Monday, September 10, 2018
Sunday, September 9, 2018
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
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 INTRO
AGENDA:
Morning reflection: Intro to Mudbound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7ToVdAsBv4
Post comment
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
Hilary Jordan reading Laura:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU1HrhozQOA
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?
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?
"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
Multiple Perspectives:
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?
ACTIVITY: Finish POV exercise.
HMWK: Read to page 70 for Wednesday. Study vocabulary for quiz on Friday.
ACTIVITY: Finish POV exercise.
HMWK: Read to page 70 for Wednesday. Study vocabulary for quiz on Friday.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Friday, August 31, 2018
Welcome back, CW Juniors!
AGENDA:
1. Review Course Criteria/Welcome/Google classroom (6r0mlef)
2. Morning Reflection: I'm Not Racisthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43gm3CJePn0
First Blog Quickwrite: Your thoughts and post a comment (5 minutes) for credit
3. Activity: Read "Why I Write" and "The Poet"
Write Your Own "Why I Write Letter to Your Self"/group Why I write
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.
The Poet She is working now, in a room not unlike this one, the one where I write, or you read. Her table is covered with paper. The light of the lamp would be tempered by a shade, where the bulb's single harshness might dissolve, but it is not, she has taken it off. Her poems? I will never know them, though they are the ones I most need. Even the alphabet she writes in I cannot decipher. Her chair -- Let us imagine whether it is leather or canvas, vinyl or wicker. Let her have a chair, her shadeless lamp, the table. Let one or two she loves be in the next room. Let the door be closed, the sleeping ones healthy. Let her have time, and silence, enough paper to make mistakes and go on. Jane Hirshfield
Discuss her essay and poem.
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
4. POV Writing exercise
Write 4 paragraphs exploring point of view.
a. 3rd person limited
b. 1st prson
c. 3rd person omiscient
d. your choice--another character, second person/
example:
Her feet dragged in the dirt as she swayed back and forth on the playground swing set she used to soar on when she was younger. Her head hung low as she watched her dusty shoes trace circles beneath her. The rhythmic creaking of the rusted metal chains mixed with the patterns in the sand were enough to put her into a trance while she waited for a tap on her shoulder. When it came, it startled her, shocking her out of the coma she let herself fall into. His touch wasn’t warm like it used to be, the fingers that ran over her knuckles and along the lines in her palm felt forced, contrived. He sat beside her on the next swing and adjusted his feet to sway in sync with her. He smiled at her and she tried her hardest to smile back, feeling like the corners of her mouth were held up by string.
I made piles and lines in the sand with my shoes because they were dirty anyway. The screeching sound of the metal chain dug into my head. My hair would always get stuck in the links, ripping it out in pieces. The longer I swung back and forth the more my stomach would ache, but I couldn’t stop. The silence would be too much without anything to test it. I felt his icy fingers on my shoulder, exposed in the summer heat. My chest ached and my stomach fell into the dirt. I wish he didn’t come. I wish he never showed. There was no way to feel close to him anymore, even when he tried to swing in sync without me noticing. He was trying to get me to look at him. I could see from the corner of my eye, but I didn’t want to. Instead, I forced myself to smile, facing down the patterns in the dirt. I thought that would be good enough.
A girl hopped over the fence into the playground, then she looked around more a minute, grinning slightly when she saw that it was empty. She walked over to a bench that stood under a red maple tree. Her fingers glided over the bark as she passed it. She sat down on the bench for a moment, her legs crossed and her head resting in her hands, but she quickly got up, taking a new place on the swing set. She started to swing back and forth fast, her legs kicking back and forth to propel her higher and higher until there was slack in the chains when she went up. She smiled big as the wind whipped her hair back. After a minute or so she started to slow, eventually coming to a hard stop. Her face looked pale and her smile was gone. From then on, she just swayed slowly, dragging her white shoes in the dirt. A boy hopped over the fence behind her, but she didn’t seem to notice. He tapped on her shoulder and sat down next to her. That smile didn’t come back.
You hop over the chain link fence, expecting her to hear you. Of course she doesn’t though, she’s always lost in her thoughts. That’s one of the reasons you love her. You tried to make as much noise as you could as you walked up behind her, but still, she stared down at the ground. You didn’t mean to scare her, but when you tapped on her shoulder you could feel her jump with fear. You know that you should’ve just called her name, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say it without bringing tears too. You touched her hand as softly as you could because you know she loves it, holding on until you take the spot next to her. She didn’t notice as you adjusted your swing to align with hers. You stared at her as you swung in exact sync. She smiled and you smiled back because you knew that as long as she was smiling she was still yours.
5. Sign out books: Mudbound
HWK: Get Course Criteria signed for credit
READ: Mudbound Ch. 1
Monday, July 23, 2018
Writing Prompts and Word generators
Writing prompts and word generators
To help you kick off your writing for each exercises, you might find some of these sites useful:
- Randomlists.com (generates lists of random words)
- watchout4snakes (random word generator)
- Daily Teaching Tools (writing prompts)
- @writingprompt (writing prompt tweets)
- Easy Street Prompts (writing prompts)
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