Portfolio: Final

Today is the first deadline for the completed portfolio. It should be turned in today. If you need Monday to complete your work, please do so, but also please realize that you may be at an assembly. Make sure you can turn in your completed work by Monday end of day. No late work will be accepted.

HOMEWORK: Good luck on your finals!

Portfolio: Final Exam

Please continue to prepare your final portfolio.

Final Exam/Portfolio Assessment

Please complete the following today in the lab:

• Look through your portfolio. Remove any hand-written and homework assignments from it.
• Gather your fiction together, gather your poetry together, and gather your script drafts together.
• Print out any poem, script, or short story you wrote, but did not yet include in your portfolio.

Once you have done those three things:

• If you have it, take out and re-read your letter to "The Enemies of the Writing Process." How'd you do against your old enemy? Procrastinators: do not avoid this next step!
• Reflect on your progress as a writer this year. In a 3-4 page reflection (double spaced) reflect on your progress as a writer: what step in the writing process do you still struggle with? What part of the writing process is easy for you? What did you do well, what do you need more work or help on, what did you learn this year about crafting your work as art? Reflect on your overall growth that you feel you made this year. You may reference your English and Journalism classes as well if you'd like, but please reflect on your own growth as a creative writer. If you participated in any extra curricular activities, reflect on these too (particularly how they helped or hindered your progress as a writer).
• Revise and craft your best work this year. This is your final 2015 draft. Change the heading of the pieces you are submitting as BEST CRAFTED WORK. You must include at least one poem, one short story, and one script, but you may choose several of your pieces for your final assessment. Please show ALL drafts!
• Use a separate manila folder for your best crafted work and your reflection essay. These will be scored and evaluated as your final exam and will be sent to Central Office as your post assessment for this class.

Your portfolio (with reflection) is due as your FINAL EXAM on Monday, June 11 or June 15 whichever date works best for you. Once you're done with this portfolio, you are done with this course work. Congratulations!

HOMEWORK: Bring your portfolios/work/drafts to class to work on them. Return books to the library.

Annie Hall; Final Portfolio

After screening Annie Hall, please complete the following:

• Look through your portfolio. Remove any hand-written and homework assignments from it.
• Gather your fiction together, gather your poetry together, and gather your script drafts together.
• Print out any poem, script, or short story you wrote, but did not yet include in your portfolio.

Once you have done those three things:

• If you have it, take out and re-read your letter to "The Enemies of the Writing Process." How'd you do against your old enemy? Procrastinators: do not avoid this next step!
• Reflect on your progress as a writer this year. In a 3-4 page reflection (double spaced) reflect on your progress as a writer: what did you do well, what do you need more work or help on, what did you learn this year about crafting your work as art, and reflect on your overall growth that you feel you made this year. You may reference your English and Journalism classes as well if you'd like. If you participated in any extra curricular activities, reflect on these too(particularly how they helped or hindered your progress as a writer).
• Revise and craft your best work this year. This is your final 2015 draft. Change the heading of the pieces you are submitting as BEST CRAFTED WORK. You must include at least one poem, one short story, and one script, but you may choose several of your pieces for your final assessment.
• Use a separate manila folder for your best crafted work and your reflection essay. These will be scored and evaluated as your final exam and will be sent to Central Office as your post assessment for this class.

Your portfolio (with reflection) is due as your FINAL EXAM on Monday, June 11 or June 15.

HOMEWORK: Bring your portfolios/work/drafts to class to work on them. Return books to the library.

Woody Allen: Without Feathers Test; Annie Hall

After our test today on Without Feathers and comedic techniques, please read the sample script from the film Annie Hall.

please review the Annie Hall materials below:
Further information about Annie Hall can be found here at IMDB.com.
Annie Hall Script
Annie Hall explanation/film history

Often cited as one of the best 100 films of all time, Annie Hall won four Oscars:

Best Actress: Diane Keaton
Best Director: Woody Allen
Best Picture: Charles Joffe
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman
Woody Allen was also nominated for Best Actor.

As you watch the film, note the following:

--This plot is an archetype of the Romance plot: boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back after much ado.
--Much of the humor revolves around the film's Diegesis (the world of the film). Note when the script breaks this convention and what the effect on the viewer is at those moments.
--Woody Allen is a fan of silent film (particularly slapstick) notice when the film becomes quiet, when physical comedy is presented to us as reality, and scenes that include silly physical jokes or chase scenes. These are all homage to the yesteryear of film.

