Short Story Draft & Play Watching Extra Credit

1. Take your homework (see posts below) and choose the most interesting situation(s) and choose the most interesting character(s) from your brainstorming. Combine situation(s) and character(s) in any way you choose to tell an interesting story. Think about your story before plunging into it.

2. Choose an OPENING from the types of story openings. Choose an ENDING from the types of endings. Jot these down on the back of the index card. Use them to guide your story.

3. Go to the lab. Write the story. Your story should be short (there is no novel here, just the short story). Work toward the chosen ending. Compose a draft. Your story might be 500 words, it might be 10,000 words. You haven't completed this draft until you reach a satisfying ending. Call this story draft #1.

Use the time in the lab today to write your draft. Proofread and turn in your story (see below).

HOMEWORK: If you do NOT finish (did not write to a satisfying ending with some sort of point, character development, diction, tone, and setting) then complete your draft and turn it in January 3.

EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY: Play watching for those eager young playwrights!:

Our next unit is play script writing. Feel free (for extra credit) to watch any of the following over the break. To gain extra credit, watch the performance then respond to the question on the FORUM.

The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year by John Guare (part one)
The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year by John Guare (part two)

A Day for Surprises by John Guare

Mystery of Twicknam Vicarage by David Ives

Mere Mortals by David Ives

English Made Simple by David Ives

The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of Where Babies Come From by Christopher Durang

The Funeral Parlor by Christopher Durang

Drafting a Short Story: Short Fiction

Previous HOMEWORK (from last class): create at least 5 situations and 5 characters (not necessarily related) in your journal. Keep your journal handy for notes during class.

Let's take a look at a few short stories and apply what we have learned.
1. Beginnings/endings
2. Diction (texture)
3. Characterization
4. Plot
5. Setting

As we read, please look for the specific aspect of the story noted on your note card.

After our class reading and analysis, please use the lab to complete the following:
1. Take your homework (see above) and choose the most interesting situation(s) and choose the most interesting character(s) from your brainstorming. Combine situation(s) and character(s) in any way you choose to tell an interesting story.
2. Choose an OPENING from the types of story openings. Choose an ENDING from the types of endings. Jot these down on the back of the index card.
3. Go to the lab. Write the story. Your story should be short (there is no novel here, just the short story). Work toward the chosen ending. Compose a draft. Your story might be 500 words, it might be 10,000 words. You haven't completed this draft until you reach a satisfying ending. Call this story draft #1.

HOMEWORK: None.

Clue: Solution & Flash Fiction

Today is Mr. Bodensteiner's last day. We appreciate his work and wish him well. We will finish watching and studying the character development for the movie Clue. Afterward, let's chat about your homework (the flash fiction).

HOMEWORK: Please create at least 5 situations and 5 characters (not necessarily related) in your journal. Bring with you next class for the story we will be writing. Details to follow.

Get a "Clue", Character Design, & Flash Fiction

We are screening the film Clue. Info about the film can be found here.

Mr. Bodensteiner will work with you on helpful graphic organizers for developing character. He has also provided you with an excellent on-line source for designing characters. If you missed it on his blog, please check it out here. Seriously. This is good stuff for you.

For those of you who only want to write a novel--what is this short fiction stuff for anyway--let me suggest to you that in order to improve your narrative techniques and CRAFTING fiction (whether it is an epic 900-page novel or a micro-story of fifty words) you need to work with the short stuff first.

HOMEWORK: So--read the packet of flash fiction stories handed to you in class today for next class. As you read, please pay attention to how the author BEGINS and ENDS the story while developing either plot, character, or theme (the usual suspects) along the way. We'll chat about these stories next class. Come to class ready to discuss them.

Hint Fiction

Please refer to Mr. Bodensteiner's blog. We have been writing hint fiction (very short fiction).

Draft 3: Surpise Ending

So far this marking period you have written:

• one short story draft using the exercises provided to you on the blog (see October's posts for details, if you have forgotten).
• a second draft of that same short story, editing and revising based on feedback from Mr. Bodensteiner.
• and finally, a third draft that asks you to get rid of your original ending and insert a "surprise" ending or a different "surprise" ending (if you already had one). 

These 3 drafts will ultimately go into your writing portfolio.

Work on the third draft today in the lab as stated in Mr. Bodensteiner's agenda on his class blog.

Surprise! An Ending!

Please check Mr. Bodensteiner's blog for today's agenda. Take careful note (take notes) on the types of surprise endings you can include in a story.

Lab Assignment: Please take your previous story and re-edit it with a surprise ending. Call this draft #2, please to note the difference. You may also create a new story with a twist or surprise ending.

HOMEWORK: None. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Characterization & Character Key Terms

Characterization: An author uses characterization to develop character in a story. They do this by using:

• Dialogue (what a character says)
• What a character says about him/herself
• What other characters say about the character
• Internal thoughts (what a character thinks about another character, him/herself, or an event)
• Actions (what a character does)
• Details (description of character's personality, physicality, spiritual or mental state)

Character Key Terms: When referring to characters, we should refer to them correctly.

• Hero/Heroine: The main character of a story (term often only used in epics or fantasy genres)
• Villain: The character who opposes the main character (term often only used in epics/fantasy)
• Antihero: A normal, ordinary character
• Protagonist: The main character of a story (term preferred for most literature)
• Antagonist: The opponent of the protagonist (term preferred for most literature)
• Foil: Either one who is opposite to the main character or nearly the same as the main character. The purpose of the foil character is to emphasize the traits of the main character by contrast, and perhaps by setting up situations in which the protagonist can show his or her character traits. A foil is a secondary character who contrasts with a major character but, in so doing, highlights various facets of the main character's personality.

Characters can be either major or minor, round or flat.

• Major characters are characters who are important to the conflict and plot of the story. They often have motivations linked with the main conflict
• Minor characters are characters who are not necessarily important to the story. They often are used to develop the main characters or to provide rising action or complications to the plot.
• Round characters have a distinct motivation and personality or “voice”; Often they are complex and dynamic (they change through the conflict of the story)
• Flat characters are characters that do not change significantly through the conflict of the plot. Sometimes the reader knows or cares little about them because of lack of detail or purpose.
• Stereotypes: Characters who are generally recognized as a “type”; These characters lack individuality and often can be boring because we already know how they will act and why.

Ways to develop character:

• Characterization: Physical characteristics and personality characteristics which develop the individualization of a character.
• Motivation: reasons for the character to act in the story
• Dialogue: What characters say helps to develop them
• What other characters say about a character also helps develop them
• Action: Describing the actions of a character helps develop them (allows writer to show not tell)

Interpreter of Maladies & Facebook Character Exercise

Today, please check Mr. Bodensteiner's blog for the agenda.

HOMEWORK: Please read "Salesmanship" by Mary Ellen Chase. As you read, take note of how the ending achieves its "surprise!" How does the author connect ending with middle and beginning expectations?

