Like Water for Chocolate

HMWK:

Read Chapters May, June and July for Tuesday.

Begin work on "Passions" essay or new magical realism short story.

MAJOR WRITING ASSIGNMENT:

1. An essay about your passions 

or 

2. A story in which you try your hand at magical realism

Begin work on portfolio

Portfolio

9th grade Portfolio

9th Grade FINAL PORTFOLIO INSTRUCTIONS

There are two (2) parts to your final portfolio:

A. A 4-6 page, double-spaced, typed self evaluation essay
B. A variety of your best work chosen from all your CW classes
Your final portfolio will count for both 9th grade creative writing classes and will be reviewed by Mr. Craddock and Ms. Gamzon. It will constitute 25% of your final grade.
Part A. Self Evaluation Essay (see details below)
Part B. Portfolio
Select work that you created this year in Ms. Gamzon’s or Mr. Craddock’s classes. All work should be copies of original work. No journals will be accepted. Follow the guideline below.
Table of contents. Your table of contents should order your portfolio into the following parts:
a. Poetry
b. Fiction
c. Non-fiction
d. Scripts
e. Special projects
Poetry. Choose 6-8 of your best poems. Select work that shows your understanding and growth in the field of poetry. Each poem’s title should be listed on the table of contents.
Fiction. Choose 4-5 of your best fiction pieces. Select work that shows your understanding and growth in the field of fiction. Each fiction piece’s title should be listed on the table of contents.
Non-fiction. Choose 2-3 of your best non-fiction pieces. Select work that shows your understanding and growth in the field of non-fiction. Each non-fiction piece’s title should be listed on the table of contents.
Scripts: Choose 1-3 of your best scripts. Select work that shows your understanding and growth in the field of script writing. Each script’s title should be listed on the table of contents.
Special Projects: Choose 3-4 of your special projects (documentary, newsletter, brochure, literary magazine, online blog, etc.) that show your growth and creative ability. Each project should be listed on the table of contents. If you have been working on a project not assigned in class, you may include this work in your special projects. (Example: I am working on a novel, and I haven’t told my teachers or I have written a musical, etc.) Please do NOT print your special project, unless you already have an extra copy. Instead, please write about these projects in your reflection.

Self Reflection Non Fiction - Creative Essay: 
During the entire freshman year, we have thrown quite a bit of information, projects, and assignments your way. We did not do this to be cruel, but to see how you react to pressure, deadlines, writing & reading skills, and so that you had the opportunity to grow as a writer and a student. It is true that the most important qualification for writers is that they write. Apart from this, reading is also the most important way to improve your writing at this stage of your development and education. These introductory courses are designed to get you to know yourself as a student and writer a little better. Part of this is the need to self-reflect. Examine the writing rubrics below and the material in your portfolio. Reflect on your work this year.
Reflective piece: 4-6 pages, double-spaced. Write about how you’ve grown as a writer this year, what has been easy/hard for you, what areas you feel you need more work in; reflect on your progress as a writer, a reader, and as a student. Write about each selected piece you have chosen to include in your portfolio (per genre): why did you include these pieces in your portfolio? How does the piece show your growth and development as a writer in this particular genre? What did you learn about yourself concerning writing from this assignment or project? Discuss the writing process you used to create the work, where you got your ideas, what you learned about the form or genre of the work as you wrote and revised it, what you learned about yourself as a writer, etc. Discuss special projects and reading that had an impact on you. Which books you read were of high interest and what did you learn about writing from reading them? What did you learn about writing and about yourself through these assignments and courses this year?
Rubric
_____ Table of Contents 10 points
_____ Reflective Essay (4-6 pages) 30 points
_____ Poetry (6-8 poems) 10 points
_____ Fiction (4-5 short stories) 10 points
_____ Non Fiction (2-3 creative essays) 10 points
_____ Scripts (1-3 scripts) 10 points
_____ Special Projects (3-4 special projects) 10 points
_____ Grammar (Work is clean, copy-edited, free of errors) 10 points
Penalty: (-1/2 point for each grammar error. Up to -10 points)
_____ Portfolio turned in complete and on time: bonus 10 points
Penalties:
• Late portfolios (-10 points per day late)
• Handwritten work (-1 for each handwritten page)
• Grammar errors (see above) & missing required components of your portfolio

More about Like Water for Chocolate

AGENDA:

Work on "Magic Realism" recipes

Read February, March and April for Thursday

More about Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate's full title is: Like Water for Chocolate: A novel in monthly installments with recipes, romances and home remedies.

