Seminar Handout

The basis for your seminar presentation on your ISU author will be a handout that you make ahead of time. You are advised to begin preparing your handout as soon as possible and show me your draft work so that I can help you revise. Once it has been finalized, doing your seminar presentation will be simply a matter of leading us through your handout. There's no need to be nervous--these are fun (and largely informal) presentations.

Your seminar handout should have a number of elements:

A brief biography of your writer. --> Please, just the highlights!

A thesis about what makes your writer's work distinctive and highly publishable. Choose 3 or 4 elements of your writer's writing that make it effective. Perhaps he or she is masterful in the use of imagery, plot construction or dialogue. Maybe characterisation is his or her forte. This is a great place to draw on the various literary terms you've acquired in your many years of study. Perhaps you're not sure which term is best to describe what it is you want to say--if so, come see me.

Proof(X3-4). For each term you've decided to use, quote a passage (or two) from the novel that demonstrates your author's use of the technique. You (or an eager classmate) will read these excerpts during your presentation.

Comment(X3-4). Connect the dots for us. Explain, how the excerpted passage demonstrates your claim. Expand, where appropriate.

A Journal Topic. Using some of my prompts as models, devise a journal topic that relates to your writer's style. Avoid generic and opinion based questions such as "Would you like to read a novel by this author?" Try for a topic that fits the content of your presentation. e.g. "Write a scene that begins with very little tension and gradually builds tension and ends with a 'cliffhanger'" to go along with a presentation on Stephen King's writing.

**Students will be offered a chance to use these journal topics to "make up" for previously missed journal assignments

Goals for the Week

I just want to put it in writing to make it "official." Isn't it funny how as a society we don't tend to put much faith in words unless they are in writing? What ever happened to a person's word being his or her bond? There must be a journal topic there somewhere.

Anyway, I will be looking for your Guided Style Analysis by the end of the week. I had also suggested that you should be trying for 2 pages/day of manuscript writing. Those of you who have maintained the pace will have very little EWC work over the holidays. Enjoy your well earned rest.

Students who are still trying to complete their 20 page sample chapter should do it over the holidays. We will be in Seminars from Tuesday, Jan. 5th until the Friday of the first week back. You will all be expected to be good citizens and be present for your peers' seminars, just as you will want them to be present and alert during your seminar.

Questions?

Such Drama!

Hi Everyone,

I'm at a workshop this afternoon. It's suppose to teach me how to use acting in the classroom. I thought it might enable me to teach some people in my per. 2 class how to act like students!

Anyway. I know you are working away. There are about 6 of you for whom I still have not received a novel outline. This should be your first priority.

Then, in 2 weeks minus a day I will be asking for your Guided Style Analysis (posted on an earlier blog).

Also, journals 13-16 are past due. I've been picking away at them this week and will continue to do so.

See you tomorrow,

CP

Matt B's Found Poem

is very clever. Take a look: http://mattbrockwell.blogspot.com/2009/11/found-poem-left-in-cold.html

I'm Skipping...

Not really, but I thought I'd get your attention.

Anyhow, I am at the resource centre this afternoon so you will all be on Independent Study. If you'd like to find a quiet place to curl up with your ISU novel, that would be just fine.

You can also use 52 to work on your Sample Chapter (If you haven't sent me an outline yet, do it today!)

See Steve Smith in room 52 for attendance reporting purposes.

Have a great weekend, but make sure you write write write...

CP

Journals 15 and 16

Journal 15 "Digital Education"

It was really impressive to see some EWC students helping Mr. MacDonald's law class get into the 'blogosphere.' I realized that as a group this semester's EWC students have some specialized skills that are likely to serve them well in various contexts (school, work, recreation).

How do you feel about blogging now that you have had an opportunity to develop a history with it over the past two and a half months? Do you feel that you are more or less organized and productive than you would be "the old fashioned way?" What are some of the advantages? What are some of the drawbacks? What advice might you give to students starting the course next semester about how to get the most out of their blogging experience?

Journal 16.

Sixteen is divisible by four...
Therefore
I'll say no more

Away Today--Blame Amy

Good Afternoon All,

I just found out late yesterday that my presence is required at the board office today in order to take a look at some new software that may support some of the online work I've been doing this semester.

How is it Amy's fault you ask? Well, since Amy's journals (and others too!) have been so well received, Stamford is getting some attention. We may be chosen to run another pilot project. That's why I was invited today.

Anyhow, I would like your novel outlines in by Friday. This will give me a chance to have some input into your sample chapter before you spend a whole bunch of time writing it. Let me know Thursday or Friday what issues you might be having.

