Workshop #2

AGENDA:

Continue Workshop #2

Short Story Workshop #2/Elegy

AGENDA:

Short Story #2  Whole Class workshop---3 stories

Poof   Amy Gerstler

Here on my lap, in a small plastic bag, my share of your ashes. Let me not squander them. Your family blindsided me with this gift. We want to honor your bond they said at the end of your service, which took place, as you’d arranged, in a restaurant at the harbor, an old two-story boathouse made of dark wood. Some of us sat on the balcony, on black leather bar stools, staring at rows of docked boats. Both your husbands showed up and got along. And of course your impossibly handsome son. After lunch, a slideshow and testimonials, your family left to toss their share of you onto the ocean, along with some flowers.   You were the girlfriend I practiced kissing with in sixth grade during zero-sleep sleepovers. You were the pretty one. In middle school I lived on diet Coke and your sexual reconnaissance reports. In this telling of our story your father never hits you or calls you a whore. Always gentle with me, he taught me to ride a bike after everyone said I was too klutzy to learn. In this version we’re not afraid of our bodies. In this fiction, birth control is easy to obtain, and never fails. You still dive under a stall divider in a restroom at the beach to free me after I get too drunk to unlock the door. You still reveal the esoteric mysteries of tampons. You still learn Farsi and French from boyfriends as your life ignites. In high school I still guide you safely out of the stadium when you start yelling that the football looks amazing as it shatters into a million shimmering pieces, as you loudly admit that you just dropped acid.   We lived to be sixty. Then poof, you vanished. I can’t snort you, or dump you out over my head, coating myself in your dust like some hapless cartoon character who’s just blown herself up, yet remains unscathed, as is the way in cartoons. In this version, I remain in place for a while. Did you have a good journey? I’m still lagging behind, barking up all the wrong trees, whipping out my scimitar far in advance of what the occasion demands. As I drive home from your memorial, you fizz in my head like a distant radio station. What can I do to bridge this chasm between us? In this fiction, I roll down the window, drive uncharacteristically fast. I tear your baggie open with my teeth and release you at 85 miles an hour, music cranked up full blast.

Short Story #2 for workshop

AGENDA:

Print a second short story for Short Story #2 packet.

VIDEO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPN7vDu9Rsk

Read Neil Gaiman short story and comment on blog:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/11603446/Neil-Gaiman-Click-clack-the-Rattlebag.html

Short Story--#1 and Peer Edit

AGENDA:
Last call for Short Story #1 and Peer Edit for grading purposes.

Work on Short Story #2 for Workshop on Tuesday!   See Google Classroom and post new material for Workshop #2

Remember, you need 20 pages for the marking period!  Get going on new prompts---try writing in different POVs, styles, genres, etc.

Model Short Stories

AGENDA:

WRITING:
Continue to work on your own short stories and workshop pieces.

Yearbook poems!

READING:  This website has "model" short stories and commentary on them.  Explore!

http://www.centerforfiction.org/forwriters/the-model-short-story/

Articles on writing:

http://www.centerforfiction.org/forwriters/writers-on-writing/

Tillie Olsen "I Stand Here Ironing"

AGENDA:

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

READ:   "I Stand Here Ironing"

Think, Pair, Share:  With a partner, answer the following questions--

“I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen

(used in 1992 as AP prose essay prompt)

Short Story Analysis

Answer the questions as specifically as possible with textual references, but do so quickly.

1. Who is the “you” in the first sentence?

2. Is the narrator static or dynamic? Justify with a quotation from the beginning and one from the end, and label her state in each one.

3. Define the ongoing (including the current) external conflict between mother and daughter. Use specific terms

4. Define the mother’s internal conflict (how she is conflicted with herself).

5. The narrator refers to “all that life that has happened outside me, beyond me.” What factors beyond her control have affected her relationship with her daughter? In a brief list, identify five economic, personal, and/or historical factors (note their effects only if necessary for clarity.

6. Identify three factors/circumstances within her control for which the mother seems to be willing to take blame and accept as her mistakes (use 3 quotes). (Form: “She takes the blame for X when she states, “[quotation].”)

