Coffeehouse, Short Story Writing and MORE...

Seniors:


As you know, I am out this week. Please take care of the tasks you need to accomplish for a grade this week.


1. Get your coffeehouse piece/pieces ready and revised. Mark the work up for performance. Workshop with your group or in partners. Next Tuesday/Thursday, we will rehearse in the Ensemble Theatre. Come prepared with your work! The reading is on Friday, 5/27 at 7:00. Make sure to get the word out.


2. Your next short story should be started. Draft one should be done and workshopped. Work on draft two, workshop again and revise a final copy. If you would like to workshop with me outside of class, please schedule it. I would like a final copy of this piece turned in on Tuesday, 5/24.


3. Lambent. I still need a properly spaced copy. I have asked Ms. Rudy for a picture of staff for you. I will send it to you as soon as I get it.


4. Aleah is working on a poster to advertise coffeehouse. If you would like to help or make one, please let me know.


5. Arts and Lectures is this Thursday. Please save your ticket or program in order to receive extra credit for attending.


6. The Creative Writing department's used book sale is next week too. If you are free to help out, we would love it! You can also donate unwanted books to the cause.


Try to stay focused and use your class time to get these tasks done. You can do it!

Extra Credit Events/Saul Bellow/Plot Issues: Working With Tension and Conflict

Here are some dates for upcoming events you can attend for extra credit:


1. April 29, 2016: Jaymee will read her slam poem at the Academy of Medicine this Friday!


THE DETAILS  
The event is at the Academy of Medicine. Doors open at 6.
Cover Charge ($1/students, $5)


2. May 5th, 2016: Aleah will read her poem, Cornrows at the Sokol Awards Ceremony. Cameron and Asher will also read!


THE DETAILS
The event is at the Kate Gleason Auditorium at Central Library, 115 South Ave. The awards are at 4:00. With a reception to follow. Free food? This event is free!


3. May 19, 2016: Arts & Lectures event featuring Daniel Mendelsohn.


THE DETAILS
The event is at the Downtown United Presbyterian Church at  121 Fitzhugh St N, Rochester, NY 14614. Arrive no later than ___________ Read more about the author here.


4. May 27, 2016: Senior Coffee House Reading (MANDATORY)


THE DETAILS
The event starts at 7. Be there by 6:45. Ensemble Theatre. :)




HOMEWORK
Read Saul Bellow's story, Something to Remember Me By on page 511 of your Oxford Books. This story is not online!


Make sure any and all Lambent work is submitted!


Didn't do your 35 word entry? Submit that too!


CLASSWORK/HOMEWORK
Write 1-2 pages of fiction. Need some ideas? Here are the suggestions given in class:


Writing Exercise 1- Phobia Writing: Write about a character with an extreme and/or irrational phobia.


Writing Exercise 2- Working With Tension and Conflict: Write a story that contains the following four elements and is told in this order:


1. A discussion of a prohibition (perhaps through advice, warning, prediction)
2. Doing the prohibited
3. Personal/immediate consequences
4. Long term/societal or group consequences


In other words, write a story in which someone is warned not to do something, does it anyway, and has to suffer the consequences. Remember to focus on tension and conflict when writing.


If this doesn't work for you, write something else! I would aim for 1-2 pages.

MCC Visit

We will attend a presentation by MCC's Creative Writing department in the Black Box Theatre! YAY!


During 1st period, I would like you to get your additional Lambent pages/photos together and spend some time planning for the coffee house... Group piece? Keep in mind that you DO NOT need to read poetry at the coffee house. Fiction is encouraged! Especially since many of you seem to prefer the genre.


While you are working today, I would like to meet individually with you to discuss your portfolios and Q3 grades.

Hint/Flash Fiction

Hint Fiction

• We are going to write some hint fiction today!
•  Check out the following links:
• http://www.robertswartwood.com/hint-fiction/
• http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/10/what-can-you-do-in-twenty-five-words.html
• http://www.npr.org/2010/11/13/131276783/-hint-fiction-celebrates-the-extremely-short-story

Assignment: Enter the Writer's and Books 35 word story contest.
https://wab.org/35-word-story-contest/


Deadlines


Thursday 4/21: Bring in additional pages of Lambent and the photograph you want used.


Class is in the Black box on Thursday. You will get more details tomorrow from Mr. Craddock.


Tuesday 4/26: Bring in 3-5 Hint Fiction Stories for a grade. Make sure at least one has been submitted to Writers and Books.