See you tomorrow,

CP

Journals 13 and 14 - Close Up on "The Writer"

Journal 13 - Writing As A Lifestyle

I heard Philip Roth being interviewed yesterday. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and very successful writer now in his late 70's. Interestingly, when asked if he had his life to live over again whether he would choose to write again, he said he would not.

Writing, he explained, is a monumentally difficult task. It is a profession in which no one can help you. According to Roth, you have to reach deep inside yourself in order to pull out a novel and the beginning can be monumentally frustrating. He described the first six months of writing a novel as a matter of trying to assemble something substantial out of fragments. And when you are finished, he continued, you have to start over again with nothing. He also discussed the very solitary nature of the work. Writers spend a great deal of time alone. Many live in poverty before they get their start.

On the other hand there are many attractive dimensions to the job. Successful writers become very well known (Dan Brown once boarded a plane having left behind his driver's license when the man behind him in line was able to show the security guard Brown's author photo in The Da Vinci Code). They appear on television and the radio. They travel and set their own work schedules. They get to meet and socialise with other famous and influential people.

What do you think about the writer's lifestyle? How much of it appeals to you? Which aspects least appeal to you? Can you envision yourself doing the job? Describe how writing might either fit into your lifestyle or become your lifestyle in the future.

Journal 14 - Nurturing Your Inner Writer

To what extent are people born writers? How much are they able to cultivate the writer within through education and experience?

What activities and experiences can you engage in in order to develop your inner writer? What part of your past has best helped you become the writer you are now? How motivated are you to continue developing your writing ability over a lifetime?

Welcome Grade 8's

Hi All,

Thanks for your help with the Grade 8 Day Activity.

The instructions are posted here.

Question about the Found Poem

Cheyenne asked: "For this poem do we have to just use magazine advertising slogans and newspaper headlines or can we use things like song lyrics or quotes from books?"

Thanks, Cheyenne. I owe you another one.

Please DO NOT take lines from song lyrics or other poems. The reason for this is that those lines (assumably) are already very poetic. The trick of found poetry is finding language with poetic potential in unlikely places. Advertising is usually a good source.

Thanks for setting me straight BEFORE the whole class went off and "found" poems in the Complete Works of Shakespeare!

Your ISU Author

Hi Everyone,

This is the time when we choose an ISU Author. It is really really important that you choose someone you really enjoy. I have a number of suggestions if you are stuck. The only real parameters are that your author should be: 1) influential in his or her genre. 2) unchosen by anyone else in the course.

Historically, the seminars we do on the authors at the end of the course are a highlight for most of us since it allows us exposure to a number of different writers of whom we may never have even heard.

Please announce your selection by leaving a comment at the end of this post. I'll then transfer everyone's selections to a chart. Authors will be served up on a first come, first served basis.

CP

The November Calendar

Is HERE.

Writing Opportunity

Hi All,

I just wanted to pass along some information that I just received about an opportunity to do some dramatic writing.

This is not a course requirement by any means. I merely pass it along for those who are looking for other places to hone their writing skills.

Writing Opportunity With Carousel Players

Let me know if you decide to participate.

CP

Good Question!

From: cheyenne foster
To: ewcwriter@live.ca
Subject: Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:21:53 -0700

Q: Do the narrative and monologue poems have to rhyme or have a certain number of syllables per line?

A: Excellent question, Cheyenne, thanks for asking it.

The dramatic monlogue does not have to rhyme. Although the sample I gave you is written in iambic pentameter, more contemporary monologues are usually written in free verse.

The narrative poem could also be in free verse (in theory) so long as it tells a story. However, there is something about narrative poetry that usually results in them being written in regular lines or stanzas. Perhaps the regularity of the form enables readers or listeners to focus on the plot. So long as your poem tells an engaging and vivid story, I will be satisfied regardless of whether it is written as a free verse poem or not.

I hope this helps. Ask questions in the comment section if you would like clarification.

CP

Calendar

Here's the link again: CALENDAR

Marks

I'm about as caught up with marks as I can get. CLICK HERE for a very tentative look at the numbers.

These grades will fluctuate considerably over the next couple of weeks. Firstly, I need to add in the weighting categories, which will make journals worth more. Secondly, the children's stories need to be added in this week. And finally, there are a few items that weren't handed in on time (like the radio play) but still can be. Even with the 25% late penalty, the radio play is still very worth handing in.

