Sunday, April 24, 2016

TWIC: science poetry, serials, advice, imaginative books, TV genre breakdown and Rowling on revision and planning

Shelly Terrell discusses her week of teaching science and poetry. Terrell encourages students to be active and creative in a variety of ways and this scratches two itches of mine.  Too bad I don't have that much control of my curriculum, for now, anyway.
Everyone should be a budding scientist. Our students should be curious, experiment, explore, and conduct research in their everyday lives. One reason why many students feel science is beyond them or overwhelming is because they don’t make an emotional connection to the science. In celebration of National Poetry month, I have created a visual science poetry calendar to inspire students to write science poems. I did this with Google Calendar and Thinglink.
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Even Puschtak discusses the history of serialization, from Dickens to soap operas and Star Wars. The link is to Kottke and he links and quotes others on the subject.
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From Quora, tips for aspiring writers. A part of Sheri Fresonke Harper's response:
The job of being a writer is actually many jobs including: finance whiz, accountant, business owner, advertising rep, editor, salesman, journalist, book reviewer, memoirist, poet, social media expert, computer maintainer, Web site builder, photographer,artist. Start with the easiest skills and build you resume.
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Many giving advice above mentioned the importance of reading.  Another Quora question was for a list of the most imaginative fiction books.  They'd probably be good to read.  I have read many and the list seems to fit my criteria for highly imaginative.
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Finally a throwaway image describing standard TV show genres. It's good but there isn't much else to the link so I feel bad pasting any part of it.
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How can you be a better writer.  Rowling advice is always do more and better planning. The website is named, 'Write like Rowling' but I think it is not affiliated with her.  I'm not sure how click-baity it is.
Outlining: “You Have to Plan”
Even when Rowling was nearly finished with the Potter series, she still extensively planned out her work. While writing the sixth book, Goblet of Fire, Rowling said:
I have a large and complicated chart propped on the desk in front of me to remind me what happens where, how, to whom and which bits of crucial information need to be slipped into which innocent-looking chapters.
Rowling later added in an interview:
I plan; I really plan quite meticulously. I know it is sometimes quite boring because when people say to me, “I write stories at school and what advice would you give me to make my stories better?” And I always say (and people’s faces often fall when I say),­­ “You have to plan,” and they say, “Oh, I prefer just writing and seeing where it takes me.” Sometimes writing and seeing where it takes you will lead you to some really good ideas, but I would say nearly always it won’t be as good as if you sat down first and thought, Where do I want to go, what end am I working towards, what would be good—a good start?
Included at the link are images of Rowling's outlines for Order of the Phoenix.

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