Chapbook & Revision

Today, please submit your play script to the Geva Playwriting Contest, if you'd like. Information for submitting is found below:

Send your 10-minute play script to Geva. The address is as follows:

youngwriters@gevatheatre.org

You should have a TITLE PAGE with your name, address, phone #, school name, grade, and email address in the lower left or right hand corner. On your title page, please include your cast requirements (characters, and a short 1-sentence description of the character, if possible). If your play is selected, you are expected to attend a rehearsal on Saturday, May 4.

LAB: Use your time in the lab today to revise, rewrite, and improve or craft your poems. You will be asked to select between 10-20 poems of your original work for the chapbook. The chapbook will be graded based on QUALITY. That is, your grade will be determined by the effectiveness of your imagery, poetic devices, theme, creativity, and general error-free grammar and readability.

Please read about "creating a poetry chapbook." The following guidelines may help you as well:

• Use the program PAGES to prepare your booklet. This will be made clear as to why soon. 
• If you want your chapbook to be available as a book online, please use the program Pandamian or Wattpad (more about this option will be forthcoming).
• Your poetry chapbook (by the end of the project) will also be available for epub readers and PDF files. This will allow you to share your book online and among your friends, family members, etc. who have access to an E-Reader device.
• Each poem should stay on its own page (don't double-up), except for haiku, which you can put 3-4 on a page, if you'd like (or have that many). 

Follow these steps carefully to create your "shell" or galley.

1. Decide how many of your poems and which ones you will select for your chapbook.
2. Decide upon a title for your chapbook.
3. Decide how you're going to arrange your chapbook: one author after another, or interspersed work based on style or theme or type of poem project, etc.
4. Once you're completed this step, follow the harder steps below:

5. Create a document in your word processing program. I suggest using PAGES for the text box option. It will make your life a little easier when formatting.
6. For our purposes, setting up the booklet in portrait (the default) will be easier and read better in the online program we will be using. In portrait orientation, set up your margins as 1" all around, or 1.5" all around. (If you want a challenge, set up your chapbook with the page orientation set to landscape (8 1/2 by 11) and all the margins at one-half inch. Divide each page into 2 columns and set the gutter (the space between the columns) to one inch. (When you fold the page, this will leave a one-half-inch margin on each page.))

 7. Add page numbers to each side of the pages. Depending on the program, you may find it easiest to use the header or text box function so that the page numbers do not interfere with the flow of the poems. In PAGES this can be found on the INSERT drop down menu.
8. Your first page will be your cover with the name of the title and your author names (usually a graphic or picture will also be allowed...); HINT: you may find an original photo (for example from your Journalism project) might be a good idea. A graphic taken from the internet must be paid for, unless it is in the public domain.
9. The cover is usually followed by a copyright page, then the title page, similar to the cover, but this one without a graphic. After the title page, please add a table of contents. In PAGES, you can do this automatically from the INSERT menu. You can create a place holder for page #'s, but record the poems you are going to include. Decide how you're going to organize the chapbook (one author, then another, then another, or all poets work organized thematically or stylistically. After the table of contents, insert a skipped page (leave it blank so that you start your first poem on an odd page.) You can do this easily in PAGES from the INSERT menu, the SECTION: blank.
10. Then add your poems. Each poem should have a title and the name of the author, unless you set up your book in PARTS with each part being clearly attributed to one of your authors. In PAGES, you can insert a TEXT page from the INSERT menu, SECTION: text; or create a text box in which to hold your text. Text boxes need to be stretched to fit properly.
11. When you've create a text from the section menu, you will have a bold header for the TITLE of your poem, followed by a smaller subbox for your author's name. The text of the poem should be added in normal 12 point font.
12. Continue to do this until all your poems are copied into your booklet.
13. If you need to share your booklet shell, each member of your workshop group should save their own files (without a title page, table of contents, or copyright page) and save the work on a jumpdrive or flashdrive. Then choose one person to be the editor and upload or copy the files to that person's computer.
14. When you are done, PROOFREAD and correct any errors.
15. Print out your document as a proof and hand in to me to make copies for your group. Do not staple or fold these pages, please. 

Setting up your work as a PDF or EPub: information on how to do this will be forthcoming. Hang tight.

Chapbooks should be completely done and ready by Friday, March 15. If you are done earlier than that: fine.

HOMEWORK: Please read the handout poetry.