Virtual Creative Writing Club - Part 3!

Hey Everyone. OK, the next set of instructions are all here (look down!)

It's now time to write your stories. Things to think about:

• Use the technique we learned in lesson 1 to open our stories
• Remember the basic plot will be a retelling of the classic cowboy showdown
• Don't be too wordy - Johnny Cash uses about 100 words to tell the story of "The Baron", with 3 characters, some important details that help us to picture them, and a clear plot.

Once you've finished, see me for a password to this blog and we can post away.

Mr Sharpe

Virtual Creative Writing Club - Part 2!

Hey everyone

Welcome back after the break - for those of you I haven't seen yet!

This week will all be done through videos. Work your way through the list and follow the instructions on each. I'll try to post them in the right order!

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Finally - I don't want you to start writing the story yet! Just plan out WHAT will happen, WHERE in will happen, and to WHOM it will happen!

Talk to each other and bounce ideas off one another - your idea at the end of the discussion should be different from the one at the start, even if it is just more detailed.

For those who know, complete a fiction triangle plan - ask Debbie if she is there...and be ready to start work next time.

See you in 2 weeks.

Virtual Creative Writing Club

Welcome everyone!

Over the course of the next few weeks, we'll be writing a short story. I don't want to give away too much just yet, so follow the steps in order from start to finish. I'll be trying to sharpen (geddit?) your creative writing skills to craft a story that has a structure and includes good characters, a realistic setting and good description.

So saddle up, pard'ner (that bit will make more sense later!)

First up, watch this video clip from Youtube:

Next, read the lyrics below whilst listening to the song:

The Baron by Johnny Cash

Chorus:
I wish I had of known you when you were a little younger 'round me you might have learned a thing or two
If I'd had known you longer you might be a little stronger
Maybe you'd shoot straighter than you do, maybe you'd shoot straighter than you do.

As he walked into the poolroom you could tell he didn't fit
In his hand made boots, custom suit, pearl handled shootin' stick
Tonight there'd be a showdown then everyone would know
Who shoots the meanest game around, The Baron or Billy Joe

Billy Joe looked edgy, about to lose his cool
But the Baron's hands were steady as the two began to duel
Yeah, he was like a General on a battlefield of slate
And he would say to Billy Joe each time he sunk the eight, he'd say...

Chorus

Now Billy Joe was busted but he hadn't felt the sting
And from the far end of the table he threw his Mother's wedding ring
And he said 'You won my money but it ain't gonna do the trick
I'll bet this ring on one more game against your fancy stick'

The Baron's eyes grew foggy as the ring rolled on the felt
And he almost doubled over like he was hit below the belt
Twenty years ago it was the ring his wife had worn
And he didn't know before he left that a son would soon be born

It sounded just like thunder when the Baron shot the break
But it grew quickly quiet as he lined up the eight
Then a warm hand touched his shoulder and it chilled him to the bone
When he turned and saw the woman who had loved him for so long.

The game was never finished, the eight ball never fell
The Baron calmly picked it up and put it on the shelf
Then he placed the ring in the hand that held him long ago
And he tossed that fancy shootin' stick to his son Billy Joe
And he said....

Chorus

Task 1

Think about the setting in the story: the bar. Brainstorm out as many details as you can that you would expect to see in a dive-bar like this one (think Moe's Tavern!) Use the video for inspiration, but try to make up as many details as you can as well.

Task 2

Watch me!

Follow the instructions in the video to write an opening paragraph to a story. This will be a practice for when you write the opening paragraph to your own story later...

S1 Country Reports

Hey everyone!

So today and tomorrow you will be writing your reports on the computers. We've done the research and looked at three examples of good reports. You should aim to:

1. Write about 100 words
2. Write in paragraphs, and organising your notes under headings
3. Spell and punctuate correctly (Word can help you!)
4. Improve the look of your report by using pictures and diagrams once you have finished typing!

A lot of you will have your own ideas about what headings you want to use, but I've written a basic plan below if you need a little extra help.

Introduction
(What country are you writing about, why did you choose it, etc)

Geography
(Where is it in the world, what is the climate like, what is it's capital city etc)

People
(How many people live there, what is it's main language, religion, sports and hobbies, etc)

Cool Facts
(Any other interesting things you have learned about your country that you couldn't fit into the other paragraphs.)

