Sedaris

AGENDA:

View Master Class lesson.

Review key points in workbook for the Master Class.

Begin brainstorming ideas for your humor essay.

SOKOL/GANNON entries.

David Sedaris

David Sedaris

AGENDA:

How to Write Like David Sedaris

David Sedaris videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExcpcPZKWpU&list=PLA86A504AA10A73C9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5apZmwR9UI&list=PLA86A504AA10A73C9 


How to write like David Sedaris:
https://www.voxmagazine.com/arts/books/how-to-write-like-david-sedaris/article_4dbf9f48-9eca-11e6-9c0e-b719b8a0a942.html

http://ydrstorytelling.blogspot.com/2012/04/david-sedaris-on-writing-write-everyday.html

http://thecopybot.com/2011/08/sedaris-first-sentence/ 

http://www.missourireview.com/archives/bbarticle/a-conversation-with-david-sedaris/ 


Welcome back!

Please read Sedaris to pg. 59

TRY THIS EXERCISE TODAY AND POST YOUR ANSWERS!

http://thewritepractice.com/four-commandments-to-writing-funny/ 

David Sedaris---Humorous Memoir

David Sedaris/Memoir

AGENDA:

Please work on Sokol/Gannon entries.

Finish any missing work for your portfolios.

Go to library for David Sedaris.

Next book: David Sedaris Me Talk Pretty One Day

David Sedaris

Me Talk Pretty One Day
David Sedaris, 2000
Little, Brown & Company
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316776967


Summary
Me Talk Pretty One Day contains far more than just the funniest collection of autobiographical essays—it quite well registers as a manifesto about language itself. Wherever there's a straight line, you can be sure that Sedaris lurks beneath the text, making it jagged with laughter; and just where the fault lines fall, he sits mischievously perched at the epicenter of it all.
No medium available to mankind is spared his cultural vision; no family member (even the dynasties of family pets) is forgotten in these pages of sardonic memories of Sedaris's numerous incarnations in North Carolina, Chicago, New York, and France.
One essay, punctuated by a conspicuous absence of s's and plurals, introduces the lisping young fifth-grader David "Thedarith," who arms himself with a thesaurus, learns every nonsibilant word in the lexicon, eludes his wily speech therapy teacher, and amazes his countrified North Carolina teachers with his out-of-nowhere and man-size vocabulary.
By an ironic twist of fate, readers find present-day Sedaris in France, where only now, after all these years, he must cling safely to just plural nouns so as to avoid assigning the wrong genders to French objects. (Never mind that ordering items from the grocer becomes rather expensive.) Even the strictest of grammarians won't be able to look at the parts of speech in the same way after exposing themselves to the linguistic phenomena of Sedarisian humor. Just why is a sandwich masculine, and yet, say, a belt is feminine in the French language? As he stealthily tries to decode French, like a cross between a housewife and a shrewddetective, he earns the contempt of his sadistic French teacher and soon even resorts to listening to American books on tape for secret relief.
What David Sedaris has to say about language classes, his brother's gangsta-rap slang, typewriters, computers, audiobooks, movies, and even restaurant menus is sure to unleash upon the world a mad rash of pocket-dictionary-toting nouveau grammarians who bow their heads to a new, inverted word order. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio• Birth—December 26, 1956
• Where—Johnson City, New York, USA
• Education—B.F.A., Art Institute of Chicago
• Awards—Thurber Prize; Time Humorist of the Year;
  Advocate Lambda Award.
• Currently—lives in London, England, UK

