For next Friday, create a poem based on a photograph: a family photograph or one that you find in a magazine, a book, or a newspaper.

• Remember to include in your poem some connection to ideas/ feelings/ observations outside of the frame of the picture (ie,the photographer, the environment, a missing person, person's experiences, etc.)
  
• Also use, at least three times in your poem, a sentence ending inside a line of your poem, not at the end of the line as Sharon Olds did in her poem "Photograph of a Girl" that we discussed in class.

Begin your personal narrative. We will review the rubric for it on Monday. Remember to be deliberate about its structure and its point of view.

Your poem, based on the model of "Exercise in the Cemetery" by Jane Gentry, is due tomorrow.

Continue the story of "The Necklace" for the equivalent of two or three paragraphs. What do you think was Mme Loisel’s response to Mme Forestier’s revelation about the necklace?

Continue adding to your Memory Bank.

Read "The Necklace" tonight by Guy de Maupassant in your Humanities Anthology. Also work on your Memory Bank adding any other stories you can remember.

Your paper on "What's the use of stories that aren't even true?" is due tomorrow (Tuesday).

Also, begin work on your Memory Bank. Use the "Questions for Memoirists" and "Priming the Pump" to get you thinking about ideas for this list.

Salman Rushdie

For Tuesday: What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?

Explain how Salman Rushdie answers this question in Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Find at least one quote from the book to support your response.

Include a paragraph that shares what your own personal response to this question is.

Minimum: 1 1/2 pages typed, double-spaced, 12pt.

For Friday: Write a poem based on the one we reviewed in class today by Jane Gentry.

Ezra Pound

Louise Bogan

Remember Haroun is due on Wednesday, your self-portrait box is due on Thursday, and your poems (based on the models of Ezra Pound and Louise Bogan) are due on Friday.

You all worked remarkably today! Good job putting those boxes together!

I have copied the assignment below that was handed out in class today:

Self-Portrait/ Memory Box

due: Thursday, Sept.18

The people we are becoming and the way we “see” the world are shaped not only by our culture, but also by our many experiences and “stories.” I want you to take time to think about all the “stories” that have informed who you are.

On the outside of your Self-Portrait/ Memory Box, place images/ symbols that represent how others see you. These symbols can include your gender, ethnic group, personality, place in the community, age group, etc.

On the inside of the box, place symbols/ images that represent the “stories” of who you really are:

• Include a symbol of at least one important family story
• Include a symbol of at least one story where you or someone in your family affected “change.”
• Include a symbol of at least one story about how you “changed.”
• Include a symbol of what you think your “story” will be 10 years from now.
•
The rest of the items/ images/ symbols that you choose to represent important stories are up to you. Include an index card for each symbol that identifies what story the symbol stands for.

Think metaphorically, symbolically. If your parents are really important to your development, do not put a photograph of them in your box. Instead, think of a story that best represents what they mean to you and find a symbol that best illustrates that meaning.

Be creative, deliberate, imaginative, thoughtful!

Bring your Nexus to class on Friday!

For tomorrow: Write your Nacirema paper, at least one page typed, but it can be longer. Choose some tradition/ ritual/habit/ activity and describe it using a point of view from way outside of our own culture. I look forward to reading your clever and imaginative responses to this assignment.


Start Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It is due next Wednesday. Remember to think of the larger questions: Why is storytelling important? Why must one defend literature against tyranny? (censorship/freedom of speech). Mark passages in the book that will help you to respond to these questions.

Thanks to all of you for your awesome contributions to our "truth" discussions today!

Remember that your Personal Survey is due on Wednesday (tomorrow) and you need your Nexus for class on Friday.