Conclusion
(Summarise your information on your country, finish your report in a way which is suitable for your purpose and target audience!)

Good luck!
Mr Sharpe

Class Updates

Good work with the ultra-speedy update NB!

Just to be clear - crackers and cheese = a quotation sandwich! Use the POINT as first cracker, EVIDENCE and EXPLANATION as the delicious cheese, and the LINK back to show you are answering the question effective.

The carabiner (introduction) and string (ideas) are all about structure. Look at the 3 central points - a carabiner is a triangle. So think about 3 main things for an introduction - name the text, the author and the genre. Now see the screw-gate bit. To strengthen the lock, you give it 3 turns. To strengthen your intro, you do a 3 sentence summary of the text.

Now, you've got all your loose string, which represents your ideas. You use a looping sentence to join all your string to your carabiner, (or your introduction to your essay.) This is the bit where you outline what you are going to show, and how you are going to show it.

Finally, tie a knot in the string at the end. That's your conclusion. Tie off all the loose ends, and don't add in any new information.

Voila. Done.

The Intermediate Two Rap

So let me tell you about Intermediate two

It's the bestest thing that anybody can do

There's spelling, analysis, punctuation and grammar

And if you don't pass this you could end up in the slammer

We learned new skills like textual analysis

And how every word counts, except for words like "as" and "this"

Brooklyn Cop - that's a poem that's sweet

About an ape with a nightstick who patrols all the streets

There's lots of exams, tests, NABs and trials

Where you have to work hard or Mr Sharpe'll get viol...

...ent because he wants you to pass and to get a good grade

Or the boys'll get neutered and the girls'll be spayed

Over summer you'll be reading for your personal study

That book'll soon become your bestest buddy

It can be about a story, a poem or a play

And then write it all out in a double one day

The course ends in May with two exams

So you'd better be doing all that revision we planned

Two critical essays and a close reading passage

The back home for chicken soup and a relaxing massage.

Yeah, boyee.

S3 - Ranting with all my Rantingness

OK, so you all enjoyed reading (and critiquing!) my own "Write your Views" piece about reality TV. For those who missed it, it's reproduced below.

On Thursday you will be writing your own editorial rant about Reality TV in a "Write your Views" essay yourself.

It's important to remember that this should be your own thoughts, not mine, and that it is fine to be opinionated: you aren't expected to be balanced or neutral. Just tell us what you think.

Enjoy the weekend and see you on Tuesday.

“Reality TV – Look at the Pretty Colours” By Mr R Sharpe

Last weekend, my friend Tom’s parents won a reality TV show. The basic idea was very simple. A load of people they didn’t like came round for dinner. You could tell that they won because at the end because they got given £1000.

The thing is, that £1000 was funded, in part, by me. I, along with 25 million others, pay £139.50 every year for the right to own a TV. That means that £0.0004 of the money that went to Tom’s parents came from my pocket.

The irony to all this, of course, is that I could have just gone round for free, and I wouldn’t have had share the experience with an unwashed student or anyone else. The show hasn’t been aired yet but I imagine that if I were to watch it, I wouldn’t recognise the two people on the screen, in spite of knowing them well.

The show, like all reality TV, doesn’t take much planning. Take some normal people, throw in some abnormal people, and wait for something to happen. If it doesn’t, make something happen.

The truth behind these shows is often more sinister than the empty-headed logos suggest. The clever use of editing can trick the audience into believing almost anything. Even more worryingly, recent improvements in sound editing has created so –called “Frankenbites”. This new word, a combination of “Frankenstein” and “soundbite” describes where individual words, said by the “stars” across, say, an episode, are edited together into a single sentence which was never actually said.

