The Seventh Hour

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

2008-05-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

Write about your relationship with your parents/guardians by describing an event from your grade school years, junior high, and high school years. Each event should suggest the nature of your relationship with your parents at the time it occurred.

Half-Empty or Half-Full? (Assignment 12)

2008-04-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

Is the glass half-empty or half full? is a common expression, used rhetorically to indicate that a particular situation could be a cause for optimism (half full) or pessimism (half empty); or as a general litmus test to simply determine if an individual is an optimist or a pessimist. The purpose of the question is to demonstrate that the situation may be seen in different ways depending on one's point of view and that there may be opportunity in the situation as well as trouble.

Without thinking, write your response. Fast. Now take some time and explore in writing why you hold this belief. Then write a brief essay (3 to 5 paragraphs) in which you try to convince someone who sees it the other way that you are right. If you want, write a rebuttal to your own argument. Or you can write a short poem (because I know you love poetry), using images to make the same point.

Family Guy (Assignment 11)

2008-03-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

Tell a family story, one that gets passed around at holiday dinners more often than the gravy boat. Tell as many as you can recall. If you want, brainstorm for a while, tagging the stories with just a word or a phrase to help you remember them. Then pick a few and develop the narrative and the details.

I Could've Thought of That (Assignment 10)

2008-03-18T13:59:00.000-07:00

Research a few inventions. Write about the circumstances for the inventions: How were they discovered or made? What obstacles did the inventors overcome? Write an essay about teh inventor and the invention

If you could only take five things....(Assignment 9)

2008-03-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

Mr. Schmit's list:
Endless supply of Aloe sunblock.
Solar Powered cooler/radio with fan attachment
Family Size tent with rain guard
Wind-board (for wind-surfing)
Snorkling gear (including harpoon gun)

"If you could take five things to a desert island, what would they be?"
Write about why you choose each answer. Then imagine you've been on the island for six months or a year. Which items have grown dull in your eyes? Which ones continue to shine?

Secrets Don't Make Friends (Assignment 8)

2008-03-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

Options 1)
Write about a time when you told a secret and found out the person you told revealed it to someone else. How did you feel? Did you confront the person? Describe the circumstances and consequences.

Options 2)
Write a monologue in which a fictional character reveals a secret, keeping in mind that Macbeth has really raised the bar high. In other words, make it a significant one. Give urgencey to the telling of the secret. This situation can add urgency to whatever you write. If you're feeling stale on a piece, imagine it as a secret being revealed.

Heffron, Jack, The Writer’s Idea Book. Cincinnati, OH: Writers Digest Books,

You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry (Assignment 7)

2008-03-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

What ticks you off? Poor service in a restaurant? Traffic Jams? Incompetence where you work? The injustice of untalented people--far less talented than you, for example--enjoying unwarranted success? We all have our flash points, the buttons that people had better not push. Let's spend some time looking at what makes you good and mad and search for ideas.

WHAT MAKES YOU ANGRY?

Start with a list. Write down the things that have made ou angry in the past week--or the past month, if your week has been mild. Take some time and try to remember all of them, from stubbing your toe on a chair leg to your teacher's adamant refusual to allow you to go to the bathroom, to your senator's cowardly vote on a bill you strongly support.

Pick one item from your list and freewrite about it, telling in a rush of words (don't sweat the punctuation and style at this stage) how you felt and why you felt that way.

Place the items from your list above into categories, such as "home," "school," "family," "friends," "the news," "social injustice" or whatever cateogries are appropriate for you. Then add to each list by moving farther back in time- a month, even a year. Write down what you can remember, then pick a category and look for patters. Is there something at work or school that angers you on a regular basis?

Your Happy Place (Assignment 6)

2008-02-26T14:13:00.000-08:00

Write about the best place you've ever been. "Best," can have a few meanings: most exciting, most fulfilling, most interesting. It could mean the place where you felt most in sync with the world, where you had the keenest sense of belonging, coming home to a place you've never been. Or it could mean the most exciting place, or the one where you had a great time. You choose. Take time to describe it in detail, beginning with those details that first come to mind. Avoid, at first, explaining why you like the place. Just describe it. After you have a good start with your description, you can begin to explain and speculate upon why this place had such a profound impact on you.

Poetry Is.......(Assignment 5)

2008-01-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

-Billy Collins

The above poem is a poets take on how he would like his readers to interact with poetry. To experience the words as they are and for the image and experience they create. He expresses his distaste for the way in which poets (and writers in general) have their personal lives pulled into their work as if critics aer the CSI team looking for the secrets that are hidden. For this assignment we are going to take a very light approach to poetry.
You will be given multiple prompts from which you must select four (totaling no less that 30 lines of poetry). You can write in the form of prose or rhyme. For many of you this will be difficult. Take your time and play with the words. Poetry is the greatest form of condensed writing and the most liberating. In your poetry you must demonstrate an understanding of the following terms in your poetry: stanza, end rhyme, simile, metaphor, line break, alliteration.

