests drifting by. He saw mountain ranges pass beneath him, and oceans and continents. At last the winds gentled, then ceased, and he glided down to the ground in a strange country. The ground was bare. The moon and stars had vanished from the sky. The air seemed gray and shrouded. The dead boy leaned to one side and shook himself until the stick fell from his shirt. He wound up the twine that had trailed behind him and waited for the sun to rise. Hour after long hour, there was only the same grayness. So he began to wander.

He encountered a man who looked much like himself, a bald head atop leathery limbs. “Where am I?” the dead boy asked.

The man looked at the grayness all around. “Where?” the man said. His voice, like the dead boy’s, sounded like the whisper of dead leaves stirring.

A woman emerged from the grayness. Her head was bald, too, and her body dried out. “This!” she rasped, touching the dead boy’s shirt. “I remember this!” She tugged on the dead boy’s sleeve. “I had a thing like this!”

“Clothes?” said the dead boy.

“Clothes!” the woman cried. “That’s what it is called!”

More shriveled people came out of the grayness. They crowded close to see the strange dead boy who wore clothes. Now the dead boy knew where he was. “This is the land of the dead.”

“Why do you have clothes?” asked the dead woman. “We came here with nothing! Why do you have clothes?”

“I have always been dead,” said the dead boy, “but I spent six years among the living.”

“Six years!” said one of the dead. “And you have only just now come to us?”

“Did you know my wife?” asked a dead man. “Is she still among the living?”

“Give me news of my son!”

“What about my sister?”

The dead people crowded closer.

The dead boy said, “What is your sister’s name?” But the dead could not remember the names of their loved ones. They did not even remember their own names. Likewise, the names of the places where they had lived, the numbers given to their years, the manners or fashions of their times, all of these they had forgotten.

“Well,” said the dead boy, “in the town where I was born, there was a widow. Maybe she was your wife. I knew a boy whose mother had died, and an old woman who might have been your sister.”

“Are you going back?”

“Of course not,” said another dead person. “No one ever goes back.”

“I think I might,” the dead boy said. He explained about his flying. “When next the wind blows....”

“The wind never blows here,” said a man so newly dead that he remembered wind.

“Then you could run with my string.”

“Would that work?”

“Take a message to my husband!” said a dead woman.

“Tell my wife that I miss her!” said a dead man.

“Let my sister know I haven’t forgotten her!”

“Say to my lover that I love him still!”

They gave him their messages, not knowing whether or not their loved ones were themselves long dead. Indeed, dead lovers might well be standing next to one another in the land of the dead, giving messages for each other to the dead boy. Still, he memorized them all. Then the dead put the stick back inside his shirt sleeves, tied everything in place, and unwound his string. Running as fast as their leathery legs could manage, they pulled the dead boy back into the sky, let go of the string, and watched with their dead eyes as he glided away.

He glided a long time over the gray stillness of death until at last a puff of wind blew him higher, until a breath of wind took him higher still, until a gust of wind carried him up above the grayness to where he could see the moon and the stars. Below he saw moonlight reflected in the ocean. In the distance rose mountain peaks. The dead boy came to earth in a little village. He knew no one here, but he went to the first house he came to and rapped on the bedroom shutters. To the woman who answered, he said, “A message from the land of the dead,” and gave her one of the messages. The woman wept, and gave him a message in return.

House by house, he delivered the messages. House by house, he collected messages for the dead. In the morning, he found some boys to fly him, to give him back to the wind’s mercy so he could carry these new messages back to the land of the dead.

So it has been ever since. On any night, head full of messages, he may rap upon any window to remind someone — to remind you, perhaps — of love that outlives memory, of love that needs no names.
HMWK : Read Bloodsucking Fiends to PART 2   

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Looking Ahead--Christopher Moore Bloodsucking Fiends

AGENDA:

Bellwork: Practice PSAT Writing Questions
https://www.varsitytutors.com/psat_writing_diagnostic_1-problem-38202

Turn in missing work!!! (you know who you are---POV short stories)


1. Return Mudbound, go down to library for Bloodsucking Fiends

2. HMWK for Wednesday:  Read through Ch. 10 (pg. 73) in Bloodsucking Fiends


Christopher Moore on Vampires and Writing

Read and respond with a comment to Christopher Moore interview.  What is your experience with contemporary vampire fiction?  Classical vampire fiction (Dracula)? Have you read Twilight or any Anne Rice?

TV tropes

Vampire Tropes

trope
trōp/
noun
  1. 1.
    a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression.

    "he used the two-Americas trope to explain how a nation free and democratic at home could act wantonly abroad"
verb
  1. 1.
    create a trope.
Link:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VampireTropes

Videos:

Read first chapter online:



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Mudbound--Final Test

AGENDA:

MUDBOUND --TEST--Choose 4 out of 7 identifications.  Use these questions as guidelines for your response.

1. Who is Laura McAllan? Why does she marry so late in life? How does Laura feel about this late marriage? Does Laura love her husband on their wedding day? How many children do they have? Why does Laura want to have a third child? What warning does Laura's mother give her when she learns that she is expecting a third child? What does this seem to foreshadow for Laura? Does this take place? What is the impact of this?

2.Who is Florence Jackson? How does she come to know the McAllans? How does she feel about the McAllans? For what reason? Is there tension between Florence and Laura McAllan from their first meeting? For what reason? How does Laura treat the Jacksons? Is Florence's attitude toward the McAllans a reflection of this treatment? In what way?

3.Who is Jamie McAllan? What is special about him? What does Laura notice about him upon their first meeting? What does she realize about Henry's opinions of his brother during this first meeting? How does Jamie's arrival at Mudbound impact Laura? For what reason? Why does Laura begin to fall in love with Jamie? How does she act on these feelings? What is the result of these actions?

4.Why does Henry want to buy the farm? Why does Henry not talk to Laura about this desire? How does Laura feel when she learns what Henry has done? Why does Henry refuse to be talked out of this action? How does owning the farm change Henry and Laura's relationship? For what reason? How does Laura eventually come around to accepting Henry's passion for the land?

5. Who is Ronsel? Why does he enlist in the Army? How does he react to the blatant discrimination against black soldiers during basic training? Why does Ronsel begin to lose faith that he will ever see combat? How does Ronsel eventually get to Europe? What surprises Ronsel about the treatment he and his fellow soldiers receive from the whites in Europe? How does Ronsel become involved with a white German widow? How does this relationship change Ronsel's life?

6. How does Hap break his leg? Why does he think it is God teaching him not to be so prideful? What does this say about Hap's faith? Why does the doctor refuse to come right away? Why does the doctor not set Hap's leg properly? Why does Laura believe the doctor has done this without seeing Hap despite Henry's refusal to believe it? Why does Laura find a new doctor for Hap? Is this a selfish move or an act of kindness? Explain.

7.Why does Pappy organize a Klan posse to punish Ronsel? What has Ronsel done that makes it necessary to punish him? Is what Ronsel has done really a bad thing? Why does Jamie come to Ronsel's defense? Might Henry have done the same thing in Jamie's place? Would Laura? Why does Jamie choose how Ronsel will be injured? Why does Jamie choose for Ronsel to lose his tongue? How does losing his tongue impact Ronsel's life? What does the final chapter of the book imply about Ronsel's future?