The phrase "like water for chocolate" comes from the Spanish "como agua para chocolate". This phrase is a common expression in some Spanish speaking countries and was the inspiration for Laura Esquivel's novel title (the name has a double-meaning). In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico, hot chocolate is made not with milk, but with water instead. Water is boiled and chunks of milk chocolate are dropped in to melt thus creating the hot chocolate. The saying "like water for chocolate," alludes to this fact and also to the common use of the expression as a metaphor for describing a state of passion or -sometimes- sexual arousal. In some parts of Latin America, the saying is also equivalent to being "boiling mad" in anger.[8]

This is the story of Tita (Lumi Cavazos), a young woman growing up during the Mexican Revolution. Tita lives with her mother and two sisters, Rosaura and Gertrudis, on a

large ranch; her father died shortly after her birth. As the youngest daughter of the family, Tita, by long-standing tradition, can never marry; it is her responsibility to care for her mother into old age. Tita is raised in the kitchen, learning to cook and take care of household responsibilities from early childhood, and she is aware of the family tradition. She falls in love anyway, with a young man named Pedro (Marco Leonardi). When Pedro asks for Tita's hand in marriage and is refused, he agrees to marry Rosaura instead -- so he can be near Tita, the true love of his life. Tita pours heartbreak and anger into her cooking, and her feelings are magically transferred to the rest of her family.

In literature, magic realism often combines the external factors of human existence with the internal ones. It is a fusion between scientific physical reality and psychological human reality. It incorporates aspects of human existence such as thoughts, emotions, dreams, cultural mythologies and imagination

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/likewater/

SparkNotes

Like Water for Chocolate is a popular novel, published in 1989 by first-time Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel. The novelLaura Esquivel follows the story of a young girl named Tita who longs her entire life for her lover, Pedro, but can never have him because of her domineering mother's traditional belief that the youngest daughter must not marry but take care of her mother until the day she dies. Tita is only able to express her passions and feelings through her cooking, which causes the people who taste it to experience what she feels.The novel was originally published in Spanish as Como agua para chocolate and has been translated into thirty languages; there are over three million copies in print worldwide.

The novel makes heavy use of magical realism. The novel was made into a film in 1993.[4] It earned all 11 Ariel awards of the Mexican Academy of Motion Pictures, including the Ariel Award for Best Picture, and became the highest grossing foreign film ever released in the United States at the time.

Laura Esquivel Biography

Like Water for Chocolate (Criticism): Information and Much More ...

As a site for the crucial link between food and life, .... In Like Water for Chocolate, magic realism becomes an appropriate vehicle for the expression of ...

www.answers.com/topic/like-water-for-chocolate-novel

Master Class on Friday

AGENDA:

Go to the library for your Master Class with Carola Dibbell.

Like Water for Chocolate

Mexican Traditions

Setting is an important element to this book. Laura Esquivel writes from what she knows. As she wades through this story about a woman who wants to seek out her passions, it is clear that she infuses her writing from her own background.

For more info on a biography of Laura Esquivel:
http://www.biography.com/articles/Laura-Esquivel-185854

Remember that Like Water for Chocolate is a flashback story. It begins and ends with the a woman telling the story of her great aunt Tita. This present day setting acts as a frame through the story.

The bulk of the story revolves around a young girl, Tita, fighting against the traditions and issues that are relevant during the turn of the twentieth century in Mexico.

So, what are those traditions?

I'd like you to work together to find background information about these five topics:

Food

Fabrics

Family/Women’s Role

Mexican Revlution/Flag

Cultural Rituals – Religion/Tradition

www.wallwisher.com/wall/likewaterforchocolat
Each of you should find one fact or website or youtube video about each of these topics and your contributions here:



So, the question is, How does YOUR background influence your writing?