PROMPTS:

Local Poem
Write a poem about a place you know well. This can be about8t Minnesota, your hometown, or anywhere else you are familiar with. When writing the poem, think about what makes that place unique. What is special about this place? Why is this place familiar to you or comfortable? Capture a specific moment, emotion, or feeling that place conveys inside of you. Be as specific as possible with your details. Your goal here is to have the reader understand what it is like to be in the place you've selected.

Prose Poem
Write a poem that tells a story. Don't worry if your lines are longer than in your other poems. Your goal here is to tell a story using as few words as possible. Begin by writing down a sequence of events from beginning to end. Then add in the details--descriptions, characters, conflict, and if possible, resolutions. you may want to write this poem out as a prose, then worry about line and stanza breaks when you complete your first draft.

Love Poem
Many writers struggle to write good love poems. They are often difficult to write because conveying an intense emotion through words is about as easy as plucking a rhino's nose hair. Instead of writing about your abstract feelings of love, try focusing on writing concrete events that illustrate your feelings. If you don't want to write about love, try flipping it around and writing about why love is bad, an anti-love poem.

Imitation Poem
This activity works best with a poem you either love or hate. Once you have a poem, write your own poem that mimics the form, tone, ideas, images, or emotions. If you don't like the poem, try satirizing the author. Make sure you include the name (and text, if possible) of the poem you are imitating.

Dual Voice Poem
A dual voice poem requires two people and is often part of performance poetry. the idea with a dual voice poem is to have two individual voices, each telling their own story, or communicating to one another, while maintaining a constant theme in the poem. This type of poetry allows you to show tow perspectives in the same poem. Often one of the voices is the "overseer" and the other voice is the "actor" who is overcoming an obstacle.

Snapshot Poem
Find a picture and tell its story. You have lots of options here. You can describe what is happening in the picture. If there are people present you can write about what they are thinking or feeling. If there is an object, you could tell the story of the object. If you are feeling really creative, try to write the poem from the object's point of view.

No doubt you have many questions about this assignment. Please, speak to me directly. This assignment requires more direct instruction than most.

R.I.P. (Assignment 4)

2008-01-14T13:24:00.000-08:00

Imagine that you are old and on your deathbed...sorry. Your entire family and all of your friends are standing around you. As you look out to this crowd, what words of wisdom would you like to pass onto them? What life long lessons would you like to share? What's still on your bucketlist?
Think about what you would like to see accomplished in your lifetime, how is today's generation or the generation to follow going to achieve these goals? Who do you model your own life after and why? Think about these questions and then post a blog about the final words you've choosen and why?
Select three of the questions above and in no lesson than 350 words (thinks about it as 6 paragraphs discussing 3 significant questions. I didn't ask you what's your favorite candy bar, I'm asking what will your life be?) respond carefully. In your first draft of your blog, I want to focus purely on Ideas.

Keep in mind that this is a ficitional event...for now. If you would like to do this by telling a story feel free to do so. It may help for you to describe the setting and the people in attendance. Perhaps you have some celebrity friends in attendance, maybe the Pope has arrrived or Paris Hilton, it's all up to you. Have fun with this and try not to be too mournful.

Heffron, Jack, The Writer’s Idea Book. Cincinnati, OH: Writers Digest Books, 2000

Assignment 3, Headline, Caption, Story

2007-12-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

Often enough we find ourselves reading through a magazine, newspaper, or just surfing the web. Your assignment is to select from anyone of the above images and create a news story (5 to 7 paragraphs) that goes along with the image. Keep in mind the essential purpose of any news story is to inform the reader.
You must tell the reader, what happened, why it happened, where it took place, who was envolved, and when it took place. You may also provide any additional information that you find essential to the storyline. This is any exercise in creative writing; so have fun with it.

Assignment 1, Blogger Bio

2007-12-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

First of all, congrats on taking a step in the right direction. Life is difficult and it's never fun to make-up for things you messed up the first time, but here you are anyway doing the work and trying to obtain your English credit (one man stands and starts to clap, soon the entire room is filled with applause).

Currently, I teach in the All Nations program. I have two 9th grade sections and one "Honors" English with students ranging from 9th-12th grade. Many of my classes are smaller than the other teachers at my school, however, I still get burned out on paper work. To help out with this, you will not be turning in any hard copy assignments. Instead all of your work will be done through the management of your blog.

Your first assignment is to create a post telling me about yourself. The post should be no less than five paragraphs (I hate telling you the required length, so please don't ask. Instead, write the post the necessary length in order to do a high quality job. Then if it needs to be longer, or even shorter I'll let you know in the comments section). The topic of the post is YOU! I would like to know a bit about yourself, who you are, what you like, what you don't like, most importantly why you missed out on that English credit in the first place. This should be done in your own words, so if you need to express some anger go for it, but please no profanity.

