Decade Project Drafting; Bechdel Testing; Fun Home & Other Things

Period 1:

Sigh. Master classes, senior trips, AP testing, absences, looming graduation malaise--most of you are probably behind a few class periods. Please catch up during your advisement periods or at home. I have to move forward, despite wanting to give you more time to accomplish projects and stories.

If you have an upcoming AP exam, you are needed in the Ensemble theater this morning. Please note what you will be missing in the lab and make up the work as needed.

LAB: Work on your decade project story draft.  Last class you were to complete a draft by doing the following (see our previous post):

• Write a story draft set in your decade (or chose someone else's decade if that intrigues you...)  
• Use what you have learned to inspire your story. Connect your character's main conflict to popular culture in some way.
• All stories need a well thought-out and researched (if possible) setting. Often this comes from our memory, but snuggling into a setting that is alive with wriggling details can enchant the hardest cynical reader. Our job as writers is to provide this "stage" or setting on which our characters play out their fictional lives.
• Setting is not just location but includes weather, season, props--the things that characters touch or see or smell or taste or hear. It is imagery. And absolutely required of good writing. 
• Setting can be used as a compliment or contrasting "color" to our protagonist or characters in a scene. 
• Setting can be used to fuel conflict or to suggest theme, tone, and mood. This is why it's important that you define and describe your setting effectively. 
• Since this draft will challenge you to create an authentic time period (of which you probably know little from experience--but should be familiar from your research) find ways to weave these popular cultural events, politics, arts, technology, activities of the day, fads, fashions, folklore, high and low or trash cultural phenomenon into your story. See my previous posts for an example of what you could do to use the research we're sharing to create a setting for your story. 

Today, assuming you wrote a few pages of your story, research a second time line. Look through the decade projects in the post below this one (or this one if your peers did not submit their presentation on time...), and select a second decade to play with.

• Complicate your plot by incorporating this second decade into your story draft. 
• You might find it useful to use "white space" to separate or move forward or backward in chronological time. 
• You might use similar or the different protagonists. Perhaps these are the children of the protagonists from an earlier age, or the parents, or themselves earlier or later in life...or characters that are foils, creating a theme and variation to your story. Be creative!
• You might thematically connect the characters from one time period to another. 
• Find some way to use the second scene or decade to enhance the first draft. Again, be creative! There is no wrong way to do this. Develop your story draft.

If you missed the first two times, note Alison Bechdel's "test" in these short videos:

Gender/Feminism/Queer Studies: View the following links/videos and explain what the Bechdel test is (what are its rules, for example) and why it might be important when examining pop culture, media, or literature? Use the handout on gender/feminist criticism to help you focus questions to ask while reading the texts...

• The Bechdel Test
• Analyzing the Bechdel Test in 21st Century Narratives
• The Bechdel Test vs. The Mako Mori Test
• Female Characters in Games (video game writing) & Race in Games
• LGBT Cartoon Character Analysis (video)

Period 2: Classroom

Articles:

• "The Last Days of a Famous Mime" by Peter Carey (Australian writer)
• "Snap, Crackle, Plot" by Roy Rivenburg

Writing prompts: 

Write the last days of a ________. Pick a character type or occupation that you've never read about (or one you wouldn't want to be) and write the last week, day, or hour of that character's life. Use your chronological time to create short "chapters" for your story, as Carey did in his short story. If you prefer you might "write the first years/weeks/days/hours/minutes, etc. of _________. 

Fun Home: discussion questions:

• An "artificer" is a skilled craftsman/craftsperson or inventor. Give some reasons where, how, and why Bechdal uses this trope in the book. (Note: there are 3 parts to this question: where does Bechdal use the idea of an "artificer," how is it used, why does she make this allusion?)
• Who were Daedalus & Icarus? Comment on Bechdal's use of this mythological allusion in the book. Are there other allusions that you caught? What might the allusion mean? How does she use it as a thematic structure to provide meaning in her graphic novel?
• Explain why the setting of this book (and its title) are both ironic and appropriate for this story? Irony is verbal, situational, and dramatic.
• Allusions abound in this book. List examples of allusions used in the book. [hint: look for graphics or illustrations in the book that show titles of other books...what are some of these books?] 
• As much as it is unraveling the mystery of her father's strange life and death, how does Bechdal's own life parallel that of her father? Is this an effective strategy to use, do you think? Why or why not?

HOMEWORK: If you have not yet done so from last class, please watch something in the media (t.v., music videos, video games, a film, read a short story or novel, walk through a store in the mall, read a fashion magazine, eat at a restaurant chain, etc.) and write a short article (300-500 words for example) on gender, race, or sexual orientation using the Bechdel test or any of the video or text material linked above to review the experience. Are women missing from the story? How are women portrayed? What is the male's role? Is this a dominant image in the text? Are traditional heterosexual depictions assumed or accepted without question? Are alternative sexual orientations presented in a positive or negative light? Note: not depicting them at all is 'ignoring' the issue and typically considered negative. You could also apply this to "race."

Write your article. Turn it in Thursday. It will count as a piece in your portfolio. Continue to write a draft of your decade story project. Complete Fun Home (particularly if you did not complete it for class!) We will complete our discussion and examination of the book then.