Haiku

Haiku

The haiku is a three-line poem with a specific syllable count (5,7,5) in each line. Traditionally, these poems were meant to express a simple truth, and usually incorporated nature. You may write your haikus on any topic you like.

 

You must write ten of these by the end of the period.

Parody

Your assignment is to create a parody of the song of your choice.  In other words, take a song you know, and change the lyrics to make them humorous.  Choosing one humorous topic as the theme of your parody is the most successful way to attack this task.

There are numerous examples on the internet...YES, FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW YOU ARE ALLOWED TO "SURF THE NET."  View a few examples.

This assignment is due tomorrow at the end of class.  When you post, be sure to include a link to the song you are parodying.

Have fun.  Yes, it's difficult.  And yes, EVERYONE has to do this assignment.

Amnesia

A plane is flying from Australia to Los Angeles. As the passengers disembark, they start to experience amnesia–that is, all of the passengers except one. The farther they go from the plane on which they flew, the more severe their amnesia...

Create a story that addresses the above scenario. Develop the conflict and characters over several days of work. The tone and style of the piece is up to you; however, it must be a minimum of 1500 words and due at the end of class on Monday.

Dystopia Story - an Idea Gone Wrong

Revisit the atrocities of the past in a story. You can either write it as a historical fiction (i.e. something that happens in the period in which the atrocity was practiced– like slavery, Holocaust, general lack of rights and freedoms) or as something that’s happening in a different form (with obvious corollaries) today, or in a future setting.
Think of the novels The Giver and Animal Farm as examples of this. Your story should be a minimum of 1000 words and is due Wednesday. You will have to break up the post into several comments in order to get it to fit.

Weekend

Write a story that takes place during the course of a single weekend.  It should start from the moment the bell rings on Friday at 2:36, and finish sometime on Sunday night.  You can take this in any direction you'd like.

Your story should be 700 words or more.  It is due at the end of class on Friday.

If I Could Go Back

What would you choose if you could go back and change one moment in your life?  Write 200 words in response to this prompt.  It is due at the end of the period.  You may use any format you like.

Bi-Directional Poetry

Bi-directional Poetry

Your assignment is to create a poem that can be read both forwards and backwards.  It is a challenging assignment that can bring a multitude of benefits to your writing; it can open up the possibility to perceive new possibilities in word structure, as well as add depth and dimension to a single poetic concept.

This assignment also teaches the importance of comma placement. Since your poem has to be read both forwards and backwards, reorganization reagarding comma placement becomes crucial in making your poem readable in both directions.  For today's part of the assignment, do not include any commas.  We will return to the comma placement portion at a later time.

Because this assignment is so difficult, I only ask that your poem be a minimum of seven lines, with a minimum of three words per line.  It is due at the end of the period.

Here's an example I constructed to help guide you:

Peaceful and quiet
eternal sleep makes it so
death is transformation
soon comes change
pain wilting slowly
like dying flowers
ending is beginning

Highlights with Soundtrack

Your assignment is to choose 10 highlights from your life.  For each moment, choose a song that  would appropriately accompany that moment.  Then, for each moment, write 1 to 3 sentences explaining your song choice for that moment.

EXAMPLE

MOMENT: 10th grade, a crisp fall night.  I remember being sprawled out on the front lawn of my buddy's house, staring up at the stars, talking for hours with a person I had only known vaguely before that time.

SONG: "Are You Lightning?" by Nada Surf.  I chose this song because it conveys the sense of the glorious confusion that often accompanies a new relationship.  There is a feeling of anticipation and the slight undercurrent of trepidation that comes along with opening yourself up to someone new.

MOMENT:  Also 10^th grade, oddly enough.  Dead middle of Christmas break.  One of my best friends was heavily addicted to drugs, and had been hiding it from me, fearing my judgment.  We had argued about it.  As a gesture of good faith, she walked a mile across town in 2 feet of snow, the day after having major knee surgery, to carry me the pipe she had been using; her thinking was that this would prove she was done with this stuff for good.  I remember feeling sadness upon recognizing the futility of the whole gesture.  I appreciated it, but I was not about to fool myself about it.  I could tell she wanted me to tell her that I trusted her, that this was all she needed to do to make things right, but I just couldn’t.  It was a hard truth.

SONG: “Soma” by The Smashing Pumpkins.”  Musically, the spacy introduction of this song always conjured the feeling of Christmas lights, strung out on cold rooflines, blinking, magical.  I think of her walk in the snow and hear that music.  The way the song crests, the way it swells, even the screechy vocals remind me of a truth one can’t ignore. 

