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.

Writing Memoir

Next week Creative Writing students will be exploring memoir writing under the capable guidance of Ms. Schultheiss. Students should come to class prepared to listen carefully and then immediately try out what they are learning in short exercises or even extended memoir writing. We are very lucky to have a guest teacher who is highly published and we look forward to exploring this exciting genre.

Monologue

I try to think of monologues as moments in a play that are like songs in a musical.  Something within the character or the situation gets to such a fever pitch that the character must open up and speak.  They have to get something off their chest, or have to think their way through a problem.  A key thing to remember is the speaker is speaking for a reason.  The character is using this speech as a tool.  Either to arrive at self knowledge, or to think their way through a problem, or to convince another character to do something, or to think some new way.

AND, the monologue should be as short as possible.  As soon as the character has solved the problem that prompts the speaking the monologue is over and the rest of the play continues.

Thanks, again, for letting me work with that class.  You've created a wonderfully safe, creative space for them to be in.  And they are all marvelously talented, diligent, supportive artists.

Dr. Steven Totland

Reflect on 1st Quarter

End of 1^st Quarter Reflective Writing

Due: Thu. October 31 2013
Self-reflective writing about the works you wrote this semester and the journey you’ve been on to write more and be more creative. Also, what do you envision for second semester, a longer work, more fiction, screenplays, stage plays, or poetry?
Write about a page of clear, thoughtful writing. 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). 

Plays

Every morning we were in Dr. Totland's space creating plays and workshoping them.

Sunrise Creative Writing

Revising Dr. Totland student plays

Dr Totland does 90% revision and only 10% drafting when he is writing plays
1. Revise a short scene of dialogue by adding lines or 'business' or pauses or reactions or even characters
2. Or extend your play by writing what happens next
3. Add a monologue of one player speaking alone or with another listening.

	Characters
Thelma	Alice & Mom
Maria	Sarah & Jack
Sibella	X & Z
Natalya	Em & Dad
Billy	Rabbi & Chris
Gaby	Millie & Mom
Imogen	Sebastian, Jane, Liz
Livia	John & Ivy
Stephanie	Stella & Mom

email Work in Progress as an attachment, due by the morning of the last day of 1st quarter, Oct. 31.

Your Blogs

Fridays: read aloud and email all works in progress
Four times a week:
-Add something to your blog
-Update "What I'm reading" (even poems, plays, or musicals)
-Keep adding to FineLines
   (lines you admire that you've written, as well)
-Have some substantial chunk of writing to turn in Oct. 11
          (even if it's rough)
 -Starting Oct. 14, meet in Dr. Totland's room

Make sure to beautify your blog:

-Fine Lines page with top tabs

-add fine lines that you admire weekly, from pros and from your own work

-What I'm Reading

  -gadget

  -Not just what you're reading but also a plan for reading adventurously (to be able to write adventurously)

-Link (gadget) to main class website (and to a few other students' blogs) http://creativewritingbuckley.blogspot.com/

-Learn how to embed links to other blogs and websites

-Post your creativity and writings several times a week

-Beautify your blog with photos or drawings or art

-Make the design your own

-Once a month, write a reflection on what you have been writing and what is pleasing and frustrating you

-Keep working on your blog all year long so that it reflects your creative writing journey

What's Next?

Starting Monday Oct. 7 for two weeks we will be meeting with Dr. Totland in his room in the Lower School and studying script writing. (Room 26 beyond the Lower School Assembly room).

Dr. Totland's classroom (sort of)



Creative Writing

1.       Fridays everyone reads aloud to a supportive community of writers.

2.       Fridays email to jforman@ your works in progress (to show a sense of what you are working on)

3.       Post at least two or three times every week some examples of your writing.

4.       Prepare a statement about what you want to work on in the short term and what you might work on in the medium term.

5.       Add a Fine Lines page to your blog and begin posting your favorite lines from other authors (and yourself!)
6. Create a gadget called "READING" and list a book or works that you are reading or intend to read.

6.       Experiment with short dialogue or scripts. Post some of them to your blog. We can read them aloud in class.

Write a poem based on this photo! Use your imagination.

New Year, New Students, New Creativity!

Welcome to the new year of Creative Writing!