Bringing Stories Together

Today we will focus on bringing together all elements of a story--beginnings/middles/and ends.

Please check out Mr. Bodensteiner's blog for further instructions.

HOMEWORK: read Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Check her out before you read.

Endings & Ha Jin

Today you will continue learning about endings for short stories, participate in an exercise, and also have time to continue and/or complete your short story drafts.

Mr. Bodensteiner has a new blog for you to visit. Please check it out at craftysota.blogspot.com. While he is teaching the class, please refer to his blog for details about deadlines, class material, and so on.

After Mr. Bodensteiner's instruction, please continue working on your stories. These are due today, but if you do not finish your draft, please complete for homework and turn in late Thursday.

HOMEWORK: Complete your story draft (if you have not already done so), and read "Saboteur" by Ha Jin and complete the five questions for the story. (see Mr. Bodensteiner's blog for more details).

Some links to help you with the story: Ha Jin biography & The Cultural Revolution and The Cultural Revolution in China

Short Story Project Deadline

A few announcements:
--Tonight, please join us for our first coffeehouse. Bring someone you love and something to read/share.
--Mr. Bodensteiner has a new blog for you to visit. Please check it out at craftysota.blogspot.com.

After our instruction, please continue working on your stories. These will be due Monday at the end of class.

HOMEWORK: Please complete your responses to the horror compilation by 11:59 p.m. tonight. I'd do it now while you're here, if you haven't already submitted the required responses.

Endings

Endings can be:

Circular: The beginning and the end reflect upon one another, often using the same situation, setting, characterization, or even repeating the same line or idea presented in the opening. This provides a sense of parallelism in your story structure. It is best used when suggesting that the past and future of a character/story is similar.

Matching vs. Nonmatching: similar to a circular ending, the first image is transformed, and is repeated at the end. This is most like the pattern in music: theme and variation. The first image of the story foreshadows or suggests the last image. Sometimes this is obvious, othertimes the image is subtle.

Surprise ending: Often an ironic ending, or an ending that surprises the reader. The American writer O.Henry was a master of this kind of ending. It is often found in horror/suspense or mystery fiction. The "surprise" needs to be planned by the writer, who should include details that prepare the reader for the surprise, instead of "shocking" the reader, who usually resents this strategy.

Summary ending: A summary of the outcome of the story – this kind of story wraps the plot up very tightly, suggesting the future for the characters. No loose ends. This sort of ending has fallen out of favor lately, so use it at your own peril.

Open ending: used largely in contemporary fiction, the story doesn’t end nice and neatly (like the summary ending). Instead, it leaves an important question posed to the reader, so that the reader must interpret the ending. Caution: this can sometimes confuse a reader. It is best used for subtle effect.

Ending with an image/idea: ending a story with an important detailed image or idea that reflects the theme of the story can "stain" the idea or image in the mind of the reader.

Writing Advice: Getting Unstuck!

Study your notes and the blog concerning beginning a story. (You were to have read Breaking Ground: How to Begin the Beginning & read the material on the blog about "Beginning a Story: Ways to Start a Story"). You will have five minutes to review for our sort-of-pop quiz.

After the quiz, please continue working on your story project. There are a few bits of advice you should follow (see below). Your forum post for the horror collection is due by Thursday. See previous posts, if confused.

After the Beginning: now what?

You began typing the moment you had an idea. You started off strong. Now three sentences in, or three paragraphs, or even three pages, you've reached your first stumbling block: what happens next?

With prompts and experience, most writers can get started. What's difficult is continuing through a murky middle. Here are some tips to slog through the worst part of your writing experience:

1. Most of the time we get stuck when we don't know what our characters want. Give your character a motive (a desire, or goal, etc.) to keep him/her moving forward.
2. Forward march: Move the plot forward by adding conflict and action. Involve your characters in a specific action or direct conflict with another character. This is particularly helpful if you are bored.
3. Put yourself in your protagonist's shoes: go inside a character's head. This is a common error that young writers constantly forget to do. Get your character's perspective. What would you think in a similar situation? What would you see if you were in this scene? What would you notice? What would you say? What would you do?
4. Skip forward in time. No one said this story has to be chronological. Advance the time period and move forward with the plot. Skip a line to indicate you've changed time (either forward or backward).
5. Skip to another setting/location. Move your character to a new setting. What happens there? Describe the setting/location, and the actions of minor characters. Skip a line to indicate change of setting.
6. Skip to a scene happening at the same time, but in a different location. Skip a line to indicate a change of setting.
7. Skip to a different protagonist or the perspective of a new character. Skip a line to indicate a change of POV.
8. Press forward: If you need more time to research details and don't want to stop to look up a fact or information, indicate what you need to look up by BOLDING or CAPITALIZING a note to yourself. You can also insert NOTES using your word processor feature under the insert menu.
9. Skip to the next major plot point. If you know where the story is going, but don't know yet how to get there, skip a line and write the next scene.
10. Go back to brainstorming. Use your journal to try out some new things. If you don't know (or are stuck on):

• Your characters: write a character sketch, draw a picture of your character, or develop your character's background history
• Your setting: draw your setting, find a picture of an appropriate setting on the internet, describe your setting using imagery--what sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and sights would one experience in the setting
• Your plot: list possible challenges or problems that a character might face in a similar situation or setting. Decisions characters make (or don't make) often create conflict. Create a mind map or use a graphic organizer to focus on plot elements.
• Your theme: create a premise for your story. What do you want to communicate about the human condition? What lesson or experience are you trying to relate?

HOMEWORK:  Please read the article handout: "Beginning & Developing & Scene." Answer the questions for Thursday. If you are far behind writing your short story, continue working on it on your own time.

Post a forum response on the Horror/Suspense collection by Thursday (end of day: 11:59).

Coffeehouse: Nov. 3

Our first coffeehouse is Nov. 3. Students who attend and read will gain extra credit. This is not a required event, but we'd love to see you there! Coffee and refreshments will be served! Bring your family and (of course) your writing!

Beginning a Story: Ways to Start a Story

Please read this blog entry and take appropriate notes concerning the advice found here. You will be expected to know this material for our quiz next class.

A beginning promises more to come. It should hook our attention, allow us entrance into the world of the story. Beginnings need to be full of potential for the characters (and the reader). Some simple ways writers do this is the following (taken from The Fiction Writer's Workshop by Josip Novakovich)

Setting: setting sets the stage and raises our expectations, introduces us to location, time, and supports character, tone, mood and POV.

On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half-way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people.

Ideas: While this can sometimes be dry or essay-like, it can also characterize a speaker, a place, an important motif or tone of a story.

“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them…”

Imagistic or Strong Sensations: Imagery invites your reader to experience your narrative, giving you a good start. It also helps establish setting, usually.

