Comic October 21, 2010

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Comic October 21, 2010

Creative Writing, Mr. Gaylord
September 20, 2010

Comic Strip

Project Description: Students did an excellent job on their fairytales, and most recently their Descriptive Essays. Now we will be moving on to mastering the art of dialogue and writing something that is more than just summary. Combining the skills the students learned through their fairytales and Descriptive Essays, students will write a comic that will both tell a story and describe a comic super hero and super villain. 

Essential Questions:
How can writers use description and dialogue to effectively tell a story that is both cohesive, clear and action pact.

Objectives:
Students will be able to effectively tell a story by both using the art of description and dialogue.
Students will be able to effectively create a comic that has a beginning, middle, end while using good grammar and correct punctuation.

Requirements:
Comics must have
    Super hero
    Villain
    Introduction
    Plot
    Solution
    Ending
Comics must have
    Title
    Ten Scenes
    Two Dialogues per Scene
    Three Thinking bubbles
    One Description Box per Scene
    Pictures for each Scene

Benchmarks:
Brainstorm (March 23, 2011) 5 points
Page Description of Hero (March 25, 2011) 10 points
Page Description of Villain (March 29, 2011) 10 points
Rough Draft (April 1, 2011, 2010) 15 points
Final Draft (April 27, 2011) 30 points

They are going to put me in the Movies

“They are going to put me in the Movies”

Project overview
This project will allow students to express themselves in a creative way on many different levels.  For example, not only will they be expected to write a one act screen play, but also, they will be expected to act out their creations. One of the main goals of the project is to incorporate one of the character traits that has been covered so far into a creative skit.

Essential Questions
How can we challenge ourselves to use figurative language, story and character building, active voice, slang, and grammatically correct sentences to create a story that can be transmitted into a skit?
How can we use our creative writing skills to create a correctly formatted skit? 
Student Objectives
Students will be able to write a script that is correctly formatted and fluid.
Students will be able to incorporate a character trait into their creative writing.
Script Requirements
Script will be properly formatted like the examples presented by the teacher.
Script will incorporate one of the character traits and correctly use it.
Everyone in each person’s group will have an active participatory rule in the project.
Students will be able to work together cooperatively in order to reach a common goal.
Benchmarks
Outline of the story with rising action, climax, and falling action
Character roles for each group member.
Rough Draft of the script.
Final Product
Will have five pages of script making a skit last approximately five minutes long. Each person in the group will be included. Each person will have memorized his or her part in the script.

Grading Breakdown
Outline-10 points
Character Roles-10 points
Final Written Product-40 points

Exhibition
Final products will be shared with a selected lower grade classes at Santa Rosa Academy.

"I am Going to the Hall of Fame."

“I am going to the Hall of Fame!”
Baseball Card
Creative Writing and Statistics Project

Project Overview
During the next unit, students will create a baseball card hitting on the standards from Mr. Shives sixth grade math class, curriculum from Mr. Gaylord’s creative writing elective, and their own interests in art. Students will create a fictitious player, creating his name, position, team, image and back story or player profile. Students will then work through a unit of statistics where they will come up with their player’s stats and analyze the significance and meaning of this data. Students will complete the project by taking their player’s profile and statistics and combining the two to make their very own baseball card.

Essential Questions
Creative Writing
What is the best way to organize and write a descriptive essay?

Math
How can I use my knowledge of statistics to make predictions for the future?

Student Objectives
Creative Writing
Students will be able to write a descriptive essay about a fictitious athlete from their own imagination by building upon the editing process, and breaking their writings into workable goals.
Students will be able to write a grammatically correct sentence by working through the editing process and helping other students revise.
By creating a descriptive essay, students will be able to express their creativity in a constructive way.

Math
Students will be able to gather statistics on an athlete.
Students will compute the average per year of given statistics.
Students will graph the information they collect and make predictions based on the current trend.


Baseball Card Requirements
Image
Name
Position
Hometown
College
Player Profile/Background Story


Benchmarks
Math:
Math 6 PS 1.1
Math 6 MR 1.2

Formulas and statistics finished on Baseball Card October 29, 2010
Player Profile Finished October 29, 2010
Player Narrative and Legend Rough Draft  November 4, 2010
Player Picture Done November 9
Final Product November 12, 2010
Final Product
A baseball card that expresses students ability to create from scratch, write a descriptive essay, and prove he or she can analyze and use statistical formulas.

Comic October 21, 2010

Creative Writing, Mr. Gaylord
September 20, 2010

Comic Strip

Project Description: Students did an excellent job on their fairytales, and most recently their Descriptive Essays. Now we will be moving on to mastering the art of dialogue and writing something that is more than just summary. Combining the skills the students learned through their fairytales and Descriptive Essays, students will write a comic that will both tell a story and describe a comic super hero and super villain. 

Essential Questions:
How can writers use description and dialogue to effectively tell a story that is both cohesive, clear and action pact.

Objectives:
Students will be able to effectively tell a story by both using the art of description and dialogue.
Students will be able to effectively create a comic that has a beginning, middle, end while using good grammar and correct punctuation.

