Thursday, May 30, 2019

9th grade Portfolio/Final Exam

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 20% 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

The Snow Child video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v9-w7xGr9M

https://vimeo.com/106350335

Interview with Ivey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A8S_9mYGYA

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

Interview:

Read and post a comment.  What additional information about the book did you learn?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/07/meet-the-author-eowyn-ivey-bright-edge-world

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Reading quiz The Snow Child

AGENDA:

Focus on Ch. 13 Reading Quiz

Answer the following questions on a separate Google document.  Use evidence from the text to support your claims.  Use MLA citation style "    " (page number only):



Discussion Question 1
If you had been Jack would you have felt bound to tell someone about the girl? Do you
think his choice to keep his promise was the best one he could have made? Why or why
not?

Discussion Question 2
What does it signify about the girl’s opinion of Jack that she trusted him enough to tell
him that her father had died? What does it say about the girl’s relationship with her
father that she wanted to see him properly buried?

Discussion Question 3
Discuss the way Mabel approached the girl once she was in the cabin. Do you think it
was Mabel’s questions that made the girl leave so quickly? Why or why not?

Discussion Question 4
Why are there no quotation marks used in conversations with Faina?

Work on old and new stories.

HMWK: For Thursday, read Ch. 16-20

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

The Snow Child

AGENDA:

FIRST PERIOD:
     1. Review what happened in chapters 5-8.  With a partner, summarize the chapter.

     2. Review characteristics of magical realism.

     3. Individually or with a partner, go back over chapters 4-8 and look for elements of these characteristics. When you find them, be sure note page numbers and, if you can, specific lines from the text!

     4. Share out with the class. Each person will need to share one element or characteristic they found.

Continue working on finding a folktale or fairy tale to adapt.

https://www.worldoftales.com/folktales.html


HOMEWORK:  Read chapters 9-15 to pg. 129/TEST ON READING

Monday, May 20, 2019

Snow Child

AGENDA:

The Snow Child

Only 2 people posted Questions 1-3 about The Snow Child from the last post.  Please do so today!

Thank you, Andrew and Simone!

MONTANA STORIES DUE TODAY!

AGENDA:

Close reading activity: Pages 6-9.

     a. We will be reading this passage aloud as a class.

     b. Then reread the passage silently to yourself and jot down any observations you have on the sheet you will be given. Look for figurative language (i.e. similes, metaphors, imagery, personification, symbolism, etc.)

     c. After you have finished, we will go over your observations as a class.

 With the remaining class time, keep working on finding a folktale/fairytale for your final story. If you have already found one, start thinking about how you would include a scene like the one from close reading activity into your own story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore

HOMEWORK:

Read Chapters 5-8 in The Snow Child

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

The Snow Child/Montana Stories

AGENDA:

If you haven't done your homework, be sure to read Ch. 1-4 in The Snow Child.
Answer questions 1-3 on the blog with a post for credit.

Work on your Montana 1948 short story.
Snegurochka  (The Russian folk tale)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snegurochka

2. The Snow Maiden
http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/tales/snow_maiden.html

http://vd-crystaldream.blogspot.com/2013/05/legend-of-snow-maiden-russian-fairy.html

Magical Realism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism 

Eowyn Ivey at Rochester Public Library
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlgm_Ob6DDI

Book Reviews
The best thing about The Snow Child—what sets it apart from genre fiction and keeps you reading—is the way Ivey declines to lay her cards on the table. Are we dealing with fantasy or reality here?... She is a careful, matter-of-fact writer, who, thankfully, doesn't resort to unnecessary poetics or artificial ratcheting-up of tension. This leaves your imagination free to hare off down as many trails as you like.
Carrie O'Grady - Guardian (UK)


Here's a modern retelling of the Russian fairy tale about a girl, made from snow by a childless couple, who comes to life. Or perhaps not modern—the setting is 1920s Alaska—but that only proves the timelessness of the tale and of this lovely book. Unable to start a family, middle-aged Jack and Mabel have come to the wilderness to start over, leaving behind an easier life back east. Anxious that they won't outlast one wretched winter, they distract themselves by building a snow girl and wrap her in a scarf. The snow girl and the scarf are gone the next morning, but Jack spies a real child in the woods. Soon Jack and Mabel have developed a tentative relationship with the free-spirited Faina, as she finally admits to being called. Is she indeed a "snow fairy," a "wilderness pixie" magicked out of the cold? Or a wild child who knows better than anyone how to survive in the rugged north? Even as Faina embodies a natural order that cannot be tamed, the neighborly George and Esther show Jack and Mabel (and the rest of us) how important community is for survival. Verdict: A fluid, absorbing, beautifully executed debut novel; highly recommended. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal


A couple struggling to settle in the Alaskan wilderness is heartened by the arrival of the child of their dreams—or are they literally dreaming her? Jack and Mabel, the protagonists of Ivey's assured debut, are a couple in their early 50s who take advantage of cheap land to build a homestead in Alaska in the 1920s. But the work is backbreaking, the winters are brutally cold and their isolation only reminds them of their childlessness. There's a glimmer of sunshine, however, in the presence of a mysterious girl who lurks near their cabin. Though she's initially skittish, in time she becomes a fixture in the couple's lives. Ivey takes her time in clarifying whether or not the girl, Faina, is real or not, and there are good reasons to believe she's a figment of Jack and Mabel's imaginations: She's a conveniently helpful good-luck charm for them in their search for food, none of their neighbors seem to have seen the girl and she can't help but remind Mabel of fairy tales she heard in her youth about a snow child. The mystery of Faina's provenance, along with the way she brightens the couple's lives, gives the novel's early chapters a slightly magical-realist cast. Yet as Faina's identity grows clearer, the narrative also becomes a more earthbound portrait of the Alaskan wilderness and a study of the hard work involved in building a family. Ivey's style is spare and straightforward, in keeping with the novel's setting, and she offers enough granular detail about hunting and farming to avoid familiar pieties about the Last Frontier. The book's tone throughout has a lovely push and pull—Alaska's punishing landscape and rough-hewn residents pitted against Faina's charmed appearances—and the ending is both surprising and earned. A fine first novel that enlivens familiar themes of parenthood and battles against nature.

Discussion Questions
1. When Mabel first arrives in Alaska, it seems a bleak and lonely place to her. Does her sense of the land change over time? If so, how?

2. Why are Jack and Mabel emotionally estranged from each other in the beginning of the novel, and how are they able to overcome that?

3. How do Esther Benson and Mabel differ in temperament, and how does their friendship change Mabel?

4. The first time Garrett sees Faina in person is when he spies her killing a wild swan. What is the significance of this scene?

5. In what ways does Faina represent the Alaska wilderness?

6. Jack and Mabel?s only child is stillborn. How does this affect Mabel?s relationship with Faina?

7. When Jack is injured, Esther and Garret move to their farm to help them. How does this alter Jack and Mabel?s relationship?

8. Much of Jack and Mabel?s sorrow comes from not having a family of their own, and yet they leave their extended family behind to move to Alaska. By the end of the novel, has their sense of family changed? Who would they consider a part of their family?

9. Death comes in many forms in The Snow Child, including Mabel giving birth to a stillborn infant, Jack shooting a moose, Faina slaying a swan, the fox killing a wild bird, Jack and Mabel slaughtering their chickens, and Garrett shooting the fox. Why is this one of the themes of the book and what is the author trying to say about death?

10. What do you believe happened to Faina in the end? Who was she?
(Questions issued by publisher.)


Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Montana Short Stories

AGENDA:

Finish Montana short stories

Go to library.  Take out The Snow Child.


The Snow Child

AGENDA:

Get The Snow Child from the library.

Read Ch. 1-4 for homework. Go to Eowyn Ivey's website.
http://eowynivey.com/

Magical Realism Characteristics

FANTASTICAL ELEMENTS:

Fantastical elements and events are included in an otherwise “normal” narrative. The narrative maintains a strong contemporary cultural relevance while reaching beyond the confines of realism and drawing upon the elements of fable, folktale, and myth.

AUTHORIAL RETICENCE:

The deliberate withholding of information and explanations about the disconcerting fictitious world. The narrator does not provide explanations about the accuracy or credibility of events described or views expressed by characters in the text. The narrator is indifferent, a characteristic enhanced by this absence of explanation of fantastic events; the story proceeds with "logical precision" as if nothing extraordinary took place. Magical events are presented as ordinary occurrences; therefore, the reader accepts the marvelous as normal and common.

SENSE OF MYSTERY:

The reader must let go of preexisting ties to conventional exposition, plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to strive for a state of heightened awareness of life's connectedness or hidden meanings.

METAFICTION:

The narrative explores the impact fiction has on reality, reality on fiction and the reader’s role in between; as such, it is well suited for drawing attention to social or political criticism. Furthermore, it is the tool paramount in the execution of a related and major magic realist phenomenon: textualization. This term defines two conditions—first, where a fictitious reader enters the story within a story while reading it, making us self-conscious of our status as readers—and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's (our) world.

REAL WORLD SETTING



The existence of fantasy elements in the real world provides the basis for magical realism. Writers don't invent new worlds but reveal the magical in this world. In the binary world of magical realism, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world.

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

MONTANA 1948 MOCK TRIAL

AGENDA:

Finish Mock Trial: Examination of Frank, Closing arguments, decision, discussion, etc.

Work on Montana stories.

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Mock Trial Montana 1948

AGENDA:

Use Period 3 to work on prologue story and/or prepare opening statements for Mock Trial.

Period 4---Montana 1948 Mock Trial

Montana 1948 Readings/Natalie Goldberg Test 1 "I remember"

  Montana 1948 Readings/Natalie Goldberg Test 1 "I remember" Marcy Gamzon • Sep 21 (Edited Sep 21) 100 points Due Tomorrow AGENDA:...