Literary Magazines

Please start class by finishing the writing exercises provided this week. When you are done, please explore the concept of a professional literary magazine. You should be able to answer these questions: Please type the answers to these questions and print for a grade.
What is it?

How does one get published in a lit mag?

What are the benefits to having your work published in a lit mag?

Is it important to find a magazine that is a good fit for you?

What is a query letter? A SASE?

Homework: Find three literary magazines that you would like to submit your work to. Make sure you do your research. I would like you to write an explanation about why these magazines are a good fit for your writing. How often does the magazine put out an issue? I would also like you to find the submission requirements and deadlines for each magazine. Extra credit if you get your hands on a copy of a back issue of a magazine. Extra extra credit if you subscribe to one of the magazines you choose.

This website is awesome:
http://www.newpages.com/literary-magazines/

Write a Query Letter

These links are pretty good. The third one has a sample!

http://www.agentquery.com/writer_hq.aspx
http://kathytemean.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/query-letters-and-examples/
http://www.jamesrussellpublishing.biz/queryletterbk.html

Writing Exercise #2: Potential Scenarios

Per our class discussion today, here are some potential scenarios for your scene. Please choose one or create something else that connects to our discussion about characters and their agendas. If it is possible to connect your dialogue exercise from Monday to this, please do. Remember, all writing exercise should be helping you move toward your next short story...

NOTE! These are only suggestions to get your imagination going. If you like one of them, that’s fine. If you don’t like any and have another idea, that’s fine too.

1. An engagement party. The mother of the groom-to-be is talking to the brother of the bride.

2. A grandchild has come over to help the grandparent pack up the apartment/house where the grandparent has lived for many years. The grandparent is moving far away.

3. Two roommates cooking dinner. (Their conflict/agendas could be about anything, not the dinner at all.)

4. Two strangers in a company waiting area are both interviewing for the same job (or believe they are.)

5. Two acquaintances run into each other (at a party, in the library, doing laundry.) They have only been casual acquaintances so far, but one wants to ask the other for a date.

6. A landlord/landlady telling a tenant that he/she must move.

7. A dating couple. One has just received his/her acceptance into the best graduate program in the country, but it is far away.

8. A young child wants an expensive toy.

9. Two friends are hosting a party together. During the party, one of the hosts sees something that is wrong or unsettling (or something that could be taken as wrong or unsettling but may be ambiguous) done to the other host’s guests.

10. Two old friends. One owes the other a significant amount of money.

Writing Exercise #1: Improving the Conversation: Voice and Dialogue

As we move into our final marking period, remember to keep writing. My goal for you is always about 6 hours of writing a week. I will continue to throw prompts and suggestions your way, but remember at this point, you should have ownership over your writing. Write what EXCITES YOU!




Exercise: Write a conversation between one person who is bitter and melodramatic and another person who is not. Show the non-dramatic person coming to understand the cause of the other's bitterness or drama and have them respond in a way that the other actually feels heard-- but not for what he or she is specifically saying.




Potential Extensions: Try this with a partner or start alone and bring your conversation together with a partner. See where is goes...


Exercise not speaking to you? Just try and work with realistic dialogue in some way. It might be interesting to have two very different characters being forced to have a conversation with one another.

Important End of the Marking Period Deadlines/Reminders

Please submit your bios and Lambent pages to Jaymee at jaymeepride@gmail.com by this Thursday (4/7). If you weren't in class, we chose names out of a bag and are writing about a classmate. Try to make these bios interesting and unique.


Portfolios are due next Monday, April 11, 2016. Here is what you need to do:

• Submit a polished copy of each given assignment this marking period.
• Show evidence of quality workshop and MULTIPLE workshops
• Show evidence that you workshopped with me (if you did not make this a priority, it may be too late...)
• For your two major stories, make sure they are at the ADVANCED level.
• Write a mini reflection for each major story. They should be 1/2-1 page each. Reflect on the craft of writing and the writing process. Try to be objective here. You can also write a mini reflection about the shorter writing assignments together.
• Make sure your portfolio is organized and shows that you have been writing consistently throughout the past 10 weeks.

If you have any questions, please ask them now.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's An Alcoholic Case

We read An Alcoholic Case from The Oxford Book of American Short Stories today. If you weren't here, please read the story and jot down a response to it in order to receive some credit. Remember we are always looking at stories as writers...


Discussion Questions


1. What is your initial reaction to this story? What are your thoughts about the writing style/approach?


2. What do you think the major themes are in this story?


3. F. Scott Fitzgerald was an alcoholic. Does knowing that information change your perspective on this story at all? How do you think he handles character development here?


