Monday, June 7, 2010

Writing Portfolio/Final Exam

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 & Ms. Gamzon. It will constitute 25% of your final grade.

Part A. Self Evaluation Essay

Part B. Portfolio

Select work that you created this year in Ms. Gamzon 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 5-7 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 3-4 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 1-2 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 1-2 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 2-3 of your special projects (newsletter, slideshow*, brochure, literary magazine, web design, blog, etc.) which 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 talk 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. 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 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. What did you learn about writing and about yourself through these assignments this year?

Rubric

_____ Table of Contents 10 points
_____ Reflective Essay (4-6 pages) 30 points
_____ Poetry (5-7 poems) 10 points
_____ Fiction (3-4 short stories) 10 points
_____ Non Fiction (1-2 creative essays) 10 points
_____ Special Projects (1-2 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 10 points

Penalties:
• Late portfolios (-10 points per day late)
• Handwritten work (-1 for each handwritten page)
• Grammar errors (see above)

The final portfolio is due Friday, June 11

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Week of May 10-14 Ten Minute Plays

Please continue to work on your 10 minute plays

Like any other form of drama, your 10-minute play must have some sort of structure. Traditional structure for a ten-minute play would look something like this:

Pages 1 to 2: Set up the world of your main character.
Pages 2 to 3: Something happens to throw your character’s world out of balance.
Pages 4 to 7: Your character struggles to restore order to his world.
Page 8: Just when your character is about to restore order, something happens to complicate matters.
Pages 9 to 10: Your character either succeeds or fails in his attempt to restore order.

Playwriting, however, is not an exact science, and there are many different structures you can use for your play. Another popular one is “mythic structure” as described by Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey. If you don’t like any existing structure, make up your own! Just be sure to use some sort of structure in your play—because if you don’t your play will feel loose and unfocused, and we (your audience) won’t trust you to take us on a meaningful journey.

Go to 10 minute play website for more instruction about how to write a 10 minute play:

www.10-minute-plays.com/ten_minute_play_structure.html

Monday, May 3, 2010

Week of 5/3-7 Playwriting/Monologues

We've read "War at Home" last week.  This week I'd like you to finish your monologues from last week.  Then we will share our monologues in writer's circles.

We'll also be reading another play, "Playwriting 101".

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Week 4/5-4/9 Work on Newsletters

Be sure everyone in your group has a writing assignment. Each person in the group should contribute an article and visuals--photos, charts, etc.

The newsletter should be 4 pages, representing the efforts of everyone in the group.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Satirical Newsletters--New Project/Adobe Templates

The idea of this project is to get you to practice with different Adobe InDesign templates.

Of course, we'd like you to be creative and make a funny newsletter like The Onion.
Satire is the style of writing that criticizes or pokes fun at society and people.

Visit the website of The Onion:

www.theonion.com/

or look at The Frumious Bandersnatch (from Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll)

www.bandersnatch.com/

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Literary Journal projects/ Adobe InDesign

Working with groups, begin your publishing project in Adobe InDesign.

Here are some pointers:

Adobe Creative Suite: Getting Started with InDesign cs

InDesign CS is similar to other Adobe products when it comes to workspace layout and functionality. InDesign works with graphics and word processing programs so that you can use content that's created in a different piece of software and integrate it with InDesign to create a publication.

You can use InDesign to create a newsletter, brochure, advertisement, or even a book. These layouts might be for print, or you may want to keep them electronic and distribute your pages online. InDesign enables you to easily accomplish any of these tasks.

InDesign documents are saved as .indd files on your hard drive, which are native InDesign documents. After you double-click an .indd document, the InDesign application starts and opens the selected file.
Opening InDesign

You can open InDesign in several different ways. Choose one of the following ways to open InDesign:

* Double-click the InDesign icon on your desktop.

* Choose Start --> All Programs --> Adobe InDesign CS (Windows XP) or double-click the InDesign CS icon in your Applications folder (Mac).

* Find an InDesign document (.indd) on your hard drive and double-click the document's title or icon. InDesign starts up automatically and opens the document you chose.

Creating a new publication

When you open InDesign for the first time, you need to create a new InDesign document (also referred to as a publication). Just follow these steps to create a new publication:

1. Choose File --> New --> Document.

The New Document dialog box opens.

2. Enter a value for the number of pages for the document in the Number of Pages text field.

This value can be between 1 and 9999. If you want a text frame on the master page, select the Master Text Frame check box.

3. Select the Facing Pages check box if you want the pages arranged as spreads.

With this option checked, the pages in your document are arranged in pairs, so you have spreads, which are facing or adjacent pages in a layout. For example, you would select this option if you're creating a publication that will be arranged like a book. If you deselect this option, pages are arranged individually.

4. Choose a page size for the document from the Page Size drop-down list.

Set the page size to the size of the paper you intend to print on or to the desired display size. The Width and Height values below this drop-down list change, depending on the size you choose.

5. Choose Portrait (vertical) or Landscape (horizontal) orientation for the orientation of the pages throughout the document.

Click the button on the left for Portrait, or the button on the right for Landscape. A portrait layout is narrow and tall, while a landscape layout is short and wide.

6. Choose a number for the columns on the page.

This sets guides for columns that you might put text into. You can also enter a value in the Gutter field (the gutter is the space in between each of the columns).

7. Choose values for the page margins.

Notice the Make All Settings the Same button in the middle of the four text fields where you enter the margin values. Click this button to set all margins to the same value.

If you see Top, Bottom, Inside, and Outside, you are specifying margins for a page layout that has facing pages (the Facing Pages check box is selected in the dialog box). If you see Top, Bottom, Left, and Right, you are creating a page layout without facing pages. The inside margins refer to the margins at the middle of the spread, and the outside margins refer to the outer left and right margins. The Inside setting can be set to accommodate the binding of a book.

8. When you're finished, click OK.

If you're going to use the same settings over and over, saving those settings as a preset is a good idea. Click the Save Preset button in the New Document dialog box after making your settings. Enter a name for the preset, and then click OK. After you save your settings, you can select the settings from the Document Preset drop-down list whenever you create a new document.

After you click OK in the New Document dialog box, the new document is created with the settings you just specified.
Opening an existing publication

You might have InDesign files on your hard drive that you created or have saved from another source. To open existing InDesign documents (*.indd), follow these steps:

1. Choose File --> Open.

The Open dialog box appears.

2. Browse through your hard drive and select a file to open.

Select a file by clicking the document's title. To select more than one document, press Ctrl (the Command key on the Mac) while you click the filename.

3. Click the Open button to open the file.

The file opens in the workspace.
Looking at the document setup

If you need to change the size of your pages or the number of pages in a document that is already open in the workspace, you can make those changes in the Document Setup dialog box. To access and modify settings in the Document Setup dialog box, follow these steps:

1. Choose File --> Document Setup.

The Document Setup dialog box opens.

2. Change the value in the Number of Pages text field if you need the number of pages in your document to be greater or less than the current value.

The number of pages in your document updates after you close this dialog box.

3. Change the size of the page by selecting a new option from the Page Size drop-down list, or manually enter values into the Width and Height text fields.

You can also click the up and down arrows in the Width and Height text fields to choose a new value.

4. Change the page orientation by clicking the Portrait or the Landscape button.

The page orientation updates in the workspace after you exit this dialog box.

5. Click OK when you're finished changing your document setup.

The modifications are applied to the currently open document.

Read more: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/adobe-creative-suite-getting-started-with-indesign.html#ixzz0h2DaPxER

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