Assignment #9 Music as Inspiration

Assignment #9: Music as Inspiration

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!)

Assignment #8: Photos As Writing Prompts

AGENDA:

Let's use photography prompts for writing a short story.

Find a photograph you like and write a story using character, setting, plot, conflict, and theme!

Websites that have interesting photography prompts.

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

https://writeshop.com/creative-writing-photo-prompts-imagination/


EXTRA CREDIT:
https://www.writingforward.com/writing-prompts/creative-writing-prompts/25-creative-writing-prompts

Finish your Where I am Movie/Ekphrasis poem

AGENDA:

Finish working on your "Where I am" poem in moviemaker.  Help each other add music.

If you have finished, get a postcard picture and follow the instructions to create a poem about the picture.

Follow the instructions on the handout.

Choose a descriptive point of view and write from that point of view.at least 12 lines about the picture.

Remember that poems are written in lines and stanzas, not in sentences and paragraphs.

See previous post for more instructions.

Assignment #7: Ekphrastic Poetry

Ekphrastic Poetry

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

HANDOUT: OBSERVATION WORKSHEET

Circle words that you can use in your poem and craft a poem based on a response to the art work

Week of Sept. 11 Where I'm From Movie

Assignment #6:  Where I'm From Movie--put on flash drive

AGENDA:

Everyone work on "Where I'm From" template/poem and make a video using Movie Maker.  

Follow instructions from handout about Movie Maker.
https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/documents/digitalmedia/GuidetoWindowsMovieMaker.pdf

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

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

First Day Writing Prompts

Here are some questions to help you with your descriptive writing.

1. What was the best thing that happened at school today? (What was the worst thing that happened at school today?)

2. Tell me something that made you laugh today.

3. If you could choose, who would you like to sit by in class? (Who would you NOT want to sit by in class? Why?)

4. Where is the coolest place at the school?

5. Tell me a weird word that you heard today. (Or something weird that someone said.)

6. If I called your teacher tonight, what would she tell me about you?

7. How did you help somebody today?

8. How did somebody help you today?

9. Tell me one thing that you learned today.

10. When were you the happiest today?

11. When were you bored today?

12. If an alien spaceship came to your class and beamed someone up, who would you want them to take?

14. Tell me something good that happened today.

15. What word did your teacher say most today?

16. What do you think you should do/learn more of at school?

17. What do you think you should do/learn less of at school?

18. Who in your class do you think you could be nicer to?

20. Who is the funniest person in your class? Why is he/she so funny?

21. What was your favorite part of lunch?

22. If you got to be the teacher tomorrow, what would you do?

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
Course: CW7
Date:
Assignment