Wednesday 5/1

Do NOW:  Read over your Dialogue Draft -  Highlight a significant dialogue exchange.


1. Focus:   Dialogue Driven Short Stories

2.  Read "exchange"... Explain significanc; Describe what is revealed about characters
3.  Class discussion:  Share writing approaches:  Identify "obstacles" for this assignment:  Generate designs to offer solutions...

4.  Workshop:  Stories due Monday  5/6

Tuesday 4/30

Do NOW:  Respond to the quote below:

“It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.”
― Ken Kesey, Kesey's Garage Sale

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  In first peson, assume the point of view of a "contemplative character" (kinda/sorta like yourself) and write a monologue that aims to prove your own existence.  Be creative!!!  *15 mins:  Share

3.  Dialogue Driven Short Stories

-Identify a key passage:  Read to class - Explain the significance.

4.  Class discussion:  Share writing approaches:  Identify "obstacles" for this assignment:  Generate designs to offer solutions...

5.  Workshop:  Stories due Friday:  5/3

Monday 4/29

Freewrite:  Respond to the quote below:

"Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake" -William James

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  In first peson, assume the point of view of a "contemplative character" (kinda/sorta like yourself) and write a monologue that aims to prove your own existence.  Be creative!!!  *15 mins:  Share

3.  Dialogue Driven Short Stories

-Identify a key passage:  Read to class - Explain the significance.

4.  Class discussion:  Share writing approaches:  Identify "obstacles" for this assignment:  Generate designs to offer solutions...

5.  Workshop:  Stories due Friday:  5/3

Tuesday 4/23

Do NOW:  Respond to the quote below:

“Fiction has been maligned for centuries as being "false," "untrue," yet good fiction provides more truth about the world, about life, and even about the reader, than can be found in non-fiction.”
― Clark Zlotchew

1.  Discuss Write

2.  Review Monday's Freewrite

3.  *********NO MORE EMAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4.  Review Dialogue Assignment:  Share Drafts

5.  Read excerpts:  Consider conflicts, protagonists...

6.  **Collect permission slips for play...

7.  Fiction Powerpoints...

Monday 4/22

Freewrite:  Respond to the quote below:

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”
― Lorrie Moore

1.  Write freewrite:  

2.  Discuss freewrite quietly with partner.

3.  Work on dialogue driven short story:

-At least 2 charactes

-plot movement

-Dialogue reveals character

-Narration provides context/insight

4.  Drafts due Tuesday 4/23

Wednesday 4/17

Do NOW:  Respond ot the quote below:

“For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed and intelligent men and women carry on today in their endeavor to make sure that the fires of this planet burn peaceably.”
― John Cheever

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Invite students to read selected excerpts from their short stories.  

Articulate :  The context

                         Significance to narrative

                         Thematic implications

3.  Fiction Powerpoints

4.  Dialogue:  How can it be most effective?  Discuss

--Reveal character

--Move plot

--Realistic voice

--Meaningful

--Role of narration

5.  Activity:  Craft a 1 pg dialogue that reflects a serious conflict between two friends.  

10 mins... Share

Tuesday 4/16

Do NOW:

“I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.”
― Andre Dubus

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Activity:  Each student reads aloud the very first sentence of their story.  

Evaluate beginnings:  Consider which are most engaging.  Identify Strengths.  

3.  Activity:  Share your short story with a partner.  Read each other's story.  Prepare a short (yet creative) synopsis to read to the class.  *Imagine the story is being published, and you are prepaing a kind of 

"press-release" about it....  *10 mins - Share

4.  Invite students to read selected excerpts from their short stories.  

Articulate :  The context

                         Significance to narrative

                         Thematic implications

5.  Fiction Powerpoints

Monday 4/15

Freewrite:  Respond to the quote below:

“A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.”
― David Sedaris

1.  Discuss freewrite

2.  Share "Sensuality" pieces

3.  Activity:  Share your short story with a partner.  Read each other's story.  Prepare a short (yet creative) synopsis to read to the class.  *Imagine the story is being published, and you are prepaing a kind of 

"press-release" about it....  *10 mins - Share

4.  Invite students to read selected excerpts from their short stories.  

Articulate :  The context

                         Significance to narrative

                         Thematic implications

5.  Fiction Powerpoints

Wednesday 4/10

Do NOW:  Respond to the quote below:

When you dream, you dialogue with aspects of yourself that normally are not with you in the daytime and you discover that you know a great deal more than you thought you did.
**Toni Cade Bambara


1.  Students need to complete Do Now in their writing notebooks.

2.  Read Oates' article:  "Reading as a Writer"  

- Identify key components; record notes in preparation for discussion on Thursday

-Write a paragraph response describing the most meaningful part of the article

3.  Workshop:  Students work/edit short stories.  


  

 

Tuesday 4/9

Do NOW:  Respond to the quote below:

“One says the things which one feels the need to say, and which the other will not understand: one speaks for oneself alone.”
― Marcel Proust

1.  Discuss Write.

2.  Review first 5 sentences of short stories:  **Reading like a writer

Possible Goals:

--Establish Setting

--Create a mood

--Generate Conflict

--Reveal aspect of character

3.  Introduce Oates article:  Reading Like a Writer

*Read beginning:  5 min write:  Share.

4.  Activity:  Read through article with a partner:  Identify parts meaningful to you:  Explain.  

15 mins:  Share

5.  Workshop:  Short Story Drafts.  

Monday 4/8

Free Write:  Respond to the quote below:  (NOW)

It's a lot easier to be morally upright when you're not pinching and scraping to make a living… which makes the immorality of the wealthy even more unforgivable. Every advantage in the world, and they can't even be nice people? Nick may forgive them, but we're not sure we do.

*Nick Caraway... The Great Gatsby

1.  Discuss Write

2.  Short Story Workshop:  "Perfect" the first 5 sentences of your short story.  *Work w/ partner... 15 mins:  Share.

NOTE:  Final Copy due Monday:  4/15!!

3.  Article:  Joyce Carol Oates:  "Reading as a Writer"    Assign reading.

1 pg analysis due Friday 4/12.  

Wednesday 4/3

Do NOW:  Consider how the world has changed economically, socially, and politically since you were in first grade.  Has there been progress?  Is humanity in a "better place"?  Explain. 
(10 mins.)   *Share


1.  Handout:  What Makes a good short story?  Read/ Discuss.

Activity:  With a partner, create your own response.


2.  Fiction Powerpoints:  Profile Student work. 


3.  Short Story Workshop:  Craft a plot line that relates the action as it occurs in your narrative.

*Provide example on board:  10 mins:  Present.

4.  Writing Workshops

Tuesday 4/2

Do NOW:  Select an abstract:  (Death, confusion, fear, eternity, etc.)  Use figurative language to provide sensuality.  10 mins:  Share


1.  Handout:  What Makes a good short story?  Read/ Discuss.

Activity:  With a partner, create your own response.


2.  Fiction Powerpoints:  Profile Student work.


3.  Short Story Workshop:  Craft a plot line that relates the action as it occurs in your narrative.

*Provide example on board:  10 mins:  Present.