MOMENT:   January, at a young, purposely non-specified age.  I was at a social gathering of sorts, and it was “somewhat” rowdy.  At the absolute apex of the evening, which was at a friend’s house, the craziest kid I knew at the time got into a fight with his girlfriend.  He was in a “somewhat altered” state of consciousness.  I could see it escalating.  He was standing in the corner of a screened-in porch, and suddenly he decided to just leap backwards.  He smashed through the screen, and reverse face-planted on the concrete, splitting his head wide-open.  The chaos that ensued when the “social gathering” guests were informed that an ambulance was on the way can best be described as “the stuff of legend.”  Half-filled cups flying into bushes.  Various glass receptacles being tossed down the hill in the backyard.   By the time I had made my escape, I wasn’t completely aware that I had made my escape.  Luckily, I had the assistance of a friend, who literally saved my life that night; she pulled me back as I tried to cross the street, and missed being hit by a truck by about 6 inches.

SONG:  “Lady, Your Roof Brings Me Down” by Scott Weiland.  I’m not even a huge fan of the artist, but this song typifies the silliness and disorientation that goes along with my night.  It falls all over itself; it is sloppy.  The groove lumbers along like a dizzy sloth.  It’s perfect.

  

This assignment is due at the end of class on Monday for Mr. Kupiec's class and by the end of class on Wednesday for Mrs. Ell's.

Literary Device Poem

Literary Device Poem

Write a thirty line poem that has at least ten syllables per line.  Your poem must include the use of each of the following literary devices.  If you are unfamiliar with any of these terms, look them up online.  This assignment is due at the end of the period.

Alliteration
Onomatopoeia
Hyperbole
Simile
Metaphor

Mrs. Ell's class - due at the end of class on Friday.

Spectrum Bio

1. Write a short bio about yourself - max 2 paragraphs. What you include is up to you, but here are some suggestions:

• your name, age
• favorite activity
• personality
• friends. family
• things that are important to you
• plans for the future
• why you write

Make a list of the following things IN ADDITION TO the bio. DO NOT include these in the bio.
1. Favorite quote and the source
2. Favorite books and authors
3. Birthday
4. Appropriate personal picture (can be with friends and family) emailed to Mrs. Ell (elll@dunellenschools.org)

Missing

Scenario: You wake up in the middle of the night, and your most treasured possession is gone!  What is it?  Where did it go?  Why?  Write a short story of 700 words in response to this prompt.  It is due at the end of class on Monday for Mr. Kupiec's class and at the end of class on Tuesday for Mrs. Ell's class.

300 word free write

Your assignment is to write whatever you'd like.  It must be 300 words.  It is due at the end of class today.  (Thursday)

Want to Play a Game?

Focus on a memory of a game that you played when you were a kid. It could be chess, it could be paintball, it could even be Cowboys and Indians– anything where you really got into the game. Start by writing about the experience itself, and then make it more real. Suddenly you are the king, the soldier, the intrepid native out to reclaim his lands! Use descriptive detail to imagine a surreal experience.

Response should be a minimum of 500 words and is due at the end of the period on Friday.

TIP FOR BLOGS: Write your response in Word first - for the purposes of spellcheck and to save your progress between days (and if you need to take it home to work on) - then copy and paste into the comment section on the blog.

Welcome to Creative Writing 2013-2014

Creative Writing is an elective course that centers around several different types of writing. Students taking this course may expect to encounter a variety of assignments, ranging from short poetic formats, to TV scripts, to novellas. The focus of the course is to provide a creative outlet for students while refining and reinforcing writing skills.

Due to the fact that one cannot grade a student on his/her amount of creativity, students will be assessed according to the total number of assignments completed. Students will also be evaluated on their ability to demonstrate mastery of each format introduced. As in any other class, work ethic and attention to detail are integral to a student's success in this class.

The purposes of this blog are multi-faceted. Often, assignments and prompts will be available for perusal on the blog and supplementary materials and creative inspiration posted by the teacher. The blog is also a venue to communicate with your classmates in reference to constructive criticism, to introduce assignments you would be interested in doing, as well as posit specific prompts of your own.

The only rules that need be followed is that we respect one another's particular vein of creativity and use the site for academic and creative purposes only, maintaining the proper voice, grammar, and tone for each assignment.