Dear all,
I decided not to plague you all with an assignment over spring break. Call it a gift. As a consequence this will be our last post, which will encompass two topics, plot construction and time. But before I get to that I want to discuss what I'm expecting from you all after this final post. As I briefly discussed in the first post, the culmination of this exercise is to produce a reflection of approximately 700 words. This reflection should include zero (none) plot summary. Look back over your blog posts from the semester, what did you learn about reading? About fiction? About novels? Stories? Writing? What did you learn about yourself as a reader? As a thinker? By forcing you to stop and examine specific elements of the craft of a novel, I was leading you down different paths of thought. Consider those in your reflection. Your reflection should not, however, be a re-hash of your blogs. If it helps you to think of this assignment as something of a book review, feel free to do so.This reflection is due to me (via email only, please) April 12th. This gives you ample time to write your reflection, so there's no reason for anyone to not turn them in.
For those of you who have stuck with me this term, I hope you feel like you've accomplished something. For those who may not have been with us all the way, you can still turn in a reflection, you just will not receive full participation points. Okay. I think that's enough of that.
Onto plot construction and time, due March 29th: time and plot construction can, at first, appear to be the same things. While certainly related, I hope you'll find, through close examination of your novel, that they're quite different. Plot construction is quite literally how the plot is constructed: did your novel have several sections from different points of view? Did the plot follow a linear line? Did it happen all at one time or were there flashbacks? What could be the reason for this structure? Time? Literally it's whether or not the story is told in past or present tense, and if the action is happening now or if we're in flashback. This is an element of plot construction, but the order in which events (past and present) are relayed are deliberate. How does your author play with your expectations through using the graudual revealing of information? Do you know everything upfront or are you fed information piece by piece? Why is this effective or ineffective? Are important things told in flashback? Why? Etc. You see what i'm getting at with both topics, so I'll leave you to fill in any remaining blanks.
'Aiight. Get to it.
Miss O
- Mood:nerdy
Dear Class,
Minor characters can be just as important as major characters. Who are the minor characters in your novel? Are they flat characters (meaning they only serve one small purpose and aren't really fleshed out)? Are they round (meaning they come alive)? Why do you suppose it is important to have both round and flat minor characters? What function do minor characters serve? If the novel had no minor characters, how would the story change (not just literally, but use your head).
Due: March 8th by midnight
Please note: Next week I will not post a topic, because it would be due during spring break. However, I will post the next topic on March 15th and it will be due the 22nd which isn't during spring break.
-LO
- Mood:
devious
Hello all,
This week we'll be examining the main characters of our novels. These are easy to identify, but what I want you to consider is who they are as people. How do they interact? Why are they important to the story? How would the story be different if *they* were different? For example: If Bella were afraid of Edward, how would that change the story? Does your author do a good job of making these major characters (known as protagonists and antagonists mostly) come to life? How so, or why not? Through your examination of "how" they come to life, what conclusions can you draw about the crafting of a character onto the page? What does it take to make a character believeable? Are your main characters believable? Why or why not? In all cases feel free to give oodles of specific examples.
On a side note -- go ahead and double check last week's post and ensure you signed your name on your post. 2 of you didnt and I only have a dim idea of who one of you is. I want to give you all credit. So help a sistah out, aiight? True.
Your Fearless Literary Leader,
Mizz O
Remember: it's 'due' March 1st by midnight -- so really it's due the minute it turns march 2nd. ya dig?
- Mood:
content
-LO
PS: I'm going to start 'closing' the threads when they're 'due' -- if you're late or miss one I still recommend that you post something anyway so that way your reflection will be easier to write and will be a more rewarding experience.
