Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Scriptwriting--Assignment #11

AGENDA:

Playwriting Exercise

Pick an opening line:

The scene should be one page long. The scene should only have two characters who are in one room, in one location. Go down the list and use the provided first line as the first line of your scene and write scene using proper format.

Well, aren’t you going to congratulate me?
What do you mean “I have to give the ring back?”
This is most definitely the result of a curse.
Dude, Lara Croft is not your girlfriend.
I can fix this, I am determined to fix this.
I have something important to tell you.
Why are you hiding in the bathroom?
Sir, you dropped your wallet.
I would do anything for a peanut butter dipped chocolate bar right now.
First day of school, first day of hell.

THE STANDARD STAGE PLAY FORMAT What follows is a guide to “professional” stage play script formatting. These pages are an explanation of the standard stage play format. See the Example Pages for visual examples of the format. There are three reasons why playwrights use this format: 1) In this format, it is easy for a producer/script reader to estimate how long the running time of the script will be. The accepted format lays out the script at roughly one minute per page. 2) This standard format is optimized to make all the separate elements of the script easy to read and comprehend (character names, dialogue, stage directions, page numbering, etc.). 3) This standard format immediately tells a producer/script reader that the playwright knows something about submitting plays. “How good could the play be if the playwright doesn’t even know the basics of formatting?” they will ask. Unfair, yes... but the way your script looks is the first impression you make.

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/stageus.pdf

Monday, December 11, 2017

More Musical Writing Prompts--Assignment #10

Musical Writing Prompts

Write a page of nonfiction! Select a prompt (or two) and write a page of nonfiction---personal essay!

Why not write about a musical subject?

1. What is your favorite instrument, why?

2. If you could learn to play any instrument, which one would you choose and why?

3. Who is your favorite singer? Describe why you enjoy their music.

4. Music and emotions run hand in hand. Describe a time when music helped you get through a tough time.

5. Music can be used to really get people excited and focus on a task. Describe a time when you noticed that music was used this way.

6. All right dancing kings and queens: Describe your dancing style in a paragraph.

7. Mozart was a child prodigy. This means that when he was a child he had extraordinary talent and skills. If you could be child prodigy, what skills would you like to have? Why?

8. Sometimes music reminds of events that have happened in our lives. Describe a time when music reminded you a funny time in your life.

9. Imagine that you are an amazing inventor. You have just created a NEW woodwind instrument. Describe what it looks like, how it is played and be sure to give your cool new instrument a name. Don't forget that this is a WOODWIND instrument.

10. Imagine that you are an amazing inventor. You have just created a NEW brass instrument. Describe what it looks like, how it is played and be sure to give your cool new instrument a name. Don't forget that this is a BRASS instrument.

11. Imagine that you are an amazing inventor. You have just created a NEW string instrument. Describe what it looks like, how it is played and be sure to give your cool new instrument a name. Don't forget that this is a STRING instrument.

12. What kind of musical present would you like to receive? Describe it and don't forget to tell me why!

13. Your parents have decided to take you to ANY concert that you would like to see next week. Who would you like to see and why?

14. Your music teacher has decided to take two students to see a new musical on Broadway! Write a letter asking to be one of the students she chooses. Be sure to use all the parts of a letter and don't forget to be convincing! Lay on the charm!!!

15. Unfortunately, some schools are not as lucky as we are to have music classes that meet every week. Some schools have lost music class all together! Think about the reasons that it is important to have music in our school. Write a persuasive paragraph about this topic.

16. What great book do you think should be turned into a song? Describe the kind of song it should be. (happy, sad, rap music, country music, fast/slow, etc...)

17. You are an amazing inventor and you have been asked to create a musical instrument that can be used under the water! Introduce your new instrument in a paragraph and then draw a sketch of what your instrument might look like below it.

18. If you could audition for American Idol, what song would you choose? Describe how your audition would go.

19. Oh no! You have the Rock and Roll Flu! You can only speak in song titles! Write a short play (with two or more characters) in which your character only speaks in song titles.

20. Music gives us a voice for our patriotism. What is your favorite patriotic song? Why?

Music as Inspiration--Assignment #9

Play that Song

Turn on music that you love. Listen carefully.

1. How does the song make you feel?

Tap into the emotions the song conjures up. Consider the mood that the song sets. With a focus on that feeling—joy, sadness, triumph, love, regret, whatever it is—write a piece that also conveys the same emotion.

2. What do the lyrics make you think about?

Sometimes the lyrics will tell a story; try to expand on that story by writing it in prose form. Or perhaps the song gives you a portrait of a character; use that description and fill in the blanks to create your own scene. Or finally, the lyrics may take you back to a time in your past; mine that memory for inspiration and write about your own experience.

3. What kind of story would use this song as a soundtrack?

Imagine the story you are about to write will be made into a movie (we can dream, right?) and this song will be on the soundtrack. Use the song to dream up a movie-worthy plot point or to envision a new setting or character.

What type of music inspires you? Is there a specific song that really moves you?

PRACTICE

Choose a song to use as your inspiration. Listen to it start-to-finish, while keeping the questions above in mind.

