Writing Across Cultures

Period 1: Until 8:00 or so. Please take 10 minutes this morning and read the article on Maslowe & Allie Bosch's comic article on "Motivation". Get motivated now! In the next 20-30 minutes continue to create a perfect world or society (from last class). Give your fictional world a name. Feel free to draw your world on the paper provided. Be prepared to share your "vision" of a perfect world/place with the class next class. Questions to consider: What would make our world better?  Who would get to live in it?  Who would govern it?  How would these improvements be possible?  What has to happen to make these changes?  What resources would be needed?  How would these resources be protected or replicated?  How would our beliefs or minds need to change to allow this better world to occur?  How would this world be sustained? How would people have to behave? What would people have to believe? How would this world answer the problems...

A Clockwork Orange : Pg. 62-65, pg. 75-76 Brave New World : Pg. 64-65 (description of Bernard); The Orgy-Porgy scene, pg. 82-86; Lenina's stream of consciousness, pg. 87-88. When we write a story, there are a lot of interruptions that might happen to the narrator/speaker, etc. In narrative fiction, the use of a single skipped line to create what is called "white space" which, I suppose, has become an ominous political reminder--and I wish there was a different term for it--but it's that blank space between paragraphs that either allows the writer/narrator to shift a scene to another location (like a fade, cut, or dissolve in a film), or shift the narrator's point of view (changing POV or narrators), or allows the writer/narrator to move the story forward or backward in time. What's cool about this kind of space is that it signals a reader that your narration is changing--either you are changing POV, time, setting/location, or ending a sequence or scene. ...

Period 1: Shortened Lab If you have anything else to print out for your portfolio, print it out now! Apply James' theory of "stream of consciousness" to the chapters you were to have read for homework. If you didn't read, please take 5 minutes and surf the internet for a summary of the chapters from the book you ignored. On the index card, connect these theories of the consciousness (see handout on William James and Pierre Janet) with chapters 2-3 of your reading. Explain how events/characters/styles or ideas for these chapters touch upon key ideas in the articles you read. Turn these index cards in for participation credit! William James (the father of psychology): Consciousness is a process, not a thing. Its prime purpose is to stay alive. Consciousness is a stream of associated thoughts ("transitive parts--moving" and "substantive"--resting.) Thoughts in our consciousness form "the self". The empirical self is connected to our b...

Period 1: Your portfolios are due. Please complete your reflection and turn in your work as per usual.  Period 2: Classroom Both Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange are dystopian novels. You can learn more about dystopian fiction here at this link .  Let me introduce you to your authors: "No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy."  -- Aldous Huxley (Oh, so horribly true, Mr. Huxley...) Aldous Huxley  (1894-1963) is best known for his novel  Brave New World , but he wrote various other novels (see below). By the end of his life, Huxley was known around the world as one of the most influential 20th century intellectuals. His work is highly satirical and imaginative. Huxley was born in  Godalming , England in 1894 and moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles in 1937. His grandfather,  Thomas Henry Huxley , was an emine...

Critique can often be found in research papers, position papers, book/film reviews, and essay exams. In the business world, critiques are often found in business plans or proposals, grant writing, legal briefs and legal arguments, and legislation or policy briefs. Since most of what you are likely to read from day to day is writing that is meant to inform (newspapers, magazine articles, online news briefs, consumer reports, etc.) a reader must evaluate the accuracy of information presented by the author. We might evaluate the author on the significance of the information, as well as, the interpretation of the information presented to us by the author (the author's tone and POV, for example). In the media, we are often bombarded by writers trying to sell us something--to convince us of a point of view or idea. Evaluating how persuasive a writer is, can also be helpful for the same reasons interpreting informative writing is helpful. Of course, you are also expected to inform ...

4 = Exemplary 3= Accomplished 2= Promising 1=Beginning 0=Failing Exemplary : Thoroughly and artistically developed characters, plot, structure, conflict, theme, and setting. Uses vivid description, effective diction and word choice, tone or voice, POV, imagery, and compelling dialogue throughout portfolio. Uses a variety of effective literary devices that enhance the artistic quality of the work. Writing can be considered “art,” effectively communicating issues central to the human condition in a compelling and creative way. Titles are creative and compelling. Has few errors in spelling punctuation, syntax, and usage. Sentence structure and overall effect of the work is artistic. Format is effective, carefully and correctly followed. Work includes evidence of several revised drafts that improve on earlier drafts. Work included in portfolio reflects a wide range of styles and genres. There is twenty or more full typed pages of new work. Uses lab and class time to full extent; always...

