Friday, March 30, 2012

Self-Starter:

The Bicycle -- Prompt

In the photo, to whom does the bicycle belong?  Why is he or she here?  Create a story (perhaps told as a play in response). Consider whether it should be written in first person or third person (or perhaps even second person).  

2. Share shell descriptions. 

3.  Model:  http://www.docstoc.com/docs/52604512/The-Night-I-Won-the-Right-to-the-Streets#

4.  Creating a script --

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Marley-&-Me.html  16.19

Turn your own stories into script -- You will turn them back.

Suzanne Collins -- Author of Hunger Games

http://hungergamesmovie.org/888/new-interview-suzanne-collins-talks-to-the-new-york-times/

Audio (listened on March 30, 2012 through 5:12):  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112119277 

"the cauldron of story" -- Children's literature expert Anita Silvey

Audio:  http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/03/06/148042865/spurred-by-success-publishers-look-for-the-next-hunger-games

The Bicycle -- Prompt

 

In the photo, to whom does the bicycle belong?  Why is he or she here?  Create a story (perhaps told as a play) in response. Consider whether it should be written in first person or third person (or perhaps even second person).

Revision and Editing

Qualities/Traits of an Effective Memoir

• enough detail
• sensory detail
• descriptive words
• similes and metaphors
• (emotions)
• length is not too long and not too short
• effective titles
• what else? 

Steps for Revision:
 ARMS
Add
Remove
Move
Substitute

Sentence Variety Chart.doc 

Examples of Effective Description

These descriptions are from Gary Soto’s A Summer Life, from the story “The Taps.” Soto’s writing provides examples of using description and imagery in a short story.
“A passenger train the color of spoons rushed by.”
“The asphalt was a soft, blackish river on which cars traveled, windows down, the passengers soaked in sweat.”
“A man the color of a sparrow walked near the tracks.”

 

Similes and Metaphors

Metaphor

"Bobby, one black apostrophe of hair over his forehead, saying, "Hey Fran Flynn. I guess if everyone likes you I might like you too."" Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen page 96


...her hair was a bundle of braided cotton candy on top of her head..." p.34 Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff 


"I dive into the stream of fourth-period lunch students and swim down the hall to the cafeteria." Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, page 7.


"The windows now had the closed blankness of night, a deadened look about them, a look of being blind or deaf." (John Knowles' A Separate Peace, page 158) 




Metaphors and Similes from Bird Lake Moon by Kevin Henkes (740L):
Metaphor
pg. 40 "His mind was an aquarium, and his thoughts were darting around, this way and that, like little fish."


pg. 91 "Jasper's tail wagged in greeting.  His eyes were large marbles of the deepest brown with wide black centers; his nose was speckled with pink."


p. 125 "Raindrops stuck to the screen [on a screen door] in places -- an unfinished needlepoint stitched in diamonds."


Similes
pg.  41 The girl's [hair] was long, pulled back into a ponytail that swung like a pendulum when she chased after the dog."


p. 54  This was from a writing assignment in Mitch's English class, written by a girl he likes.
    Julie had written: " I have black hair.  But it is not as dramatically black and shiny as Mitch Sinclair's hair, which looks like crows' wings sweeping across his forehead and over his ears."  (Mitch had memorized this.)


p. 86  Describing Mitch's grandfather:  "His skin was darkly tanned and was laced with so many wrinkles it looked as if a child had scribbled all over him with a pencil."


from Hush by Donna Jo Napoli:
"Windmills on the grassy hills spin like children cartwheeling." p. 30 Simon Pulse paperback

Isabella says that if she had been born a cute little antolope and saw the cheetah coming she would just kick another cute little antolope in the shins so it couldn't run very fast, and the cheetah would get it instead of her. -Dear Dumb Diary #5  





"The tide was a poem that only time could create, and I watched it stream and brim and make its steady dash homeward, to the ocean. The sun was sinking fast, and a laundry line full of cirrus clouds stretched along the western sky like boas of white linen, then surrendered to a shiver of gold that haloed my father's head." (Pat Conroy, South of Broad, p. 80) 

Talons with bright red fingernail polish latched onto my parka. (Peak p.89)