1956. The air-conditioned darkness of the Avenue Theater smells of flowery pomade, sugary chocolates, cigarette smoke, and sweat.

A Need or Motive: Need is essential for all major characters. It is usually what drives the
conflict and characterization, also the plot in a story. Starting off with a motive or need is
the fastest way to learn what characters want.

On his way to the station William remembered with a fresh pang of disappointment that he was taking nothing down to the kiddies. Their first words always were as they ran to greet him, “What have you got for me, daddy?” and he had nothing.

Action: Action catches our attention.

The pass was high and wide and he jumped for it, feeling it slap flatly against his hands, as he shook his hips to throw off the halfback who was diving at him.

Scene: Usually in one sentence, combines action, setting, and character.

Card-playing was going on in the quarters of Narumov, an officer in the Guards.

Symbolic Object: Describe an object that has significance to your story, characters, plot. Usually a reader will recognize the importance of an object if mentioned in the first paragraph of a story.

An antique sleigh stood in the yard, snow after snow banked up against its eroded runners.

Sex: Sex sells. It also gets our attention.

After I became a prostitute, I had to deal with penises of every imaginable shape and size.

Character portrait: Introduces a reader to your protagonist or an important character.

The girl’s scalp looked as though it had been singed by fire—strands of thatchy red hair snaked away from her face, then settled against her skin, pasted there by sweat and sunscreen and the blown grit and dust of travel.

Character’s Thoughts: Like a portrait, this one’s internal.

If I am out of my mind, it’s all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.

Question: A direct way to motivate the reader, who often wants to know the answer to a posed question.

“Well, Peter, any sign of them yet?”

Prediction: Creating an ominous tone, a prediction foreshadows or hints at the ultimate ending of a story.

Neither of the Grimes sisters would have a happy life, and looking back it always seemed that the trouble began with their parents’ divorce.

Anecdote: an anecdote (a short story) can introduce an important idea or theme, create a symbol, or set a particular tone.

The village of Ukleyevo lay in the ravine, so that only the belfry and the chimneys of the cotton mills could be seen from the highway and the railroad station. When passers-by would ask what village it was, they were told: “that’s the one where the sexton ate up all the caviar at the funeral.”

Lab Activity: look through a collection of short stories (for example the one we are reading) and note how the author opens his/her story. What technique is the author using. Post your response to the forum by the end of this class.

Activity: Continue writing your story. If you haven't started yet, choose one of the beginnings and use it to start a story.

HOMEWORK: Read any of the horror writers in the compilation and post your response to the story or the author's style on the forum. You must do at least one forum post for this book. Finish reading various stories on your own time. Forum post due by end of next week (Thursday, Nov. 3)

Short Story Project #1

Let's complete our genre presentations, then go next door to write.

Lab Work: Fiction baseline. Brainstorming. Use any of the following prompts to start a story:

A. Start immediately with a scene. Write the opening page of a story in which a party or special event is in progress.
B. Start with an intriguing problem. Start a story with a question or decision that must be made now.
C. Start a story with a crisis. Start a story where the protagonist recognizes a serious illness or disease or health problem.
D. Start with something unusual or odd. Start a story where a protagonist witnesses a strange or unnatural event.
E. Start a story with an emotional event. Start a story where the protagonist suffers public humiliation or embarrassment.

Your story can be any genre. You should specifically choose a genre (one we learned about during the presentations) and recall what readers expect from a story in this genre. Knowing this before writing will help you write the story.

HOMEWORK: Read one of the stories in the collection and post a response to the forum. You may do this as often as you'd like for extra credit. Please complete at least ONE post by Nov. 1.

Read the article: "Breaking Ground" and take notes in your journal/notebook on key concepts for next class.

Fiction Beginnings & Genre

Reading: "Interim" by Ray Bradbury and "The Stupid Joke" by Edward Gorey.

The Gastlycrumb Tinies

Genre & Beginnings

At our level writing is a great way to express yourself. But make no mistake. Writing is a business.
Readers often select books similar to previous enjoyment. If a reader enjoyed a fantasy, the reader is most likely to continue reading fantasy, for example. Last year we covered the three typical types of readers (remember that most people combine these to various degrees):

• Fantasists: readers who read to escape the tediousness of ordinary life, seeking new frontiers and imaginative fiction
• Realists: readers who read about contemporary life to learn about or reinforce personal experiences
• Pragmatists: readers who read for a specific purpose--from cooking to learning history or science

Readers also become loyal to writers so that once you read Stephen King, for example, you might devour as much of his work to make you sick of his style before tearing into another author's work. Publishers count on this to occur.

In today's writing market there are a variety of genres that writers tend to write. Knowing what readers expect from these genres will help you as a writer give your audience what it wants. So let's learn about them!

Please sign up for a genre group. You will read about this genre, take notes, and present what information you can to the class.

When (and if) we return to the lab, please begin a beginning for your first fiction draft:

Lab Work: Fiction baseline. Brainstorming. Use any of the following prompts to start a story:

A. Start immediately with a scene. Write the opening page of a story in which a party is in progress.
B. Start with an intriguing problem. Start a story with a question or decision that must be made now.
C. Start a story with a crisis. Start a story where the protagonist recognizes a serious illness or disease or health problem.
D. Start with something unusual or odd. Start a story where a protagonist witnesses a strange or unnatural event.
E. Start a story with an emotional event. Start a story where the protagonist suffers public humiliation or embarrassment.

HOMEWORK: Read any of the stories in the collection that include: Ambrose Bierce, Crawford, Blackwood, Bradbury, Bloch, Campbell, Collier, Dahl, Hartley. (Do not read Churchill or Gorey...we'll read them in class). Do not read past authors with last names after "G"--and post at least one forum response to the story on our classroom forum.

Read the article: "Breaking Ground" and take notes in your journal/notebook on key concepts.

Fiction (more Poetry) and Contests

Okay, not the end of poetry just yet. We have been asked by the RPO to play around with poetry and music. The two often go together as you probably figured out by now.

During 7th period, please work on the project posted below this post. Begin playing around with ideas and a draft. I'll give anyone who completes a draft of this poem and turns it in, extra credit. I'll give MORE extra credit, if you are willing to work on a second or third draft of your poem. I'll give EVEN MORE EXTRA CREDIT to any poet whose poem is selected by the RPO.

There are a variety of other poetry and fiction contests coming up as well: SOKOL (deadline Jan. 27) and Hollins.

During 8th period, let's go next door to begin looking at some fiction stuff.

HOMEWORK: Keep workin' on the RPO poem and other poems you want to complete. Feel free to read Ambrose Bierce, F. Marion Crawford, Algernon Blackwood, and Ray Bradbury in the suspense/horror collection. Please refrain from reading the other authors at this moment. We'll get to them.

RPO Project

RPO Project and Contests

The next RPO project/contest is for the November concerts. These have a Spanish/Latin theme.

