Poetry Time With Charles Waters

Meet actor and poet Charles Waters:

Poetry column: Joy erupts into poetry explosion, promotes literacy

By MICHAEL HOOVER
For The Evening Sun

EXCERPT:
Katie Lasky and Charles Waters, two treasures of humanity employed by Poetry Alive!, spent the past couple weeks involving Adams County students in the memorization and performance of poetry by noted poets past and present.

Students work collaboratively to break poems into dramatic presentations complete with characters, dialog, and setting – all taken from the text of the poems. Kids and adults have so much fun getting lost in the creativity that abounds, even in multiple presentations of the same poem.
Lasky and Waters possess such electricity that the federal government should tap them as an alternative energy source.

The theatric partners spontaneously broke into performance in KClinger’s dining room as though they were playing on stage to a crowd of hundreds.

They were hilarious, complementing one another and building off one another’s banter enough to arouse rapt attention, laughter, and applause from perfect strangers. Lasky herself is a former stand-up comedienne.

Waters, whose extensive background includes Shakespearean performances and whose glass was filled with ginger ale all evening, initiated the evening’s performance art with a dramatic, booming rendition to the whole of the establishment, making even the jukebox pale in decibel level. It’s easy to see that his love for children’s poetry has influenced the humor and encouragement behind this poem …
READ THE FULL TEXT HERE
In this video, Charles performs the following children’s poems: I wear mommy’s dress, Good News! Good News! and I Love Pie
___
MORE INFO IS AVAILABLE AT www.charleswaters.net/

350 Fabulous Writing Prompts: Thought-Provoking Springboards For Creative, Expository, and Journal Writing

350 Fabulous Writing Prompts: Thought-Provoking Springboards For Creative, Expository, and Journal Writing Paperback by Jacqueline Sweeney highlights creative, engaging, thought-provoking prompts for every day of the school year! More than 300 ways to motivate even your most reluctant writers. Topics include feelings, ethics, “imagineering,” quotations, humor, problem-solving, school situations, and so much more. For use with Grades 4-8.

Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes. Due to the looseness of the definition, it is possible for writing such as feature stories to be considered creative writing, even though they fall under journalism, because the content of features is specifically focused on narrative and character development. Both fictional and non-fictional works fall into this category, including such forms as novels, biographies, short stories, and poems. In the academic setting, creative writing is typically separated into fiction and poetry classes, with a focus on writing in an original style, as opposed to imitating pre-existing genres such as crime or horror. Writing for the screen and stage—screenwriting and playwriting—are taught separately, but fit under the creative writing category as well.

Also consider Coming to Know by Nancy Atwell. This  book is for teachers who are ready to put writing to work across the curriculum. It is written by teachers of grades 3 through 6 who, dissatisfied with encyclopedia-based approaches to content-area writing, asked their students to write as scientists, historians, mathematicians, and literary critics do – to use writing-as-process to discover meaning.

One of the subjects of this volume is report writing and ways to help children produce content-area writing that is as personal and meaningful as their stories of their own experiences. Students learn how to take notes in their own words, conduct interviews, record observations, design their first simple research project, select appropriate genres for their research, and apply the techniques of writing workshop in science, social studies, and reading classes.

In addition, Coming to Know explores the uses of academic journals, or learning logs. Children speculate, brainstorm, role play, correspond, predict, and ask questions about math, reading, science, and social studies – and demonstrate the power of informal writing to generate thinking. Coming to Know is also about the connections between reading and writing, the effects of using writing to learn on curriculum and planning, and the role of children’s literature in teaching science, social studies and math.

Books by Michael Strickland That Celebrate the African American Experience

Families: Poems Celebrating the African American Experience

Family relationships are explored and affirmed in this joyful anthology of poems celebrating the diversity of African American families. Michael Strickland, has collaborated with his mother, noted educator Dorothy Strickland, to bring us this warm collection. Rich and powerful poems by Eloise Greenfield, Lucille Clifton, and others are rooted in deeply felt values of belonging and mutual respect.

From Publishers Weekly

Using works by Lucille Clifton, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes and other African American poets, this determinedly upbeat collection focuses on happy childhood experiences-getting hugs and kisses, going on family outings and saying a tender good night. The poems selected are rarely representative of the poets’ best writing; moreover, they tend to stereotype pretty little girls and big strong boys. The larger problem, however, is that in “celebrating the African American experience,” the editors try to be both inclusive and exclusive at the same time. Little here suggests either the uniqueness or the variety of black culture; conversely, the Stricklands’ own initial poem extolling “all kinds of families” and poems that applaud children of “every color skin” seem at odds with the uniformly black faces Ward depicts in his acrylic paintings. But even though the focus is blurred, many teachers and parents will welcome the volume for its use of an African American cast in paying tribute to middle-class family values. Ages 5-8.

