January 22nd, 2013

1/22/13

In Class:
Journal--  Respond to the following quotes:
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” -Mark Twain
“By words we learn thoughts, and by thoughts we learn life.” -Jean Baptiste Girard

GMX-- Prepositional Phrases and Action Verbs
Write a sentence about your day so far using at least two prepositional phrases.
Circle the action verbs in the following excerpt:
   Sometimes the combination of talent and persistence explodes into well-deserved fame and fortune. For almost a year, J.K. Rowling survived on public assistance in Edinburgh, Scotland. Almost every day that year, she brought her baby to a coffee shop near their damp unheated apartment. In the warmth of the café, the divorced, unemployed mother sat and wrote. Almost at the end of her endurance, she finally finished her book. Today, Rowling’s Harry Potter books sell hundreds of millions of copies in sixty languages.

Defined and discussed diction and syntax.
Diction: the choice and use of words in speech or writing.
Syntax: the order/sequence of words.
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” -Ernest Hemingway
The significance of word choice in writing, especially in poetry: as we discussed last week, the quantity and quality of words is crucial in expression. The only way to write ‘the truest sentence that you know’ is by carefully and deliberately choosing and arranging the truest words you know.

Studied the genre of haiku/tanka. Noted conventions of haiku, including: syllable count (5/7/5, in contrast with Japanese on), concept of kiru or cutting, and incorporation of 'season' words. Noted conventions of tanka: similar to haiku, only with an additional couplet of seven syllables.

“The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.” -Matsuo Bashō, Japanese poet and pioneer of haiku format
Shared zombie haikus.
 
Exit ticket: What is a preposition?

Homework:
Write a haiku, tanka, or series of haikus about something that frustrates you endlessly.