The growth of reality TV as a genre has, like all organic growth, been slow. It surfaced with Candid Camera in the 50’s, when normal people were “pranked” by professional comedians. Big Brother, an idea originated in George Orwell’s book “1984”, was an early sign of things to come. Yet we, the modern audience, couldn’t wait for organic growth. We needed Jade Goody now, dammit! So we added some artificial fertilizer, left it out in the sun, and wham! Today it has spawned a million hybrid children. We have Celebrity Big Brother, American Big Brother, and each follows the same, braindead formula. “How to Look Good Naked”, a more recent evolution (there should be an opposite of that word) should be the shortest series ever commissioned. I can picture how it should have been:

“Hi, I’m Gok, and this is how to look good naked. Eat less and do some exercise. Thanks for watching, now over to some professionals with a programme and a script”

If it sounds like I am being unfair, it is because I am. But I like my entertainment to have some kind of purpose. If I’m to watch someone on the screen, I’d like them to have put some thought into what they are going to say and do. Perhaps practiced once or twice. Is it too much to ask that maybe they even receive a little training in front of the camera? Big Brother can be recreated in your own home (provided you have neighbours) with an electric drill, a couple of video cameras and Microsoft Moviemaker. And from what I can gather from the show, the way to look good naked is to buy more stuff.

The Romans used to have a phrase – “panem et circenses” to describe this way of keeping the lowest of their citizens entertained. It translates as “bread and circuses” and meant that if you kept the fools fed and gave them clowns to laugh at, they wouldn’t revolt and start cutting heads off the government.

Today’s bread and circuses involve watching failed celebrities, low-grade celebrities, and wannabe celebrities all desperately being uniformly unique. The development of reality TV has been at the cost of intelligent programming. It’s free to make and, because millions watch it, it rakes money in from advertising. But the hidden cost is that each time they make a show, another Jade Goody could be born. Then we have to clean up her dirty nappies for as long as her career lasts. It is the worst possible picture of the future of humanity. Our culture once tried to touch the stars, now we like to watch milkmen eating tadpoles.

Or, if you prefer the edited Frankenbite summary of the previous paragraph: Reality TV is intelligent programming. The future of humanity is free. Jade Goody is a star.

Mr R Sharpe©

Merchant of Venice - The Courtroom Scene

Hi Everyone,

We are fast approaching the end of MoV, and last week we watched and read the climactic courtroom scene. Shylock has the power of the law fully behind him, but it is his determination to stick to the letter of the law which is his undoing.

The scene peaks with him, beaten, facing the choice between the gallows, or disavowing his religion and losing his wealth.

It's a powerful scene, with drama, strong emotions and lots of colour throughout.

Today's Task

Creative writing task today folks, with a reflective slant. Imagine you are one EITHER of the key characters in the scene - Bassanio, Gratiano, Antonio (oh, woe is me!), Portia or Shylock OR a faceless, minor character in the crowd. Think about how they would be feeling, and write a short (max 300 words) piece of writing from their point of view. Try to include a real taste for the times - what are people wearing? What can you see, hear and smell? Is the room lit with candles, big flaming torches, or perhaps are you in an outside courtroom? How are you feeling? Do you feel sorry for Shylock, on his knees with the crowd baying for his blood? Do you feel he is harshly treated - after all, he had the law on his side? Or does he get everything he deserves? After all, he is just a Jew!

For those who asked - shakespeare's insults! Click here - but you need Adobe Acrobat

Righteous Babes and Personal Writing

Dear All,

I'm reading through the wonderful short stories S3 did today, and thinking about how many of them link back to the personal writing that happened at the end of last term. I came across Ranting Feminist / Powerful Lady Ani DiFranco a couple of years ago, and thought this might fit in with some of both creative and personal writing themes. S5 might enjoy this too, as a break from the violence and crime of MacCaig's poetry this week.

Lack of correct punctuation is intentional. You can do that once you are an artiste:

not a pretty girl

i am not a pretty girl

that is not what i do

i ain't no damsel in distress

and i don't need to be rescued

so put me down punk

maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair

isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?

i am not an angry girl

but it seems like i've got everyone fooled

every time i say something they find hard to hear

they chalk it up to my anger

and never to their own fear

and imagine you're a girl

just trying to finally come clean

knowing full well they'd prefer you

were dirty and smiling

and i am sorry

i am not a maiden fair

and i am not a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere

and generally my generation

wouldn't be caught dead working for the man

and generally i agree with them

trouble is you gotta have yourself an alternate plan

and i have earned my disillusionment

i have been working all of my life

and i am a patriot

i have been fighting the good fight

and what if there are no damsels in distress

what if i knew that and i called your bluff?

don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down

whether or not you ever show up

i am not a pretty girl

i don't want to be a pretty girl

no i want to be more than a pretty girl

Find more ani here

Supermarkets - homework task

Hey "Other" second year class!