- Mood:
sleepy
This week we're going to look at your novel's use of exposition. What is exposition? For those who aren't in the know, exposition is how the author tells the reader information that doesn't happen directly in a scene. I would argue that there are three types of exposition an author can use: 1) the regular kind (a paragraph about Bella's past that we need to know but that doesn't get conveyed to us in a scene); 2) direct address dialogue (edward tells bella the story of how he got turned into a vampire, this is critical informaton for the story but he directly tells the proatgonist and therefore the audience -- he is taking time away from the story to tell us something critically important); 3) it comes out naturally in dialogue ('how are you today?' 'i'm okay but i just broke my hand' we need to know their hand is broken though it may not play out to matter, for reasons of the story we need to have the informaiton).
How is your author using exposition? How are they introducing exposition? Give me an example. A specific example with page numbers. You may also wish to use a small direct quote to illustrate your point. (see small: 3 sentences or less).
REMINDER: (ah, how cute, i spelled it right this time) Posts are due by the end of Sundays. This means 1200am Monday. Thus far I've accepted posts after this time, but I would strongly urge you to turn in your posts prior to the midnight deadline. BY Sunday doesn't mean Monday morning :)
For the few of you who have stayed on this project, I'm so glad you have. I'm really enjoying seeing your responses and the community you're beginning to form in responding to each other's posts. Keep it up!!!
-L Oetizzle
- Mood:
bouncy
How does dialogue function in your novel? Does your author do a good job of characterizing the characters through their speech? If there is an absence of individual voice, why? What kind of dialogue does your author employ? What affect does it have on the novel? Feel free to add to this train of thought -- so long as it's dialogue related, it's valid.
-LO
- Mood: sleepy
One thing before I give you your topic: remember to respond to the topic by adding a comment through this thread, please don't start a new thread -- it'll make things confusing and messy.
Okay and now, that moment you've been waiting for (not): this week we're going to be looking at point of view. As you go through your reading for this week, notice how the point of view impacts the story. Is it a 1st person point of view? How does that limit the story? How does it enrich or hurt the story? Is it third limited? third all-knowing? 2nd? a combo? Why do you believe the author chose that POV? How does the POV affect your feelings towards the story?
Due by Sunday.
-LO
- Mood:
quixotic
Welcome to your spring 2009 extra credit project. The purpose of this project is for you to take a novel of your choice and spend an entire semester with it. If writing is a process, so too is reading. This recursive reading exercise is not just for the fun and love of reading, it is to get you to see a work of fiction in a different way. This is not a lesson in plot summary (you should keep it to a minimum), this is to get you to critically engage a text in a new and different way. Every Sunday I will post a topic question up to this account. You should respond directly to the post that I create, this will minimize the sheer size of the journal page. But before I get to your first assignment, there are a few house rules:
1) I encourage you to respond to each other's posts, especially those of you reading the same book. However, always be respectful.
2) Always sign your name to your post, otherwise you cannot get credit.
3) Use your brains!
4) Remember, this blog is 100% public. Think before you publish.
At the end of the term (the last day of class, specifically), you will need to turn in to me a short reflection approximately 700 words in length discussing any reflections you have of the book or the project.
Now for your first assignment. To successfully complete most assignments, you will need to pretend you haven't read your book yet. This is the case now:
There is a school of thought that says in the first 30 pages or so of a novel, the author has created a contract with the reader that gives them a promise that must be fulfilled by the novel's end. There is something in the language that, looking back, we recognize. What is the promise the author of your novel is giving you? What do you expect from this novel? What do you think it will be about?
Peace,
L
- Mood: excited
Mosquitoes would be able to live without humans, many more of them would. They do live off of blood but not specifically the blood of humans, they could survive off the blood of other mammals. However, there are some animals that need humans in order to survive. These creatures cannot live without us because they live on us, Pediculus humanus capitis and Pediculus humanus humanus, also know as head and body lice. They don't just depend on us they depend on our clothing as well. Over 200 bacteria species live on the human body, in our intestines, nostrils, mouths, and on every square inch or our skin.
