End of year Reflection

End of Year Reflective Writing

Due: May 21, 2014 (for seniors May 12, 2014)

Self-reflection page with examples.
Write as you reflect about the journey you’ve been on to write more and create longer works, and explore your own talent and preferences for creativity and writing. What have you gained from the daily practice of writing? From the freedom to choose your own direction? Write a page of clear, thoughtful reflection with lots of examples from your own written works this year what you learned from each project. Address both sentence level writing and your own voice (or your narrator's) as it comes through to the reader and also your journey in terms of creativity and vision and storytelling.  Finally, envision where your writing may be going beyond this year. How would you like your writing and creativity to evolve? How do you envision your sentence level writing evolving? Name two projects that you might work on in the future.
(submit by email and blog post)

Longer Writing Projects

	Longer work	title	Short description
Thelma	Book of poems with introduction	A Life Story	A collection of poems in the sequence of my life. There are always ups and downs, but that shouldn't stop anyone. I know some parts are rocky and sad, but after a down there is always an up. Some of the poems are not mine, some are poems that inspired me to write about something that could happen. Other poems are from my family members’ experience. The point is to get something good out of them, to stand up and really be yourself. To live under the light and not the shadow of anyone.
Maria	Novel	I Have to Try	When you’ve been labeled as an unstable individual, how do you disprove it? Henry, who believes himself to be steady again, must prove it to his therapists to get the chance to re-enter society as a free man.
Imogen	Imagine Greater, screenplay Empty house (novel)	Imagine Greater	Imagine Greater surrounds the story of two orphans who have considerable talent. This talent is on the radar of the Imagine Greater institution. Where abnormal children from five to eighteen are housed and protected from the outside world until they have learned control and are reconnected with society. Sebastian and Elizabeth fall under this category; even though their talents are minor they have more potential than many to become criminals. The institution however has fallen under hard times, the company funding the project has withdrawn its resources, leaving the institution and it’s 700 unstable, helpless students to fend for themselves.
Gaby	Novel   + File on novel	The Short Life of Caitlin Lucasta	Fresh from dropping out of the most prestigious boarding school in the country, Caitlin Lucasta feels meaningless, friendless, and hopeless. When she one day stumbles upon a group of friends who embrace her, Caitlin then encounters the very thing that will lead to her eventual downfall.
Sammy	Novella, Ch 3, 10 chapters	Grey	This book will be written form the point of view of a dead teenage girl who passed away from anorexia. The novel will basically describe the world through her eyes, such as talking about her family and friends and how she watches over them. A dead teenage girl named Ella Grey. She died from anorexia. The story is told through her eyes and it is about her school and piers and family and how her death affects them, and she shares her thoughts on how she views the world now that she is dead.
Livia	Short story   Totland exercise (done)	Fate	Fate explores the life of a middle aged man named William when an unexplainable trail of bad luck begins following him. Soon after William recognizes the pattern of his misfortunes, he sets out on a journey to discover the source of his luck. Along this journey, he encounters death, tragedy, and above all, mystery. The reader is left to decide whether this trail of bad luck is a product of karma, or is it simply his fate?
Stephanie	Short Story
Natalya	1-act play
Sibella	1-act play	X	A group of criminals meet after completing a job that has gone wrong. To get away, one of the group members took a police officer hostage. Madness takes over the most experienced member of the group, and things continue to get worse.
Billy	Baseball Play +Spoken Word	The Big Error	This is a play about three baseball players, one of whom falls in debt with the wrong person and forces his teammates to help him out of this horrid situation by any means necessary.

Longer Writing Project

>If you could write anything creative, even if you were unsure that you could do it, what could you imagine writing? A play? A screenplay? A telescript for your favorite show? A novel? An extended memoir? A long poem?

>When I was writing a novel, I kept two notebooks: one with actual pages by chapter and another about the novel and the characters with overviews of the plot. I recommend that students open two files, then, the text itself and planning and details.

How often do you think feedback from another reader should be offered? When the manuscript is complete? Every day? Once a week?

Let's work out together the parameters of your longer-term project.
Results?

• Students will seek weekly feedback from the instructor by submitting work in progress each Thursday or Friday
• Writers will also seek out a peer to get feedback from
• Feedback should be honest (but peers need to be trained in how to give constructive feedback)
• As a class we are choosing combinations of genres, from poetry to plays to screenplays to novels and short stories
• A prospectus or outline is due by the end of this week and periodically
  

 

Sunrise Creative Writing: Longer Projects

Thelma Calvo	Poetry Collection	Forward, intro sections
Maria Lark	Novel about Henry, Ru, Darcy	70+ pages
Sammy Weiser	“Grey” a novel	Each chapter from an anorexic to different people
Sibella Dowad	One-act play	Dr Totland is a mentor
Natalya Sands	Novel: “Haemorrahged” Complicated chars: Lydia Beatrice, Verity, Harvey	Each char writes two chapters in diary form
Billy Wilson	Spoken word The Invisible Man	Hip hop flow, rhyme	Don’t read aloud
Gaby Nicolov	Still submitting
Imogen Harbinson-Frith	Screenplay about two orphans, Sebastian & Elizabeth	Imagine Greater
Livia Wilson	Short Story: William	Tries to reverse bad luck, w/Lucy
Stephanie Antebi	Still submitting

 

PROSPECTUS:

writing a Prospectus for a longer work in Creative Writing

(for Novel, Screenplay, Short Stories, Memoir, Collection of poems and short writings)
Description of the project:
Synopsis of the events or plot:
Describe the main character(s):
Describe the central conflict:
Outline and Structure:
Forward by the poet
SAMPLE

Spoken Word (Slam Poetry)

We are watching spoken word and slam poetry and beginning to write our own poems.
Sarah Kaye
Louder than a Bomb
What we are seeing in spoken word:

• freedom of subject
• metaphor
• rhyme or not
• repetition
• circling back
• choose the right words to communicate the right meaning
• very personal
• always to be performed
• if you can't say the words, you can't perform it.
• Good luck!