MAJOR WRITING ASSIGNMENT:

1. An essay about your passions 

or 

2. A story in which you try your hand at magical realism

READ: Gabriel Garcia Marquez: "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings"





As you begin to think about your next projects of writing about your passions or creative magical realism stories, your stories will be infused with your background. How can you elaborate on that and make it uniquely you?

Food is an important aspect in Mexican culture. What is important in YOUR background? How can you use that, like Laura Esquivel, to stabilize your and focus your writing?

Today's Writing Exercise:

Create a RECIPE for a real or imagined food, action, or PROCESS!!!

A RECIPE is a "How-to" description that includes "INGREDIENTS" and "PROCEDURES"

Snow Child Quiz/Revise and Edit Stories

AGENDA:

Snow Child Quiz--Open Book

Revise and Edit stories.  FINISH THEM!

Next Book:

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Like Water for Chocolate: Introduction
First published in 1989, Laura Esquivel's first novel, Como agua para chocolate: novela de entregas mensuales con recetas, amores, y remedios caseros, became a best seller in the author's native Mexico. It has been translated into numerous languages, and the English version, Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies, enjoyed similar success in the United States. The film version, scripted by the author and directed by her husband, Alfonso Arau, has become one of the most popular foreign films of the past few decades. In a New York Times interview, Laura Esquivel told Manalisa Calta that her ideas for the novel came out of her own experiences in the kitchen: "When I cook certain dishes, I smell my grandmother's kitchen, my grandmother's smells. I thought: what a wonderful way to tell a story." The story Esquivel tells is that of Tita De la Garza, a young Mexican woman whose family's kitchen becomes her world after her mother forbids her to marry the man she loves. Esquivel chronicles Tita's life from her teenage to middle-age years, as she submits to and eventually rebels against her mother's domination. Readers have praised the novel's imaginative mix of recipes, home remedies, and love story set in Mexico in the early part of the century. Employing the technique of magic realism, Esquivel has created a bittersweet tale of love and loss and a compelling exploration of a woman's search for identity and fulfillment.

Like Water for Chocolate: Laura Esquivel Biography
Esquivel was born in 1951 in Mexico, the third of four children of Julio Caesar Esquivel, a telegraph operator, and his wife, Josephina. In an interview with Molly O'Neill in the New York Times, Esquivel explained, "I grew up in a modern home, but my grandmother lived across the street in an old house that was built when churches were illegal in Mexico. She had a chapel in the home, right between the kitchen and dining room. The smell of nuts and chilies and garlic got all mixed up with the smells from the chapel, my grandmother's carnations, the liniments and healing herbs." These experiences in her family's kitchen provided the inspiration for Esquivel's first novel.
Esquivel grew up in Mexico City and attended the Escuela Normal de Maestros, the national teachers' college. After teaching school for eight years, Esquivel began writing and directing for children's theater. In the early 1980s she wrote the screenplay for the Mexican film Chido One, directed by her husband, Alfonso Arau, and released in 1985. Arau also directed her screenplay for Like Water for Chocolate, released in Mexico in 1989 and in the United States in 1993. First published in 1989. the novel version of Like Water for Chocolate became a best seller in Mexico and the United States and has been translated into numerous languages. The film version has become one of the most popular foreign films of the past few decades. In her second, less successful novel. Ley del amor, published in English in 1996 as The Law of Love, Esquivel again creates a magical world where love becomes the dominant force of life. The novel includes illustrations and music on compact disc to accompany it. Esquivel continues to write, working on screenplays and fiction from her home in Mexico City.

Snow Child /Carola Dibbell

AGENDA:

Reading: Finish The Snow Child for Monday of next week.

Writing: Finish your "Snow Child" story.

Check out Carola Dibbell's website for Master Class next week:

www.caroladibbell.com

Snow Child discussion

AGENDA:

Agenda:

Discussion Groups:
Using the Conversational Roundtable graphic organizer, discuss 4 more questions from the study guide with your reading groups and fill out the handout fully, citing textual evidence. Turn in your graphic organizer.

Continue to work on your folk tale adaptations!

HMWK:  Read to pg. 203 for Friday

The Snow Child

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svIS8E4_yoY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiNli6Fx3-Q