Requirements:
Comics must have
    Super hero
    Villain
    Introduction
    Plot
    Solution
    Ending
Comics must have
    Title
    Ten Scenes
    Two Dialogues per Scene
    Three Thinking bubbles
    One Description Box per Scene
    Pictures for each Scene

Benchmarks:
Brainstorm (September 23, 2010) 5 points
Page Description of Hero (September 30, 2010) 10 points
Page Description of Villain (October 7, 2010) 10 points
Rough Draft (October 14, 2010) 15 points
Final Draft (October 21, 2010) 30 points

DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY DUE SEPTEMBER 15th

A Descriptive Essay

Project Description: After doing the fairytale project, it occurred to me that our students need more practice on punctuation and paying attention to detail. I have decided that our next project be a Descriptive Essay. My goal is to have the students get inspired by something that they like doing, seeing, or etc., so I would like them to go out and write about a topic that is very close to them. For example, students should pick something specific, an event, a person, or an animal and describe their choice to the best of their ability.

Essential Questions:
1. How can we use literary devices to make our words come alive?
2. How can we practice proper punctuation and recognize the use of active and passive voice in order to make our written work more enjoyable to the reader?

Objective: Students will be able to effectively describe something that they really love by using creativity, proper punctuation, and literary devices.

Requirements:
1.Essay must be at least five paragraphs long.
Introductory Paragraph with Thesis.
Three Body Paragraphs supporting Thesis.
Conclusion Paragraph Restating Thesis.
2. Proper Grammar must be used throughout the essay. No more than two grammatical mistakes.
3.Essay must effectively and accurately describe subject or subjects.
Picture of subject or subjects.

Benchmarks:
1. Outline- 5 points (September 1st)
2. Rough Draft #1- 5 points (September 8th)
3. Rough Draft #2- 10 points (September 13th)
Final Draft- 30 points (September 15th)

Note: Our Goal as a class is to focus on using the active voice as opposed to the passive voice and be able to properly punctuate our essays. These two things are the most important parts of this project.

Resources:Passive and Active Voice/ Comma Use, How to Write a Descriptive Essay

FAIRYTALE PROJECT WORKSHEET FINAL PRODUCT DUE MONDAY 8/23/2010

FairyTales and Figurative Language

Project overview
As we begin our study of creative writing, students will be creating their own fairytale to share with a selected class of the younger grades. Students will be asked to adhere to all elements of the fairytale genre, in addition to incorporating figurative language.

Essential Questions
How can we challenge ourselves through written expression by incorporating creative ideas, and figurative language into a unique style of writing?
How can we understand and integrate figurative language in our writing?

Student Objectives
Students will be able to write a fairytale which incorporates all elements of the genre.
Students will be able to incorporate figurative language into their story.

Fairytale Requirements
-Story must integrate the following devices of figurative language (at minimum): metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, imagery, and alliteration.
-All elements of a fairytale including: Special beginning and/or ending words, Good character, Evil character, Royalty and/or a castle, Magic, Problem and a Solution, "threes" or "sevens”.
-Images that compliment your story and are placed selectively among your story line. Images may be hand drawn or digitally designed, but they must be student generated.

Benchmarks
Story chart- Complete the chart provided which will serve as a checklist for all elements of the genre needed in your fairytale.
Draft 1- A typed draft of your work must be completed. All of the writing requirements listed above must be highlighted in your draft.
Draft 2- Your typed draft accompanied by images.
Final Product
Fairytale- Your final story should include all of the above requirements, in addition to being typed, 5-10 pages, with images and a cover (including the name of the fairytale, your name and an image related to the story).

Grading Breakdown
Story Chart-10 points
Draft-10 points
Final Written Product-40 points

Exhibition
Final products will be shared with a selected lower grade classes at Santa Rosa Academy.

Resources
Fairytales-http://www.geocities.com/ljacoby_2000/fairytale.html, http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/

Introduction Syllabus

Creative Writing 6th
Mr. Gaylord
Syllabus

Course Description
This course will be dedicated to improving students’ writing skills and complimenting students’ other core classes. It will also ask students to use creativity in order to improve their writing skills while having fun and integrating the habits of mind into their work.

Course Objectives
The objectives of this course are simple. For starters, students will learn and be able to write in an academic and creative fashion. The second objective of this class is to support other classes such as English/language to encourage writing across the curriculum.

Discipline Policy and Student Expectations
Discipline Policy and Student Expectations as well as a student contract will be handed out on a separate sheet of paper during our first meeting of class. Students and parents will be expected to sign contract stating that students will adhere to these rules and expectations.

Curriculum
The way the class will be run as far as curriculum is concerned is somewhat fluid. There will be at least six major writing assignments, which will include, but not limited to, fairytale, comic strip, descriptive essay, narrative, movie script, and baseball card project. Each project will take at least two weeks and will have interdisciplinary elements purposefully woven into them. These project will also be exhibited in several different ways. For example, the first project of the year will be a fairytale that will be read to a lower grade class at Santa Rosa Academy.

Final Word
I hope to have a great year and excited to have you in my class.

Sincerely,

Mr. Gaylord