The Namesake Quiz; The Cultural Poem Draft; Writing Time; The Overcoat

After taking our quiz on The Namesake, please continue to work on the following:

Cultural Poetry Draft Exercise:

Write a cultural poem draft. There is no wrong way to write a cultural poem. Everyone's experience and subject matter will be unique. It's okay to get personal. Avoid over-dramatizing your poem. This is not a life or death situation in most cases, but a subtle understanding of your (or your speaker's) own place in the world. You may tell a story, use fictional elements like dialogue, use traditional phrases or family sayings or idioms, etc.

What you'll need is a strong setting. How is your room (or a room in your house) a reflection of who you are and what your family values, for example? How is the setting significant to the speaker of your poem? If you can't answer this, make the setting significant.

TIPS/RULES/GUIDELINES:

• Allow your speaker to witness a single significant action, tradition, or cultural moment that is unique to you, your family or family members, your group, your "homies" or your own personal experience. 
• Describe that moment using different kinds of imagery (choose at least one, but you can mix them: visual imagery, sound imagery, tactile imagery, gustatory imagery, kinetic imagery, olfactory imagery...)
• Allow your speaker to reflect on the meaning of this action. Your "volta" or turning point should come near the very end of your poem (if not the last shocking line...where your speaker realizes something significant--perhaps something now found that had been missing in one's life, a recognition of belonging, for example.)
• Your poem must be at least 10 lines in length. It can be longer than 10 lines.
• Proofread and title your draft.

Or...

Continue to provide feedback and comments to your group in your workshop folder. 

Or...

Take your Namesake baseline fiction draft and do one of the following:

• Skip a line (white space) to transition to the 3rd person perspective of a second character. This character should have been mentioned or referenced in the first draft.
• The character should be a different character from the 3rd person over-the-shoulder narrator in the first draft.
• The character's story could run parallel to the story told in the first draft (i.e., the story can take place at the same time in a different place, scene, or be the other side of the first character's story
• Advance time by at least a year (or more). Use white space to transition into this new year or setting. Continue the story, thinking about the consequences of time. You are allowed to flashback to earlier times too. You may advance the story by a year or more, more than once, if you wish.

Or...

Write about your name (or your namesake), or the events of your birth, or an important memory or event from your early childhood.

Or...

Write anything that inspired you from the prompts and exercises we have done in the past two weeks.

Period 2ish:

We will begin reading "The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol. A bit of background...

HOMEWORK: Please read chapters 6 & 7 of The Namesake. You may begin to read ahead if you wish. We will likely finish the book by the end of next week. There will be a final test on the book at that point. Take notes as you read to remember characters, plot events, setting, effective passages, etc.