• Age Range: 5 – 8 years
• Grade Level: 2 – 3
• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: Wordsong (February 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563975602
• ISBN-13: 978-1563975608
• Product Dimensions: 0.1 x 7.8 x 10.8 inches

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-5-A fine collection of 23 poems that feature African-American families. Youngsters’ voices come through vibrantly in these traditional and contemporary works that express the joy, sorrow, and excitement of childhood. Gwendolyn Brooks’s “Andre” is about a boy who dreams of having to choose new parents; Eloise Greenfield’s “Missing Mama” poignantly expresses a child’s sorrow at the death of his mother; and Lindamichellebaron’s “Hugs and Kisses” is a delightful selection about a boy’s hidden approval of his mother’s affection for him. Other poems are by Arnold Adoff, Lucille Clifton, Nikki Grimes, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Naomi F. Faust, Julia Fields, and E. Alma Flagg. Black characters are depicted in the attractive acrylic illustrations, and some poems express themes directly related to African-American culture; however, the verses represent and impart universal feelings and moments, making this a book to be shared and enjoyed by all children.

Haircuts at Sleepy Sam’s

From Publishers Weekly

Three brothers take a Saturday morning trip to Sam’s barber shop in this affable if slim story, narrated by the youngest sibling. Though their mother sends them with a note instructing the barber not to trim her sons’ Afro cuts too short on top, the boysAand SamAhave a different style in mind. Strickland, who has compiled several poetry anthologies for children, shapes credible dialogue and gives his narrative a bouncy cadence: awaiting their turn in the barber’s chair, the brothers “watch the men cut hair and talk, cut hair and joke, cut hair and argue, cut hair and laugh, cut hair and boogie to the oldies on the radio.” Holliday’s (First by Secondhand) 1970s’ palette underscores Mom’s old-fashioned ideas and the barbers’ banter about boxers Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Rendered with airbrush and pastel chalk, his pictures showcase the animated expressions of the characters with close-to-photographic clarity against faded backgrounds of chartreuse, mauve and beige. Ages 4-8.

• Age Range: 4 and up
• Grade Level: Preschool and up
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Boyds Mills Press; 1st edition (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563975629
• ISBN-13: 978-1563975622
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 9.4 x 0.4 inches

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3-It’s Saturday morning and haircut time for three African-American brothers. While their mother insists on natural Afro cuts, the boys yearn for the contemporary shorter styles worn by their friends. Readers follow the children as they walk to Sam’s Barbershop where they give Sam the envelope from their mother that contains instructions and money for the haircuts. Three barbers work on the siblings and when they are finished, the boys have the haircuts they wanted. The pastel and airbrush illustrations lend a light, cheery tone and portray a lively community. The photographic quality of the facial expressions invites readers to join in the joking and horseplay at the barbershop. Both the first-person narrative and the illustrations reveal the close-knit relationships of the brothers and their surroundings. The text flows well and is a good choice for reading aloud. For similar books, see Margaree King Mitchell’s Uncle Jed’s Barbershop (S & S, 1993) and Natasha Tarpley’s I Love My Hair (Little, Brown, 1997).
Shawn Brommer, Southern Tier Library System, Painted Post, NY

African-American Writers: A Dictionary

A timely survey of an important sector of American letters, African American Writers, examines a multitude of black cultural leaders from the eighteenth century to the present as it focuses on novelists, essayists, scholars, activists, critics, teachers, poets, playwrights, and songwriters. Biographical information covers important events in a writer’s life, education, major works, honors and awards, family and important associates, and more. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index.

From Library Journal

This unique title profiles several hundred African American fiction and nonfiction writers from Colonial times to the present. The table of contents lists the authors alphabetically and then divides them into 17 categories (novels, short stories, slave narratives, etc.) and nine themes (Folktales, the Harlem Renaissance, Trickster Tales, etc.); authors whose work spans several categories are listed separately under each. The profiles themselves, presented alphabetically and ranging from a paragraph for less well known writers like Ai Ogawa to three pages for writers like Ralph Ellison or Terry McMillan, are both biographical and critical, although the amount of criticism varies. Included in each entry are the writer’s birth and death dates, the categories into which he or she fits, and any pseudonyms. Black-and-white illustrations, references, genre lists, a comprehensive index, and chronologies of the writer’s life dates and of African American literary firsts complete this impressive title. Hatch, a freelance writer, and Strickland (creative writing, Boise State University.) are to be commended; no other single work seeks to include all past and present African American writers of significance in such an affordable format.

