English 2 and AP Literature and Composition
You must complete a minimum of three full pages of typed creative writing per quarter. Each quarter will feature a general theme of your choice. Each quarter's creative writing will be introduced with a short paragraph explaining how your creative writing engages the quarter's theme. Some people may find it useful to begin this paragraph like this: Our theme, the beauty of the days gone by, may be seen in my creative writing through...
Themes to choose from:
- You sing to me; I'll sing to you
- Homer: Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
- Virgil: Aeneid "They beat their plowshares into swords / And re-tempered the swords of their fathers"
- Isaiah: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks"
- Jesus: Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks
- Jesus: If you abide in me and my words abide in you
- Jesus: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do
- St. Peter (3:10) quoting King David (Ps 34:12): He that would love life and see good days
- (Author of Beowulf): Behavior that's admired is the path to power among people everywhere
- Dante: Alone in a dark wood ("Midway in our life's journey, I went astray/ from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood. How shall I say what wood that was!)
- Chaucer: When in April the sweet showers fall
- William Shakespeare: I am that merry wanderer of the night
- William Shakespeare: We are such stuff as dreams are made on
- William Shakespeare: O, brave new world!
- G.K. Chesterton: Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly
- G.K. Chesterton: An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
- Robert Frost: Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
- Van Morrison: The beauty of the days gone by
- From our October Poe Contest: MS. Found in a Bottle
- "St. George for Merry England!" (peace time) or "God and St. George for England!" (battle cry)
- "Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick" - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Ch. 1
- "Far over the misty mountains cold / To dungeons deep and caverns old /
We must away ere break of day / To seek the pale enchanted gold."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Ch. 1 - "There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Ch. 4 - "'Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!' he said to himself, and it became a favorite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb."
- "Victory after all, I suppose! Well, it seems a very gloomy business."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Ch. 17 - "And why not? Surely you don't disbelieve the prophecies just because
you helped them come about. You don't really suppose do you that all
your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck? Just for your
sole benefit? You're a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I'm quite fond
of you. But you are really just a little fellow, in a wide world after
all."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Ch. 19 - "These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it" (Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country)
- "I am a weak and sinful man, but God put His hands on me, that is all" (Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country)
-
- "The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek."
- "If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong."
- " The cruelest lies are often told in silence."
- "Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others."
- "Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things."
- "It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire."
- "Every one lives by selling something, whatever be his right to it."
- "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy."
A Christmas Blessing
1. Choose a child to bless.
2. Think of a fitting gift (purchased or made by you).
3. Write an adventure story or poem that weaves in a legend of the object you've bought or made. Make a map.
4. Hide the gift during Christmas break.
5. Present the legend and map to the child.
6. When you return from break, tell us all about it!
Do not write an essay about the subject. Do write fiction (a short story or a chapter in a novel), drama, poetry or song lyrics (both must be single spaced), or creative nonfiction.
You are encouraged to explore a variety of writing genres and styles. Whatever you write, however, must be appropriate for an audience that includes MVCS administrators and your grandmother. Each quarter’s CWP can be made up of one long piece or multiple entries. If you write multiple entries, make sure you still have three full pages. Fill up each page.
All poetry and song lyrics (even if part of a story) must be single spaced. Prose must be double spaced.
AP only: You must make use of at least three different terms or rhetorical devices from 11th or 12 grade. You must footnote each use. The footnote must explain what rhetorical device you utilized and why you decided to use it. Don’t simply cut and paste the definition of the device.
Format:
a. Typed MLA (12 point, Times New Roman, double-spaced)
or
b. Handwritten (pen, single-spaced; larger handwriting=more pages)
Your Grade: If you are short of the minimum, you will earn no more than a D. When completed, the CWP should be free of typos and grammatical and spelling errors. In general, 2 errors or less on any page =A-, 3-5 errors on any page=B-, and 6 or more errors on any page =C- or lower. Failing to adhere to the subject or neglecting to meet any of the other standards on this handout will result in a significantly lower grade. Fragments and run-On sentences are major deductions.
You may not include pieces written for other classes (past, present, or future) or for other assignments in this class. You will fail this assignment if you do so.
You will submit this work to Focus.
Concluding thoughts: Many students put this assignment off until the last minute. This results in stress filled days and sleepless nights as the deadline approaches. Start this early, and spend some time each week working on your CWP. I usually do not assign the CWP as homework, which means you must complete this during your own time. Know that by the end of the year, many students find the CWP to be their most enjoyable assignment. One more thing: if your writing entertains me, makes me laugh or even crack a subtle smile, you are more likely to earn a better grade.
No comments:
Post a Comment