Teen Writers Circle Class Summary 11/25/13

with Michelle Cameron

Critiques

Today we had several instances of poetry to review. All of it rhymed, which raised a number of potential issues:

• Was the rhyme forced? In many of these cases, we reconsidered the problem end rhyme, thinking of alternatives.
  
• Did the line scan? There were times when a syllable or two needed to be added or cut.  
  
• Did all of the words make sense in terms of the vocabulary of the poem? There were some that were too elevated or not in keeping with the general tone. 
  
• Could additional words (a, the, and, for instance) be dropped to tighten the line? Poetry should be as tightly constructed as possible.
  

There were also a couple of stories, both of which lead us into a discussion of the rules of the particular worlds. One was a fanfic (Dr. Who), which prompted a discussion of that particular genre - easy because characters and world rules are established, but can be restrictive because of that. Fan fiction can be good writing practice, though, just as student artists paint already existing works to work on their technique.

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A Turkey of a Prompt

Our prompt for today was: "Once upon a time, there was a very frightened turkey."  We got some fun - and some very poignant stories from the prompt. 

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This Week's Assignment

For homework, the kids can either finish this story or bring in the piece they are thinking of submitting to our end of session on-line journal.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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