Please listen to the following recordings and think about creating poems inspired by the music. The winning poems will be read at the concerts, just like the postcards in September.

 

 Arild envisioned the poetry to flow off of Ravel's Bolero and/or the Gabriela Lena Frank Three Latin American Dances (Spanish/Latin elements).

Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins. The term is also used for some art music. In all its forms, the bolero has been popular for over a century.

 

Bolero

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-4J5j74VPw

WRITERS: step one: listen to Bolero. Close your eyes (I'll darken the room). Listen to the music and the rhythms. When you have finished listening, jot down images or memories that came to you when you listened to the piece. Make a list of images and memories you had. 

Then listen to the piece again. What strong image or idea forms in your mind? Focus on this topic or theme.

After listening (at least twice, although you can keep listening...which may become maddening) and brainstorming, select an image and write about it using imagery. Feel free to organize your poem into stanzas or keep a fluid rhythm going (cadence). See: all that learning is helpful for something...

 

Some facts and info: Bolero rhythm.

The bolero is a 3/4 dance that originated in Spain in the late 18th century, a combination of the contradanza and the sevillana. Dancer Sebastiano Carezo is credited with inventing the dance in 1780. It is danced by either a soloist or a couple. It is in a moderately slow tempo and is performed to music which is sung and accompanied by castanets and guitars with lyrics of five to seven syllables in each of four lines per verse. It is in triple time and usually has a triplet on the second beat of each bar. 

A triplet in poetry is either a three line stanza (tercet) or the anapest or dactyl. See LINE AND METER (post below).

 

What might a sample poem look like? Take a gander at this free-verse poem by Jane Clark:

Interpretation: Ravel's "Bolero"

Softly, slyly, flute and drum begin to weave their net Of notes; the slow seductive beat evokes the stomp of gypsy feet Inside some smoky dim cantina, where a woman's silhouette Is dancing with abandon to the pulsing, pounding the Of the flamenco or fandango...the bolero or beguine. It's unremitting rhythm, darkly sensual in tone, Restrains a fierce and frenzied spirit in it's own Measured meter...persistent and alone Beneath the sultry overtones Of the trumpets and trombones, Echoed closely by the throbbing of the strings In which the melody continuously, sinuously sings A refrain that is almost overcome By the passion and the power of the drum, Of the drum. Now, in the same obsessive cadence, and without accelerando, It mounts to it's finale in a thunderous crescendo With the crashing of the cymbals and the gong! And the hot, erotic beat of the drum, Of the drum, of the drum.

Bolero by Gerald Stern b. 1925 Gerald Stern

 

So one day when the azalea bush was firing

away and the Japanese maple was roaring I

came into the kitchen full of daylight and

turned on my son’s Sony sliding over the

lacquered floor in my stocking feet for it was

time to rattle the canisters and see what

sugar and barley have come to and how Bolero

sounds after all these years and if I’m loyal

still and when did I have a waist that thin?

And if my style was too nostalgic and where

were you when I was burning alive, nightingale?   

 

In "Bolero," for example, the rhythm of the dance is duplicated visually on the page, with one extremely long line followed by two short lines in an approximation of the "slow / quick-quick" of this very slow and sensuous dance. I wanted the reader to be stretched out to the limit of the page, and only then snapping back to the left margin--to reality? back to earth?--where he is allowed to take a breath (i.e., the stanza break) before returning to the fray. 

Bolero 
 
   Not the ratcheting crescendo of Ravel's bright winds 
   but an older, 
   crueler 
 
   passion: a woman with hips who knows when to move them, 
   who holds nothing back 
   but the hurt 
 
   she takes with her as she dips, grinds, then rises sweetly into 
   his arms again. 
   Not 
 
   delicate. Not tame. Bessie Smith in a dream of younger, 
   (Can't you see?) 
   slimmer 
 
   days. Restrained in the way a debutante is not, the way a bride 
   pretends she 
   understands. 
 
   How everything hurts! Each upsurge onto a throbbing toe, 
   the prolonged descent 
   to earth, 
 
   to him (what love …) 

Poetry's End & Awful Poetry

We are closing our poetry unit. If you failed or didn't learn those poetry terms from the test, please learn them. You will not be able to master writing if you don't know what kinds of tools a writer can use.

Today, during 7th period, please finish any poem drafts you've been working on. I'm not collecting these for grades--that ship has sailed, but you can give them to me to put in your portfolio. You will be revisiting all your poems next semester.

Feel free to continue writing poetry. You don't need my permission. Just write it. If a poem comes to you during a fiction assignment task, feel free to write the poem draft and put it in your portfolio. Want to write a thousand and three poems? Do it. We'll come back to any drafts you write between now and the next time we see poetry in workshop.

During 8th period, please go to room a238. Let's read some advice about awful poems. Then, let's read some awful poems for the fun of it.

HOMEWORK: None. You are free to write and complete any poetry drafts you'd like before we move on to fiction Thursday.

Poem Assignments: Portfolio

We have done a variety of poetry exercises and should have a variety of drafts in our portfolio by now. These include:

1. The Ordinary Things drafts (x5)
2. Sound Imagery draft
3. Gwendolyn Brooks draft (character or setting or cycle)
4. Imagery draft (lyric)
5. Closed form draft

And a variety of revisions--specifically the imagery revision, the sound revision, the diction/tone revision, and the line break revision. The lyric and narrative poems, along with Li-Young Lee optional poem are additional. If you did them, please make sure they were in your portfolio.

That's 9 required assignments and at least 3 optional ones. The optional ones took the place of missing required drafts.

Your portfolio this marking period is based on effort rather than skill. During the second semester your portfolios will be graded on skill and whether or not you are crafting your work and revising.

Some advice:

• Many students are spending far too much time either chatting and avoiding work (this includes surfing the internet) or getting stuck, unable to come up with an idea for a draft. Remember that the Enemies of the Artistic Process are looming everywhere. The only way to defeat them is to sit down and take your writing seriously by...writing.
• The time given to you in lab is to give you time and opportunity to write. If you find yourself unproductive during a class, it is your responsibility to complete the work at home or during a study hall or after school. This is not the place to complete your homework for other classes.
• The writing process works. You NEED to brainstorm when you get stuck. You need to finish a draft in a timely manner so that it can "bake" before we scramble it up again. Throw perfection out the window with the baby--it only comes after several failed drafts. Don't get frustrated if things don't flow. They will--but you might need more time and life experience.
• This marking period includes a lot more reading than we have been doing. I check your reading by giving you quizzes and reading your posts on the forum (apart from class discussions). I am not going to be chasing you about getting your work done on the forum. It is a requirement for this class.
• If you keep missing assignments or don't know what's going on, please make sure you read the blog. I can't stress this enough. Even when you're absent--check and read the blog! Write down deadlines and assignments. Keep track of your assignments. Your mother (or teacher) should not have to do this for you....

Quiz & Closed Form

Contemporary poets spend 9/10th of their time writing in free verse. They often have an informal tone, as if your best friend is speaking directly to you. This informality is fine, particularly if we want poetry for the masses (poetry for everyone to enjoy). But what happens when you want a little structure to your art?

Welcome to closed form! Some of these may be familiar to you, as you are generally introduced to them in elementary school. They are not elementary in the least, though--being rather difficult to master. They are very easy to screw up.

Samples of Verse (closed form):

The Stanza (break your ideas into parts, like paragraphs. There are many types:)

• Tercet (Terza Rima) – 3 line stanza (terza rima, rhyming aba)
• Quatrain – 4 line stanza (most common form of stanza)
• Quintain – 5 line stanza
• Sestet – 6 line stanza
• Chaucerian (used by Chaucer) – 7 line stanza, rhyming ababbcc
• Ottava Rima – 8 line stanza, rhyming abababcc
• Spenserian (used by Spenser)—8 iambic pentameter lines, followed by a hexameter line, rhyming ababbcbcc

Closed Form Verse: Verse can be lyric (20 lines or less usually), or narrative (more than 20 lines, etc.) They can even be both!:

• The Villanelle (Lyric, narrative) (5 tercets rhyming ABA, followed by 1 quatrain, ABAA)
• The Sestina (Lyric, narrative) (6 sestets & a tercet)
• The Pantoum (Lyric, narrative) (unspecified # of quatrains (ABAB), beginning and ending with same line)
• The Sonnet (Lyric, dramatic) 14 iambic pentameter lines (3 quatrains and a couplet)
• Petrarchan (abba abba cde cde (or cd cd cd))
• Shakespearean (abab cdcd efef gg)
• Spencerian (abab bcbc cdcd ee)
• The Ballad (Narrative) Quatrain stanzas, rhyming ABAB or ABCB
• The Heroic Couplet (Epic, narrative, dramatic) couplet in iambic pentameter or tetrameter
• Epistle (a “letter” in heroic verse)
• Epigram (an aphorism, usually written in couplets)
• Blank Verse (Epic, narrative, dramatic) unrhymed iambic lines
• Limerick (Narrative) 5 line poem, rhyming aabba – often sexual or ‘rude’ subject matter
• Haiku (Lyric) 3 line poem, fewer than 17 syllables; usually about nature
• Triolet (Lyric) Octave with 2 rhymes; first line repeated, second line repeated as eighth
• The Rondel (Lyric) 13 lines in 3 stanzas with 2 rhymes, first 2 lines form refrain at end of 2 & 3 stanza

 LAB: Try one, two, eight, sixteen, a million of these forms. Write at least one closed form poem.

Poetry Unit: Quiz

Friday, you will take the poetry unit quiz.

What should you know?

The Complete Writing Process: brainstorming/generating ideas, composing a first draft, editing, revision (drafting), publication.

1. How to begin a poem
2. Imagery: the five senses, simile, personification, metaphor, allusion, universal images or symbols.
3. Figurative language
4. Diction, tone, connotation, denotation
4. Elements of sound: onomatopoeia, assonance, consonance, alliteration, euphony, cacophony, liquids, mutes, vowels, consonants
5. Line: length (short vs. long), metrical lines (particularly pentameter, tetrameter, and alexandrine.) Iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee, caesura, enjambment, stanza
6. Meter & prosody
7. Open form; Closed form
8. Lyric, narrative, free verse 

Line & Meter

Metrical Feet:

Two classifications of poetry: open forms; closed forms.

A closed form (traditional poetry), cadence groups form a pattern.
An open form (free verse, mainly), cadence groups do not form a set pattern.
Poetry in open forms tends to stress meaning over versification.

Syllables: individual units of rhythm in a word or line.
Stress: this class. Also, the emphasis placed on a syllable in a word.
Unstressed: lighter stress, not so heavy as the stress above.

Metrical feet:

1-foot = monometer
2-foot = dimeter
3-foot = trimeter
4-foot = tetrameter
5-foot = pentameter (the meter used in sonnets and blank verse lines; very common)
6-foot = hexameter
7-foot = heptameter
8-foot = octameter
9-foot = nonameter
10-foot = decameter

2 Syllable Feet:

Iambic: stress is on the second of two syllable words: ex. reTURN, beCAUSE, atTACK, etc.

Trochee: reverse of the Iambic, stress is on the first of two syllables: MOTHer, SISter, BORing.

Spondee: Both syllables are stressed.

3 Syllable Feet:

Anapest: stress is on the last syllable of a three syllabled word. Ex. Chevro-LET, rockandROLL

Dactyl: stress on first syllable followed by two non stressed. Ex. BU-da-pest, FOR-tu-nate

Other lovely poetic terms you need to know concerning rhythm & line:

Caesura: (plural: caesurae) a pause separating cadence groups (however brief) within a line. If the pause is a result of the end of a line pause, then this is end-stopping.

Enjambement (enjambment): If a line has no punctuation at the end and runs over to the next line, it is called run-on or better yet, enjambement (enjambment).

Sound and Rhythm Elements in Poetry

Prosody is the study of sound and word choice in poetry.

Poems originally emerged from songs and music. Lyric poetry, for example, started as a "poem" spoken with the beautiful plucking of a 3-stringed harp called a lyre.
We hear poetry sung or spoken daily when we listen to the radio or to our favorite band.
Poems often have a distinct rhythm or pattern to their rhythm.
The rhythm of poetry includes: beat, meter, scansion

Rhythm (also called beat, metrics, versification, etc.) is the comparative speed and loudness in the flow of words spoken in poetic lines.

Words in poetry are selected, not just for content, but also sound or “musicality” of a line.
Placement in a line is also important.

Large units of words make up sentences and paragraph in prose; smaller units make up phrases or cadence groups. In poetry this is metrical feet.

Words are not read in isolation, but in small groups (cadence groups). Think about how cadence groups work in your own poetry.

Ex. When lilacs last// in the dooryard bloom’d
And the great star// early droop’d
In the western sky// in the night.

Lines

A quick and easy guide to line breaks

• The longer the line, the slower the action or the movement of the poem. 
• Use longer lines when you want the reader to slow down or the speaker in the poem is taking time to breathe.
• Longer lines can also indicate ranting
• The shorter the line, the faster the action or movement of the poem.
• Use shorter lines when you want the reader to speed up or the speaker in the poem is in a hurry or excited.
• Shorter lines can also indicate a simple mindset or persona.
• Combine line lengths to speed up or slow down. When combined, the shorter lines become heavier and weighty with meaning. You are putting emphasis on the shorter lines because they stand out on the page from the longer ones.
• This works the same way in reverse. A longer line will have emphasis in the midst of a lot of shorter lines.

LINE BREAKS and SPACE

The ends of your lines will emphasize the last word in the line of poetry.
Usually, the last word in a line is a noun. (Most lines end with nouns.)
Poetry without punctuation usually has nouns as end words in their lines so as not to confuse readers. (Most readers stop at the end of a line.)

In poetry that HAS punctuation, make sure you read to the period--do not pause at the end of a line or you will be confused.

Lines can also often end in a verb.
(lines ending in verbs stress the action happening in the poem)
Or an important word that the poet wants to stress

Space, in general, is used to show ‘emptiness’, scattered thoughts, parenthesis, and pausing.

Activity: Choose 1 or more poems that you have written the first draft of, rearrange the lines in a drastic way.
(If they were all together in one stanza, break them apart. If they were long lines, keep them short. If they were short--long....etc. Use spacing to show disjointedness or separation, etc.

Overall, play.

HOMEWORK: Please read the article "The Line" for Friday. 

Imagery Exercises & Revision

Imagery depends on memory and imagination. Try to recall images and sensory details that go with them.

Try these to write more poems:

1. Write a poem rich with imagery
2. Revise one of your already written poems using the techniques you have learned about imagery.

LAB: write poetry, complete forum posts, rewrite poems using sound, imagery, and diction. Read poetry.

Imagery Rich Poetry Examples

A bunch of Robert Frost poems. Check out this web page for examples.
Imagery is usually broken down into the five senses, but can also include temperature and the sense of pain. Here's a web page that you might find helpful. Check it out!

But today, some examples:
Elizabeth Bishop's narrative poem In the Waiting Room.

Here are some others:

My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke  

	MY PAPA'S WALTZ
 
 	The whiskey on your breath
 	Could make a small boy dizzy;
 	But I hung on like death:
 	Such waltzing was not easy.
 
 	We romped until the pans
 	Slid from the kitchen shelf;
 	My mother's countenance
 	Could not unfrown itself.
 
 	The hand that held my wrist
 	Was battered on one knuckle;
 	At every step you missed
 	My right ear scraped a buckle.
 	
 	You beat time on my head
 	With a palm caked hard by dirt,
 	Then waltzed me off to bed	
 	Still clinging to your shirt.

From: The Eve of Saint Agnes by John Keats 

I.   ST. AGNES’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told	5
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.

Preludes by T.S. Eliot

I THE WINTER evening settles down

With smell of steaks in passageways.

Six o’clock.

The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

And now a gusty shower wraps

5

The grimy scraps

Of withered leaves about your feet

And newspapers from vacant lots;

The showers beat

On broken blinds and chimney-pots,

10

And at the corner of the street

A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps.

II The morning comes to consciousness

Of faint stale smells of beer

15

From the sawdust-trampled street

With all its muddy feet that press

To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades

That time resumes,

20

One thinks of all the hands

That are raising dingy shades

In a thousand furnished rooms.

Imagery & Metaphor

Imagery comes in a few flavors: figurative language, metaphor, simile, personification, allusion, and then sound techniques (alliteration, assonance, consonance, cacophony, euphony, onomatopoeia, rhyme). These techniques help create sound and sight in a poem (two of our most important senses). Using diction, a poet can also recall senses of smell, touch, and taste, but these are harder to do. Here's an example:  

Root Cellar by Theodore Roethke

Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.

The reason poets rely so heavily on metaphor and simile as the common currency of poetry is that it relates to imagery. Metaphor and simile say with pictures and specific objects what abstract nouns cannot. They help clarify, focus, and bring an image to the foreground of a poem. This is necessary to communicate an idea.

"Metaphors set up precise identities between two halves of a comparison" - Ted Kooser

However, we don't want our comparisons to be either A). too obscure and difficult to understand or B). too obvious (bordering on cliche).

Its a fine strand of web the poet scuttles across to anchor two dissimilar points of space. When working with metaphor and figurative language in your own poems consider the relationship between the subject and the object (or setting, event, etc.) The most beautiful metaphors/similes are subtle ones that are both fresh and new, while also being familiar.

Pick words (particularly verbs and adjectives) that correspond to the main metaphor/simile working in your poem. This helps to create tone as well as picture the subject in an effective way. Try to extend your metaphors through at least a stanza, if not the entire poem.

Example:
Martin Walls' poem "Snail" is about a snail. There are a series of "snail-appropriate words found in the poem"

Snail
It is a flattened shell the color of spoiled milk, a bold
Swirl slowly stirred that charts the age of what's
Curled inside with the tension of a watch spring. A creature
That embodies the history of metaphysics: first it exists,
Then it doesn't, then it emerges once again, unrolls
One, then another, eyestalk, like periscopes breaking
The surface of its wet-life. And here's the tongue body
The petal-body, molding its shape to the world's shape.

The snail is compared to: spoiled milk, a horoscope, a watch spring, periscope, flowers, tongue, and the world. By writing about a snail, we consider it in its proper function as a comparison/contrast to other life, particularly ours. If a snail has purpose, then so do we.

Spoiled milk gives us a negative image, but the words bold, stirred, and curled (curdled) all seem appropriate word choices for the comparison. The snail furthermore encompasses the world in an orderly way. It is both a watch spring (human made and intelligently designed) indicating the spiral shape of a snail shell, but also a tongue (natural object) that goes along with wet and unrolls.

All in all there are snail words: eyestalk, swirl (the shell), shell, slow.
It moves slowly, and the pace of the poem is also slow: words like slowly, emerge, unrolls, molds (also connected to the smell in the first line as a double meaning), recall the movement of a snail, leaving a wet slime trail behind it. This disgusting invertebrate is compared to the function of the world--giving this little animal a metaphysical meaning that compares its life with ours.

Note that this is a small poem. It doesn't function as a grandiose political idea or earth-shattering observation. It compares (metaphor/simile) us and our human made world to its natural world linking us with nature, reminding us of our own value and worth. Sometimes that's all that's needed.

Filling Up Our Portfolios & Imagery

After our poetry exercises today, please continue to write the next poem for your portfolio. You may put any other drafts of the poetry exercises in your portfolio as well.

Gwendolyn Brooks assignment:

Poem option #1: Write a poem about your neighborhood or family or a fictional neighborhood or family. Don't like neighborhoods...? pick a theme and there you go...

Poem option #2: Write a poem centered around a specific character or person. Real or imaginary. Write. Create a draft. Complete the draft. Call it draft #1.

Poem option #3: Repeat the process (writing option #1 & #2) as often as you'd like. Try to link your series of poems dealing with one place or character in a poetry cycle.

HOMEWORK: Please read Mary Oliver's advice (handout) on Imagery. Complete the 10 questions to hand in on Friday, Oct. 7.

Advice on Beginnings & Brooks' A Street in Bronzeville

Period 7: Please continue writing your sound poem (late), or your Revision exercise: take one of your previously written poems and write a SECOND draft using sound devices and/or diction to create tone. See previous post for help.

