English 221: Intro to Creative Writing
Agenda: April 15, 2008
- Quiz on "Snow"
- Group Discussion of Snow
- Group 1: Re-read pages 284-285: Choose three passages and discuss their explicit and implicit meanings. (Burroway calls this the text and the subtext.)
- Group 2: Re-read pages 286-287: Choose three passages and discuss their explicit and implicit meanings.
- Group 3: Re-read pages 288-2879: Choose three passages and discuss their explicit and implicit meanings.
- Group 4: Re-read pages 290-291: Choose three passages and discuss their explicit and implicit meanings.
- All Groups:
- Re-read pages 292-293: Choose two passages and discuss their explicit and implicit meanings.
- What is the Turning Point? Why?
- What is the story really about? What about what it's about?
- Introduce Short Story Assignment
FOR NEXT TIME:
READ: Ron Carlson's "Bigfoot Stole My Wife". IW pgs 300-303. Come prepared for a Quiz.
WRITE: Choose one of the following exercises for your short story assignment. Type up your response and be prepared to share it with a peer in class.
- Make a list of things done in a small unit of time: e.g. breaking up with someone, taking the bus home from work or school, stealing something. Brainstorm a list of ten possibilities that have in them the possibility of a confrontation.
- Perhaps you already have unit of time or character in mind for this story. If so, write a thumbnail sketch of this character: appearance, personality, age background. What is the character's main motivation? Is it desire or fear? What are the obstacles to what they want? Are they formidable? In scene, dramatize the protagonist confronting one of these obstacles.
- Describe the story's setting. Where do the scenes take place. What is the weather? The season? The time of day? What mood do you intend to imply through this setting?
- Out of all possibilities in the universe, why this story? What does it mean to you? What is still in this possibility that you want to explore or don't understand fully?