Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Bell-Ringer: Respond to the picture on the overhead or (if you were absent or didn't get it done) here:

What's Going On?

Sample excerpt:
"When the sky turns green,
When the lights go out,
When you are visited by the one with the "umbrella" --
Beware!
You think it's a raincoat it wears.
You think it's a girl with curly hair,
But what you see is not true,
It's here to get you. . . . " (to be continued)
__________________________

Brainstorming about mystery stories.
More advice
Sample stories from
      "The Speckled Band" a Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
       The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
       The Wicked, Wicked Ladies in the Haunted House by Mary Chase
       Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief by Wendelin Van Draanen

Talking with peers about your stories
Another story with a hole: The Accident and The Elevator
Writing your own mystery story.   mystery planner.doc

Next time:  Work more on our mystery stories and making Mother's Day Cards -- including a poem of at least 6 lines.
You may bring your own materials, and will get credit for  making a great card.

________________________________________
Not:
Roses are red, violets are blue
There's not greater mother than you, you, you.
_______________________________________
Not:
copied from someone else
______________________________________
Yes, original and personal and as beautiful as you can make it.
_______________________________________

Famous detectives

http://www.topmystery.com/detectives

Famous detectives from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective_fiction

• Encyclopedia Brown – Donald J. Sobol
• Father Brown – G. K. Chesterton
• Nancy Drew – Carolyn Keene
• C. Auguste Dupin – Edgar Allan Poe
• Jessica Fletcher – Murder, She Wrote
• The Hardy Boys – Franklin W. Dixon
• Miss Marple – Agatha Christie
• Veronica Mars - TV Series
• Perry Mason – Erle Stanley Gardner
• Ellery Queen – Ellery Queen
• Philip Trent - Edmund Clerihew Bentley
• Lord Peter Wimsey – Dorothy L. Sayers

Private Investigators

• Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Laura Holt – Remington Steele (TV series)
• Thomas Magnum – Magnum, P.I.
• Philip Marlowe – Raymond Chandler
• Adrian Monk – Monk
• Hercule Poirot – Agatha Christie

Police detectives

• Charlie Chan – Earl Derr Biggers
• Inspector Clouseau – Pink Panther
• Lieutenant Columbo – Columbo
• Sergeant Cuff - Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
• James "Sonny" Crockett – Miami Vice
• Det.Bobby Goren – Law & Order: Criminal Intent
• Det. Alexandra Eames – Law & Order: Criminal Intent
• Det. Elliot Stabler – Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• Det.Olivia Benson – Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• Det. Fin Tutuola – Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• Det. John Munch – Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• Chief Inspector Japp – Agatha Christie
• Inspector Javert - Victor Hugo
• Lt. Theo Kojak – Kojak (played by Telly Savalas)
• Inspector Lestrade – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Dick Tracy - Chester Gould
• [and what about Hawaii 5-O?) 

Forensic specialists

• Horatio Caine – CSI: Miami
• Gil Grissom – CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• Raymond Langston – CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• Quincy – Quincy, M.E.
• Elizabeth Rodgers – Law & Order
• Mac Taylor – CSI: NY

Catholic Church detectives

• Father Brown – G. K. Chesterton
• Brother Cadfael – Edith Pargeter
• Father Frank Dowling - Father Dowling Mysteries

Government agents

• Alex Cross – James Patterson
• Fox Mulder and Dana Scully – The X-Files

Others

• Simon Templar, a.k.a "The Saint" – Leslie Charteris
• Batman, a.k.a. Bruce Wayne – Bob Kane & Bill Finger
• Ben Matlock – Dean Hargrove

For younger readers

• Trixie Belden
• The Boxcar Children
• Detective Conan
• Inspector Gadget
• Ginny Gordon
• The Three Investigators
• The Happy Hollisters
• Inspector Rex
• Roman Mysteries
• Scooby Doo
• Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice - Ace Attorney series
• Sammy Keyes 