 A note about beginnings:

Beginnings can be daunting for a writer. There's that blank page and a whole lot of potential. Just like a baby, your writing (story, play, poem, etc.) needs encouragement; it needs nourishment in the form of lots of specific words, character development, description, and ideas that help it grow. If you don't spend time with your baby, it'll never grow to be the "adult" piece. It will grow up needing therapy, and never get a job (i.e., published), sitting in your bedroom drawer or computer folder until its in its thirties. Not a good start.

Sometimes the first few lines or pages of a longer work is really just the scaffolding that holds up the idea. The REAL beginning might happen in another draft.

Don't worry: once you work with a piece, you'll ultimately find the right opening. In any case, an opening for a poem or story is a reader's "entrance" into the piece. Just like your home, you don't want your front hallway or foyer to be cluttered with furniture and junk that guests have to risk breaking their neck over. It should be an inviting space, promising lovely new sights and people to meet who dwell inside.

Enough with that metaphor.

The most important thing to remember is that writing is a process. It is a promise you are making with your reader. An opening should hook or grab a reader's attention. Poetry and fiction and scripts alike.

Today's class:

After reading this advice, please get into groups of 1 or 2. Together (or alone) read Gwendolyn Brooks' poem cycle A Street in Bronzeville. Gwendolyn Brooks was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet and is known throughout the world for her poetry. She knows what she's doing, so she's a good role model for us as young poets.

Please read the poem: A Street in Bronzeville. OMG! This poem is made up of eleven poems! Taken together it is what we in poetry circles call A POEM CYCLE. The poetry cycle form has been around since the Ancient Greeks. The poems in a poetry cycle are thematically linked. In some cases, dealing with the same characters or personas. In this case, a neighborhood (a street in Bronzeville!) Remember to always read and consider titles. There's nothing tricky about a title.

Brooks based this poem on her own experiences and those of her family. Here's a little help with references and lines:

The Madam: Beauty schools or colleges were run by women. It was one of the standard occupations for women in America before 1980. The others were secretary, teacher, nurse, and housewife. Not a broad (forgive the pun) occupational list. Madam, by the way, also is a term used for a woman who runs a brothel.

Hunchback girl: bad posture indicated bad behavior. One's carriage, especially for young women, should be proper, straight (yes, there's another meaning there for Gwen), and appropriate. All things in their place.

Charity children: the poor. Bad woman: a 'ho. A tramp. A...you get the idea. Makeup or "paint" was used by women who wanted to attract men for some reason.

Hosanna is a prayer, a praise to God.

Lincoln: Gwendolyn Brooks was from Chicago. The community of Lincoln Park includes Lincoln Cemetary (and Lincoln Park Zoo). The cemetery is on Blue Island. It was a "black only" cemetery in Chicago.

After you read these with your partner and discuss the poem, please post a response to the cycle on the forum. If you haven't yet posted a response to the Sound/Diction poems from last blog post entry (see below), please do that now.

Lab Writing/Homework:

Poem option #1: Write a poem about your neighborhood or family or a fictional neighborhood or family.

Poem option #2: Write a poem centered around a specific character or person. Real or imaginary. Write. Create a draft. Complete the draft. Call it draft #1.

Poem option #3: Repeat the process (writing option #1 & #2) as often as you'd like. Try to link your series of poems revolving around one place or character in a poetry cycle.

Sound Poems & Revision Exercise

Sound Poem Assignment: See previous post for directions. Write a poem using sound imagery. Due at end of class. This is your primary assignment today. Do not waste time. Compose a draft. Call it "sound" poem or "sound imagery" poem.

When you are done, please continue with the assignments on this blog.

Li-Young Lee reading "This Room and Everything in It"
Optional poem draft: Observe a specific room. This one. The unused room in your house. The kitchen. The garage. The lobby of a bank. Then describe the room and "everything in it." Use Li-Young Lee as a model.

LAB ASSIGNMENT: 
Sound: (please listen/read) these poems and then comment about the collection on the forum.

Gerald Manly Hopkins: "Pied Beauty"
"The Leaden Echo & The Golden Echo"
"The Windover"
"Spring and Fall to a Young Child"

Emily Dickenson:
Hope is a Thing with Feathers
I Heard a Fly Buzz
I'm Nobody (silent, no sound, but please read the poem)

Wallace Stevens
The Idea of Order at Key West
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
The Snow Man

Taylor Mali: Like, You Know 
The The Impotence of Proofreading

Amiri Baraka: Why is We Americans

LAB WRITING: Revision exercise. Choose one of your previous poems. Deliberately change the SPEAKER or VOICE. Add a specific TONE, and clarify your DICTION. Rewrite the poem with this new diction, voice, and tone.

Some examples/suggestions:

• age your speaker about 30 or 50 years.
• change the gender or cultural heritage of your speaker
• increase or decrease your speaker's IQ by several points
• make your speaker in love with the subject of the poem
• make your speaker fear or dislike the subject of the poem
• Use one of the tones mentioned above
• Use understatement, euphemism, or any other rhetorical strategy dealing with diction
• Change the career or occupation of the speaker. If your speaker, for example, was a student--make them a doctor or a lawyer or a disc jockey or a horse jockey.

THEN: write it a third time with yet another voice, tone, and diction. Call these drafts "voice/diction/tone" exercises. If you rewrite a poem, change its draft # to the next #. Thus, rewriting draft #1 will now be labeled draft #2. Keep track of your draft #'s.

This assignment will be due next class.

HOMEWORK: Post a forum response to the poems above by next class. Complete your Sound Imagery poem draft.

Journaling; Diction, Voice, and Tone

Last class you should have completed your five drafts of poems. You may have moved on to view and listen to the poems I linked to regarding sound. Various students didn't get a chance to BRAINSTORM and play with these sound devices. Today, take 10-15 minutes and write in your journal. You may choose to work with one partner if you'd like. Try as many of these as time allows.

• Choose a letter from the alphabet. List associated words that begin with this letter. Don't try to make sense, but trust your instincts. Rearrange the list into a tongue twister. Write as many tongue twisters in your journal as you need to. Share your tongue twister with a friend.
• Choose a letter from the alphabet. List associated words that do NOT begin with this letter, but that the letter is present in the body of the word. Ex. little, brittle, shuttle all have "tt" in the word, creating consonance. Write a tongue twister by combining consonance, assonance AND alliteration.
• Make a list of rhyming words. Write a song or sappy greeting card poem with the words.
• With a partner try the following to create new words: WRITER ONE starts by whispering or saying the prefix or first part of a word. WRITER TWO finishes the word by naming the root or suffix of the proposed sound. Ex. Writer One: Shh; Writer Two: Uut. The word together: shut. Record a few of these in your notebook/journal.
• Make two columns in your journal. In one column list common nouns or adjectives: ex. house, rock, green. On the next column, write a different word that means the same thing: ex. hut, stone, beryl. Note how the different word has a different sound and therefore feeling to it.
• The _____ goes: (insert sound here). We all know a cat goes meow, but what does a pine tree sound like? How about a fence? or a goldfish? Being poetic, play around with the sound of inanimate objects and animals that are not traditionally found on a speak-n-spell. Ex. The rollerskate goes shkurrrr. Make a list of these onomatopoeia.