Email me if you need your code name. Just put "What's my code name?" in the subject line and I'll send it along. Alternately, you can ask me in class.

Let's get these marks exactly where you want them for mid term reports!

The Suggestion Box is OPEN

As per our tradition, Journal # 12 will be a free write. After that, however, I would like to line up some new, invigorating journal topics.

Let me say that I've been seriously impressed with the journal writing thus far this semester. I'm not sure whether it is a reflection on my great group of EWC students or also a function of our digital journals. Any thoughts?

Anyway, I'd love to hear from you about some different topics or issues you might be interested in writing on. You can post your suggestion in the comment space below. I only need a brief suggestion from you, from which I can work up a full prompt.

Happy Friday, Everyone.

Poem # 3 -- A Lyric Poem

So now that you are developing some expertise with meeting form requirements, such as are needed to imitate a poem or to write a sonnet, we are going to loosen up a little.

You are now invited to write a "free verse" poem, meaning that you may vary the number of syllables in each line and rhyme or not rhyme as whimsy takes you. Keep in mind that poetry is primarily an oral medium so you will want to try saying your lines out loud as you compose them.

See what you can do with:

rhythm (paying attention to where the stresses fall) e.g. "To BE, or NOT to BE. That IS the QUESTion."

alliteration (the repetition of consonant sounds) e.g. "Bob bounced a basketball"

assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds) e.g. "He seems eerily eager"

and, of course, rhyme. --> Keep in mind that skillful poets keep their readers (or listeners) off balance. If your readers can predict a rhyme before they get there, choose another rhyme. Sometimes "near rhymes" can be very effective since they result in a combination of words that is usually quite original and hard to predict. The joy of free verse composition is that you may not have any rhymes for several lines (did you catch that near rhyme?) and then have two words in a row that rhyme.

As far as what to write about is concerned... lyrics are primarily emotion poems. Any strong emotion can be channeled--love, despair, regret, disappointment, joy, relief, trust, faith are just a few you may wish to consider.

Here is a sample:

Life Is Fine by Langston Hughes

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

** Notice that the 2nd and 4th lines of each stanza rhyme. You may choose to or not to do this. Notice how in the 2nd to last stanza Hughes rhymes "on" with "born" -- a near rhyme, although he likely pronounced them in such as way that they rhymed better for him than they do for me.

As always, post your questions here and I'll try to get you some respectable answers.

CP

The October Calendar has been updated.

Poem # 2: The Sonnet

Hi.

Click here

for a sample sonnet and few notes on how to write one.

CP

How Long Should My Poems Be?

Sam just asked a great question, one that I should have addressed earlier.

I am asking you to shoot for about 12-15 lines on average for each of your poems. Since some will come more easily than others, I will be satisfied if turns out to be 10 lines and the next one runs to 20. While more isn't always better, students who exceed the average will have shown signs of having gone above and beyond the unit's minimum expectations.

And finally... It would be a good idea for each and every one of us to understand (and shun like an infectious disease) the concept of doggerel. If you are curious about how to avoid writing doggerel, you may wish to brush up on what wikipedia has to say on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerel, particularly the bit about "Doggerel is usually the sincere product of poetic incompetence..." e.g. The cat sat on the mat. Rhymes should be like good movies--no one should be able to anticipate the end until it arrives.

Questions about anything?

CP

Diigo at School

Thanks to Ryan Morris, Diigo is now much easier to use here at school.

To use Diigo (without having to install anything), open up the portable version of Firefox by going to the O:\Writer's Craft\ folder and clicking on the Firefox icon. It takes about a minute to load so be patient, even if it doesn't look like anything is happening.

Once Firefox is open you will still need to sign in to Diigo. Just click on the Diigo icon up on the toolbar.

I'm getting better with the post-it notes (I hope you appreciate the lessons involved in me making LOTS of mistakes before being able to declare that something is working...). I have begun posting them entry by entry since they are lost whenever URL's change.

If you want to be absolutely certain to never lose a post-it note again, start writing your entries using Google Docs and then posting them as links. (This is very easily done. If you're unsure how to do this just ask myself or Mike Cunningham).

As always, post your questions here.

CP

Length Guidelines and Amy's URL

Hello,

I'm reading (and enjoying) a whole other truckload of blog-journals. While it's true that I haven't read a single dull one, some certainly seem to be turning out longer than others. I thought I would provide some guidelines here to help.

Students working toward the 4C credit should be trying for journals of about 350 words. 4U students should be trying for about 500. I would certainly rather have 300 or 432 polished words (respectively) than 500 words of inflated and redundant composition. You may want to save your posts as drafts for a couple of days and then go back and edit them before you publish them.