According to Time Out New York, "David Sedaris may be the funniest man alive." He's the sort of writer critics tend to describe not in terms of literary influences and trends, but in terms of what they choked on while reading his latest book. "I spewed a mouthful of pastrami across my desk," admitted Craig Seligman in his New York Times review of Naked.
Sedaris first drew national attention in 1992 with a stint on National Public Radio, on which he recounted his experiences as a Christmas elf at Macy's. He discussed "the code names for various posts, such as 'The Vomit Corner,' a mirrored wall near the Magic Tree" and confided that his response to "I'm going to have you fired" was the desire to lean over and say, "I'm going to have you killed." The radio pieces were such a hit that Sedaris, then working as a house cleaner, started getting offers to write movies, soap operas and Seinfeld episodes.
In subsequent appearances on NPR, Sedaris proved he wasn't just a velvet-clad flash in the pan; he's also wickedly funny on the subjects of smoking, speed, shoplifting and nervous tics. His work began appearing in magazines like Harper's and Mirabella, and his first book Barrel Fever, which included "SantaLand Diaries," was a bestseller. "These hilarious, lively and breathtakingly irreverent stories...made me laugh out loud more than anything I've read in years," wrote Francine Prose in the Washington Post Book World.
Since then, each successive Sedaris volume has zoomed to the top of the bestseller lists. In Naked, he recounts odd jobs like volunteering at a mental hospital, picking apples as a seasonal laborer and stripping woodwork for a Nazi sympathizer. The stocking stuffer-sized Holidays on Ice collects Sedaris' Christmas-themed work, including a fictional holiday newsletter from the homicidal stepmother of a 22-year-old Vietnamese immigrant ("She arrived in this house six weeks ago speaking only the words 'Daddy,' 'Shiny' and 'Five dollar now'. Quite a vocabulary!!!!!").
But Sedaris' best pieces often revolve around his childhood in North Carolina and his family of six siblings, including the brother who talks like a redneck gangsta rapper and the sister who, in a hilarious passage far too dirty to quote here, introduces him to the joys of the Internet. Sedaris' recent book Me Talk Pretty One Day describes, among other things, his efforts to learn French while helping his boyfriend fix up a Normandy farmhouse; he progresses "from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window."
Sedaris has been compared to American humorists such as Mark Twain, James Thurber and Dorothy Parker; Publisher's Weekly called him "Garrison Keillor's evil twin." Pretty heady stuff for a man who claims there are cats that weigh more than his IQ score. But as This American Life producer Ira Glass once pointed out, it would be wrong to think of Sedaris as "just a working Joe who happens to put out these perfectly constructed pieces of prose." Measured by his ability to turn his experiences into a sharply satirical, sidesplittingly funny form of art, David Sedaris is no less than a genius.
Extras
• Sedaris got his start in radio after This American Life producer Ira Glass saw him perform at Club Lower Links in Chicago. In addition to his NPR commentaries, Sedaris now writes regularly for Esquire.
• Sedaris's younger sister Amy is also a writer and performer; the two have collaborated on plays under the moniker "The Talent Family." Amy Sedaris has appeared onstage as a member of the Second City improv troupe and on Comedy Central in the series Strangers with Candy.
• If I weren't a writer, I'd be a taxidermist," Sedaris said in a chat on Barnes and Noble.com. According to the Boston Phoenix, his collection of stuffed dead animals includes a squirrel, two fruit bats, four Boston terriers and a baby ostrich.
• When asked what book most influenced his career as a writer, he's what he said:

I guess it would be Cathedral by Raymond Carver. His sentences are very simple and straightforward, and he made writing seem deceptively easy—the kind of thing anyone could do if they put their mind to it. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Big Moment ESSAYS DUE/College talk

AGENDA:

Your "Big Moment" essays are DUE---4 pages

Ms. Thomas will talk about college and answer your questions 2nd period.

Don't forget contest entries--GANNON, SOKOL, ROC the Sonnet, Stop the Stigma, Harvard-Radcliffe--EXTRA CREDIT!

The Creative Writing Lab is open mornings Tues.-Fri. next week!

Friday, January 31 is the last day of the marking period!

GeVa Young Playwrights Contest/ROC the sonnet ESU

AGENDA:

Young Playwrights contest:

https://gevatheatre.org/artists/play-submission/

ROC the Sonnet Contest (ESU):

http://www.esuus.org/rochester/sidebar_4/ROC-the-Sonnet-rev-11-3-19-rev-B:en-us.pdf

Big Moment Essays

AGENDA:

Big Moment essays due Thursday!

Work on your essay and conference with Ms. Thomas.

SOKOL/GANNON  ---enter poetry and/or prose

Kitchen/Big Moment Essays

AGENDA:

Continue to work on your essays.  If time permits, we will share out at the end of class.

Brainstorming:
https://www.dudleycourtpress.com/50-life-events-for-your-own-memoir/

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikespohr/33-amazing-moments-to-savor-in-life

https://www.ronitbaras.com/emotional-intelligence/personal-development/make-a-list-17-events-that-have-shaped-my-life/

https://thoughtcatalog.com/erica-gordon/2014/08/the-10-most-important-milestones-in-your-life/

The Kitchen/Your Big Moment

AGENDA:

EQ: What is a "defining" or "significant moment" to write about for a college essay?

WRITING: Continue to work on your "Kitchen" essay during writing time.  Focus on description as well as the memory of your first kitchen.  You can describe the physical space as well as the emotions attached to the kitchen.

If you have finished the "Kitchen" essay, start working on "your Big Moment" essay.  This essay is just one of the possible options for college essays.

READING:
Here are some examples of  the "Significant Experience" or "Defining Moment" college essay:

https://www.infoplease.com/us/college-bound/sample-essays-significant-experience

https://www.thoughtco.com/common-application-personal-essay-option-1-788407

http://www.teenink.com/college_guide/college_essays/article/70769/My-Moment/

https://education.seattlepi.com/college-essay-ideas-writing-significant-experience-1171.html

http://blog.collegegreenlight.com/blog/defining-moments-answering-college-greenlight-scholars-application-essay-1/

ACTIVITY:

Here are three steps to completing a great Defining Moment essay in your own voice:

1. Brainstorming: Find lots of great stories: Imagine your life–from the moment you were born up until today–as a series of moments. Make a list of 10 moments that changed you: moments when there is a clear before and after. And then for each of those 10 moments, list some smaller moments that make up each of them.
2. Think, Pair, Share: Pick one of the moments from the exercise and tell your story out loud–to your friend if possible–discuss and then begin working on your essay

Creative Nonfiction

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OZAXNrr38U5mjgnquV2hi8vtRE9nA5fY_-APbkUHyUA/edit?ts=5e1320d4#slide=id.g7c11c2564f_0_2

Writing Creative Nonfiction/Memoir

Writing Creative Nonfiction/Memoir

AGENDA:

Welcome back!  Happy new year 2020!

