Update Feb. 18

Writing Portfolio
We worked on brainstorming ways to fictionalize our real-life scenes. This means changing some aspect of the story to move from non-fiction into fiction.  Some ways to do this might include the following:
1) Tell the story from a different point of view.
2) Give the main character a personality or character flaw.
3) Change the setting: time or place.
4) Introduce a new and crucial character.
5) Raise the stakes for the internal conflict.
6) Intensify the external conflict.

When you fictionalize, don't just change superficial details of the story. If you make a change, let it shape the characters and the conflict.  For example, if your original real-life scene was set at EFY, don't just change it from EFY-Provo to EFY-Arizona. That wouldn't really affect the story in a significant way. Instead you might change the setting to a rehab center. That would intensify the internal/interpersonal problems the characters must work through.

Core
We continued to work on short story writing. We played with writing our characters into different scenes. The challenge is to make the scene plausible given what you already know about your characters and the problem they face.

Students created a word-web for a vocabulary word from their reading in Pride and Prejudice. A word-web includes the following:
1) word
2) part of speech
3) definition
4) sentence from Pride and Prejudice where you encountered the word
5) synonym and antonym

We finished our reader's theater on working conditions in British factories during the Industrial Revolution. Students worked in pairs to write paragraph responses to these two questions:
1) What were working conditions like during the Industrial Revolution?
2) How might the Industrial Revolution have affected family life?

Homework:

• Read through page 347 in Pride and Prejudice.
• Family Present assignment will be due on Monday.
• By Friday, change the real-life scene by introducing a fictional element. Write a new fictional scene at the lowest levels of the pyramid of abstraction.  Then do this process all over again. You should have two new scenes, each taking your real-life scene in a unique direction.