Thank you, Harris Burdick

Using the artwork, title and sentence you selected from the Burdick book as your inspiration, please draft a creative piece of your choice.  Spend some time on this one and shoot for at least 500 words, more if you can to really develop your story.  Use plenty of vivid details and consider using dialogue.  You might create a fictional short story or maybe adapt a narrative from your own experience that connects to Burdick's picture or words. 

You'll have today and tomorrow to draft and polish your story and then create a New Post on your blog by the end of class on Tuesday that includes both your writing and the Burdick image (looks like most of them are on Google images if you search "harris burdick").  Use the title that went with your image as the title of your post.  Use the sentence that went with your image somewhere in your piece--put that sentence in bold.

You can read more about The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (and submit your story if you'd like!) here.

Please plan to turn in your Writer's Journal with 20 new, full pages this Friday for our end of 1st quarter check.  

Window Poem

In a New Post on your blog, please share the Window Poem you created in your journal during class on Thursday. Add an image--maybe a painting or other artwork that goes along with what you've written. Thanks!

Inspired by your artist

In a New Post on your blog please choose 2 pieces by the artist you profiled Tuesday and write a narrative poem of at least 10 lines for each. 

A narrative poem is one that tells a story.  It doesn't need to rhyme.  You could tell a made-up story inspired by the painting, you could tell a story from your own life the piece makes you think of, you could make up a story about the subjects in the painting...You could connect your two 10-line poems or let them stand on their own. Try to include vivid, sensory details and rich, interesting word choices.  You might even try to include a poetic device (like alliteration, simile, repetition, etc.) if you're comfortable doing so.  

Please include an image of the piece of art you are writing about in your post.  Give the post a creative title.

Artist Profile

Grumpy Cat works in oils

Please profile the artist you chose to study in a New Post on your blog.  Please all include the information from your brochure, but instead of listing it, write the information more like a life story in paragraphs.  

Include an image and/or self-portrait of the artist as well as 2-3 images of the artist's most famous works.  

Title Your Post Artist Profile: ______ (name of artist).  Thanks!

Don't quote me on that

We often turn to the words of others for inspiration, guidance, or even just a good laugh. These words might come from favorite pieces of literature, song lyrics, a wise family member or friend, even movies or TV.

Please create a New Post on your blog featuring some of your favorite quotations.  You can find interesting looking versions of them on Google Images or elsewhere, or you can simply type them in (you could change up the font and colors to make it interesting).  Be sure to give credit to the writer or speaker.

Here are a few quotes that I like:

"Love is the answer,

at least to most of the questions

of my heart."

Jack Johnson

Your quote may be from a person you know or a person you don't. It may be funny or serious, thought-provoking or light-hearted. Just so it speaks to you.  You might also want to jot your quote(s) down in your journal for something else I hope we can do this week.

On the topic of "quotes," I'm adding a link here to a funny site that documents superfluous (extra, unnecessary) uses of quotation marks. Maybe it's only funny to me as an English teacher, but take a look: http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/. Be on the lookout for unneeded quotation marks in your world...maybe you could send one in.

Catch up/move on

We will be moving on to a new topic (ART!) for inspiration next week, so if there are any BOOKS/TEXT-inspired pieces you would still like to receive credit for (including the pieces I haven't given points/zeroes for yet) you need to do so no later than this Sunday night.  

Use class time today to make up work you're missing on our current theme (not dreams, objects, or color--that window has closed).  You can circle any work you complete today (or that I missed seeing somehow) on your grade check and turn it back in to the basket on my desk today or take it home for your reference to finish up work this weekend).  

Supplies for the magazine poem, blackout pages, and newspaper cutouts are all on the back counter if you need them.  You can be writing in your journal or working on something else if you've finished everything.  

I also need you to take this quick survey if you haven't already so I can sign off for us in the office.  Leave a comment on this post letting me know you've done so for 10 points.  Thanks so much.


Have a great Ceremonial weekend!   