• Series: Literary Companions (ABC)
• Library Binding: 484 pages
• Publisher: ABC-Clio Inc (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874369592
• ISBN-13: 978-0874369595
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 1.7 inches

From Booklist

Finding information about African American writers has always entailed searching in a variety of resources. Children\rquote s writers, political writers, poets, songwriters, novelists, and speechwriters are covered in different sources, some easy to find, others not. Information about some writers, such as Toni Morrison and Phillis Wheatley, is readily available. Information about other, more obscure writers, such as Abby Fisher, who authored the first published cookbook by an African American woman, is harder to locate. And unearthing facts about those who penned comic strips, compiled bibliographies, or wrote scripts or political columns is even more challenging.
This very complete and readable dictionary helps to meet that challenge. Spanning the entire history of African American expression, it covers more than 530 individuals, including writers of commercials, hymns, newspaper editorials, and rap songs along with screenplays, novels, autobiographies, essays, and poetry. Publishers, editors, and patrons of the arts are included as well. Entries vary from just a sentence for actor Laurence Fishburne to 10 pages for Richard Wright. A handful of important movements, publications, and genres (e.g., Harlem Renaissance, Negro Digest, Spirituals ) are also treated.
Each author entry begins with the author’s birth name, followed by pseudonyms or alternative names and birth and death dates if available, as well as the genres appropriate to the individual. In addition to biographical facts, the editors have included information about what inspired the authors to compose their works, in the hope that the volume would be a springboard for further investigation or even a source of ideas. Cross-references are in bold type, and each entry ends with abbreviated source references. The book is sprinkled with photographs and concludes with an appendix of writers by genre, a chronology of writers and a chronology of  firsts, full bibliographic references, and an index.

The Club

… And

Shells Gold

Reading levels are inviting to reluctant readers.
- Each series features a multicultural cast of characters with strong group friendships.
- Engaging plots deal with peer rivalry, mystery, virtual reality, and much more!

The Club:

• Age Range: 10 and up
• Grade Level: 5 and up
• Series: Summit Books
• Paperback: 119 pages
• Publisher: Perfection Learning (August 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789155427
• ISBN-13: 978-0789155429
• Product Dimensions: 0.3 x 4.2 x 6.6 inches

From About.com:
If you have kids or teens who are reluctant readers because they read below grade level and can’t find books they can read that interest them, try some of these hi-lo books. The Hi-Lo reading lists focus on books at the reader’s interest level (“Hi” stands for “high interest”) but written at a lower reading level (“Lo” stands for “low readability,” “low vocabulary,” “lower reading level”) to encourage reading. Kids and teens reading below grade level are more apt to want to read a book if it is not only at their reading level but also at their interest level.

• Shell’s Gold:
• 
  
• Age Range: 10 and up
• Grade Level: 5 and up
• Series: Summit Books
• Hardcover: 117 pages
• Publisher: Perfection Learning (August 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756908558
• ISBN-13: 978-0756908553

A hi-lo book, broadly defined, is a title that offers highly interesting subject matter at a low reading level, according to Publisher’s Weekly. A number of publishers have focused on producing these books, though they often take slightly different approaches to creating the products that best fit a particular market. The abiding goal, says Arianne McHugh, president and co-owner of Saddleback Educational Publishing, “is to offer age-appropriate content—something that will grab [readers'] interest—at a readability level that is accessible.” As examples, McHugh notes that for a struggling reader in middle school or high school, although The Hunger Games would generate enormous interest, it would be a discouraging undertaking. On the other hand, “You can’t give them Clifford; we don’t want to embarrass them,” she says. Somewhere in the middle is the book that’s just right, she says.

African-American Poets (Collective Biographies)

This book This book profiles the lives and work of ten African American poets: Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki R. Madhubuti, Rita Dove, Eloise Greenfield, Langston Hughes, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Phillis Wheatley and Nikki Giovanni.
From School Library Journal:
Gr 7-12. ‘Ten African Americans are highlighted in these essays. Each 7-to-10 page sketch contains basic biographical information about the poet, showing how the African-American experience affected their work, along with a portrait (usually a photograph) and one of their poems. The writers range from former slave Phillis Wheatley to contemporary authors such as Maya Angelou, Eloise Greenfield, and Rita Dove. Also included are Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Nikki Giovanni. The clear, focused writing makes this a solid choice for reports, especially in multicultural units.‘

Creative Writing Lesson Plan

“Perhaps then, someday in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. ” —Rainer Maria Riike, Letters To A Young Poet.

Welcome to Summer 2013 Creative Writing!

NOTE: YOU WILL SEE DOZENS OF ENTRIES ON THIS SITE ABOUT LITERATURE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. ONLY THOSE WITH THE CATEGORY “Creative Writing Summer 2013″ ARE REQUIRED FOR THIS CLASS. THE REST ARE RECOMMENDED READING.

This video shows, as one commenter said, how “poetry (like all art) is subjective… I may like Disturbed, you may like Lady Ga Ga, he may like Jack Johnson, she may like Bethoven. None of it is wrong. It’s art. An expression that can not be measured except by how it moves you. (or doesn’t move you).”
_____
Be sure to review the syllabus for this class. It can be found by CLICKING HERE or by using this link: http://youngpeoplespavilion.com/summer-2013-creative-writing-syllabus/
A few important reminders:

* Check this website regularly for class updates and material. If you have a question such as: “I missed class, can you tell me what we did and what is due?” … this website is the spot to find your answer.