The chance that all us the human race will go at once, let alone soon, are slight but still a possibility. The idea that just humans will die off all together is unlikely but not impossible. The Center of Disease Control Scientists believe that something may kill millions of us at once, because of the "giant petry dish" aka city, we live in. It is less likely for the spreading of an infectious disease to spread in the United States then in Africa because hygiene is a key factor. Many viruses have spread but humans eventually develop and immunity to them, making is seemingly impossible for one to kill off the human race. "No virus could ever get all 6 billion of us. A 99.99 percent die off would still leave 650,000 naturally immune survivors. Epidemics actually strengthen a species. In 50,000 years we could easily be right back where we started."
Animals would not be the only things left behind if humans died off. Copper, like silver and gold is a meta resistant to erosion. Bronze, however, can outlast anything. The penny, in 1982 was made of bronze and copper making it an everlasting piece. Today's penny, however is made mostly of zinc and the minimal amount of copper for it to keep its color.
The ocean and the life within it, in the dark depths would still exist. The animals down deep such as eels, sharks, and fish rarely see humans out that deep, so they don't need them to exist to survive. Perhaps there would be more of certain species because humans can't interfere with their way of life. Scientists also believe that the coral reefs would be more complex then they have ever been because they will not be tampered with by man kind.
Around 5 million years from now the Sun will turn into a red giant and burn out killing all life in our galaxy as we know it. But one question still remains, until that time would the world really be better off without us?
To better understand what would happen scientists examined the history of two areas, England and New England. Hominids arrived about 700,000 years ago in Britain. These people killed off the Eurasian cattle for food and destroyed the land around them and set up settlements. They later migrated to other parts of England around 4,500 BC. When they moved to this area they brought with them domesticated animals. These immigrants they tried to convert the area to one similar to Britain and Ireland and this was how agriculture began. In England today only 1/100 of the original forests are still in existence. In the 20th century the farms struggled greatly and they turned to the testing of herbicides, pesticides and municipal sewage sludge. A large plant and laboratory stands in England used for chemical ecology, insect molecular biology, this was founded during the Victorian Era. Samples of fertilizer and manure were kept over the years in bottles stacked high on shelves, there were over 300,00 specimens. They found, when they opened them to check the soil the pH dropped into the acid range. They also found traces of plutonium, cadmium, lead, copper, nickel, cobalt, vanadium, arsenic, also zinc and aluminum. This posed the question could this be harmful to us. The animals are now getting these elements in there food, animals, we eat.
A large Orthodox Christian Church stands in Istanbul, Turkey known as the Hagia Sophia. This church is stands over 180 feet high and has been in existence for thousands of years. In AD 537 an Earth Quake hit Turkey and the dome of the church came crashing to the ground. The dome was rebuilt 20 years later, Turkish civil engineer Mete Sozen believes that if an earthquake such as the previous were to strike again today the dome would be able withstand it. The same cannot be said for the rest of the Turkish city. In 2005 a group of scientists warned the Turkish government that a fault running near the east of the city would reopen in 30 years and destroy over 50,000 apartment buildings. The government is at a loss for what to do because they cannot prevent the inevitable. All the building in Turkey and its surrounding countries were built after World War II. This is significant because the concrete used was cheap. As the population in these countries grew more and more floors were added to these buildings, made from this cheap concrete. In a city like Turkey, if an earthquake were to occur again scientists estimate that it would take 30 years just to clean up the damage that would be left behind do to the concrete problem. Will Turkey exist long enough to use its new subway system? If another earthquake were to occur in Turkey the city would crumble to pieces. Earthquakes bring fire and that would burn most of the rubble. If all the people, however, were killed off the once beautiful city would freeze over and become nothing but a wasteland. The Hagia Sophia is said to remain standing despite this, but the freezing temperature would eventually widen cracks and eat away the brick, this once massive church and landmark would also come to its end.
I've enjoyed reading your posts so much, thank you again.
Lauren O.