READING:

Writing Memoir:

https://thewritepractice.com/19-tips-on-writing-memoir-from-the-memoir-project-by-marion-roach-smith/

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-memoir-1691376

http://www.barbaradoyen.com/writing-nonfiction/what-is-a-memoir-what-makes-a-memoir-different-from-an-autobiography-or-biography

http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/write-good-memoir-advice-finding-voice
http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-genre/memoir-by-writing-genre

https://thewritelife.com/the-beginners-guide-to-planning-and-writing-a-memoir/

https://blog.udemy.com/how-to-write-a-memoir/

Memoir writing techniques

A memoir is written in first person from the author’s point of view.

It is narrative nonfiction written in story form like fiction. Dialogue can be included, but since few people can remember precisely every word spoken, the dialogue is not literally true; instead the author attempts to recreate it as accurately as possible. For this reason, some memoirs, like Wild Swans, tell the story without dialogue.

The memoir author should “think small” and make a series of “reducing decisions,” says William Zinsser, author of the perennially popular book, On Writing Well, which includes a new chapter about writing memoirs in the latest edition.

WRITING:\

 Select a topic to explore: 

#WritingPrompts: 52 Memoir Prompts

by Jeri Walker | Nov 2, 2015 | Featured, Writing Tips | 88 comments

Behold! These memoir prompts have consistently ranked as the most viewed post on Word Bank Writing & Editing, and I wanted to bring feature them again for those who may have missed out the first time around. I’m currently booked with editing projects through the end of the year, so contact me now if you need to reserve a spot for 2016. Most importantly, know thyself. All good writers should follow that advice. Based on my creative nonfiction post, Confessions of a Motley Crue Fool, I hope it’s now apparent just how seriously I take my own suggestions. 

The following questions function as memoir prompts that can serve many purposes, such as an idea for a last minute blog post. They will take you through a year’s worth of memoir writing if you do one a week. Or perhaps you would rather pick and choose the ones you find most appealing. At the very least, they can be used to fight writer’s block. Remember that writing about something is better than staring blankly and writing about nothing at all.




Make each one as long or as short as you see fit. However, limiting yourself to 300-500 words would be a great exercise in conciseness. Focus on appealing to all five senses. As always, aim to show rather than tell.


#1: Was there anything unusual or unique about your birth?

#2: What is your earliest memory?

#3: What is your first memory about your siblings, parents, pets, toys, or house?

#4: What is your happiest childhood memory? Your saddest?

#5: How have childhood favorites impacted you? (toys, cartoons, books, etc.)

#6: Were your parents good parents?

#7: What event in your childhood had the most impact on your life as an adult?

#8: What is your first memory about school?

#9: Was learning to read and write a struggle for you?

#10: Who was your favorite teacher?

#11: What was your favorite subject in school?

#12: Did you participate in any extra-curricular activities?

#13: What clique did you belong to?

#14: What do you wish you would have learned more about in school?

#15: What schoolmate had the most impact on your life? In what way?

#16: Who was your first best friend? How did they influence your life?

#17: What did you learn about yourself in high school?

#18: What was the first moment you felt truly grown up or independent?

#19: How old were you when you began to drive?

#20: Who gave you your first kiss?

#21: Who was your first love?

#22: What is your best memory as a teenager with your friends?

#23: What was the best party you went to when you were a teenager?

#24: What was your first job?

#25: How much was your first paycheck and what did you do with it?

#26: What moment in your life have you felt most loved?

#27: Which one of your parents are you most like?

#28: Was graduating from high school a big event?

#29: Has education played an important role in your life?

#30: What have you done that you never thought you would do?

#31: What was the greatest challenge of your life so far?

#32: What do you wish you had done differently in your life?

#33: Who do you wish you could see again?

#34: Who was the lost love of your life?

#35: What word would you most like people to associate with you?

#36: Who was the biggest influence (positive or negative) on your life?

#37: How were your belief systems formed? (religion, politics, family, etc.)

#38: What is great about your life right now?

#39: What could be better about your life?

#40: To what degree has technology shaped your life in the past 10 years?

#41: When is the last time you learned to do something new?

#42: Does your career make you happy?

#43: How is your family unique?

#44: Is your significant other your best friend?

#45: What do your pet peeves reveal about you?

#46: What do your tastes reveal about you? (food, music, clothes, books, etc.)

#47: How many life goals have you attained?

#48: What regrets do you have?

#49: What do you think the future holds for you?

#50: Do you spend more time planning for the future or living in the moment?

#51: What will your retirement be like?

#52: What will your obituary say about you?

Other prompts will come to you as you draft, so why not write them down in your writer’s notebook? You never know when it might come in handy.

What do you like and dislike about reading and/or writing memoirs? What memoir prompts would you add to the list?