4. Why does the nurse decide to come and help him when she feels threatend?


5. How do you think the young man became an alcoholic in the first place?


6. Why didn't the nurse try to stop the alcoholic from committing suicide?


7. Do you think Fitzgerald wrote this to relate to his life?


8. Were there any passages that jumped out for you when reading that seemed significant?


For example: "She began to worry that he would have to go into the bathroom and might cut his feet, and looked up from time to time to see if he would go in. She was very sleepy--the last time she looked up he was crying…”


This passage shows two things. One being that the nurse cares about the well being of the man. The other thing Fitzgerald shows, is the emotion the man has. He begins to cry, which shows he is not happy with the life he is living.

Recap/Reminders from Class Today!

In class today, we discussed college and future plans. We also decided on the following:


1. Lambent: We will work on this early in order to have copies available at the coffee house reading. Please start to think about what you would like to submit to Jaymee for this. You will need 5-10 pages and a bio (we may have the opportunity to write biographies for one another. ) Interested in art or photography? Submit art/images/etc. as well.


2. Short Story 2: We spent some time working with our latest short story. We are focusing on realistic fiction and/or memoir/dirty realism. Please continue to write these stories. You will turn in a first draft the end of class on Wednesday. Workshop will begin Friday.


3. Reading: For homework due Wednesday, 3/16, please read My Son the Murderer by Bernard Malamud on page 504 of your Oxford books. We will discuss this story in class so be prepared.


4. Reminders: Sonja Livingston will be here Thursday. Come prepared with questions, the book read and paper/pencils to participate. Don't forget to meet during my office hours if you are stuck or need extra assistance. I will not know you need help if you do not advocate for yourself.

Realistic Fiction & Memoir

This week we are going to explore how realistic fiction and memoir are connected. We will start by taking a look at one of the best realistic writers, Raymond Carver. We will read Are These Actual Miles together.


If you are looking for quick clarification on the story and some of it's themes, I found this Prezi useful (author: Janelle Woods)
https://prezi.com/tyw_inefpliv/are-these-actual-miles/




Questions to consider after reading Carver


1. What are the themes that come up in this story?
2. What are your thoughts on Carver's writing style? What can you techniques can you borrow?
3. Does the point of view work in this story? Why is the narrator unnamed?
4. There is a sense in this story that neither Leo nor Toni are addressing the bigger issues or problems within their marriage. How does this show what types of characters these are? Why would Carver choose to develop them this way?
5. What are your thoughts on the end of the story?


Essential Question
How can you use memory and realistic themes/problems to write your own fiction? Where is the line between fiction and non-fiction?

Quarter 3 Assignments

1. Pop culture prompt
2. 1st Short Story (3 drafts and a polished copy.) DUE FRIDAY 3/4/16

Rochester Reads 2016: Discussion Points for Queen of the Fall

The Author’s Craft

• What are the possible meanings of the title of the book? How do the varying themes of nourishment and religion and womanhood come into play in the title?
• Prologues are often used in novels and memoirs to set the tone or focus the reader on symbolism that will occur throughout the book. In her introduction, titled “The Memory of Trees,” how does Livingston inform the reader about what is to come?
• How does each epigraph set the tone for each section?
• What is the difference in tone or content of each of the book’s three sections?
• How are the personalities of the author’s various friends and family revealed through small details?
• How are the complications of family relationships depicted? How do they change over time?
• How are sexual relationships, outside and within marriage, represented?
• How does the author balance her coming-of-age story with the more expansive story of being a woman in modern America?
• Discuss how the writing is imagistic or visual. In what ways is it cinematic?
• There are several instances of the author being both self-reflective and self-reflexive, and even speaking directly to the reader as she breaks the “fourth wall.” How do these rhetorical strategies affect the audience?
• Discuss the author’s writing style, including sentence structure, diction, tone, setting, narrative structure, and use of imagery and figurative language such as metaphors.
• What research did the author do for certain essays?
• What is the function of the book’s Coda?
• In ending the essay on writer and educator Judith Kitchen (who passed away in 2014, and in whose memory the book is dedicated), Livingston asks about her mentor’s writing, “What to do with such language? What to do but take it in a line at a time, stopping now and again for breath? What to do but swallow it whole, until saplings take root?” Livingston, too, displays virtuoso prose skills. Find an example or two of your favorite sentences or passages in this book and discuss why they stand out for you. Look especially for rich descriptions and unique metaphors. Then find passages from other favorite books….