Recommended Reading: Letters to a Young Poet, by
Rainer Maria Rilke

* Click on the “Creative Writing Summer 2013″ category below this post, and all class lesson plans (posted as of that date) will come up.

* This site will also be used for updates and announcements.
* Each class will include a 10 point “What I have learned in this class” assessment.
* All writing that will be graded must be submitted to me as a Microsoft Word Document. We will have time in class for you to transfer work from your flash drives.
* We have chosen certain texts that exemplify the craft of creative writing. If at any time a student/parent objects to any material used, I would be more than happy to accommodate by working together with all parties to choose an alternate text.
_____
In class today:
Class overview and syllabus review
Introductions
What is Poetry?
VIDEO: “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman (See: Summer 2013 Creative Writing Videos)

Assessments:
1) What I have learned in this class  (10 points) Due by end of class period 6/10/13.
2) There will be a quiz on Literary and Poetry Terminology  (25 points). It will be short answer and multiple choice. Given in class Wednesday, 6/12/2013.
3)  FIRST WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Write your own poem: (50 points). Due Friday, 6/14, 2013. (See: Summer 2013 Creative Writing Assignments)
_____
What is poetry?
SOURCE: http://www.poetry.org/whatis.htm
Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. It consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose.

It may use condensed or compressed form to convey emotion or ideas to the reader’s or listener’s mind or ear; it may also use devices such as assonance and repetition to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poems frequently rely for their effect on imagery, word association, and the musical qualities of the language used. The interactive layering of all these effects to generate meaning is what marks poetry.
Because of its nature of emphasising linguistic form rather than using language purely for its content, poetry is notoriously difficult to translate from one language into another: a possible exception to this might be the Hebrew Psalms, where the beauty is found more in the balance of ideas than in specific vocabulary. In most poetry, it is the connotations and the “baggage” that words carry (the weight of words) that are most important. These shades and nuances of meaning can be difficult to interpret and can cause different readers to “hear” a particular piece of poetry differently. While there are reasonable interpretations, there can never be a definitive interpretation.

Click in this link http://www.poetry.org/whatis.htm to read more, including 

Nature of poetry

Sound in poetry

Poetry and form

Poetry and rhetoric

History of poetry

VIDEO: “Literary Devices” (See: Summer 2013 Creative Writing Videos)
TERMS:
1) figurative language
2) simile
3) metaphor
4) personification
5) hyperbole
6) alliteration
7) onomatopoeia
8) assonance
9) consonance
DEFINITIONS
1) communicates ideas beyond the ordinary, literal meaning of words
2) compares unrelated nouns, usually using the words “like” or “as”
3) an implied comparison that does not use the words like or as
4) giving human characteristics to inanimate objects, ideas, or animals
5) an exaggeration for the sake of emphasis, not to be taken literally
6) repetition of the initial letter or sound in two or more words in a line of verse
7) a word that represents or imitates natural sounds
8) the similarity or repetition of a vowel sound in two or more words
9) the repetition of final consonant sounds within a line of verse
HERE ARE A FEW EXAMPLES:
1)

• Alright, the sky misses the sun at night.
• Hear the mellow wedding bells. – Edgar Allen Poe
• Out of reach, I pull out with a screech.
• I move fast like a cheetah on the Serengeti.
• Her head was spinning from all the new information.
• The toast jumped out of the toaster.
• I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.
• The Sea lashed out in anger at the ships, unwilling to tolerate another battle.
• The Redcoats are coming!
• I’ve told you a million times to clean your room!

2)
 A Red, Red Rose
O My Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;
O My Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel, awhile!
And I will come again, my luve
Tho’ it ware ten thousand mile!

Robert Burns
1759-1796
Here are examples of  similie poems by Denise Rodgers:
Link: http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-simile-poems.html
3) One of the most prominent examples of a metaphor in English literature is the All the world’s a stage monologue from As You Like It:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances; — William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2/7^[1]

This quote is a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage. By figuratively asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses the points of comparison between the world and a stage to convey an understanding about the mechanics of the world and the lives of the people within it.

_____

ThinkWave.com will be used for grading.

Dead Poets Society: Creative Writing Lesson Plan

Yesterday we watched Dead Poets Society and wrote and shared abut what the movie meant to each of us, as well as what we learned about poetry from the film.