Write for fifteen minutes about whatever the song inspires you to imagine. (You might have to play the song a few times on repeat!)

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Photography and Creative Writing-Assignment #8

Photos As Writing Prompts--Assignment #8

AGENDA:

Using photos as writing prompts for a short story (at least 2 pages double-spaced).

Go to http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/picture_prompts.htm

https://plus.google.com/+Photowritingprompts1

Monday, November 27, 2017

Ekphrastic Poetry Assignment #6

Assignment #6

AGENDA:

EQ: What is ekphrastic poetry?

Ekphrasis is writing about any art form, but in its modern usage, ekphrasis generally refers to poetry that reflects on visual art, and most often painting. In my classroom, I often choose one or two artists for an in-depth study. Once my students are experts about the artists, they each choose a meaningful piece of work to inspire a poem.
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2016/04/ekphrasis-poetry-about-art
http://americanart.si.edu/education/pdf/Ekphrastic_Poetry_Lesson.pdf

http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/classicscene.html

The Red Wheelbarrow

William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

ACTIVITY:

Students select a postcard or artwork.

Create an ekphrastic poem about your postcard using LINES and STANZAS!

Monday, November 20, 2017

How to add music to your video

1. Get a pair of headphones and listen to music on youtube.com that you think would be appropriate in the background of your video. What will create the mood of your poem? Think instrumental so that the lyrics do not interfere with your words).

2. Copy the url address of your song.

3. Go to listentoyoutube.com and paste in the url to the online converter program. Follow the instructions for a download.

4. Go back to Moviemaker and choose add music from HOME.

5. In your Downloads, you should have the song converted to mp.4. Select it.

6. Go back to Moviemaker. You should see a green line that shows that you have added music. Play your movie!

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Assignment 3, 4, 5,Where I'm From Template and Poem and Video

Assignment #3 and 4 and 5 (Template and poem and video):

Where I'm From/ George Ella Lyon

AGENDA:

1. Review:
Assignment #1---MLA Heading on paper, 12 pt. Times Roman font Writing Territories List
Assignment #2--From your list, write about one of your SPECIFIC Writing Territories ideas (at least one page double-spaced)
Print out Assignments 1 and 2 today and put in your folder

2. Begin working on "Where I'm From" poems which we will turn into a movies next week with Moviemaker by adding images and music.

FILL OUT THE TEMPLATE!

Look over Examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG3iP08HKZA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ0bHaFsPx8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVryvxLTIyU

2. Show video of original poem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdnHl_yW1dQ

3. HANDOUT: Where I'm From template--Write your own "Where I'm From" poem in a Word or Google Doc using the model and the template

Monday, November 13, 2017

Assignment #1 Making Lists/Assignment #2 Nonfiction

Use 12 pt. font Times New Roman

MLA Heading (in left hand corner):

Your name

Teacher name

Course name (CW7)

Assignment/Date

Open a word document. Put an MLA heading on top. Create a full page of YOUR Writing Territories lists. Save your document.

Assignment #1: Writing Territories/Making Lists for Writing Topics

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

In Collecting Your Writing Territories, Consider . . .and Make Lists of Ideas. Brainstorm what you can write about. Be specific.

memories: early, earlier, and recent favorites, now and then

obsessions pets, now and then

idiosyncrasies teachers, now and then

problems places: school, camp, trips, times away with friends and relatives

dreams hobbies

itches sports

understandings music

confusions games

passions books

sorrows poems

risks songs

accomplishments movies

fears writers and artists

worries food

fantasies pet peeves

family, close and distant beloved things-objects and possessions, now and then

friends, now and then all the loves of your life

fads

Adapted from Lessons That Change Writers by Nancie Atwell

Other ideas:

http://smoran.ednet.ns.ca/writing/writing_territories.htm

What do the arts have in common?

There are many reasons for asking this question. Politicians, educators, news reporters and cultural affairs directors all have reason to ask it. All must make decisions about how to regard, fund and support "the arts"; all sometimes find it confusing to make decisions about movies, paintings, jazz, rock, rap and classical music performances, dance, theater, pottery, and perhaps even stand-up comedy, juggling and "the culinary arts" as if they all belonged to the same category.

Artists also have reason to ask what the arts have in common. A songwriter asks it, at least implicitly, whenever she or he tries to match music and lyrics. If music and poetry don't have anything in common, it shouldn't matter what music you set the words to; but it obviously does matter. And it matters in a number of ways. Both music and poetry have meter, and both have regular or irregular phrases. So the meter and phrasing of the music should match the meter and phrasing of the lyrics. But so should the mood of the music and the lyrics match. A bouncy tune will clash with serious lyrics; a sad or grand tune will not fit with silly lyrics, except as a joke.

These facts seem so obvious as not to need stating. Yet they raise important questions about music and poetry. After all, these are very different art forms. Poems, being language, have meaning as a matter of course. But music does not "mean" in the same way that poetry does. So how can a piece of music fit some meanings better than others? Asking this question immediately opens up a range of intriguing philosophical questions about the nature of musical meaning. There has probably been more disagreement about these questions among philosophers (and musicians and critics) than about any other single question in the philosophy of music. At the practical level they are answered every day by songwriters and composers.