They finally take Wanda outside, after they drugged her with morphine for her pain from Kyle’s attack. Wanda wakes up when everyone is gathered around holding a funeral for Walter. There are still some people who do not trust Wanda, so they make Doc drug her again to bring her inside. Wanda has a chance to say something at the funeral and she says, “There was no hatred in your heart. That you existed is proof that we were wrong”. Wanda is admitting that she really hates that the humans that she now loves still have to suffer because of the souls.
Since Kyle broke Jeb’s rule and tried to kill Wanda, they hold a tribunal to decide if they should kill or banish Kyle. Wanda will still not say that Kyle actually tried to kill her because she thinks he deserves to be there more that she does. They vote that Kyle can stay, but if he ever does it again he will be killed next time. Kyle tells Wanda that he will try to kill her again because she did save his life; he says “a life for a life”. After the tribunal, everybody from the cave enjoys a few games of soccer, but Wanda and Mel cannot play because of the injuries from the attack.
Jared finally believes Wanda 100% that Mel is still there, and he asks her what she is thinking. Ian and Jared begin to “fight” over Wanda/Mel. Jared tells Ian that the body is his, but Ian says that Wanda is his. Wanda doesn’t seem to understand that Ian is falling in love with her until Mel explains it to her, and she thinks that is crazy. Ian later confirms this when he kisses her. Melanie has a fit and tells Wanda to tell him to stop, and this makes it even harder for Wanda to figure out her own feelings and not Mel’s. Ian can now tell when Mel and Wanda are having a concentration, and he leaves to let Wanda try to figure things out.
After Jared and a couple other men go out on a short raid, Wanda gets the feeling that they are hiding something from her again. She finds Jamie and sees that he tripped and stabbed himself in the leg with the knife he was carrying. Wanda still wants to know what is going on, and no one will tell her. She runs to Doc’s office and finds him with Jared and Kyle sitting there with bodies and silver all over the walls and floors. Wanda just sees tortured and dead souls that aren’t even a year old. She becomes sick and just wants to run. She yells at Melanie to get out of her head, and she sits in darkness for three days, and Ian joins her and doesn’t say a word.
Wanda realizes that she needs to go see Jamie because he is in a bad position. She also realizes that she has lost Mel. She asks Ian to kiss her to see if that will bring her back but it doesn’t. Ian gets Jared, and he kisses her and Melanie comes back. Jamie has an infection and a fever, and Wanda knows that if they will let her out of the caves she can go get some of the soul’s medicine that works miracles. Everybody is too afraid that she might run and get seekers to come find them that they would rather let Jamie die. In the middle of the night Jared blind folds Wanda and takes her to the cars that they have. Wanda goes into a hospital and gets the medicines called Heal, No Pain, Clean, Seal, and Smooth. These medicines heal the scars that Wanda has had for months now, and she steals many of them to bring back to the caves. Other souls are never suspicious, so they never even question her. When Jared and Wanda return everyone is extremely mad, but Wanda gives Doc the medicine and Jamie is healed in minutes. After this, Wanda goes out on all the raids and gets them anything that they need.
Wes, Aaron, and Brandt capture Wanda’s seeker, but she kills Wes first. Wanda goes to speak to the seeker and she is terrified. When she sees the seeker, she realizes that she cannot let Jeb kill her no matter how much she despises her. She realizes that she needs to give Doc the secret that she has been trying to keep, how to remove a soul from a host without killing the host’s body. She then realizes that she is going to have to kill herself because she wants to give Mel her body back. Mel argues with her not to do it, but she has made up her mind and she makes an agreement with Doc. She tells him that she will show him how to remove the souls if he promises that they will always send the souls of peacefully, and that he has to take Wanda out and let her die and bury her by Walter and Wes.