Recommended Reading: Dead Poets Society [Mass Market Paperback N. H. Kleinbaum (Author)

Todd Anderson and his friends at Welton Academy can hardly believe how different life is since their new English professor, the flamboyant John Keating, has challenged them to “make your lives extraordinary!  ” Inspired by Keating, the boys resurrect the Dead Poets Society–a secret club where, free from the constraints and expectations of school and parents, they let their passions run wild.  As Keating turns the boys on to the great words of Byron, Shelley, and Keats, they discover not only the beauty of language, but the importance of making each moment count.
But the Dead Poets pledges soon realize that their newfound freedom can have tragic consequences.  Can the club and the individuality it inspires survive the pressure from authorities determined to destroy their dreams?

While we are discussing cinema and the connections that all art forms have to each other and to creative writing, here are some interesting links: 10 Great Movies Based on Poems
Link: http://flavorwire.com/387561/10-great-movies-based-on-poems
We’re all pretty comfortable with the idea of movies based on books — fiction, nonfiction, and even self-help books — but what about books of poetry? Last week, Open Culture posted a fascinating film based on the poetry of Sylvia Plath. While it might seem surprising to see a film based on a poem, it’s actually probably a lot more common than you think. To prove it, find ten great films based on poetry after the jump. Don’t see your favorite? Add it to the list in the comments.

And here are Films for Poetry Month:
Link: http://www.rhombusmag.com/2010/04/12/film-movies-for-poetry-month/

A lot of the time, real poetry gets a bad rap. It’s foisted on teenagers in high school English classes, most of whom have no idea why they’re reading it, and who are excited to put it permanently behind them. Or at least, that was my experience.

 Poetry, however, doesn’t all suck. And in fact, this month is officially National Poetry Month, which celebrates the best works by both living and dead poets. (Yes, there still are people writing serious poetry — and it isn’t all penned by “anonymous” or ideally suited to church.) So if you haven’t read a poem since looking at “The Red Wheelbarrow” when you were 15, now is a perfect time to give it a second chance. Poetry, after all, may be a dying art, but knowing a thing or two about it can still make you look like a badass.
 In celebration of National Poetry Month, what follows is a list of poetry-related movies. Maybe you’ve seen them, maybe you haven’t, but chances are you haven’t read everything by all the poets they depict. So this April, watch a movie, read a poem, and impress a girl or boy.
One of my favorites is A Knight’s Tale (2001) —

With Heath Ledger’s death in 2008, this film will always be remembered as one of the star’s funnest and most adored works. Yet, it’s also important to remember that the film is possibly the most entertaining depiction of Chaucer in all of cinema. In the film, Chaucer is basically Ledger’s PR man, giving rousing speeches before violent tournaments. In real life, Chaucer is perhaps the first person ever to write poetry in actual English. He wrote The Canterbury Tales about a bunch of pilgrims, which along with his other works helped turn English into a formal, normalized language. Of course, none of that is shown in A Knight’s Tale, but the film at least portrays the poet as a man with a propensity for eloquence.

We will conduct the following  Poetic Devices Activities
Poetic Devices Worksheet - Help students reinforce their skills with onomatopoeia, rhyme, rhythm, repetition, alliteration, and consonance. Students identify the techniques and explain their answer.
Poetic Devices Worksheet RTF
Poetic Devices Worksheet PDF
Preview Poetic Devices Worksheet in Your Web Browser
Poetic Devices Lesson - Teach students about the sounds of poetry with this PowerPoint slide show. Covers onomatopoeia, rhythm, rhyme, repetition, alliteration, and consonance.
Poetic Devices Lesson PowerPoint
Preview Poetic Devices Lesson in Your Web Browser
Poetic Devices Illustration Project – Students will define poetic devices and create an example showing understanding. They will then illustrate their examples. Great artifacts for displaying on a bulletin board.
Poetic Devices Illustration Project RTF
Poetic Devices Illustration Project PDF
Preview Poetic Devices Illustration Project in Your Web Browser
Looking For More Reading Worksheets?
Figurative Language Worksheets
Theme Worksheets
All Reading Worksheets
_________________________________________________
This worksheet on poetic devices is the quiz:
Identifying Poetic Devices Worksheet - Students identify poetic techniques and uses of figurative language in examples from poetry and speech. Also, students should explain their answers. 4 pages – over 25 problems.
Identifying Poetic Devices Worksheet RTF
Identifying Poetic Devices Worksheet PDF
Preview Identifying Poetic Devices Worksheet in Your Web Browser
View Answers
Link: http://www.ereadingworksheets.com/figurative-language/poetic-devices/

Writing Toward Home: Creative Writing Lesson Plan

Recommended Reading:
Writing Toward Home: Tales and Lessons to Find Your Way, by
Georgia Heard

Here are further thoughts on Creative Writing:

Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes. Due to the looseness of the definition, it is possible for writing such as feature stories to be considered creative writing, even though they fall under journalism, because the content of features is specifically focused on narrative and character development. Both fictional and non-fictional works fall into this category, including such forms as novels, biographies, short stories, and poems. In the academic setting, creative writing is typically separated into fiction and poetry classes, with a focus on writing in an original style, as opposed to imitating pre-existing genres such as crime or horror. Writing for the screen and stage—screenwriting and playwriting—are taught separately, but fit under the creative writing category as well.

