Assignment+Sheet

Makin' Bacon!

What goes into telling someone how to cook bacon? What goes into telling someone a story? How can these two topics unite into one assignment? Your first challenge is to find a way to explain how these videos can be so different, yet tell the same story...how to cook a bacon and pasta dish. Next, you'll take these ideas into your own writing, and revise a piece you have already completed. Think of how you could change the story while still keeping it similar to the original. As similar as Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time is to Rick Stein's BBC Cooking Special! Finally, you will write a reflection piece explaining your writing process.


 * Assignment Timeline:**


 * Day 1**

First, we will watch the two videos as a class and briefly discuss the differences and similarities we see between these two videos. Then students will break into pairs and look for any details we did not mention as a group. Come up with a list of the observations that you noticed, and how they affect the way the story is told or experienced (ex. does the Swedish accent have a different affect than the British one? Does including the shopping process change anything?).

Homework: At home, go through your old assignments to decide which piece you might want to revise, and bring this piece to class tomorrow! Be thinking about what you might change in or about it.


 * Day 2**

Today, you will work with the same pairs as yesterday, look at each others work and talk about what might be good to change within each piece. Talk about how changing voice, tone, sentence structure, setting, or anything else might affect the feel of your story. Keep in mind that you're not going to be changing the bones of the story -- just aspects that affect how an audience responds to it. For example, if you choose to revise your piece about "what I did last summer," the new piece should still tell the same story (your experiences last summer), but in a different manner.

Once you have an idea of what you might want to change, work individually on crafting a plan for revision. Pick two or three literary terms from the list below that you will work with in your piece, and write out a plan for how you will play with these topics. This can be in list or paragraph form.

Homework: Write a one page reflection paper explaining the similarities and differences you noticed in the videos, the revisions you chose to make, and reasons why you chose to make these revisions. How did changing the voice, tone, sentence structure, setting, etc affect how the new story reads compared to the original? Bring this reflection paper to class tomorrow, stapled to your plan for revision.


 * Day 3**

Today we'll talk about what changes everyone noticed in their revised work, and discuss how the revision process can shape the feel of a paper.

After the process is complete, you will be turning in (1) a revision plan and/or revised piece of writing and (2) a one page reflection paper about the whole process. You should be working with two to three different literary terms in each assignment, and both pieces should reflect a thoughtful decision-making process and evidence of effort. This isn't about writing a whole new original piece, but about critically evaluating something you have already created.
 * Expectations**

Revision plan and/or revised piece: graded for completion. As long as you demonstrate effort and you express original thought, you will receive full credit. Reflection paper: This will be graded similarly to the revision plan, in that all I ask is for you to explain your decision making process. Grammar and spelling will be taken into account, but the main focus is CONTENT -- how you communicate your thought process.
 * Evaluation**

From http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/general/glossary.htm and http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/lit_term.html
 * Literary Terms**
 * Character: a person who is responsible for the thoughts and actions within a story, poem, or other literature. Characters are extremely important because they are the medium through which a reader interacts with a piece of literature. Every character has his or her own personality, which a creative author uses to assist in forming the plot of a story or creating a mood. The different attitudes, mannerisms, and even appearances of characters can greatly influence the other major elements in a literary work, such as theme, setting, and tone.
 * Didactic ( di-DAK-tik ): refers to literature or other types of art that are instructional or informative.
 * Epigram ( ep -e-gram): a short poem or verse that seeks to ridicule a thought or event, usually with witticism or sarcasm.
 * Figurative language: a type of language that varies from the norms of literal language, in which words mean exactly what they say. Also known as the "ornaments of language," figurative language does not mean exactly what it says, but instead forces the reader to make an imaginative leap in order to comprehend an author's point. It usually involves a comparison between two things that may not, at first, seem to relate to one another. Ex: simile, metaphor
 * Genre : a type of literature. We say a poem, novel, story, or other literary work belongs to a particular genre if it shares at least a few conventions, or standard characteristics, with other works in that genre. For example, works in the Gothic genre often feature supernatural elements, attempts to horrify the reader, and dark, foreboding settings, particularly very old castles or mansions.
 * Hyperbole (hi-per- bo -lee): an extravagant exaggeration. From the Greek for " overcasting ," hyperbole is a figure of speech that is a grossly exaggerated description or statement. In literature, such exaggeration is used for emphasis or vivid descriptions.
 * Narrative : a collection of events that tells a story, which may be true or not, placed in a particular order and recounted through either telling or writing.
 * Narrator : one who tells a story, the speaker or the “voice” of an oral or written work. Although it can be, the narrator is not usually the same person as the author. The narrator is one of three types of characters in a given work, (1) participant (protagonist or participant in any action that may take place in the story), (2) observer (someone who is indirectly involved in the action of a story), or (3) non participant (one who is not at all involved in any action of the story). Depending on the part of the character of the narrator plays in the story, the narrator may demonstrate bias when presenting a piece of work.
 * Point of view: a way the events of a story are conveyed to the reader, it is the “vantage point” from which the narrative is passed from author to the reader. The point of view can vary from work to work. Key words to recognize POV include "I," "we," or "me" for first person, "you" for second person, and "he," "she," "they" for third.
 * Setting : the time, place, physical details, and circumstances in which a situation occurs. Settings include the background, atmosphere or environment in which characters live and move, and usually include physical characteristics of the surroundings. Settings enables the reader to better envision how a story unfolds by relating necessary physical details of a piece of literature. A setting may be simple or elaborate, used to create ambiance, lend credibility or realism, emphasize or accentuate, organize, or even distract the reader.
 * Style: manner of expression; how a speaker or writer says what he says.
 * Tone: the writer's attitude toward the material and/or readers. Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc.