25 Ending with a bang // Due the week of April 13, 2015

Hi Everyone!

Getting this up early this week! The homework for next week is:

• Write a 1.5-3 page story that builds up and that ends with a twist or a surprise at the end! 
• Short stories often don't follow the usual plot diagrams that novels often follow, but good ones do usually have a build-up of suspense and then a big bang in the end. Try to create this surprise at the end of your story!
• For inspiration, try the following ideas:
• —Find a random line from a random fiction book and use it as the first sentence of your story
• —Look up sci-fi pictures online for inspiration
• —Look through your own favorite books and movies for topics you enjoy

24 Dialogue // Due the week of March 31, 2015

Hi Everyone!

In class we talked about the importance of using dialogue to show what characters are thinking and to bring life to a story!

Therefore, I'd like you to challenge yourself to write a 3-4 page story in which you use mostly dialogue!

Dialogue is the talking amongst multiple characters and needs to be surrounded by quotation marks ("").

Email me if you have questions!

23 Objective Point of View // Due the week of March 19, 2015

Hi Everyone!

The homework for this week is to write a 1-3 page story in 3rd person objective point of view.

3rd person objective point of view means:

• The narrator is talking about the main characters using "he, she, they, their, etc"
• The narrator does not have insight into the inner thoughts of any of the characters and therefore the characters' inner feelings must be described via their body language and facial expression and noises
• Instead of: "Ben felt angry," you must write: "Ben stomped his foot and his jaw was clasped tightly shut while he breathed loudly." 
• Instead of: "Lucy loved to read," you must write: "As Lucy read her book, her mouth was curled in a smile and she tapped her foot merrily."
• Really focus on pretending you are observing the character and simply describing them as you see them.

Email me if you have questions!

22 Imagery // Due the week of March 10, 2015

Hi Everyone!

This week, I would like you to write a short fictional story that is around 1.5-2.5 pages long that has at least one instance of each type of imagery (one for each type of sense)! Be sure to underline the part with the imagery. We will be peer reviewing them next week, so be sure to bring an actual paper copy to class that is typed, double spaced, and printed out.

If you'd like some optional inspiration:

Imagery: Description that involves the 5 senses:

• Smell
• Touch
• Sight
• Hearing
• Taste

Imagery that doesn't count:

• "…smelled wonderful"
• "…tasted awful"
• "…looked cool"

Imagery that does count:

• "…smelled like roasted marshmallows"
• "…tasted sour and spicy at the same time"
• "…looked slimy, like a worm"

Email me if you have questions!

21 Short Story // Due the week of March 4, 2015

Hi Everyone!

This week, I would like you to write a short fictional story that is around 1.5-2.5 pages long about anything you would like! We will be peer reviewing them next week, so be sure to bring an actual paper copy to class that is typed, double spaced, and printed out.

If you'd like some optional inspiration:

• A story about mints and an old photograph
• A story that starts with the sentence: "Beth tiptoed through the giant iron doorway…"

Email me if you have questions!

20 Rough Draft // Due the week of Feb. 16, 2015

Hi Everyone!

Next week, the rough draft of your research paper is due! It doesn't have to be perfect, but I'd like to see a genuine effort at each of the five paragraphs of the essay.

Please follow the following general outline (but use complete sentences and essay paragraph format)

1. Introduction
1. Attention Grabber: Gets the audience interested; choose one of the following:
1. Ask a question
2. State a shocking fact
3. Quote an interesting quotation
4. Make a joke
5. Feel free to try something not on the list, as long as it's attention grabbing!
2. Thesis: Opinion because reason1, reason2, and reason3.
2. Paragraph about Reason1
1. Evidence from your notecards
2. Possible Evidence types:
1. Logos: Facts, Statistics, Reasonings
2. Pathos: Emotional stories, personal accounts
3. Ethos: Expert opinions by doctors, teachers, professors, scientists, etc
3. Paragraph about Reason2
1. Evidence (See above)
4. Paragraph about Reason3
1. Evidence (See above)
5. Conclusion

Make sure it's all on Google Drive in the Rough Drafts folder. We will be doing peer review, so make sure you like your work enough to share it :)

Email me if you have questions!

Notecards // Due the week of Feb. 10, 2015

Hi Everyone!

This week, we went back to the sources you collected last week and started looking for information that would be useful to your research papers!

Materials you'll need:

• 12 notecards of 3 different colors (4 of each color)
• If you don't have colored notecards, you can distinguish them in other ways like shapes in the corners, or you can cut colored paper into notecards.
• I gave you notecards in class, so if you have lost those, you'll need to find your own.

Assign one color of notecard to each reason from your thesis. For example, if your thesis is:

• Cats are the best animal because they are clean, cheap, and cute.
• Then all evidence about their cleanliness will be blue, all evidence about their cheapness will be pink, and all evidence about the cuteness will be yellow.

Write one piece of information on each notecard, until you have 12 notecards of information.

Be sure you label the notecards in their corners with which source the information came from—you can write the number of the source (from your works cited page) or the last name of the author—or whatever you want, as long as you remember where you got the information.

Consider the following types of evidence to write down:

• Logos: Facts, Statistics, Numbers, Reasonings
• Pathos: Personal stories, emotional stories
• Ethos: Expert opinion: Doctors, Scientists, Politicians, people who've experienced it before

Email me if you have questions!