Here is a personal and compassionate book for everyone writers, poets, teachers, lovers of life, and especially those seeking to find their writing voices again or for the first time. It is an autobiographical travelogue moving from a volcano in Hawaii to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and places in between, with writing at its heart.

Writing Toward Home offers practical advice on overcoming some of the obstacles writers of all ages face: writer’s block, fear of rejection, confronting silencing critics in your head, finding the time to write. Each short chapter speaks to the larger truths about writing and how to truly live the writer’s life: how to become more of a risk taker, how to excavate the past as a source, and how to become an acute observer of the world.
Writing Toward Home is a book that will remind you-and help you remind your students-that the true source of writing is the creative self. In this fast culture when most people have so little time to do anything but menial tasks, it will jumpstart you, it will awaken to you the journey within, it will make you want to write.

Today, we will work with the following Short Story Element Rubric:
Below is an EXCERPT from it.
Name____________________­­
Creative Writing ____________
Name of story analyzing _______________________  By __________________ Published_______

SHORT STORY ELEMENTS WORKSHEET – Fill in the following as appropriate:

SETTING –
a)  Place –
b)  Time –
c)  Weather conditions –
d) Social conditions –
e)  Mood or atmosphere –

PLOT –
a)  Introduction -
b)  Rising Action –
c)  Climax –
d)  Falling action -
e)  Denouement –

CONFLICT—
Types:
1)  External –
2)  Internal -
Kinds:
1)  Man vs. Man (physical) –
2)  Man vs. Circumstances (classical) –
3)  Man vs. Society (social) –
4)  Man vs. Himself/Herself (psychological) -
____
We will also read The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allen Poe, as a sample of a great short story.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” was first published in September 1839 in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine. It was slightly revised in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. It contains within it the poem “The Haunted Palace”, which had earlier been published separately in the April 1839 issue of the Baltimore Museum magazine.

In 1928, Éditions Narcisse, predecessor to the Black Sun Press, published a limited edition of 300 numbered copies with illustrations by Alastair.

The story begins with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his help. Although Poe wrote this short story before the invention of modern psychological science, Roderick’s condition can be described according to its terminology. It includes a form of sensory overload known as hyperesthesia (hypersensitivity to light, sounds, smells, and tastes), hypochondria (an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness), and acute anxiety. It is revealed that Roderick’s twin sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, deathlike trances. The narrator is impressed with Roderick’s paintings, and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Roderick sings “The Haunted Palace”, then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be alive, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it.

Roderick later informs the narrator that his sister has died and insists that she be entombed for two weeks in a vault (family tomb) in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, and he notes that Madeline has rosy cheeks, as some do after death. They inter her, but over the next week both Roderick and the narrator find themselves becoming increasingly agitated for no apparent reason. A storm begins. Roderick comes to the narrator’s bedroom, which is situated directly above the vault, and throws open his window to the storm. He notices that the tarn surrounding the house seems to glow in the dark, as it glowed in Roderick Usher’s paintings, although there is no lightning.

The narrator attempts to calm Roderick by reading aloud The Mad Tryst, a novel involving a knight named Ethelred who breaks into a hermit’s dwelling in an attempt to escape an approaching storm, only to find a palace of gold guarded by a dragon. He also finds hanging on the wall a shield of shining brass on which is written a legend: that the one who slays the dragon wins the shield. With a stroke of his mace, Ethelred kills the dragon, who dies with a piercing shriek, and proceeds to take the shield, which falls to the floor with an unnerving clatter.

As the narrator reads of the knight’s forcible entry into the dwelling, cracking and ripping sounds are heard somewhere in the house. When the dragon is described as shrieking as it dies, a shriek is heard, again within the house. As he relates the shield falling from off the wall, a reverberation, metallic and hollow, can be heard. Roderick becomes increasingly hysterical, and eventually exclaims that these sounds are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entombed and that Roderick Usher knew that she was alive. The bedroom door is then blown open to reveal Madeline standing there. She falls on her brother, and both land on the floor as corpses. The narrator then flees the house, and, as he does so, notices a flash of light causing him to look back upon the House of Usher, in time to watch it break in two, the fragments sinking into the tarn.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” is considered the best example of Poe’s “totality”, where every element and detail is related and relevant.
The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764), which largely contributed in defining the Gothic genre. The presence of a capacious, disintegrating house symbolizing the destruction of the human body is a characteristic element in Poe’s later work.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” shows Poe’s ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt.These emotions center on Roderick Usher who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed disease. Like the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart”, his disease inflames his hyperactive senses. The illness manifests physically but is based in Roderick’s mental or even moral state. He is sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be sick based on his family’s history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a hypochondriac. Similarly, he buries his sister alive because he expects to bury her alive, creating his own self-fulfilling prophecy.