Creative Writing Second Semester

2014 January Creative Writing

Second semester in Creative Writing class, let’s design our goals and curriculum together, with some suggestions below:

·         More choice and more reading aloud in second semester

·         Creative reading leads to creative writing

·         Begin most days with short readings, end most days with short student readings

·         Students set individual goals

o   Outline your goals on your blog in right-hand column

·         Spoken Word and Songwriting  

o   Explicit lyrics

o   Louder than a Bomb

o   YouTube

o   Performing Spoken Word

·         Revisit Dr. Totland for a week

·         Article Writing

·         Responding to Photos

o   Found photo + commentary

o   Family Photo

o   Poetry or Creative Nonfiction

·         Longer Sustained Project

o   Sustained effort with Revision

o   Consider publishing on web or hardcopy

o   Poetry collection

o   Fiction (short stories or novella)

o   Screenplay

o   Play

o   Creative Memoir

Reflect on your writing

End of Semester Reflective Writing

Due: Thu. Dec. 12, 2013
Self-reflection. Write as you reflect about the journey you’ve been on to write more and be more creative. What do you envision for second semester, a longer work, more fiction, screenplays, stage plays, or poetry? Write a page of clear, thoughtful reflection with lots of examples from your own written works this semester and what you learned from each project. Address both sentence level writing and your own voice (or your narrator's) as it comes through to the reader and also your journey in terms of creativity and vision and storytelling.  Finally, envision where your writing is going, not just the next project, but where you'd like to end up at year's end or beyond. How would you like your writing and creativity to evolve? How do you envision your sentence level writing evolving? Name two projects that you'd like to tackle next.

SAMPLE REFLECTION: I’ve learned to hone my creativity in my writing. I feel like I’ve come a long ways in my prose, and that’s definitely a feat for me. This class has been so encouraging. Specifically, though, I’ve learned how to compose odes, experiment with dialogue poems, juxtapose poems, write creative nonfiction, manipulate writer’s block, present to a crowd full of people, dream up a scenario for utter strangers, create six word memoirs, and delve into majestic wordplay. A strength I think I possess is seeing a big picture idea and then executing it. I really like having the “outlier” thoughts that are a little risky (but in a good way). 

Revision: students think it is just cleaning up after the party

Revision: 
Students think revision is just 
cleaning up after the party.
Revision IS the party.
                           --Billy Collins
Paris Review Billy Collins

from the interview with Billy Collins:
 "Revision can grind a good impulse to dust. Of course, the distinction between revision and writing is kind of arbitrary because when I am writing I am obviously revising. And when I revise, I’m writing, aren’t I? I love William Matthews’s idea—he says that revision is not cleaning up after the party; revision is the party! That’s the fun of it, making it right, getting the best words in the best order."

Writing a rough draft for adept writers is just a first step.
Revision is when the writing gets better.

Revision is more than proofreading, spellcheck, and editing.

Students listed some ways to improve writing through revision:

1. Start with a rough draft that gets the incidents down, tells a small story.
2. Go back and add details.
3. Add sensory details, including the five senses: touch, temperature, sound, smell, etc.
4. Add telling details, small details that say a lot.
5. Add setting and a sense of place.
6. Add a time setting, when the incident occurs.
7. Add dialogue. If it doesn't work with your piece of writing, perhaps because it's internal, you can always remove it later.
8. Internal thoughts and feelings. Again, if the story makes the feelings obvious, you can always remove this part. It's better to have the feelings become obvious to the reader through the story than to hit him or her over the head by announcing.
9. Go back and improve the sentence level writing. Vary your sentences. Combine sentences. Add some short sentences for emphasis and variety. 
10. Go back and find the precise word for a feeling or thing. Don't use the thesaurus to pump up the fancy vocabulary or the piece might be harder to read. But do pay attention to diction.
11. Add sparing use of metaphors, similes, allusion, literary devices. But don't overdo it, because the piece may be overwritten, purple prose, not accessible to the reader, or pretentious.
12. Consider with memoir this device, if it's not too clunky. "Looking back now I can see that..." If memoir is told with the vocabulary and insight and sentences of a child, this adult perspective might lend more insight and reflection on the insight and clarify the significance for the reader and for the writer as well. But remove this section later if it seems too jarring and out of place, if it wrenches the childish voice back and overpowers it with authority.

Exercise:

A. Spend five minutes writing details that you might add to the story. 

     -Post this writing to your blog.    

      -Afterwards, consider which details make the piece stronger and which clutter it up.

B. Write a final paragraph from a later time reflecting on the significance of the event. 

    -Post this paragraph to your blog.

     -Afterwards, consider whether this paragraph improves the piece or not.

Revise your memoir and email it as an attachment.