Monday 12/10

Freewrite:  Respond to the quote below:


"...the individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of himself."
     ~ Simone de Beauvoir, 1948, The Ethics Of Ambiguity, p. 156

1.  Discuss freewrite

2.  Draft Check:  Peer Review/Share

**Final Copy due Thursday.  

3.  Discuss Audition Process.  **Portfolios/Interviews

**Preview:  "The Briefcase"

This story takes place at an unknown time, in an unknown place, with an unnamed protagonist who simply has the will to survive. At one time he was a chef, but because of talking politics, he became a political prisoner to an unknown country. He becomes one of 200 criminals sent to an unknown location, but thanks to his starvation along the journey he is able to free himself of his bonds. Sadly, when his guards see that he is missing, they take a nearby physics professor and command him to join the group of captives. The professor leaves behind his briefcase, which the protagonist uses to take the identity of the guards’ new victim. With the briefcase in tow, the nameless chef takes on the persona of the professor. Over time he sees parts of his his life through the lens of the professor which I thought was quite entertaining. Even to the point of mulling over an assignment found in the professor’s briefcase which instructed his students to construct a proof that the Sun revolves around the Earth. If you want to read it, you can find it in The Best American Short Stories 2009.

Tuesday 12/4

Activity:  Read the quote below:

“About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?

Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others—while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity—so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir

1.  Summarize Hitchens' main points.  Which do you agree/disagree with most?  Why?

2.  Consider the role of decision-making in Hitchen's perspective.

3.  Read/Workshop drafts of short term fiction:  "Rubiaux Rising"

--Identify conflicts (internal/external)

--Consider how the role of setting affects character

Freewrite:  Analyze the quote below:

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
Albert Camus


1.  Discuss freewrite.

2.  Consider how this might relate to Rubiaux in the short story.

3.  Review End of "Rubiaux Rising" (Symoblism/Diction)

4.  Activity:  Extend the short story by one paragraph.  10 mins:  Share

5.  Workshop/Draft check:  Short fiction:  Protagonist amidst a disaster; Generation of internal/external conflicts