Doc doesn’t want to kill Wanda but he agrees, and the Seeker is the first person that the procedure is performed on. No one knows but Doc and Wanda what they are planning and Wanda wants it that way even though she knows she is going to hurt Ian. The day comes when Doc is going to remove Wanda, and Jared finds out. He does not want Wanda to die, but he wants Melanie back. Wanda tells Jared to leave her alone, and he will have Melanie back. Wanda goes to meet Doc and he is ready. The next thing Wanda knows she is waking up in a new body. Mel, Jared, Jamie, Doc, Ian, and Jeb tell her that they could not just let her die, and they made sure they found her a host whose human mind would never return. Wanda and Ian still love each other, Wanda can be around her friends, and Mel can live and be with Jared. At the end of the book, Wanda, Jared, Ian, and Mel are going on a raid and the find another group of humans. They realize that this group of humans also has a soul with them. The other soul talks to Wanda and says, “It’s a strange world, isn’t it? And Wanda replies “The strangest.”
Lauren Webb
Langdon is holding the cryptex while Leigh still holds Sophie at gunpoint. Langdon has not yet made a decision as to whether he should help Leigh or Sophie. Finally he makes a decision and throws the cryptex in the air as high as he could and Leigh of course drops everything is hope to catch it, but despite his efforts it is still smashed. In the meantime Sophie and Langdon were able to get the gun that he dropped. As Leigh looked at the vinegar that had spilled out he noticed that there was not dissolving papyrus inside. Langdon, while holding him at gunpoint, shows him that the clue he had already solved. It was the word apple. Leigh could not believe that Langdon had solved the cryptex while Leigh thought that he was making a decision as to who he would help. Leigh begged Langdon to let him know where the Grail was so that his whole life would not have been a waste. Langdon refused and at that moment Fache came in and arrested Leigh. Langdon and Sophie were free to go. They wasted no time taking a plane to the church called Roslin where Jacques had left in the final clue for them to visit. This is where the remains of Mary Magdalene should rest. As they visited the church they could not seem to find the place where the entrance would be. Sophie then began remembering things from her childhood and how her grandfather had brought her here on several occasions. She went out back to a house that she remembered and found out that her grandmother lived there along with her brother. She had believed them to have died in a car accident years ago with her parents. Her grandmother and grandfather had come up with this in hopes of protecting them. She spent that time catching up with the family she had no idea existed anymore. After a while Langdon walked outside to let them catch up. He could not believe that after everything he was not able to find the entrance to the grail. When Sophie’s grandmother came outside to see what was wrong he told her. After she read the papyrus she told him that the only thing she could say was that the Grail was not here but that one day he would be doing something and all of a sudden it would hit him, and when that moment came she expected him to keep the secret her family had died to keep. The story ends with Langdon saying that he has to go back to Paris and him and Sophie agreeing to meet in a month. The epilogue of the book takes place back in Paris. Langdon all of a sudden realizes where the grail is hidden he runs all over Paris on the Line of the Rose or Roslin, which eventually leads to the Louvre. The Grail was hidden under the pyramids outside the Louvre. Langdon could not believe that he finally found the Grail.