The House of Usher, itself doubly referring both to the actual structure and the family, plays a significant role in the story. It is the first “character” that the narrator introduces to the reader, presented with a humanized description: its windows are described as “eye-like” twice in the first paragraph. The fissure that develops in its side is symbolic of the decay of the Usher family and the house “dies” along with the two Usher siblings. This connection was emphasized in Roderick’s poem “The Haunted Palace” which seems to be a direct reference to the house that foreshadows doom.

L. Sprague de Camp, in his Lovecraft: A Biography [p. 246f], wrote that “[a]ccording to the late [Poe expert] Thomas O. Mabbott, [H. P.] Lovecraft, in “Supernatural Horror”, solved a problem in the interpretation of Poe” by arguing that “Roderick Usher, his sister Madeline, and the house all shared one common soul”. The explicit psychological dimension of this tale has prompted many critics to analyze it as a description of the human psyche, comparing, for instance, the House to the unconscious, and its central crack to the personality split which is called dissociative identity disorder. Mental disorder is also evoked through the themes of melancholy, possible incest, and vampirism. An incestuous relationship between Roderick and Madeline is never explicitly stated, but seems implied by the strange attachment between the two.
Opium, which Poe mentions several times in both his prose and poems, is mentioned twice in the tale. The gloomy sensation occasioned by the dreary landscape around the Usher mansion is compared by the narrator to the sickness caused by the withdrawal symptoms of an opiate-addict. The narrator also describes Roderick Usher’s appearance as that of an “irreclaimable eater of opium”.

What Makes a Good Poem? Creative Writing Lesson Plan

Recommended Reading: Writing Poetry from the Inside Out: Finding Your Voice Through the Craft of Poetry, by Sandford Lyne

As we begin to look at our poems in more depth, here are some of the rubrics and ideas we will be using:
What makes a good poem? – Short Poems
What is Good Poetry (What Makes Good Poetry)? – PoetrySoup
What Makes a Good Poem? – Marilyn Singer
How to Critique Poetry: 9 Steps – wikiHow
How to Critique a Poem | eHow
and  How to critique a poem | ebooks4writers
Further, here are some thoughts from: Telling a Good Poem from a Bad One – Daily Writing Tips:

What makes a poem “good”?

The answer ultimately lies with the reader of the poem, but there is a certain consensus as to what makes a poem “good” or “bad.”
According to the critic Coleridge, prose is “words in their best order,” while poetry is “the best words in their best order.

Poetry demands precision. The novelist can get away with less than precise expression from time to time because the story will pull the reader along. The job of the poet is to create a picture in the mind and an emotion in the heart. Every single word counts. The wrong choice–a word with the wrong connotation or the wrong number of syllables or an unlovely combination of consonant sounds–spoils all.
The underlying thought of the poem is also important. Some poems are written to create a picture only, but the most memorable poems also convey a universal truth about the human condition. For me, a “good” poem leaves me with goosebumps along my arms. I think a poem is “bad” when it lacks a discernible point and sounds like prose.

In Writing Poetry from the Inside Out: Finding Your Voice Through the Craft of Poetry, poet and national poetry workshop leader, Sandford Lyne, offers the writing exercises, guidance, and encouragement you need to find the poet inside you. Lyne’s techniques, which he developed through twenty years of teaching poetry workshops, flow from an understanding that poetry is an art form open to everyone. We all can-and should-write poetry.

In this enchanting and inspiring volume, Lyne will introduce you to the pleasures and surprises of writing poetry, and his methods and insights will help you tap into your own unique voice and perspective to compose poems of your own in as little as a few minutes.

Whether you are an experienced writer looking for new techniques and sources of inspiration or a novice poet who has never written a poem in your life, Writing Poetry from the Inside Out will help you to craft the poems you’ve always longed to write.

Nikki Grimes, Words with Wings

Checking the mailbox is always fun for a book reviewer. We never know what gems the publishers are going to send us. So going to the mail is like Christmas every day — lots of great packages to open. But every once in a while an author herself sends a very special gift. That is why I was so pleased to receive an advanced review copy of  Words with Wings by Nikki Grimes.

This ultra-talented poet acts as an antidote to the decline of beautiful language in much of today’s media:
“The steady diet of crass language in lyrics, these days, saddens me. Where is the lilting line? Where is the poetry? What happened to that?” asks Grimes on a recent post on her Facebook page.

One answer lies in her book, soon to be released by Boyds Mills Press/Wordsong. This novel in verse about a girl who turns her daydreaming into a strength. is a striking mixture of experience, thought and feeling. The imagery in her work is brilliantly captured with spontaneous, concise, illuminating language. All the senses of the reader are stimulated, offering young readers an opportunity for profound understanding of each of the poems. The quality of the writing, combined  Grimes’ masterful use of literary devices, creates an extremely enjoyable experience. This book would make a good gift for poetry writing tweens and young teens. But it can be excellent to share with all ages. I can see it being read and enjoyed again and again.