Welcome to Mr Sharpe's blog. This is where a lot of my teaching gets done, and homework gets set! I'd like to use this site to let you write for the world to see, so we'll be looking at different ways the internet can help me teach, and you learn.

For example, we've been reading "Johnny and the Dead" and we are setting up for our own town meeting, to discuss whether we should allow a supermarket to buy up a big park, playground and wooded area near our school.

Today, we looked at two different stories from the BBC about supermarkets, and we learnt about:

• "bias" (where people let their own opinions and feelings influence them)
• "impartial" (like a referee or a teacher, where things are treated equally)
• "balanced" (where both sides of the argument are given equal thought)
• "perspective" (a view taken by a person, such as a writer or someone at a town meeting) and finally...
• "discursive" (where topics are DISCUSSED in a balanced way)

Homework - due 19th March 2008

Look at this website - http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/do-supermarkets-make-our-lives-better/ - and look at how important this issue is to people around the world!

1. Pick out two things from their comments that are in favour of supermarkets, and...
2. ...two things that suggest they are a bad thing.

Reading, Writing, Reflecting

I'm sure that S3 will be won over by the sheer wonderfulness of the blog here. But until they do, there is just the three of us keeping this going for those who miss the class.

Today we looked at personal, reflective writing skills. These are vital because they make up a sizeable chunk of exam questions, they can be used in your folios this year and next, and when you are famous rock stars, footballers and beauty therapists you'll want to be able to write your autobiography.

The keen beens amongst you have signed up for the emailed weekly synopsis of the lessons. If not, just remember this:

• Emotions, emotions, emotions!


• Make it vivid, improve, improve, improve it


• A nice way to catch the readers attention is to include all 5 senses in the first paragraph, to describe feelings, but also to keep a sense of tension to encourage the reader to read on!

Next week you're going to be putting this into practice under exam conditions on Thursday. The question is Choose a time in your life when you have experienced conflict. Write about this, and remember to include your thoughts and feelings. You'll have an hour and ten minutes, but feel free to prepare as much or as little as you want to.

But as you sow, so shall you reap.

Also next week, we'll find out whether Millington is guilty or innocent in Conduct Unbecoming, we'll watch as much of the video as we can get through, and on Monday, we'll be doing a group talk graded task. More on that next week.

Finally, homework. Creative writing pieces are due on Thursday, 13th March - write a story in which one of the central characters experiences a conflict. However, none of the main characters can be a human.

BBC Wildlife Beast Research

Hey folks

This week you've learnt all about functional writing. This means writing that is to tell people about things - like newspaper reports, letters, or reports into beasts.

We've been reading "The Nature of the Beast", where we are starting to see some signs of a mysterious monster creeping around the mysterious town.

So you all pottered down to the library where research was done into gorillas, sloths, a variety of big cats, mermaids, the Loch Ness monster and even unicorns. I've even learnt the unicorn song and that they have a spot just above the heart where you can kill them!

More importantly, our learning outcomes have been:

• How to use books and websites to collect notes, not just copy and paste!


• Using numbered lists and bullet points in reports


• Using headings to sort similar facts together into paragraphs


• How to show where we get our information from - our sources

Finally we raced through the basics of doing a good talk, using the 50:50 rule

1. Good content - interesting start, loads of facts in a formal presentation, and a conclusion


2. Good presentation - look at the audience, nice and confident, loud and clear voice, and no fidgeting.

Good luck for the talks!

S3 - "99 Ways to tell a Story" - Tuesday 26th February

Today's lesson focussed on retelling a basic story, creating atmosphere and a sense of setting in a short creative piece of writing. You fun-loving beasts wrote collaboratively in different genre.

It was based on Matt Madden's book of stylised cartoons, some examples of which are here.

If you missed the lesson and wanted to give this a try, the genre to chose from are: horror, war, teen gross-out comedy, western, romance, historical novel (think castles!) detective whodunnit or science fiction.