HOMEWORK: None. 

Comedy Techniques and Love & Death (1975)

Why do people laugh?

• Incongruity or Non sequitur. Humans are rational (supposedly) and laugh at anything that breaks a pattern or does not logically follow.
• Farce or physical humor (often pratfalls, slapstick, hurting people, etc.) What doesn't kill us makes us laugh.
• Superiority vs. inferiority (we laugh at those weaker or in a worse situation than us)
• Mistaken identity (using aspects of feeling superior or inferior, when the true identity of a character is revealed, this also includes surprise--so we laugh)
• Absurdity (if it doesn't make sense, and we are logical people, we laugh)
• Surprise: humans may laugh when startled to release adrenaline. It's part of our monkey brain.
• Hyperbole: an exaggeration
• Understatement: Often used at the end of a paragraph or idea, an understatement reverses the importance of the subject matter.

How can writers use these techniques in their writing? Like everything else, choice allows us to skillfully craft our work for a desired effect.

As you watch the film today, please find an example of each type of comedy in the film.

HOMEWORK: Complete your reading of Without Feathers. 

Poetry Projects & Without Feathers

Please complete your poetry projects today in the lab. I've given you this extension, so today will be our last day to prepare these in class.

Please upload your documentary to YouTube and submit your URL to the COMMENT section below.

If you finish early, please complete the following:

• Without Feathers (reading up to page 107)
• Prepare a piece to read at our Coffeehouse: Thursday, May 28 at 7:00 in the Ensemble Theater

Without Feathers:

• A Brief, yet Helpful, Guide to Civil Disobedience: People were protesting the Vietnam War when Woody Allen wrote this book. Even this serious topic is humor-fodder for writers. The allusion to The Trojan Women is referring to a Greek Tragedy (see: God) about the women of Troy banding together to protest the Trojan War.
• Match Wits with Inspector Ford: In the 70’s books such as 5-Minute Mysteries were very popular. The idea was that the author gave you a very short mystery or crime. The answer to the “riddle” was in the back of the book. A fan of whodunits will enjoy this parody.
• The Irish Genius: This is a parody (similar to Lovborg) but dealing with the poet William Butler Yeats. Yeats was an Irish culture fanatic and wrote “Irish” lyrics celebrating Gaelic and Irish legends. His poems drip with allusion and Allen plays around with this idea by providing fake “footnotes.”
• God, a Play: Poking fun at Greek Theatre, Allen is also joking about writers and the process of writing a play and the challenges of performing it. Allen was a playwright before he became a film writer. So you can assume the Writer character is partly autobiographical. Of course, the character of “Woody” is also Allen’s alter-ego in the play. Enjoy the absurdist ideas of the piece. By the way, the machine reference in the play is a reference to: Deus Ex Machina (or God from the machine) referring to a contrived ending of a play (a God comes down and fixes the characters’ problems).
• Fabulous Tales and Mythical Beasts: Bestiaries were an old fashion (Medieval) form of the nature guide. They were all the rage in the 1500’s.
• But Soft, Real Soft: There is a scholarly debate over who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Many critics say that Marlowe (another Elizabethan playwright) wrote Shakespeare’s work. Others say Queen Elizabeth or Francis Bacon wrote the plays. Probably, odd as it may seem, Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s plays. The title refers to a line from Romeo and Juliet.
• If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists: The Impressionist painter Van Gogh kept close correspondence with his brother Theo. Later a song and a movie were made from Van Gogh’s private letters. The title tells the rest of the joke.
• No Kaddish for Weinstein: Kaddish is a Hebrew prayer of mourning usually recited at a person’s grave. Woody Allen often jokes about Freudian Psychoanalysis or therapy. He is using a comic technique of the non-sequitur (or surprising a reader by saying something unrelated to its subject or something that makes no sense or is nonsensical.)
• Fine Times: An Oral Memoir: Another parody of a book review and autobiography of a fictional character. This one is about Flo Guinness, a speakeasy owner in the 1920’s. Alcohol was prohibited (illegal) in the early 1920’s and later repealed. Guinness is the name of a popular beer. Allen references many famous 1920’s musicians and people.
• Slang Origins: The English language has so many weird expressions and sayings. Allen pokes fun at them in this “essay.”

HOMEWORK: Complete your film projects if you didn't complete these in the lab. Complete Without Feathers.