Friday, April 29, 2011

1. Bell-Ringer: Art Class?  Activity with drawing and describing. 

2.  About writing mystery.
      A. Stories with Holes
      B. A small mystery to solve
      C. Advice from a professional writer of mysteries:
             a) The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery.  All clues must be plainly stated and described.
             b) No willful trick or deceptions may be placed on the reader other than those played by the criminal on the detective himself/herself.
             c) The detective never turns out to be the culprit.
             d)  The culprit must be determined by logical deduction, not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession.
              e)  The detective novel must have a detective in it, though the detective does not have to be a professional detective.
              f)  There must be a crime that the reader will care about.  Keep in mind who your audience is.
              g)  There will be just one detective, thought the detective could have an assistant.
              h)   The culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less prominent part in the story -- that is, a person with whom the reader is familiar and in whom the reader takes an interest.
              i)  There must be one culprit -- not a gang or group.
              j)  The method of the murder and the means of detecting it must be realistic.
              k)  The truth must be at all times apparent.  Once the reader finds out the solution to the mystery, he or she could go back through the story and every part of the story would fit logically with the solution.
               l) The crime will never turn out to be an accident or suicide or dream.
             
S.S. Van Dine,  "How to Write Mystery Stories"  from The Writer's 1930 Yearbook, found in The Writer's Digest Guide to Good Writing, 1994. 
              

     D.  Time to start getting ideas down.  Individual writing time.  mystery planner.doc

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Today we finished up our children's books and took them to Legacy Elementary where we read them to the children, and left them for the children to keep.
Thank you, students, for doing such a great job, and making some little children very, very happy!

Here is the grading rubric:  
Grading for Children's book 2(1).doc


B4 did a writing response in their composition books to this prompt:  "Who let the cat out of the bag?"

Monday, April 25, 2011

Bell-Ringer: Write in Response to the frog picture and/or quote -- 1/2 page or more.


Work on Children's books


If extra time, work on your found poems or short stories.


Legacy--  Wednesday, April 27th

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Bell-Ringer: Write in Response to one or more of these phrases:
sudden movement
slippery slope
sliding glass door

Work on Children's books

If extra time, work on your found poems or short stories.

Legacy--  Wednesday, April 27th

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Bellringer:  Bingo Prompt:  B3 was A4  and B4 was A5.

B4:  Three sentences that capture the essence of your spring break
 Ms. Dorsey's:
I bought a bounty of books from Barnes and Noble Bookstore.
I dug about in my garden and spruced up my yard. 
I spent time with family playing, watching movies, watching birds,  and eating!


Finish found poetry --
1) a response to an article
2) words, phrases, sentences put together  (do 2)

We will for sure finish up our children's books next time.   We will visit Legacy on April 27.

More for Poetry Month

This is from Shel Silverstein's newest book, Everything On It.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/imageviewer.asp?ean=9780061998164&imId=99887959&cm_mmc=Facebook-_-BN-_-product+_page-_-dr_seuss_poem

Friday, April 8, 2011

Bell-Ringer:

Found Poetry

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

1. Bell-Ringer:  Write in your composition book in response to this picture prompt:   Beach House?

2. Writing Model
3. Poetry!  More form the Hormone Jungle 
4. Write an Inspired By Poem

5. Share  Underland/Down the Rabbit Hole stories.

6. Workshop:

• Children's books?  Need more time?
• Mark pages
• illustrate 
• take to be laminated 
• Work on "Underland"  stories. 
• Work on your inspired by poem 

It's Poetry Month!

Here's a poem by U.S. Poet laureate, Billy Collins from  http://www.edutopia.org/trouble-poetry

The Trouble with Poetry: A Poem of Explanation

A U.S. poet laureate shares.

by Billy Collins

Billy Collins

Credit: Corbis Images

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night --
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky --

the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.


And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,


and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.


But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti --
to be perfectly honest for a moment --

the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.

Billy Collins, the U.S. poet laureate from 2001 to 2003, is the author of seven collections of poetry and is a distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York. He serves as the poet laureate of New York State.

This article originally published on 10/18/2006

Extra Credit

"What's your favorite word?  Mine is defenestrate.  Look it up!  Pretend YOUR favorite word has been selected to be removed from the dictionary.  You've been given a three-minute audience with a Congressional panel to plead for the word's continued survival.  What case can you make for a word in three minutes?"                  Thanks to http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/dailypromptgenerator.htm

or  

"What would they say? Write a piece where you wake up (or something) and find your favorite characters staring at you. What would they do? How does your day pass? Let your imagination flow."

Monday, April 4, 2011

Bell-ringer Bingo Prompt:   For period B2 the prompt is D3.  For period B3 the prompt is E5.


Finish up Children's books!