7. Analyze the summary paragraph (the penultimate one) that begins “I will never total it all.” Why does the narrator say this equation would not be an adequate explanation of Emily’s character? Does this seem like excuse making on her part for her daughter’s trouble? (Form: three or more analytical sentences)

8. Consider the “help” Emily receives at the convalescent home: how does it connect to or influence the mother’s statement “Let her be,” at the end?

9. In what way does the story’s final paragraph express the narrator’s feeling of resignation (acceptance)? In what way does it express an affirmation (approval)? (use quotations)

10. Explain the “ironing” metaphor by showing its relevance to:
1. The mother’s wish for her daughter
2. The mother’s view of her own life

11. Write a theme statement for this story.

“I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen

Theme Statement

When a reflective and self-aware mother who has raised a family through difficult personal, economic, and social circumstances comes in conflict with someone who wants to give her advice concerning her child’s teenage difficulties in a situation in which the mother is suspicious of outside interference, the result may be that the mother reflects on her strengths and weaknesses as a parent, both “what should have been and what (could) not be helped,” and rejects the outside interference but hopes for her child to have more control over her life than the mother felt she had over her own.

Yearbook poetry/Tobias Wolff "Hunters in the Snow"

AGENDA:

Put together yearbook poems from seniors.

Continue working on workshop stories.

READ: Tobias Wolff: "Hunters in the Snow"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEVdhN06JZg

Brueghel painting



http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/huntsnow.html

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Tobias-Wolffs-Hunters-in-the-Snow

Think, Pair, Share:  Discuss in group.  Post group answer to questions on blog.

Group 1:
Discussion Question 1 Discuss the very first interaction between Tub, Frank, and Kenny. How does this interaction set the tone of the story and the character relationships?
Discussion Question 2 How do these pages of the story portray and develop the dynamic between Frank and Kenny? In what ways is the dynamic of their relationship significant?

Discussion Question 3 In what ways are Frank and Kenny insensitive towards Tub in these pages, specifically in reference to Tub’s weight? How might this insensitivity be significant in the story?

Group 2:
Discussion Question 1
What causes and factors lead Tub to shoot Kenny? What are the literal and symbolic significances of this moment and of the related factors?

Discussion Question 2
What are the possible narrative and thematic significances of the scene inside the farmer’s house? How does this scene relate to the overall story?

Discussion Question 3
How does the dynamic between Frank and Tub shift after they exit the farmer’s house/ What are the causes and significances of this shift?

Group 3:
Discussion Question 1
What secret does Frank admit to Tub? What are the narrative/thematic significances of the secret and Tub’s reaction to it?

Discussion Question 2
What secret does Tub admit to Frank? What are the narrative/thematic significances of the secret and Frank’s reaction to it?

Discussion Question 3
What is the tone and significance of the story’s conclusion? How does the ending relate to the overall story?

Amy Hempel/ New short story prompts

AGENDA:

Discussion questions for short story:

1.  Why did it take the narrator two months to visit her best friend in the hospital?

2.  What is referenced by the 2nd “it” (“it scared him to death) in the story told by the mortician?

3.  Where does the narrator’s friend seem to be on psychologist Kubler-Ross’ six stages of grief process?  Explain your answer.

The stages are, in order:

Denial:  “This can’t happen to me.”
Anger:  “It isn’t fair.  What did I do to deserve this?”

Bargaining:   “I’ll do anything if you just make this go away.”
Depression:  “I feel hopeless, nothing matters anymore.”
Acceptance:  “I’ll be okay.”
Hope:  “What can I do to help others?”

4.  What’s the real difference between the Good and Bad Doctor?

5.  Why is the setting of “earthquake weather” appropriate for the story?

6.  Does the narrator stay the night with her friend?   Why or why not?

Continue to work on revising and editing in workshop.

New short story prompts:

https://thewritepractice.com/short-story-ideas/

https://thejohnfox.com/2016/06/short-story-ideas/

Amy Hempel/Workshop

AGENDA:

Continue workshopping Story #1

HMWK:
For Tuesday, read Amy Hempel's "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried"

Scribner pg. 343

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

http://fictionaut.com/stories/amy-hempel/in-the-cemetery-where-al-jolson-is-buried

http://paulmcveigh.blogspot.com/2013/04/in-cemetery-where-al-jolson-is-buried.html