Day 9

Mon. Sept. 19

• Share aphorisms

• Share details from Uncle Pat

• Share details from “Mazie” and “The Man Who Eats”

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Homework

➤ Read “Mazie” or “The Man Who Eats”

Read whichever of these you didn’t read last time. (If it’s Mazie, I recommend focusing on paragraphs 1-6 and 8-9.)

In this piece, look for one of each of these things as well. Come to next class ready to share an example of each of these for either “Mazie” or “The Man Who Eats.”

• Physical description of a character’s appearance

• A list of concrete objects

• An anecdote about a character (something they once did)

• A description of a character’s habits (something they always or often do or did)

• An aphorism / statement of that character’s worldview and values

• Something another character says about that character

• A description of the character acting in a scene (physical action)

• Quotation or dialogue that captures a character’s voice

➤ Read your classmates’ aphorisms

Read over your classmates’ new aphorisms on SharePoint (“Three new aphorisms”) and pick one that you find interesting: one that has multiple dimensions of meaning, one that tugs at your mind and invites you to ponder it again and again. Come to next class ready to share that aphorism and explain to us: 1) what you take it to mean; 2) why you picked it; and 3) what kind of person you think would believe this.

➤ Improve an aphorism

Pick either an aphorism you wrote or an aphorism a classmate wrote, and improve that aphorism. Make it more concise; make it sound better; make it clearer or more vivid in some way. Type the original AND your improved version of the aphorism in a Word document and upload it to the folder called “Improved aphorisms.”

Note: If you want, try improving more than one! Improve as many as you want. Put them all in the same Word document.

➤ WRITE APHORISMS FOR YOUR CHARACTER

For the person you’re writing about for your character essay, write at least three original aphorisms (again, not proverbs or other clichéd statements—these should be aphorisms that haven’t been said before, except perhaps by that person) that capture this person’s worldview or value system.

• Make at least one of these aphorisms contain the word for an object that your character is very familiar with or uses a lot or is important to them for some reason.

• Also, make at least one of these aphorisms contain the name of a place that is very important to your character or in which your character spends a lot time / is very familiar with.

Upload a Word document with your three new aphorisms to the folder on SharePoint called “Aphorisms for your character.”

➤ Start working on your character essay

Your essay is due a week from today. It’s probably a good idea to get to work on it!