LAB WRITING: Sound Imagery poem

• Please compose a DRAFT of a poem, paying close attention to using sound techniques. When you complete the draft, label it as "sound imagery" poem draft #1, then turn it in to my "in-box". You should finish this draft today in class. Chop-chop.

 See previous posts for details and models.

When the bell rings, gather in room 238 to read an article you would have had to read for homework. Then when we return, continue your work, but with this new information in mind.

SOME KEY POETIC TERMS YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Diction: word choice. Select words in your poem carefully to carry the most meaning. All words have a denotative meaning and a connotative meaning. Understatement, euphemism, and other rhetorical strategies may be used to affect a poem's diction. Speaking to your elderly grandparents uses a different diction than speaking to your "homies".

Voice: The agent or "speaker" speaking through the poem. Also called the "persona".

Tone: Often the attitude of your speaker or the voice. Identified in a poem by diction.

• Tone can be formal or informal depending on the diction a poet uses.
• Tone can be ironic, sarcastic, serious, pedantic, or hyperbolic depending on the voice a poet selects.
• Tone can be positive or negative or neutral. Selecting one of these tones can or should affect your diction.

LAB WRITING: Revision exercise. Choose one of your previous poems. Deliberately change the SPEAKER or VOICE. Add a specific TONE, and clarify your DICTION. Rewrite the poem with this new diction, voice, and tone.

Some examples/suggestions:

• age your speaker about 30 or 50 years.
• change the gender or cultural heritage of your speaker
• increase or decrease your speaker's IQ by several points
• make your speaker in love with the subject of the poem
• make your speaker fear or dislike the subject of the poem
• Use one of the tones mentioned above
• Use understatement, euphemism, or any other rhetorical strategy dealing with diction
• Change the career or occupation of the speaker. If your speaker, for example, was a student--make them a doctor or a lawyer or a disc jockey or a horse jockey.

THEN: write it a third time with yet another voice, tone, and diction. Call these drafts "voice/diction/tone" exercises. If you rewrite a poem, change its draft # to the next #. Thus, rewriting draft #1 will now be labeled draft #2. Keep track of your draft #'s.

Poetic Techniques for Sound Imagery

If you haven't done so already, please read Mary Oliver's explanation of key sound devices: alliteration, assonance, consonance, & onomatopoeia. This can be found in the article we read in class on Thursday. Make sure you learn and know these techniques by heart!

After reading Mary Oliver's discussion about SOUND, please look at the following links (you may use your headphones). For each, try to notice sound imagery, rhythm and cadence. On your index card, please identify some of the sound devices you noticed working in these poems. Turn in your index card for participation credit at the end of class today.

Poems to listen to:

• Wallace Stevens: The Emperor of Ice Cream
• Mary Oliver: The Summer Day
• Mary Oliver: Wild Geese
• Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee
• Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven

For those of you who have completed this part of the assignment, please move on to the information below. Please make sure you read and take notes about CADENCE GROUPS and SOUND techniques detailed in the post below this one. You will be expected to know these terms and this vocabulary. We will have a test on these sound techniques and rhythm terms from "The Line" chapter on Wednesday.

Writing activity: Compose another first draft of a new poem where you use specific sound devices. Call this draft one. The assignment is SOUND.

Having trouble getting started? Try one of these brainstorms in your journal.

• Choose a letter from the alphabet. List associated words that begin with this letter. Don't try to make sense, but trust your instincts. Rearrange the list into a tongue twister. Write as many tongue twisters in your journal as you need to. Share your tongue twister with a friend.
• Choose a letter from the alphabet. List associated words that do NOT begin with this letter, but that the letter is present in the body of the word. Ex. little, brittle, shuttle all have "tt" in the word, creating consonance. Write a tongue twister by combining consonance, assonance AND alliteration.
• Make a list of rhyming words. Write a song or sappy greeting card poem with the words.
• With a partner try the following to create new words: WRITER ONE starts by whispering or saying the prefix or first part of a word. WRITER TWO finishes the word by naming the root or suffix of the proposed sound. Ex. Writer One: Shh; Writer Two: Uut. The word together: shut. Record a few of these in your notebook/journal.
• Make two columns in your journal. In one column list common nouns or adjectives: ex. house, rock, green. On the next column, write a different word that means the same thing: ex. hut, stone, beryl. Note how the different word has a different sound and therefore feeling to it.
• The _____ goes: (insert sound here). We all know a cat goes meow, but what does a pine tree sound like? How about a fence? or a goldfish? Being poetic, play around with the sound of inanimate objects and animals that are not traditionally found on a speak-n-spell. Ex. The rollerskate goes shkurrrr. Make a list of these onomatopoeia. 

Once you have brainstormed a bit, select a topic or subject. Write about this subject using poetic sound devices. You may find it easier to write what you want to say first, then replace words on purpose to create alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, onomatopoeia, etc. Good luck!

Turn in your draft by the end of class if finished.

More sound poems (these by Dr. Seuss...have fun):

• Tweedle Beetle Battle by Dr. Seuss
• Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss
• Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss
• Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You by Dr. Seuss
• And because it's good for you: the Lorax (part one) and part two.

And some adult poetry:

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Now you know all about onomatopoeia, assonance, consonance, alliteration, and rhyme (usually referred to as end rhyme). But there is also slant rhyme (near rhyme), internal rhyme, meter, rhythm, repetition, and caesura that creates sound imagery in a poem. Related to this are the literary terms: tone, voice, syntax, depitation, euphemism, understatement, sarcasm, and diction. We will discuss these less obvious techniques next class.

Sound in Poetry, part one

Robert Frost: The Sound of Trees
Robert Frost: Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost: Acquainted with the Night
Edgar Allan Poe: The Bells

Today, we are going to cover sound and rhythm in poetry. There's a lot here and many terms and literary devices you will need to know. I'd suggest you pay attention and take notes. Expect to be tested on key terms soon.

After reading Mary Oliver's discussion about SOUND, please look at the following links (you may use your headphones). For each, try to notice sound imagery, rhythm and cadence. If you don't get to this today, please complete Friday.

Please try to complete your five Ordinary Things drafts today in class. Print out your drafts when you are done with them and turn them into the "in box" by my desk.

Other poems to listen to:
Wallace Stevens: The Emperor of Ice Cream
Mary Oliver: The Summer Day
Mary Oliver: Wild Geese
Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven

Completely done? What's the next assignment? Try writing a poem using a variety of sound techniques. Theme, structure, length, and subject is all up to you.