Alright, that's it for this one...oh whoops I almost forgot. In addition to the post you'll need to add all the links to your fellow classmates blogs. The web addresses can be found by clicking on the links listed at the top of my blog.

Assignment 2, Check Please

2007-03-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

First
Visit one of the following websites in attempt to bypass the district server
www.lurk.be
www.vtunnel.com
www.figtyourschool.com
www.myspaceproxy365.com

use the searchbox on the bottom to visit www.martinlutherking.org

What information surprises you?

Write down your first reactions to what you view and what your "learn."

Now
Now check the sources for these website(s).

What feelings do you have now?

Write your reactions to these website(s).

What are the dangers to taking things at face value?

Why is it important to check your sources?

What does this tell you about the reliability about some websites?

Finally
Create a post that covers the topic of taking things at face value. How often do you hear something or read something and just assume that it's accurate? Discuss these events in a short blog, no less than five paragraphs. Feel free to add personal accounts discussing miss-information.

Assignment 2, Right Off Your Block

2007-02-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

Mining the places you have lived can be a great way to unearth ideas. Too often we feel that the places we were born and raised lack the sort of exoticism that will attract readers. We think this because the places are not exotic to us. We take them for granted. Believe me, I share this feeling. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, which is synonymous with, even symbolic of, cheese.
Of course, what is ordinary to us can be exotic to someone else. The key is being able to truly see the world around you, finding the details that evoke it. A world that is keenly evoked will be exotic to those who don't know it well and will allow those who do know it well to see it with fresh eyes. So don't dismiss the place where you live or where you grew up as bereft of idea possibilities. In fact, it's probably full of them. If you aren't seeing them, look harder. If you hear yourself say, "Nothing happens where I grow up," or, "It's just a normal, typical place," then your missing something. The words "normal" or "typical," are a writer's enemies. They tell us you're not seeing beneath the surface, and readers come to writers for help in seeing beneath the surface. You must follow the command of Ezra Pound's artistic commandment to "make it new."

1) Draw a map of the neighborhood where you've grown up. If you grew up in several neighborhoods, draw maps of each or choose one from among them. On the map(s), write who lived where, note places where events, large or small, took place.

2) Find your city and state in a road atlas. Look at the place through the eyes of a traveler, someone who has never been there before. Note the names of highways and counties, rivers and places of interest. Write these down as though they are unfamiliar to you.Which ones would you like to see? Continue your investigation of this place by thumbing through a travel guide. Note places of interest, and note details that you didn't know about or had forgotten. Find out if you can have 2 or 3 tourist brochures sent to your home.

3) Research the history of the places you lived. Find out how they were settled, which tribes of American Indians lived there. What events in the past helped to shape the identity of this place? What cultural forces helped shape it? Of course, take notes.

4) What is the public perception of your city, state or region? In other words, what do people who don't live there think about--or think they know about--where you live? For example, some people who are not from the South believe it to be a backward, slow-paced world of politically conservative views. We think of southern California as a place of glamour and hedonism. How is your area perceived? Start big, with a region or state, and move to the small. For example, I live on the NE side of Minneapolis, which is seen as the_________________ by people from the South side of Minneapolis.

5) Now that you've gotten yourself ready...it's time to bring it all together. Use your information to write a short-story based off of your home community experience. This means that you base the setting, the characters, and even some of the events off of your actual neighborhood.

Heffron, Jack, The Writer’s Idea Book. Cincinnati, OH: Writers Digest Books, 2000
Heffron, Jack, The Writer’s Idea Book. Cincinnati, OH: Writers Digest Books, 2000

Introduction to Credit Make-Up

2007-01-21T16:45:00.000-08:00

Welcome students,
This is a blog that is dedicated to the English credit make-up class, at South High. The class meets on Mondays and Tuesdays throughout the school year from 3pm to 4:30 pm. Students will be asked to create their own blogs and act as correspondents with one another to demonstrate some of the learning that has taken place.
So far the class is made-up of many different students ranging from 9th grade to 12th. Some students come to seventh hour every week and some come every other. Regardless, the must all put forth an equal amount of hours and effort if they wish to earn credit.
The class maintains a relaxed atmosphere and is centered on the students' interest. Thus far we have examined short-stories, media literacy, creative writing, and more recently, persuasive writing. The blogs that the students create will focus on demonstrating their knowledge in these topics and more.
Once again, welcome to the Seventh Hour and feel free to look around the blog or if you are a South High student who is looking for an English credit, stop by room 134B yourself. We are always willing to admit new students and everyone who sticks around receives bus tokens to use for transportation home.