Lauren Webb
These next few chapters began getting a little complicated. The plot of the entire book began to unravel. Langdon and Sophie find the church and the knight interred ended up being Newton. Remy is killed by the teacher because he gave him a drink and put peanuts in it, which he was highly allergic to. The most startling fact the was revealed was the Leigh, Langdon's close friend ended up being the Teacher that had been working with Silias and Remy trying to find the grail. He wanted to get it and let everyone know what really happened. The other startling fact was that Leigh was the who killed Sauniere, well more like he sent someone to kill Sauniere and his entire family. The reason Sauniere had been so protective of Sophie her entire life was because many wanted him dead. They said if he unveiled the secret that the Priory had been trying to hide for all those years then they would kill Sophie and him. Langdon and Sophie could not believe all of this. Leigh in the meantime had been holding them at gunpoint and asked them to help him find the grail so they could reveal it to the world what the church had been finding all of these years. In the meantime Silias had retreated to an Opus Dei House where he believed that he would be safe. Just a few hours after he had arrived they received a call asking if an Albino was there. The police said that they were on thier way and to not let him know that they were coming. Right before the police arrived Silias began feeling weird and felt that he had been followed. Just at that moment he noticed a police siren and he ran out of the place with a gun and began shooting. Little did he know that Bishop Aringarosa was also outside and he ended up shooting him too. He started crying the second he noticed that he had shot the bishop and tried to rush him to the hospital. The doctors said that it was nearly hopeless. The bishop goes on into an explanation of how the Vatican wanted them removed from them and no longer be a part of their organizations. Even though Opus Dei was the reason the Vatican was able to recover from their economic problems they just said that they would pay Aringarosa back and expected them to leave quietly. They said that they were in no way telling them that they could not longer have their own church, but that they would not be allowed to be affiliated with the Vatican. These men did not care that Opus Dei was the largest growing religion in the Catholic Church. All these things began unfolding in these few chapters. I left off where Leigh asked Sophie and Langdon to make a decision as to whether they would help him or not. I also left off wondering whether Bishop Aringarosa would survive and if the police were still going to arrest Silias. The next few chapters should reveal everything right now I am at the climax of The Da Vinci Code.
About 6,000 years ago in Africa, the Sahara was not a desert, it was a grassland savanna. There were streams and rivers and this savanna was home to animals including hippos, crocodiles, and elephants. Due to the orbital change of the Earth’s axis this once grassland savanna is now the Sahara desert. All of these changes occurred just because the axis straightened, not even a half of a degree. This was not the only cause of the transformation of grasslands to sand, the existence of humans played a large role. The human’s travel with there belongs on camels. Camels eat grass and grass needs water. The grass was being eaten continuously and with the shift in rain clouds the dry climate kept it from growing back. This was the start of the desert. The migration of humans also contributed, many began to grow crops and raise livestock. Humans, and there need for water came about at the wrong time. The change it the weather pattern was irreversible. The Homo sapiens spread out around this once grassland area in hopes that this would help the growing of crops and the condition of the farmlands. They also hoped the weather would take a turn for the better; this however, did not happen. This is how the once grassland area that today is now the Sahara came about. The population growth of livestock and humans in Africa has raised the climates temperature in the Sahara, and puts the surrounding areas in danger of become part of the desert.
Kelly was starting his own reconnaissance missions to gather intelligence on Billy’s habits. Billy was the one who saw Pam and chased her and Kelly around the town. Kelly learned that tailing someone in a car was not as easy as the movies made it look. He had spotted Billy’s red Roadrunner but it was no easy task to keep it in his sight as he could not follow too closely. But that was during the day. It was night now and Kelly was growing comfortable with his disguise and the way of the streets. His target tonight was a lone pusher, “Junior,” the name Kelly had given him. The night was winding down and Junior was alone on the street. Kelly began his usual harmless wander towards Junior, careful not to spook him. Junior was counting money, and kept looking up, probably out of stupidity, Kelly thought. Kelly was close now, ten yards… five yards… He was within lunging distance of Junior, who was still oblivious to Kelly, perfectly disguised as a wino bum. Kelly continued for another three feet and grabbed the “bang-stick” from the sleeve of his worn bush jacket and shoved it fiercely into Junior’s chest. The bang-stick was a metal rod with a shotgun shell, a birdshot, at the end of it. When it struck Junior’s chest, the metal rod acted as a firing pin and struck the primer of the shell, causing it to discharge directly into his torso. The pellets of the birdshot spread inside him like an explosion – death was instantaneous. With only the dull thump of a cardboard box hitting the floor, Kelly had ended Junior.
The next morning came with the usual discovery, another pusher dead. Ryan and Douglas were there again, investigating the crime scene. The kill had left only a whole in the man’s diaphragm about three-quarters of an inch wide and there was no exit wound. It was very clean, no blood. “Shotguns are damn loud, nobody heard anything?” inquired Douglas. And nobody had. This was becoming routine for the two detectives.
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