'Master Harold' & the Boys; South African Writers: Day 2

Lab:

Period 1:

Please get together in your reading groups and continue reading, discussing, and completing your discussion questions. Turn in your group's responses/answers by the end of period 2.

If your group finishes before the end of period 1, please continue to work on your portfolios or begin reading your homework. See below.

Trevor Noah: Clip from the Daily Show (racist facial recognition), stand up sample, and Trevor Noah on Race, Comedy, & Politics (interview), interview on the Ellen show, and pop culture Lupita Nyong'o on The Daily Show.

Period 2:

In between our writing exercises, we will read the short stories "Terminal" by Nadine Gordimer, "Arrest Me" by Denis Hirson, "By the Creek" by Barry Yourgrau, the poem "Up Late" by Arthur Nortje, and the essay by Gcina Mhlope.

Other South African writers we've read include:

• Bessie Head
• Athol Fugard

Writing Tips for Fiction:

• Successful writers grab our attention immediately with a hook. The statement that starts a story is a promise that the rest of the story is worth reading. For example:
• "Even the cat buries its dirt; I carry mine around with me." 
• "I want to be arrested so that I can read the Bible."
• Some authors create a hook or prologue scene in their first paragraph:
• "I come into the kitchen. My mother screams. Finally she lowers her arm from in front of her face. "What are you doing, are you out of your mind!" she demands. I grin at her, in my bermudas and bare feet. "It's okay," I tell her in a chambered voice through my father's heavy, muffling lips. "He's taking a nap, he won't care." "What do you mean he won't care," she says. "It's his head. For god's sake put it back right now before he wakes up."
• The last line or paragraph in a short story should surprise as well.
• Short stories, having a shorter form, sometimes blend with poetry. It is the story, yes, that attracts us (something we had a sense might be true, but that is presented to us in a new and original way), but it is also the language, the imagery, the meaning, and the delight or surprise of being told something at once familiar, and completely new and original. Creative.
• Edit out the boring parts.
• Wax poetic. Short stories often rely on metaphor, imagery, tone--as opposed to in-depth character analysis or plot (as in longer short stories or novels...)
• Remember your themes: love, life, death, nature. We'll never stray too far from these.
• Shake yourself out of your rut. Present your reader with the promise of something old cloaked in the style of something new.
• Poetry is similar. Set up your speaker & setting, manage your tone. Guide your reader through stanzas with transitions, end with a reflection or epiphany or clear understanding (insight) of the issue/subject.

HOMEWORK: Check any links you missed in this or previous classes. Read the short Brechtian play "Los Vendidos" by Luis Valdez and the one-act play "My Beatles" by Satoh Makoto.  In the COMMENT section of the blog, please post a comparative/contrasting critique of the plays. Consider what we've learned about race--how does cultural heritage, identity, and the issues of race infuse these plays with significance for a contemporary audience? Your post on the topic will be due by the end of first period (lab) Friday, March 16. No late responses will be given credit.