Adaptation (500 words)

Now that you've chosen a song with a story, your next task is to adapt that song into a short story in no more than 500 words.

Adaptation - noun 1. to make fit (as for a specific or new use or situation) often by modification 2. something that is adapted; specifically : a composition rewritten into a new form

Remember: you don't have to use everything in the song. Find that one thing that interests you in the story. Feel free to change any of the five elements to make the story yours. Find the balance between remaining true to the source material and making it your own.

Due Sunday, April 11

Additional Links
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet
Film Adaptation
The Orchid Thief
Interview with Charlie Kaufman
Adaptation script

Blurbs

In class we looked at some blurbs for John Grisham's Ford County. We analyzed each story's blurb to identify the elements of the story (plot, character, conflict, theme, and setting).

blurb |blərb| noun 1. a short description of a book, movie, or other product written for promotional purposes and appearing on the cover of a book or in an advertisement.

Your next assignment is to write a blurb for 5 song stories (taken from your classmates' blogs- one can be yours). Each blurb should be about 50 words long. Your reader should be able to identify the elements of the story (however, the theme doesn't need to be explicitly stated).

Due Sunday, 3/28

Story Song

Find a song that tells a story. Use our discussion on the five elements of a story to help you know if your song is a good one. If you can't identify the characters or a conflict in your song, it's probably not a good choice for this assignment.

Post the following to your class blog:
Song title, song artist, link to the song lyrics, and a brief description of each of the five elements (plot, character, conflict, theme, setting).

Due Sunday, March 21

*A note on profanity: I don't mind it personally, but these blogs are public and will be read by other students in the class. So if you're going to use a song with profanity, identify it with an asterisk (*). Also, try to avoid profanity in your assignments. You might get docked for it.

Homework:
Read opening of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Read opening of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet

6-word Memoirs

Your next assignment is to come up with a bunch of 6-word memoirs. On your blog, I want you post your top 10 (written by you). Rank them. Your #1 should be the best one.

Here is a list to get you thinking, but the top 10 you post should be original.

Due Sunday, March 14th

p.s. Don't forget to leave at least 2 comments for Grand Theft Poetry.

p.p.s. Today is Friday, March 12. You guys are in the writing lab, right? I'm at Snow College at a coaching clinic. Sorry for the sub. I hope she's nice to you guys. Let me know if she hurts you.

p.p.p.s. Can I get a comment on my Don Corleone blog? Sheez.

Grand Theft Poetry

Now comes the fun part of poetry. Stealing. We steal ideas, we steal opening lines, we steal phrases and use them as our titles.

We can steal motivation (Billy Collins writes because he's bored, but death is why many poets get out of bed in the morning). We can steal style (He writes poems that people can understand....gasp!). And for this assignment, we're going to steal words and images.

On Monday we sat in a circle and stole lines from different poems. Now I want you to turn those stolen lines into a poem of your own.
Due Sunday, 3/7

You don't have to change every line, but change it enough that you feel comfortable calling the poem your own. If it's too random for your taste, you can use very little of the poem. But try to use unexpected/fresh/interesting images from the stolen lines.

The lines I stole
Article about poet Billy Collins
Advice on revising your poems

Second Draft (Bad Poetry)

Ernest Hemingway said The first draft of anything is sh*t.

Now that we've gotten the bad poem out of the way. Write a second draft. But don't make it worse, make it better. Take one line, one idea, one image...something from your first poem and use it to create a better poem. Good luck.

An interview with a creative person
Some thoughts on poetry revision
A list of poems to read

Due Sunday, 2/28

Very Bad Poetry

Sometimes when we try to write a good poem, we write a bad poem. But what happens if we try to write a bad poem?

Your next assignment is to write some bad poetry. Some very bad poetry.

Some characteristics of very bad poetry:

• Overly sentimental
• Too many syllables or words in a line or phrase
• False confidence in the beauty of the poem
• Anticlimactic ending
• Random
  
• Forced rhymes, words, meter
• Ridiculous metaphors, alliteration
• Bad grammar
• Poet's wooden ear for words
• Stupid title

Very Bad Poetry website
Very Bad Poetry book

Due Sunday, 2/21