4/26/2019 0 Comments Day 2How does he do it?Today we are going to take a closer look at our first mentor text for this unit. Students really need to finish reading the whole book before we can talk much about how Jonathan Safran Foer braided his narratives in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. That said, last night's assigned reading was a gem of a chapter. IN this one chapter, the author was able to braid several narratives. And these strands all come together to form one central strand of the story. This chapter is like a bunch of fibers braided to create each hair that makes up this one strand of the braid. So, today's objective is: Students will be able to identify and name the writing strategies Foer uses in this chapter to weave together multiple narratives. Warm Up: First we begin by identifying the strands in the novel so far (we are about half way through). I will ask students to flip through the rest of the book and see if they can figure out just by looking at the formatting of the writing (without reading it) if they can finish this outline by figuring out who narrates which chapters.
It's easy to do because each narrator has a unique style. We are going to try to identify their styles. Oskar- stream of consciousness, propels the plot, modern Grandma- writes in poems. literally. also, each of her chapters are called "My Feelings" Thomas Sr.- His writing is in itself, braided. He weaves together different times in his life, different moments, different people, to deliver his message: regret. Mini Lesson Next, we will zoom into the most recent chapter we read: Why I am not Where You Are 5/21/63 narrated by Thomas Sr. This is a heartbreaking chapter, but content aside, we will look at the weaving of his own narratives in this one chapter. I will start by modeling my own noticings as I read last night. Here is a quote I pulled: "The beautiful girl didn't know the time, she was in a hurry, she said "Good luck," I smiled, she hurried off, her skirt catching the air as she ran, sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living. In this life, I'm sitting in an airport trying to explain myself to my unborn son," In this moment, he explores so many feelings and ideas, and its all contained within one crazy long sentence. He does this time and again. Active Engagement Next, students will begin reading the next three chapters. In the reading, students will be looking for ways the author wove narratives throughout each chapter (nevermind the three larger narratives he wove together over the course of the book). He weaves narratives on the macro and micro levels. Today we search for the micro. Closure We will share out our findings, and I will make sure to mention all of my noticings as well. I will post all of our noticings here after our class today :)
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4/22/2019 0 Comments Day 1The Braided NarrativeWe started today with a free-write because it has been a while and I would like to get back into the routine of daily writing in this unit. Students wrote extended metaphor poems about childhood; very good stuff happened. Next, I braided my hair. Yah, you read that right. I told them that in this next unit, we would be working on writing not one, but TWO or THREE complete stories. Then I told them we would be working on braiding these stories, as if each story was a strand in the braid. First, we reviewed our next novel a bit. We read the first few pages of the first six chapters and stopped as we went to notice the subtle ways the writer distinguishes between characters through their narrative style, punctuation, format, grammar, etc. We also created an outline of narrators (and since we dont know any of the narrators yet because we have not started the book yet, we used what we know) Chapter 1: Oskar Chapter 2: Very clearly not Oskar 1 Chapter 3: Oskar Chapter 4: My Feelings person (or Very Clearly not Oskar 2) Chapter 5: Oskar Chapter 6: Very Clearly not Oskar Then we talked about how this is ONE WAY to do it. I told them that over the course of the unit we will be reading MULTIPLE and by that I mean, A LOT of braided narratives. Braided narratives are EVERYWHERE these days, and as people and technology get more sophisticated, so does our story telling. We will be reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close because it shows us ONE amazing way of braiding narratives (we will know those when we finish and collect notes and ideas along the way). We will also be reading excerpts from a few other books (Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann), we will watch some episodes of tv shows, delve into some Science Fiction, and listen to some music. From each of these experiences, we will collect LOTS of strategies for weaving stories together. THEN, each student will use whatever strategy makes most sense for their stories or for them as a writer. Basically, there are lots of ways to braid your hair. They seemed pretty on board with this. A few of them wanted to start writing already :) BUT Instead, we watched this great TED talk that I feel the need to share with all of my creative writers: (alert: there is some language and a rather inappropriate joke in the first three minutes of this talk, but the rest is pure gold!).
After watching the talk, we discussed how important it is let your writing be driven by a theme that you care deeply about. In all creative writing, even fiction, you should be telling your truth (we invoked the great Anne Lamott here), I talked about how choosing a theme you love will be one way of weaving your strands together. Lots of stories can diverge to develop one theme. Students seemed to follow me here. Homework for next class? I'm glad you asked: Read EL&IC through page 141 Practice your POL poem for Friday Write down a few themes you want to explore/develop in your braided narratives 4/22/2019 0 Comments Day 19Erm.... can we get.... another day?We worked our tushies off and we got soooo close to finishing. And then class was over. As was the marking period.
