Scholars, Friday you received a writing assignment as well as prepare for your performances next week. I have inserted your acting assignment below
in red and your writing assignment
in blue for your convenience.
Acting Assignment
1. Decide on the portion of the play you are producing.
2. Every thespian must memorize and recite five (5) lines from the original text of your play; the rest of your scene may be created in the way you deem most appropriate.
3. You may choose the setting and register of language for your scene; you must, however, remain true to the play’s basic plot line and theme.
4. You may use the puppet theater if you so desire.
5. No actor at any time will be reading from a script; if you must refer to a page, it must not be obvious to the audience.
6. You must provide a copy of your script to me before your scene is presented. Your script must have all of the dialogue, all of the actors’ names, the title of your play (punctuated correctly), and the number of the scene.
7. Your presentation must be at least four (4) minutes (I will be timing you) and no more than seven (7) minutes in duration.
8. Have fun, but do good work! This is a test grade.
Creative Writing Assignment
1. You will write an original prose piece.
2. Length – 750 – 1,000 words
3. You may do one of the following:
a. Finish a peer’s story; or
b. Write a prose piece in which five of the following quotes are incorporated. Three of these quotes are relatively long. Therefore, you may use only one sentence from those quotes.
“A screaming comes across the sky” Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow.
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
“I am an invisible man” Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man.
“I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy” J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye.
“So it goes” Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five.
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board” Zora Neale Huston, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
“It was the day my grandmother exploded” Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road.
“It was a pleasure to burn” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there” L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between.
“For … if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat’s blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery” Annie Proulx, The Shipping News.
“I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope that the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope” Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.
“Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters” Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It.
“’Tis” Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes.
Due dates: turnitin.com – Thursday, May 26th
Hard copy in class – Friday, May 27th
Tomorrow, you will have 30 minutes to rehearse. Then we will finish class by starting
Beowulf.
Tuesday (unless you are taking the physics EOC), you will present your play.
Wednesday we will finish the plays and
Beowulf. You will also discover if you are exempt from the final, and on what books to focus for the final.
Thursday and Friday, we will read and learn about the
Canterbury Tales.
Thursday night, your writing assignment is due to turnitin.com. Friday your writing assignment is due in class. You will likely lose your exemption if you do not submit a writing assignment.
Have a great Sunday!