We are a class of new students with new ideas!

Some of us are writing six word memoir.

Some of us are writing creative memoir or short stories.

And some seniors are starting off with college essays.

In every case, these new students are welcome and their new creativity is welcome.



Cell Phone Novel

example of Text Novel

Cell_phone_novel (click here) Cell phone novels originated in Japan around the 1990s. Chapters are about 70 to 100 words.

How would students write cell phone novels in Creative Writing?
What would be the advantages of this 21st century genre?
Could a cell phone novel be completed in two weeks?
Could it be "published"? How?
Would students read these novels?

 

Creative Writing:

Changing the Course for 2013-2014

Please take the time to write out your responses to these ideas to help improve the course.

FEEDBACK for Creative Writing:

·         Keep most things the same, with a few exceptions.

·         Keep policies lax, giving up a little focus for a lot less stress (Sunrise tardies are often out of a student’s control)

·         Time to write is sacred in our busy schedules. No other classes at Buckley are like Creative Writing.

·         More reading aloud (but not when students aren’t ready yet)

·         More feedback from the teacher, an occasional private meeting to discuss writing style and which areas to work on.

·         Free choice of genres (except at the beginning of the year)

·         Quarter 1: short warm up every day gets students writing with something similar to share and builds up work stamina as well as a safe community. Daily five-minute warm-up writing exercise (like six word memoirs)

·         Occasionally take a break from large projects and write poems, or six word memoirs, and bring everyone together for a day or two. Structured assignments helped push me more as a writer. More “out of the box” assignments to learn writing styles and patterns

·         More guest speakers from inside and outside the Buckley community. Change up the pace occasionally (Dr. Totland, visiting poet)

·         Deadline to turn in work in progress every Friday

The Questions:

What, in your opinion, should stay exactly the same? Which might be tweaked a little?

·         Free choice of genres

·         Little organized activity; lots of time to write

·         Few grades

·         Lax policies on sunrise tardiness

·         Lots of quiet time to think

·         Lax policies for doing work for other classes

·         High degree of trust of students

Respond to the following ideas or proposed changes:

Pick those items you think will enhance the class and those you think will not.

·         More accountability of arrival time

·         More feedback on writing from the teacher

·         More feedback on writing from the class or a partner

·         More publishing of works on websites and in print

·         More focusing in first semester of trying different genres:

o   Poetry,

§  spoken word,

§  haiku

§  six word memoir

§  Lost Photo poems

o   Short stories

o   (creative) Nonfiction

o   Plays

o   Screenplays

·         Guest speakers, like the spoken words poet and Dr. Totland

·         Units of study in first semester

·         More study of technique:

o   How to characterize

o   How to visualize and describe setting

o   Rising conflict leading to climax of the plot

o   Sentence variety

o   How to use telling details

o   Short Exercises to master various fiction techniques

o   Software to help writers

·         Five minute warm ups at the start of every class

          

Creative Writing: 4th Quarter Deadlines

Deadlines for Creative Writing Class

Deadlines for Seniors:

·         Push to finish your writing during the weeks of April 8, 15, 22, and 29

·         May 2: All works completed (before APs begin, May 6-15)

·         May 6-10: Complete Portfolio (paper and electronic) of all works from the year with commentary and a cover letter outlining your creative journey

·         May 10 & 13: Share, Read aloud (or have someone else read), and celebrate

                                           (also give feedback on the course)

Deadlines for the whole Class:

·         Mon. May 20: All works completed (before finals begin)

·         May 29: Complete Portfolio (in lieu of a final; both paper and electronic) of all works from the year with commentary and a cover letter outlining your creative journey

·         May 30-31: Share, Read aloud (or have someone else read), and Celebrate.

Portfolio (to provide closure to our year of creative writing)

·         Put works in order, starting with your best work (and detail the reasons why)
UPDATE 4/15: All students seem to be well on track for finishing their longer works by the deadlines, though at least one student wants to continue writing this summer. Seniors have till May 1, the rest of the class till May 20. Then we will spend some time on the portfolio and reflection.

·         Detail growth and skills, giving specific examples. In various pieces and tracing the evolution of your writing, examine sentence fluency, risk taking, voice, character development, new genres, storytelling, whatever you notice in the progression of your work.

