Portfolio Feedback; Quarter 2; Masterclass

Our coffeehouse is Nov. 20 at 7:00 in the Ensemble theater.

We are now in Quarter 2. There will be a portfolio due this quarter and we'll increase the reading requirements. Toward this end then, please set a deadline of at least 1-2 pages of writing to be completed each week. If you set this deadline, you will find coming up with ideas not too difficult (although see my advice concerning issues with portfolios below). You will also want to make sure you have the time to workshop, revise, and edit your work!

We have a masterclass this afternoon from 7-8 period. All students are excused from their 7-8 period classes. Please bring your notes/journals, a writing utensil, and questions about how to make it as an author or other author-type questions you'd like answered.

• Before we get to our main event today, please spend 5 minutes reflecting about your field trip. How is a college culture different or similar to a high school environment? Discuss with a partner, and jot down your observations.
• Today I want to cover some portfolio and writer advice from issues raised in your reflections.
• After examining this information, please spend your time writing for your portfolio. 
• You may write a 500 word short story set in Australia. Make sure you use some distinct Australian slang, cultural objects, ideology, or hegemonic groups to examine a culture outside of your own. 
• Make your protagonist from a city or town in Australia
• Check out an Australian newspaper to give you some ideas as to background for your characters or setting. 
• A kangaroo (or koala, or kiwi, or some specific animal native to Australia or New Zealand) finds itself in an unusual place. Write about finding this animal.
• Read and research the dreamtime--a unique Australian Aboriginal cosmology. Set a story in this place. Look here for some images to inspire you!
• Read the bio and any two poems from David Malouf and use them to inspire your own poem. 
• Read the bio and any two poems from poet Kate Jennings. Use her poetry to inspire you too!
• Try your own poet from the area! Research, read, write, repeat!
• Any other idea you might have gleaned from reading the stories or articles handed to you today. Please read these articles/stories by next class.

Portfolio advice:
LAB TASK: Please read the following information and summarize my main points to be handed in by the end of the period as participation credit.

Some questions kept coming up in your self reflections. I will attempt to answer these problem areas and also give you some guidance and tips about strengthening your writing:

• Question: How can I get motivated to write?
• Most writers will answer this by stating that they cannot help but write. A professional writer is someone who spends their free and spare time, making time in their day, that is, to write. Even talent cannot make you a professional. Writers are people who write. Period.
• TIP: Don't spend your time thinking about writing or talking about that great idea. Instead, sit down and type or write in your notebook. Nothing should pull your focus away from this essential rule!
• TIP: Relax. You don't have to be great at this moment. You are only 17-18 years old. There is no such thing as perfection. Even the best authors think they write some bad work. It happens. We can't always be at the top of our game--that's simply being realistic and human! So give yourself a break! What's more important is that you TRY!
• The universe does not owe you anything. We make our own successes by working at them. Yes, writing is work. It can be fun, pleasurable, and even necessary, but it is work. Try to train yourself to realize, just like training for a sport, lifting weights, or exercising regularly, the more you spend your time writing, the more likely it is you will get better at it!
• Create an artificial deadline for yourself. Set a word count minimum for the day. If you set your creative writing word minimum at 200 words per period or even 200 a day, don't go to bed or move on to another project until you have completed these words. If the word count is too easy, increase it gradually until it is a challenge, but not impossible to meet.
• Decide that you ARE going to use your time to write. Then do it.
• Remove distractions to the best of your ability. Realize that this is hard to do. In this class, in this school, in this lab--we have to agree that this is our sacred writing time. Do NOT bother one another. You should be writing and your best friends, if you really care about them, should be writing too!
• Create a contest with yourself or a writer friend. Who can be the first one to write 3 pages of prose? Who can write a sonnet before the other one writes one? 
• Restrict yourself--make up your own rules and stick by them. One writer (Georges Perec) decided to write a novel that never used the letter "E". He succeeded (but he called it a "win")! The novel I'm referring to is "A Void". Read about it here.
• Motivational Sites for writers: (from "PR Daily")
• 1. Writer’s Digest. This site is overflowing with resources for writers. Writer’s Digest also publishes its 101 Best Websites for Writers. 
  
  2. Son of Bold Venture. Esquire contributor Chris Jones offers entertaining tips on writing and observations of the profession. Particularly geared toward Journalists. 
  
  3. Write to Done. Tips about writing.
  
  4. The Grammarphobia Blog. Grammar police and casual writers alike will find this blog funny, useful, and entertaining.
  
  5. Writing White Papers. Writer Michael Stelzner's blog.
  
  6. Inkwell Editorial. A fantastic starting point for anyone looking to get into freelancing. While you’re at it, check out Freelance Writing Jobs, which offers daily updates to help writers get paid for what they do. (Yes. PAID!) 
  
  7. Six Sentences. Here’s the gist: Writers submit stories that consist of six sentences. Pretty simple, right? No, not simple at all. You try telling a good story in six sentences. Seriously, try it and then submit it to Six Sentences blog.
  
  8. Wordsmith.org. This site offers daily tips for writers. 
  
  9. The Writer Underground. Tom Chandler's blog, which includes some interesting, original interviews with professional writers. 
  
  10. Daily Writing Tips. This site offers daily, relevant writing tips on word usage, grammar, and punctuation. Many of you need this terribly! No offense meant but your grammar and punctuation skills are really bad. We try to help, but you've got to take the responsibility of your own learning here. Read this daily!
• Question: How do I get ideas? How do I know what to write?
• Where do we get ideas?
• From our lives
• From our imagination
• From talking to people (but not in the lab when you should be writing!)
• From reading!
• From READING!
• FROM READING!!!
• WHAT DO I DO WITH ALL THESE ARTICLES I HAVE TO READ? As you read an article, story, poem, etc. do this:
• What single sentence or idea in the article intrigues you? Write it down.
• What conflict can be identified in the writing? Write it down.
• Can you imagine yourself in the situation described in the article/text? If so, how might you make different decisions and what might their outcome be? Write about that.
• Take 10 random words from the article, poem, story, etc. List them. Use them to create a poem or a story.
• Rewrite the article, poem, story in a different genre. Take the idea and change the characters, setting, plot events, genre, POV, etc.
• What in the article affects you and your own culture? What human lessons does the writing hint at? Take any of these ideas and write about them in your own poems, short stories, plays, scenes, essays, articles, etc. 
• Take the first sentence of the text and the last sentence in the text and try writing a new story or poem to take place in the middle.
• Anything else you can think of... 
• Here: read this article and it will explain what I'm trying to explain.
• As you know, writing prompts can help budge you a bit, and programs and courses like this one can help "require" you to write so you get practice, but ultimately it is the writer's responsibility to find a reason to write. There is no muse that sprinkles "art" dust on your head to get you to come up with creative ideas. 
• Question: I am still having trouble with grammar. 
• What is end punctuation? 
• How do I punctuate dialogue correctly?
• What is a sentence and how can I write effective ones?
• By the way: poetry includes punctuation. Always. Use it. You are not e. e. cummings. Don't fall into the pattern of not using enjambment in your poetry--something that e.e. cummings used a lot.

LAB TASK: Please answer (using the information above): 

1. How might a writer find motivation?
2. Review one motivational site. What good advice does the site have regarding writing?
3. How might a writer find ideas to write about?
4. Write an original simple sentence with appropriate end punctuation.
5. Write 3-lines of dialogue punctuated correctly that explains the term "enjambment".

Turn in your answers by the end of class today for participation credit.

HOMEWORK: Various options. Your portfolio awaits!