LAB: (Please read!) You have written many reviews over the past 4 years in our creative writing classes. Review (or critical review (also called evaluation writing)) is a critical skill you will need in college writing. In a review, you (the author) attempt to evaluate a set of criteria to determine if something was good or bad. The review usually includes an introduction (a hook, followed by a lead, followed eventually by your thesis or claim). The introduction is followed by a short summary of what you are evaluating (usually an article or book, but it might be a film, a play, a poem, an artistic work, or a variety of things). The second body paragraph might include the author's arguments or the author's theme. Generally, you are trying to explain WHY the author or subject did or wrote what he/she did or write. This is mostly analysis--using examples drawn from the text to support your thesis or claim. Finally, after these parts, the author (that's you!) evaluates h...

I'll add more details, suggestions, and guidance on writing the review next class. For those of you who received your "test essay" on  The Once & Future King , feel free to revise your essays and place these in your writing portfolio. The highlighted line in your essay is your assumed thesis. Since you were reviewing the simple question: Was T.H. White successful writing a good book? Your thesis should answer this basic or root question. The body of the essay would then follow by breaking down the REASONS why you think that he wrote a good book or didn't. You then use evidence from the text to support your answer. Evidence just like court. More information will be discussed on this issue next class. If you don't get your essay back today, you will receive it next class. 

Period 1: Use the lab time to work on your portfolio. Read/research one of the linked psychological experiments and use any of the prompts (see below) to inspire you to write creatively. (See previous posts for further details): 10 Famous Psychological Studies Research the following site ( The 30 Most Disturbing Human Experiments in History ) or find a psychological experiment from history, read & research the topic enough to get the general idea, reason for doing the experiment, and the outcome or what we learned from conducting the experiment. Jot down notes. Writing Task(s) (for your portfolio): Write a scene about a person who might have gone through one of these experiments or write a scene about someone learning that someone they love(d) was involved in one of these experiments (or the cause of an experiment)  or change some of the details to create a fictional story based loosely on the human experiment or psychological experiment or speculate what we might l...

Lab: Once & Future King Test (you may use your books) Please write a critical essay (review) concerning T.H. White's The Once & Future King . Answer: 1. To what extent does T.H. White succeed in his writing of The Sword in the Stone ? Identify a claim: what do you think the author is trying to do? and defend that answer by using evidence from the text. 2. After your introduction (hook, lead-in, thesis or claim), write a short summary paragraph about the plot of the book, then in the body of your review, defend your claim using characters, chapters, passages, evidence from the book. You might examine the book from a psychological pov, an archetypal point of view, feminist pov,, or from a formalistic pov (examining literary devices working in the text). During period 1, if you finish, please print, hand in, and begin working on your portfolio. 2nd period: We will be going downstairs to learn about psychology. HOMEWORK: See post below. 

The Brain: the human brain, the largest of the mammal-kind relative to body size, is the command center for the nervous system of the body. It receives input from sensory organs (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell--hey! IMAGERY!) and sends messages from this input to the rest of the body (muscles, etc.). The normal human brain averages about 3.3 lbs. and is comprised of over 86 billion nerve cells (neurons -- grey matter) and nerve fibers (axons and dendrites or "white matter"), all closely spaced together with synapses. Anyway, there's the major parts of the brain: the cerebrum (forebrain), the cerebellum (the hindbrain), and the brainstem (the midbrain).  The cerebrum is divided again into the cerebral cortex with its four lobes (the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe, the parietal lobe, and the occipital lobe). Anyway, enough of that medical talk. The whole thing remains a complex system, essential to thinking, feeling, learning, singing, writing, talking, rememb...

Period 1: Lab. Please work on your portfolio projects. Deadline coming up. You will need your revision of your analysis paper, a draft of a myth that you retold, and any other projects you would like to work on or revisit. There have been several ideas you should be kicking around, including an adventure story, poem drafts, the use of archetypes, and, of course, any revision of work and feedback from MP1. Feel free to use Google docs and share your work with a partner to gain feedback on your writing. Use your time in the lab (until 8:00) to work on your portfolio. Period 2: We will continue where we left off (which wasn't very far) for our psychology unit. In pairs, summarize the psychological theory presented in the packets. Be prepared to share main ideas and your summary to your classmates. Let's read Galen together. Then a creative response based on this idea for a model. The Four Humours by Rafael Campo (Cuban/Italian American; Gay) Take a few minutes to gener...

Period 1: Lab. Please use this time to work on your portfolio projects, read The Once & Future King (see previous posts for details about what to do with this novel), and take at least 5 minutes this morning to take one of these personality tests. We'll use the information we gather as we begin our discussion of psychology. Personality tests Personality test #1 Personality test #2 Jungian Personality Test Period 2: Introduction to Psychology Once & Future King (Jungian personality type quiz). Among your pairing, choose one of the following characters from The Once & Future King and together take the personality quiz using information from the book to suggest an answer for a character's decisions. You may select any of the following characters (some more obscure than others...): Wart (Arthur) Kay Sir 'Ector Merlyn King Pellinore Sir Grummore Archimedes Cully Robin Wood (or Marion) Morgan le Fey Wat & the Dog Boy Master William Twyti ...