Bloodsucking Fiends

Peer Editing/Bloodsucking Fiends

AGENDA:

1. Share your story with peer editor.

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

3.HMWK:  Read through Ch. 8 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 Anne Rice?
http://www.chrismoore.com/interviews/writing-the-vampire/


Videos:
http://www.watchmojo.com/video/id/8357/

Read first chapter online:
http://www.chrismoore.com/books/bloodsucking-fiends/


http://www.chrismoore.com/interviews/writing-the-vampire/



Watch the following videos and the videos on the video bar.
http://watchmojo.com/index.php?id=8330

http://watchmojo.com/index.php?id=8357 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bhb744dw18

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/22/the-new-vampires-9-possib_n_620202.html#s103541 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBsNmM3ADp0&feature=related

AGENDA:

MORNING REFLECTION: Ms. Gamzon  Piano Guys "Titanium"


WORK ON SHORT STORIES. 

Mudbound/Short Stories

AGENDA:

Morning Reflection:Zoë
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3PIkV2anqk

DISCUSSION:  Mudbound Questions
Post responses to remaining questions

WRITING:  Work on short stories for Friday

Develop your 3 characters:

Explore your characters' motivations.  Interrogate them.

http://thewritepractice.com/how-to-explore-your-characters-motivations/

Interesting website for character and setting development:

http://www.the-writers-craft.com/creative-writing-worksheets.html

HOMEWORK:
Quiz on Mudbound on Friday

Mudbound Discussion Questions/Continue to work on stories

AGENDA:

MORNING REFLECTION:  Please wait on this until Wednesday (I really want to see your morning reflection)

THINK, PAIR, SHARE DISCUSSION:  With a partner (or small group), discuss Questions 4, 5, 6, and 7
from the previous post  of Mudbound Discussion questions.  Post your responses as comments on this post.
Try (as always) to use text EVIDENCE to back up your CLAIMS.  You should now have comments on questions 1-7 posted!

WRITING: Work on your own Mudbound stories.  First drafts are due on Friday.

HMWK: Continue reading Mudbound for more discussion on Wednesday, 

Mudbound/Stories cont.

AGENDA:

MORNING REFLECTION: Grace

Post comments here.

READING QUIZ on PART I

WORK ON HISTORICAL PADLETS:  How are your padlets coming along?
Please post the link to your padlet for credit on this post today.

CHECK OUT THE LINK TO HILLARY JORDAN'S WEBSITE AND BLOG
HILLARY JORDAN VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCdJQDxw8yQ

DISCUSSION:  Let's talk about your posts from Tuesday.  Did you post replies for the first 3 discussion questions?

WRITING:  Work on your short stories.

HMWK:  Read Part II (to pg. 212)  for Monday.

Discussion Questions/Work on Short Stories

Agenda:  Morning Reflection  Saisha
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtOXiNx4jgQ

Discussion Questions 
http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/643-mudbound-jordan

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?

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:  Friday, Sept. 27, 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.

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


CONTEST: 
Bennington Young Writers

http://www.bennington.edu/youngwriterscompetition.aspx