And then the most incredible thing happened. ALL STUDENTS WANTED AN EXTRA DAY TO FINISH BECAUSE THEY WANT TO SEE THIS PROJECT THROUGH. How cute. What angels. Was I gonna say no? Well, actually, we do need to move on, but I did mention they can finish it on their own time ;) we shall see... Oh and there was this thing were students need to complete this reflection on the process. Yay! Spring break time!!! 4/22/2019 0 Comments Days 18-19Adobe AuditionOh the joys of editing audio
Over the past few days, we have worked diligently on scripting the show, recording last minute intros and finding music that is just right for our podcast vibe. We worked for four days in our school's creative lab and took a crash course (baptism by fire) in learning how to use Adobe Audition. We have one more day to finish our project. Here are the remaining goals: - Finish audio editing/effects/make it sound smooth as a dream -Credits (for all people and music involved) -Promote and distribute. I have to say, I overheard some of my angels talking in the creative lab this week, and I was so thrilled about what I heard! They were talking about how they have never worked this hard on a project before -- that they wanted to just make a good product, and that was motivation enough to get the job done. "How are we getting graded for this?" was uttered- and no one knew. AND still, here they are working their tushies off. I think the reality of publishing and distributing this media has inspired them to make something they can be proud of. As it stands, it looks like we are going to succeed! I cannot express how proud I am of this cohort of creative writers this semester! 4/22/2019 0 Comments Day 17Putting it all togetherAs of today, we have almost all of the elements of our podcast created. Now, we just have to figure out how to put it all together!
Students broke into groups to: Create an outline for each act. The outline should include
We are in a good place. We have one week to finish the podcast. I think it is totally doable, and based on what we have so far, I think it will actually be entertaining! Stay tuned... 3/28/2019 0 Comments Days 15 &16This New Milford Life takes shapeToday we developed a theme for our own show and a game plan for making it happen.
I am so impressed with how this class went. I do not even know where to start. First of all, students really picked up on the moves writers were using in their model texts of "This American Life" They had some very valuable take-aways from that activity. Students chose a theme for our show: Conspiracy Theories. Then we developed the concept for four acts: Act I: What is a Conspiracy Theory? This is where we will compile audio clips of students and teachers and friends of New Milford telling their personal conspiracy theories Act II: Silly Silly theories In this act, we explore the sillier theories, and a few of our own go on a trip in an attempt to confirm one conspiracy theory about Chuck E. Cheese. Act III: We can make our own... We make our own... lol Act IV: Why do we conspiracy theory? This is where we get all deep and smart :) Students spent the second half of class gathering interviews and we very quickly realized that we are going to have a harder time NARROWING down our content, than we will have FINDING content. In our second class: Students brought in their best interviews, we listened to them all, and decided which ones to cut together, and how to narrate our story. Students needed to fill in some gaps and went back out to gather more interviews! 3/18/2019 0 Comments Days 13 & 14What are we making? Picking Apart Mentor TextsToday’s Objective is to get more familiar with the types of stories told in This American Life and the way they are put together. Keep in mind our unit goal: To write and produce an episode of This New Milford Life.
First, students will get into three groups. Each group will tackle a different episode of This American Life. Each group member will tackle one “Act” within their group’s episode. Group One: Notes on Camp Group Two: No Coincidence, No Story. Group Three: Superpowers Students will work in groups to create a google slideshow to teach their episode to the rest of the class. Slideshows will explore: The theme in the episode A summary of each story you guys listened to How the theme ties each story together The point-of-views represented in each story Narration type (remember each story we listened to last class had a different type of narration) Tone 3/13/2019 0 Comments Day 13Creative NonfictionToday we begin our creative nonfiction unit! I am really excited about this one.
We begin with a 10 minute freewrite. The prompt: Pick an object that is ugly, and create a character who finds it very beautiful. Have the character describe the object in a way that convinces the reader of its beauty. Now write a second version where you convince the reader (through describing the object alone) that the character is mentally unstable. We tackled the first part of this prompt today, and will tackle the second part next class. Next, we defined "nonfiction" and "creative nonfiction" Finally, we will listen to this episode of "This American Life" called "Tough Room" Students will spend the remainder of this unit producing an episode of "This New Milford Life" 3/7/2019 0 Comments Days 11 & 12The PiperThe Objective for the next two days is: Students will be able to use the NCTE literary magazine rubric to select submissions ready for publication in the Piper.
Together, we looked at the rubric that the NCTE uses to assess literary magazines from secondary schools around the nation. We zoomed in on the section of the rubric that focuses on the writing. Next, we looked at the submissions so far and tried to narrow down selections. We had great discussions, and it was very fun and interesting to see which pieces resonated with the students. This is the good work we do. :) 2/28/2019 0 Comments Day 10Collaboration is key in a writing workshopWarm Up
Today we started with a free write where students had to use either the word "bubblegum" or "fire". Students are getting stronger and stronger in their stamina. I had to ask students to stop writing a few times before they actually did :) #teacherdreams Mini Lesson Today's Objective is: Students will be able to list to readers discuss their work in order to ensure they are expressing their ideas as intended. Today I am introducing students to the practice of silent peer revision. Silent Peer Revision Students got into groups of three, then they were to: Share your story draft with each of the members of your group. Allow the members to read your draft. THE WRITER OF THE DRAFT SHOULD REMAIN SILENT. Members of the group will -Summarize the piece. -Determine the theme -Discuss any literary elements/narrative techniques used The WRITER WILL REMAIN SILENT THROUGHOUT THIS ENTIRE PROCESS. If you, as a writer, have something to say to defend your work, take notes and write down the things you need to revise in your work Active Engagement Students get into groups and perform silent peer revision. Once all members have received feedback, students can return to their drafts and revise. Your writing should say what you want it to say and should require no further explanation. If your story requires too much explanation, you must go back to the writing and make sure you get your ideas across. Once published, writers are not typically able to check in with readers and make sure they got the point. The point has got to be clear before publication. Closure Final Drafts due Monday. |
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