·         Also comment on some or all of these categories: Most difficult to write, and why; Most enjoyable to Write, and why; Piece I would like to burn, and why; Most personal; Most influenced by my reading; Most effective ending; Most effective revision; etc.

·         In the margins of the paper copies, indicate places you are proud of and why

What's Next in Creative Writing?

What's Next in Creative Writing?         1. Congratulations to Tyler for performing her spoken word poems in public. (Anyone else want to perform?)                                            2. By Wednesday Feb.20 submit what you are currently working on or a sample of it so I can give feedback. (submit to dropbox in netclassroom)                                                                           

3. Let's plan to have Dr. Totland come in for a day to do a playwriting unit with us. Tue. Apr. 16                                                                   

4. Let's design a Literary Journal

    -should it be a website that we all design?

   -should it also be a printed book, perhaps printed at the Buckley print shop

   -share your vision of how we might publish our work

  -should we aim for an April date of publication?

What should we call it? Online only? List first and last names? Include images? excerpts from long works, screenplays and novels? Copyright notice? Lots more short poetry?

Poems from Photos (exercise)

Photos by Cartier-Bresson

Sharon Olds' "I Go Back to May 1937" seems to be written while studying a photo (though there are no images accompanying it).
I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I                                          5
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,     10
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.

Let's use images or photos to try writing a poem that begins with what we see and then shifts to the metaphorical or significance. You may use any photo from the internet, one of the images in our classroom, or any of these. When you have a draft, share the poem first (not the image at first) with one other person and get their feedback.
  When you have finished, email the poem (and a link to the image, if possible).

Unknown Photo Poetry

1.       Select any photo of unknown origin

PREPARE/BRAINSTORM

2.       Study the images carefully, make notes

3.       Describe what you see with words that are accurate

4.       Jot down words of ideas and metaphors and speculation

5.       Compose a free form poem, or a tightly controlled poem, or even a prose poem.

6.       Keep looking back at the photograph.

7.       Move from what you actually see to poetry, speculation, uncertainty.

8.       Bring your poem full circle by the end or ask a question.

9.       No length or time requirements.

10.   Share your poem with one other person.

Creative Writing in process:

Just take a leap!

Looking forward to:

Ali’s next poem

Chloe’s continuing saga about a teen

Gina’s inspiration

Julianne’s personal narrative

Madeline’s longer fiction, Remember Me

Michael evolving December

Paulina furthering the plot of her Dear Diary novel

Paris continuing to write Logan’s Run

Tyler’s next screenplay outline

What are you looking forward to?
Taking a leap of faith?

Creative Writings (now)

CREATIVE WRITINGS

Ali E

1.     Worst Thanksgiving Dish (still revising, read aloud)

2.     Archer contest submissions submitted

3.     Next:  Longer poem combined with spoken word poem and about writing  poetry (tbd)

Chloe B

1.     ‘We are Opposites’ Poem

2.     Untitled long fiction about a girl (novella or novel?)

Gina A

1.     What if I told you? Spoken Word

2.     Next: Fiction (how to lose love or Lebanon/Malibu or other)

3.     Poem about Math (done, helped with studying)

4.     What next? Inspiration from the diary? Lebanon?

Julianne G

1.     Married at the age of 28 (spoken word)

2.     Next: personal narrative (nonfiction)

Madeline B

1.     Fairy Tales (poem)

2.     Remember Me (long fiction)

Michael O 

1.     Recent: The Virtuous and the Learned (poetry to be read aloud)

2.     Continue writing December’s Evolution

3.     Encouraged to write more short poems as well

Paulina V

1.     Society (Spoken word)

2.     Next: Fiction (solving writing process problems: furthering plot)

3.     more poems about Fairy Tales

Paris B

1.     Bored  and LA Kids (slam poetry)

2.     Next: two short stories

3.     Logan’s run (kid visits his sci-fi author, perhaps in diary form)

Tyler S

1.     Recent: ‘Dig Deep’ (3 ½ pages) Spoken Word draft

2.     Next: Screenplay (searching through ideas for next screenplay project, may have settled on next screenplay)

3.     Perhaps another poem, as well