 
Characters/Subjects and Motivation

• Discuss the challenges the author faces throughout the life stories she shares in the book.
• This book in many ways a coming-of-age story. Explore how this is evident. Discuss what coping mechanisms the young Sonja uses.
• How do pop culture icons affect young Sonja?
• How do these figures from pop culture differ from Sonja’s feelings about the historical figure Susan B. Anthony?
• How is Sonja changed by the people she interacts with, the experiences she has? What lessons does she learn? Looking back on her youth and young adulthood, how does the author reconsider her life, her choices, her conception of family and motherhood, her thoughts about the future? Track her emotional and psychological shifts.
• How are secrets kept by the book’s characters/subjects? How is information revealed?
• How is the issue of acceptance addressed? How is survival broached?
• How do the different people in Sonja’s life look differently at the workings of faith and identity and personal empowerment and of their own actions in forming their own identities and futures?

Issues and Themes

• Memory is necessarily a theme of the memoir genre and this holds true in Queen of the Fall, with the Introduction being titled “The Memory of Trees.” How and where else are the complications of memory directly addressed?
• Several variants of the word “fall” are used in the Introduction. How do they set up the reader for what is to come?
• What different female icons are present in the book? How does the author approach each as a figure of womanhood?
• What different kinds of friendships and familial relationships are evident?
• How are women among men—and their various relationships—portrayed?
• How are such issues as virginity, sex, motherhood, and fertility explored by the author both in her life and in the book?
• What is the significance of losing her virginity and becoming a “bad girl”?
• What role does religion play in the author’s life? What examples does the author provide?
• What cultural references that Livingston writes about have meaning for you too and why? What stories could you tell related to them?
• How do the essays progress through the book? Can you see a pattern, a rationale for the order?
• How does the book differ from other memoirs or essay collections with which you are familiar?
• One writer stated that Livingston writes about “sorrow and sacredness, and the beauty that is found in both.” Where can you find examples of sorrow, and of sacredness, coupled with beauty?
• How is the element of discovery revealed through Livingston’s experiences?
• How do different individuals cope with the same issues as Livingston faces? What are their reactions and their strategies for survival?
• Discuss how the following play out in the memoir and how each affects the characters of the story: femininity, family, and fertility.
• What defines a memoir and how does Queen of the Fall fit that definition?
• What differentiates a collection of essays from a memoir?
• What does the book say about the importance of storytelling?

 
Speculative Questions for Discussion or Writing

• What do you think the author’s motivations were in writing this memoir?
• Would this story affect older readers differently than people from a younger generation? Male-identified readers differently from female-identified readers? Those who grew up in the US compared to those who grew up elsewhere? Why?
• How do stories function in a society and for the individual? What are the purposes of telling and retelling stories to ourselves and to others?

Related Writing Projects

• Write about your own childhood or coming-of-age experience.
• Take a cultural reference from the book and write about your own relation to it. Examples include Madonna, Nancy Drew, Ally McBeal, Pop Tarts, Land O’Lakes butter, and Land of the Lost.
• When asked in school what she wants to do when she grows up, Livingston comes up with the dream career of “mythologist.” Thinking back, what did you “want to be” when you grew up? How have those goals been met (or not)?
• Write about a woman (famous or not) who has influenced you.
• Write a first-person (creative nonfiction) essay connecting an element of your own history or contemporary life or thought with an issue in a broader social context.

 
Memoir Writing Prompt by Sonja Livingston
As children and teens, most of us look to others (television or literary characters, popular classmates, artists, athletes, teachers, or rock stars) to help us better understand who we are and to imagine who we might become.
            Queen of the Fall explores the various icons one girl considered on her path to becoming a woman, including Susan B. Anthony, 1980s Madonna, the Virgin Mary, the maiden on the Land O’ Lakes butter box, and many more.
Who did you look to? Who did you admire and why? What did they represent and what does that say about the woman or man you have become? Write a brief creative essay inspired by one of your childhood icons.
For added power, try writing in present tense so that we feel like we’re standing beside you as you describe the summer you plastered your bedroom with posters of Leif Garrett or got a nose ring and a used guitar and tried your best to mimic Ani DiFranco, the season you wanted to be Roberto Clemente or one of the Partridge kids, the time in 4^th grade you lost yourself in Nancy Drew mysteries, or the way you spent most of your childhood envying your cousin Gina with the perfect hair.