Writing Process
During this project we articulated what we were learning about perspective in different styles of writing. The three writing pieces that we wrote this year were: Blackout Poetry, In Cold Blood Essay, and Imaginative Nonfiction. Through out all three of these we used our own prospective or adopted a specific perspective.
Blackout Poetry
In the very beginning of the project we read a beautiful poem called "Let America Be America Again," about America from two different perspectives. The different perspectives finally merged at the end to say that America will only be great if we make it great. After reading and analyzing the poem we used are own perspective to create a different poem out of the words used in "Let America Be America Again." We also drew a picture to cover up all the words except for ones that were in are poem. My artwork is to the right and poem below:
The home
The dream
the land of love
O, of dog eat dog
Of might crush the weak
O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead
Yet I am the one who dreamt our basic dream
who sings in every brick and stone
O, the songs we've sung
The hopes we've held
The dream that's almost dead today
O, the land that never has been yer
sweat blood fair and pair
America will be
We, the people make America again!
The home
The dream
the land of love
O, of dog eat dog
Of might crush the weak
O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead
Yet I am the one who dreamt our basic dream
who sings in every brick and stone
O, the songs we've sung
The hopes we've held
The dream that's almost dead today
O, the land that never has been yer
sweat blood fair and pair
America will be
We, the people make America again!
In Cold Blood Essay
|
For our In Cold Blood essay we had to analyze and look at In Cold Blood through a literary critical lens (learn more at 11th grade, english, perspective project, inspiration for project). An obvious lens that stood out at me was the psychoanalytical lens. Throughout the book we hear the murder's backstory which helps readers see the full picture of the murder and form their own opinions. In my essay I look at how Perry Smith, one of the murder's, childhood affected the way he viewed the world as an adult. I also delve into whether murder is nature or nurture. This essay just flew right out of me because I felt really passionate about the topic and loved the book. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to do a lot of revisions. I had Makenna and my Mom give me feedback on grammar, flow of writing, and content. Ultimately I am really happy with it and think it turned out wonderful.
|
Imaginative NonFiction
For our creative writing piece we used Capotes style of imaginative nonfiction. For this style of writing we took a true story or theme, or nugget as we referred to them in class, and put are own perspective on it. We started our writing pieces with a dialogic interview with a partner for about an hour. My partner was Luke and this discussion was an good opportunity for us to get to know each other. I have known Luke for a while now and even went to Costa Rica and Nicaragua with him in 10th grade, but during this interview I learned things about him that were very personal. After our long talk I brainstormed the topics I possibly wanted to write about (nugget list below). From this list I narrowed my topic down and started writing and drafting my imaginative nonfiction piece. The nugget I ended up picking was the story that stood out to me even after a few days. This is my favorite creative writing piece I have ever written because it brings out a lot of emotion and uses tons of literary devices, especially imagery. This writing piece (below) is not an actual true story of Luke's childhood but an interpretation of what he told me. Then after everyone wrote their imaginative nonfiction we read are partners and did a telephone type of activity. We painted a picture of our perspective of their writing that they had done about us. For example I interviewed Luke and wrote a piece about him, then he interpreted the writing piece and painted a visual to go along with it. We connected all the painted tiles together and made a mural out of it. Hidden in the mural you can see the word perspective because that was the theme of our project. Another art piece we did ing this project was kinetic art, which is artwork that moves or changes. Since we were learning about the change in perspectives we thought this type of art would be very applicable. We drew two perspectives from are own imaginative nonfiction piece and placed them accordingly so that when you look on one side of the art you see one perspective and when you look on the other side you see a different perspective. My kinetic art is at the very bottom of the page and depicts two different characters perspectives in my creative writing piece. One is, James a little boy, who is looking at his mother crying in an imaginative way. Another is James’s mother who is realistically looking at James driving away in a police car.