Please, if you are having any difficulties at all, leave a comment or a question here. I have left some tips on individual blogs... you are at a point now where you could be helping each other with advice... which is exactly what this space should be doing for us.

Finally, Amy has kindly allowed me to post the link to her blog. She really has done some remarkable work here and I imagine we'll all be reading her column in the Globe and Mail or National Post someday. In the meantime, her blog serves as a great example of lively, polished and reflective writing. You can see her blog at: http://writerscraftjournals.blogspot.com/

If you read Amy's work and enjoy it, please let her know. I am looking forward to featuring more work from other students, particularly as we make our way through the poetry unit.

Poetry

Hi Everyone,

Here are some links that will help you find a poem to imitate for the first assignment:

http://www.emule.com/poetry/?page=author_list

http://www.poetry.com/greatestpoems/PoetsCorner.asp

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/

Email etiquette and the October Calendar

Hi All,

I'm going to post this email on all my course blogs because I've had a little something on my mind for a while.

I am getting a number of emails sent to the ewcwriter account that strike me as being "dashed off." When writing to your friends it is perfectly acceptable to write however you like and to take whatever shortcuts you wish. When emailing people in a more professional sense such as teachers, professors, business and government people, you should use the best possible standard of writing that you can manage.

In the same way that we make assumptions about people based on their clothes, their hair or their grooming habits, people who receive your emails will make assumptions based on what they can see. Not using capital letters, punctuation or spellchecking your email can suggest either a lack of skill or a lack of concern. Neither is the impression that you want to leave in the mind of the person who will be assigning you a final grade.

I'm not suggesting that our email communications have to be perfect, they just have to be the best of which we are capable of writing. I catch problems every time I compose an email by rereading it 2 or 3 times. Sometimes I'll read it even more than that if I am writing to someone really important.

By all means, I invite you to comment on this.

Regards, CP

The October Calendar is up and running for EWC.

Response Needed...

So I've had pretty good luck now getting my Diigo post-it notes back a day or two after they were created.

Can anyone actually confirm for me that they have been able to see my post-it notes on thier blogs? You may need to "bookmark" your page to Diigo--that seems to be helping.

Let me know,

CP

Diigo Works!

I've had a chance to use Diigo from home and it is working just fine. It makes leaving comments on your blogs much easier than simply using the comment section after your posts.

I am using Diigo with Firefox and they seem highly compatible. I recommend Firefox too because it has a built in spell check feature that will be handy when writing anything.

In order for you to see my comments you will need to be signed into Diigo and you will need to accept the invites I sent out on Friday. If you have any tech problems let me know. You can post here or email ewcwriter@live.ca

Regards,

CP

* I've marked about 3 journals so far and plan to mark all the online ones today.

Google Docs is Working Again

Hi All,

I'm not usually one to jump on the latest bandwagon but I must say that I do recommend Google Docs. If you haven't discovered it yet, Google Docs is a web based word processor. There are a couple of serious advantages to using it. If you use Google Docs for all your EWC work you will never run into the difficulty of working at home and then not being able to open your file on the school computers.

Secondly, if you use Google Docs you can access your work at home and at school without a usb key or emailing the file to yourself. It's not as fancy as Microsoft Word, but it certainly has everything you will need for EWC. Today was the only day in the past six months of me using the program that it hasn't been working. Certainly it hasn't let me down as often as Wordperfect.

So it's been a couple of days since I've heard from anyone. How did you find your first Journal Topic? What are some of your needs? Is there anyone who would like some help getting a blog up and running so that they don't need to have a journal?

I've also updated the Course Calendar. You may wish to bookmark it if you haven't already.

Write to me,

Mr. P

Chat about the Radio Play assignment

Hello,

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm quite serious about using this blog to support what we are doing in class.

So far, with a little help with the reading, I've been doing most of the talking in class. Now that you are starting to get into the Radio Play assignment, I am certain that issues will start to arise. This is a great place to ask those questions because it provides a chance for me to publish my answers for the benefit of both absent and future students.

Remember, I promised that I would count any online participation the same way I would in-class participation. Who will be brave enough to be first?

Mr. P

Also, you might want to bookmark the course calendar so that you can find it easily.

Welcome

Hi Everyone,

You've found the place. Now email ewcwriter@live.ca so that I can add you as an author and then you will be able to leave comments. Be sure to include your full name in your email so that I know who you are.

Mr. P

Here's a link to the Course Calendar.