Similar questions lie behind the practice of the film-makers art. Film includes not only moving images, but also sound. It is like music, even when it is silent; and it uses music. It is like theater; it is like painting; it is a form of photography. How do these different elements work together in a movie?
So what do the arts have in common?

The arts are like a large extended family. There are many family resemblances among them. Some recur frequently; others are shared by only a few members of the family, or are unique to one or two members. There is no one defining set of characteristics such that all and only "arts" have those characteristics. So an attempt to define "art" is bound to fail. Questions about what particular art forms have in common, on the other hand, are frequently of great interest, and the attempt to answer them may be both illuminating and as stimulating to the practice of those arts as to aesthetic theory.

Welcome to CW7

AGENDA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M5hs6ahcKU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH3akqBwYfo

"By awakening our imagination, art intensifies and complements our own experience. Art represents people, cultures, values, and perspectives on living, but it does much more. While bringing us pleasure, art teaches us. While reading or contemplating a painting our minds go elsewhere. We are taken on a journey into a world where form and meaning are intertwined.

Form matters and gives pleasure. How a work of art is organized — its technique, its verbal or visual texture, its way of telling — gives pleasure. So does the inextricable relation between form and content. The form of imaginative art, as well as the form of well-written non-fiction, organizes the mess (if not the chaos) of personal life as well as that of external events. Form not only organizes and controls art but also other bodies of knowledge within the humanities. Form imposes structure that our own lives — as we move from moment to moment through time — may lack.

Narrative — sequential telling — imposes form as it orders and gives shape. Indeed, in the sense that each of us is continually giving shape to the stories we tell to and about ourselves, there is continuity between what we read and see and our own lives. Put another way, what we read teaches us to find narratives within our own lives and hence helps us make sense of who we are. Our seeing shapes and patterns in stories and other kinds of art helps give interpretive order — in the form of a narrative that we understand — to our lives. We live in our narratives, our discourse, about our actions, thought, and feelings.

While there is always a gulf between imagined worlds and real ones, does not the continuity between reading lives and reading texts depend on our understanding reading as a means of sharpening our perceptions and deepen our insights about ourselves? Reading is a process of cognition that depends on actively organizing the phenomena of language both in the moment of perception and in the fuller understanding that develops retrospectively."

Daniel Schwartz, Huffington Post

Classroom expectations

1) Treat others as you would like to be treated. RESPECT ALL NOUNS (People, objects, ideas)

2) Respect other people and their property (e.g., no hitting, no stealing).

3) Laugh with anyone, but laugh at no one.

4) Be responsible for your own learning.

5) Come to class and hand in assignments on time.

6) Do not disturb people who are working.

In addition:

No food or drink in classroom or computer lab.

No cell phones.

Use Times New Roman font 12 pt.

Ask permission to print

Open a Google Doc or Word Doc

Start with a MLA HEADING (in upper left hand corner)

Your name:

Teacher name: Ms. Gamzon

Course: CW7

Date:

Assignment:

Friday, November 3, 2017

Group Drama Project

AGENDA:

In your groups, continue to work on your scripts and poster boards.

POSTER BOARDS: Should have name of play, cast list and script along with pictures of costumes and set..

If you have printed out your script, practice your scenes over and over again!

Monday, October 30, 2017

Group DRAMA PROJECT

GROUP PROJECT: Adapting a fable or fairy tale story theater style for the stage

AGENDA:

In small groups, you will be adapting a fable or fairy tale for the stage.

Your project requires:

1. A script for a skit with parts for a narrator and other characters.

2. A set and costume design (make slide show of Google images).

3. A song to be sung for the skit by a character(s) to set the scene. You can write the words to any famous melody or use music in the background.

4. A performance for the class.
What is the difference between a fable and a fairy tale?

http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-fable-and-vs-fairy-tale/

1. Review with students the elements of a fable: characters, setting, events and a moral. In most fables the characters are animals. These animals usually represent specific human qualities(personification).

2. Review the concept of a moral. Tell students that fables are meant to teach a lesson or moral. The moral is usually revealed at the end of the fable. Sometimes the moral is delivered as a statement, such as "Be happy with what you have," or "It is easier to think up a plan than to carry it out."

http://aesopfables.com/

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/

example:
The Beaver and the Lumberjack
By Carol Montgomery ©2010

From the early part of the script after the narrators and Lumberjack have been introduced...

Narrator 1: Beaver lived around that river, heard the moans and appeared.

Beaver: (happily) Yo! Hey there! What's up? Why all the commotion?

Lumberjack: (moans) I'm a poor, honest, hard-working man who makes a living cutting down trees and selling the wood. But, I accidentally dropped my axe just now in the river. I have no other way to make money. (moans louder)

Beaver: No problem, Friend. I can swim. It happens. I'll be right back.

Narrator 2: So, Beaver slid down the steep bank and dove into the river, retrieving an axe of solid gold. (Continued...)