Who is Nikki Grimes?

“It seemed uncanny that words, spread across a page just so, had the power to transport me to another time or place. But they could. I spent many hours ensconced in the local library, reading—nay, devouring—book after book after book. Books were my soul’s delight. Even so, in one sense, the stories I read betrayed me. Too few gave me back my mirror image. Fewer still spoke to, or acknowledged, the existence of the problems I faced as a black foster child from a dysfunctional and badly broken home. I couldn’t articulate it then, but I sensed a need for validation, which the books I read did not supply. ‘When I grow up,’ I thought, ‘I’ll write books about children who look and feel like me.’”

Whether writing poetry or fiction, Grimes has succeeded in creating works featuring young African-American characters with whom children and young adults can identify. Drawing upon scenes from her own childhood in New York City, Grimes is noted for successfully conveying the black experience and universal themes such as friendship, tolerance, family, and community relationships, and children surviving adolescence. Despite a difficult childhood, her stories are characterized by optimism and warmth.

Nikki Grimes has written for very young children, middle readers, young adults, and adults. She is a versatile and insightful observer of human nature, writing prose that is precise, poetry that is lyrical. Her acclaimed body of work includes the poetry books Come Sunday, an ALA Notable Book, A Dime a Dozen, a Junior Library Guild selection, and the young adult novel, Jazmin’s Notebook, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Nikki Grimes currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

Four Twitter ideas for teaching concise writing, a FREE Ebook and other resources

Here are some activities that I will use in my 10th and 11th grade creative writing class this summer for TRIO/Upward Bound.

The strategies  teach concise writing and are based on Twitter. However, the ideas can easily be adapted for other platforms including Facebook status updates or text messages.

SOURCE: Less Is More: Using Social Media to Inspire Concise Writing
1) Personal Writing: Students write a series of Twitter-esque personal “essays” (140 characters maximum, including spaces and punctuation). Topic ideas include the school year, life lessons, relationships and personal goals. Each one can be stand-alone, or each post can be part of a series. They might do this, for example, for personal writing or in the context of developing college essay ideas. They then develop one or more selected posts into a longer piece. Afterward, debrief: How did starting off by writing brief expressions of their ideas contribute to their writing process?

WRITE GOOD OR DIE IS A FREE EBOOK that gives survival tips for 21st century writers, from best-selling authors Kevin J. Anderson, M.J. Rose, Heather Graham, J.A. Konrath, Gayle Lynds, Alexandra Sokoloff, Jonathan Maberry, and more. How to develop your craft, improve your writing, get an agent, promote your work, embrace the digital age, and prepare yourself for the coming changes in the publishing industry. Edited by Scott Nicholson. Other contributors include Elizabeth Massie, Harley Jane Kozak, Douglas Clegg, Brandon Massey, Mur Lafferty, Dean Wesley Smith, David J. Montgomery, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert Kroese, and Adrienne Jones. Covering art, craft, and business. All proceeds benefit the non-profit organization Literacy Inc., which promotes reading among teens.

2) Authentic Writing: Taking a page from Andy Selsberg, students find ways to contribute meaningfully and authentically to the world of the Web. Ideas include, as Mr. Selsberg suggests, writing descriptions to “sell” an item of used clothing on eBay, commenting on a YouTube video or contributing a product review on a site like Amazon, as well as participating in our daily Student Opinion discussions. Establish guidelines for good Web citizenship. Have students read each other’s posts and provide helpful feedback. How was this activity different from writing academic essays that only the teacher reads?

3) Poetry: Students read the Twitter poems by Billy Collins, Claudia Rankine, Elizabeth Alexander and Robert Pinsky. They then write their own original “Twitter poems” or rewrite a classic poem or one of their own poems in 140 characters or fewer. They can also look further into the history and impact of brief poems, like Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” and William Carlos Williams’s “So Much Depends.”

4) Creative Writing: Students write pieces inspired by so-called Twitter novels and cellphone novels, either by writing the equivalent of an original story or novella 140 characters at a time, or by “crowd-sourcing” the work, by having each student contribute a line, in turn, to a class novel.
_______

RELATED RESOURCES
From The Learning Network

• 10 Ways to Develop Expository Writing Skills With The New York Times
• Lesson: The Plot Thickens?
• Student Opinion: Do You Use Twitter?

From NYTimes.com

• Bloggingheads: Twittering Away
• City Room: A Life on the Streets, Captured on Twitter
• Magazine: I Tweet, Therefore I Am

Around the Web

• Purdue OWL: Paramedic Method
• Figment
• TwiHaiku