6 Word Memoirs

In a New Post on your blog, please share whichever of the 6-Word Memoirs you came up with in class  that you are comfortable sharing.  Just one or all of them.  Include an image or images.  You don't need to explain them, but you could if you wanted to. You could also submit what you've come up with to the Smith magazine website.  Here's a link to the video we watched if you'd like to send it around to your friends and see which ones they think could apply to you (and themselves...).

In the news {papers}

In a New Post on your blog, please share some writing inspired by our dig through newspapers Tuesday.  You might have one longer piece or several shorter ones, but come up with at least 250 words.  Include some images and a catchy title.  

You could mention the headline, photo, ad, etc. that sparked your idea in an Author's Note, or you could leave that a mystery...but don't just describe or narrate what you cut out--make up something new.

Blackout

Thanks for trying the newspaper and book page blackout technique (scientific terminology there) in class Tuesday. Please share at least one of your blackout text pieces as a COMMENT on this post. 

You could type the text you left on the page as a sentence or poem or story.  You could also take a picture with your phone and post your work that way on your own blog, but that is optional.

I'm thinking you could do this same technique with any printed material containing a good chunk of text to work with. I also think you could be inspired to write all sorts of other pieces by using your blacked out piece as a starting point.

You could visit Austin Kleon's website to see what others have come up with and even post your own work there if you're up for it. 

Famous First and Last Lines: Make them Yours

In a New Post on your blog, type up some original writing of about 400 words or more  inspired by the pink famous first line and the purple famous last line you glued into your journal.  This could be one continuous piece or two separate pieces.  Include an image and an interesting title to your post. Put the lines you used in bold.

Hey!  Take this quick survey, too, if you can!  There is a single link to the survey. The participant will need to select his or her role and then site. Click here to take the survey: https://bbyt.es/TL7TC

Famous First and Last Lines

In a New Post on your blog, present the following information  for each of the lines you chose.  Title this post Famous First and Last Lines.  You could link to relevant informational sites.  

Be sure to include the following for EACH:

• the line word for word
• the author, his or her birth/death years, and a bit of info about him or her
• the year it was published
• a 40-50 word summary of the novel in your own words
• 40-50 words on why you personally would or wouldn't like to read this book
• at least one image for each

Here's an example:

Famous First Line (pink):

"You better not never tell nobody but God."

This line opens the novel The Color Purple, published in 1982 by author Alice Walker, who was born in Georgia on 9 February 1944. Through letters written back and forth to one another, the novel traces the story of two poor, African-American sisters who are separated, one married off to an older, misogynistic neighbor and the other called to serve as a missionary in Africa. The main character Celie also writes letters to God because she has no one else to share her shameful secrets and her deepest feelings with. 

I first read The Color Purple in a college class at Drury, a class taught by one of my favorite professors who I have long admired and tried to emulate as a teacher myself. I had read the work of Maya Angelou and found myself drawn to the stories of African-American women, and this story captivated me. I have since read the book 6 or 7 more times, and every single time I find something to shake my head at, mumble a "yup!" to, laugh about, cry about...Such a powerful work to me--I will read it many times more, I know. I wrote about a passage that reminded me of the turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri, back in 2014.

Famous Last Line (purple):

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

F.Scott Fitzgerald ended his most famous novel The Great Gatsby with these words, considered by some to be the best closing lines of any novel ever. The novel came out back in 1925 but still shows up on collections of all-time classics and high school reading lists. Narrator Nick Carraway offers insight into the vapid society of West Egg, New York, in the 1920s, as well as the mostly empty marriage between Tom and Daisy Buchanan. The action centers on languid afternoons and extravagant parties at the mansion of Gatsby, an enigmatic millionaire.

I read The Great Gatsby in English class my junior year in high school. I re-read it again a couple of summers ago and enjoyed it very much. I liked the film starring Leonardo DiCaprio (so cute! totally one of my girlhood crushes) as Gatsby released a couple of years ago. The director, Baz Luhrman, also did one of my all-time favorite movies, Moulin Rouge, so I knew I'd really like what he did with Gatsby.

The lines were pulled from this list of Best Opening Lines and this list of Best Last Lines.  You could browse them for other writing ideas or inspiration.