Please spend the first 5 minutes of class today completing the character exercise.
Sherman Alexie: "I started writing because I kept fainting in human anatomy class and needed a career change. The only class that fit where the human anatomy class had been was a poetry writing workshop. I always liked poetry. I'd never heard of, or nobody'd ever showed me, a book written by a First Nations person, ever. I got into the class, and my professor gave me an anthology of contemporary Native American poetry called Songs From This Earth on Turtle's Back. I opened it up and--oh my gosh--I saw my life in poems and stories for the very first time."
Sherman Alexie's top 10 Tips for Writers
Various videos/interviews by Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie's interview with Stephen Colbert
LAB: Spend some time learning about writing from Sherman Alexie. Use the link above to develop and work with your characters in your fiction.
Continue writing. Please print out your fiction (or as much as you have written in the past few weeks) and put these drafts in your portfolio.
HOMEWORK: Complete the short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Write a 3-5 paragraph review of the book, particularly explaining what you learned about the art of short story writing from Sherman Alexie. Use specific examples from his stories to support your statements. This critique/review is due Dec. 1.
Sherman Alexie: "I started writing because I kept fainting in human anatomy class and needed a career change. The only class that fit where the human anatomy class had been was a poetry writing workshop. I always liked poetry. I'd never heard of, or nobody'd ever showed me, a book written by a First Nations person, ever. I got into the class, and my professor gave me an anthology of contemporary Native American poetry called Songs From This Earth on Turtle's Back. I opened it up and--oh my gosh--I saw my life in poems and stories for the very first time."
Sherman Alexie's top 10 Tips for Writers
Various videos/interviews by Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie's interview with Stephen Colbert
- Some ideas/prompts to develop characters. Use any of these prompts to flesh out and develop the characterization of characters from your drafts.
- Story idea: write from the perspective or voice of a Native American. Put yourself in someone else's moccasins. Develop your character by providing physical details, character traits, and psychological traits.
- Story idea: If you had a totem animal, what would it be? How would it find you? What might it say to you? What might it symbolize about your "character"?
- Story idea: Thanksgiving. Write a story that takes place during this holiday.
- Story idea: Use Alexie's writing style and model your own fictional story from his structure.
- Story/Poem idea: See your "life in stories and poems for the first time" in your life. Write about one of these events.
- Story idea: Write about your mother or father's life before you were born, but fictionalize events, details. Use the story "Because My Father Always Said...At Woodstock" (pg. 24-36) as a model. You might also write a story in which you recount and analyze the phrase that your father or mother or grandparent(s) always say to you. Start your story with: "My ____ used to always say to me..." or something of that sort.
LAB: Spend some time learning about writing from Sherman Alexie. Use the link above to develop and work with your characters in your fiction.
Continue writing. Please print out your fiction (or as much as you have written in the past few weeks) and put these drafts in your portfolio.
HOMEWORK: Complete the short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Write a 3-5 paragraph review of the book, particularly explaining what you learned about the art of short story writing from Sherman Alexie. Use specific examples from his stories to support your statements. This critique/review is due Dec. 1.
No comments:
Post a Comment