Portfolio Requirements & Deadline

The portfolio is due November 2.

Portfolio Requirements:

• A writing reflection (this does not count as "new" pages on the rubric) (required)
• How it feels to be me reflective essay (required)
• Cultural or Identity poem(s)
• Summary paper for Joy Luck Club or Namesake (required)
• Humour poem (see prompt below)
• "Hit Man" style short story
• Stream of consciousness story/narration
• Absurdist play/scene
• Unreliable narrator story
• Writing prompt creative responses (use any of the exercises/reading we've done in class to create a poem, short story, film, script, play, essay, speech, article, blog, podcast, etc.)
• Other...We've covered a bunch of things...here's a short list of official prompts (not including some of the starter exercises we did in class...) Feel free to use any/all, etc.
• Evidence of revisions. Collect all your drafts. Put your newest drafts on top (old drafts below). Old drafts can be written all over--I don't need clean copies of your drafts--only the most recent.

Prompt: pick a cultural setting for a story/play outside of your normal Hegemonies--no American cultures allowed. Make a list of cultures that you are fascinated or interested in. Research the topic and find a gruesome or shocking event or occurrence in history. Use that background or setting to tell a survivor's tale. You can project your story into the future, or extend the years of your protagonist. But there should be some reference or allusion regarding the historical event.

Prompt: Write a poem draft using one or more of the humors as subject material. See the poem examples in the posts below to give you an idea of what you might accomplish with this draft. You might write an ode, elegy, pantoum, sestina, vilanelle, sonnet, or free verse poem.

Prompt: Use Galton's ideas to play around with the idea that we are shaped either by our genetic code (nature) or our environment (nurture). Where do you stand on the idea? Are we influenced more by our genes or our environment and experiences? Are children fat because of their genes, or because they grow up in a household where their family is overweight? Are children more violent because they are genetically psychopathic, or because they play violent video games or are abused? Do we learn only from our environment (good schools) or will good schools and access to education do little to help a child who just isn't capable of higher thought based on their IQ? Play around with these ideas.

Prompt: Write a story in the style of "The Hit Man". 

PROMPT: Reflect on what kind of parents raised you. Were you raised by authoritarian parents, permissive parents, or authoritative parents? Write an essay, scene, poem, or story using these observations as a conflict for your character. Alternatively, you can expand a story or poem you have written by blaming your characters actions on a parenting style. For more details about raising children, check out Monkeys & Morality (Crash Course)

PROMPT: Examining Erikson's stages of Progressive Psychosocial Development (see Adolescence Crash Course for details), identify what stage your protagonist might be having a crisis in and write about it. You can also write about these developmental stages from your own understanding of your own experiences (where are you, for example, in these stages...or where are your parents, friends, brothers/sisters, etc.?) Use what you learn as a way to flesh out characters in your previous drafts or stories. Or write a scene in which you mix up the stages: a pre-schooler who is dealing with integrity or stagnation, for example.

PROMPT: Examine the issue of aging.

PROMPT: Use Piaget's Four-Stage Theory of Cognitive Development (see The Growth of Knowledge crash course) to write a scene, poem, essay, or fictional story where characters are in conflict or different stages. Play around with these ideas in metaphorical or symbolic conflicts in your stories/poems. For example, you could psychoanalyze Trump's cognitive development in a political essay, or use these stages to reflect on your own experiences, or add conflict/characterization in your first drafts of stories or poems.

PROMPT: According to Piaget, "education should inspire people to create, invent, and innovate--discouraging them from conforming or following established guidelines at the expense of imagination." Inspired by this quote, create something. You might write an essay reflecting on your education experience, or suggest how the system failed you--or...whatever. Be innovative.

PROMPT: Use a psychological theory or idea and develop a monologue, scene, story, poem, essay, or short play around it.

PROMPT: Write an absurdist scene or play like the play The Lesson by Eugene Ionesco. Take an idea, concept, theory or metaphor and make it literal.

PROMPT: Write a story/poem using stream of consciousness.

PROMPT: Write a story/poem using an unreliable narrator.