Scholastic contest Deadline/Talking With/Monologues

AGENDA:

SCHOLASTIC ENTRIES: Upload work.  Print out submission form.  Get it signed for Monday.

Talking With: Read aloud more monologues

WRITING: Finish your monologues and post on Google Classroom.

Next week we will be reading and writing one-act plays!

BLOG POST: Post a response to Gloria Naylor's essay from the previous post.

Monologues/Scholastic/Talking With

AGENDA:

1. Read 3 more Talking With monologues aloud

2. Read Gloria Naylor's essay silently.  Post a response on blog.

Some questions to think about:

•Naylor opens this essay with the assertion "Language is the subject." From your reading, what would you say is Naylor's main point about this subject?

•"Words themselves are innocuous; it is the consensus that gives them true power." What, in your judgment, is the meaning of this statement? Do you agree or disagree with it? Drawing from personal experience, give an example to support your position.

3. Work on Scholastic entries!  Print out submission forms and get them signed by parent/guardian.

4. Finish monologues and upload to Google Classroom.

Carver Stories/2nd Person/ Monologues

AGENDA:


Writing comes first!

Complete Carver/2nd Person stories

Complete Monologues

Enter Scholastic contest--Deadline Dec. 4

go to artsandwriting.org

If time permits, we will read more Talking With

Talking With/Monologues

AGENDA:

Discussion:  Read Aloud/Write agreements

Read Aloud: Talking With monologues

WRITE: Finish monologues.  Post on Google Classroom

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Poetry Choreography in Black Box/ Talking With by Jane Martin

AGENDA:

Performance of Poetry Choreography

Go down to Black Box




Talking With... is a 1982 play by Jane Martin, published by Samuel French Incorporated.^[1] The play is composed of eleven ten-minute monologues, each featuring a different woman who talks about her life.^[2] The play includes the pieces, "Fifteen Minutes," "Scraps," "Clear Glass Marbles," "Audition," "Rodeo," "Twirler," "Lamps," "Handler," "Dragons," "French Fries," and "Marks." It premiered at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York in 1982 and has been performed around the world.^[3]

The play deals with the personal ordeals of each of the female characters. Many of them are very touching; a few are even intensely emotional. However, there is also the very comical. Even the funny ones, however, have an underlying depth to them that gives a sensitive insight into each of the characters involved.The ladies cover a wide spectrum of life and age from the fading rodeo star in "Rodeo" to the young aspiring actress in "Audition", there is much tenderness and diversity in the subject matter involved in the play.^[4]

http://www.weathervaneplayhouse.com/Data/Sites/1/docs/talkingwith....pdf

GANNON POETRY CONTEST

Submit one or two poems:

http://www.gannon.edu/Academic-Offerings/Humanities-Education-and-Social-Sciences/Undergraduate/English/Poetry-Contest/

For Colored Girls/Monologues

AGENDA:

Continue reading For Colored Girls.

Work on monologue exercise from previous post.

stageagent.com

In theatre, a monologue (from Greek: μονόλογος, from μόνος mónos, "alone, solitary" and λόγος lógos, "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their mental thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience.

Thursday, Nov. 15---We will be going to the Black Box for the performances of the choreographed poems!

Example of monologue:

Fences by August Wilson - FEMALE

Fences by August Wilson - FEMALE

ROSE

You can't be nobody but who you are, Cory. That shadow wasn't nothing but you growing into yourself. You either got to grow into it or cut it down to fit you. But that's all you got to make life with. That's all you got to measure yourself against that world out there. Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn't ... and at the same time he tried to make you into everything he was. I don't know if he was right or wrong ... but I do know he meant to do more good than he meant to do harm. He wasn't always right. Sometimes when he touched he bruised. And sometimes when he took me in his arms'. he cut. When I first met your daddy I thought ... Here is a man I can lay down with and make a baby. That's the first thing I thought when I seen him. I was thirty years old and had done seen my share of men. But when he walked up to me and said "I can dance a waltz that'll make you dizzy," I thought, Rose Lee, here is a man that you can open yourself up to and be filled to bursting. Here is a man that can fill all them empty spaces you been tipping around the edges of. One of them empty spaces was being some body's mother.

I married your daddy and settled down to cooking his supper; and keeping cleansheets on the bed. When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave some room for me. For my part in the matter. But at that time I wanted that. I wanted a house that I could sing in. And that's what your daddy gave me. I didn't know to keep up his strength I had to give up little pieces of mine. I did that. I took on his life as mine and mixed up the pieces so that you couldn't hardly tell which was which anymore. It was my choice. It was my life and I didn't have to live it like that. But that's what life offered me in the way of being a woman and. I took it. I grabbed hold of it with both hands. By the time Raynell came into the house, me and your daddy had done lost touch with one another. I didn't want to make my blessing off of nobody's misfortune ... but I took on to Raynell like she was all them babies I had wanted and never had. Like I'd been blessed to relive a part of my life. And if the Lord see fit to keep up my strength ... I'm gonna do her just like your daddy did you ... I'm gonna give her the best of what's in me .

Character: Rose, Troy’s wife

Act II, Scene I, Pg 70-71…”I’ve been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don’t you think I ever wanted other things? Don’t you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don’t you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who’s got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams…and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom. But I held on to you, Troy. I held on tighter. You was my husband. I owed you everything I had. Every part of me I could find to give you. And upstairs in that room…with the darkness falling in on me…I gave everything I had to try and erase the doubt that you wasn’t the finest man in the world. And wherever you was going…I wanted to be there with you. Cause you was my husband. Cause that’s the only way I was gonna survive as your wife. You always talking about what you give…and what you don’t have to give. But you take too. You take…and don’t even know nobody’s giving.”

August Wilson, The Piano Lesson
Act 1; Scene 1 AVERY Well, it come to me in a dream. See . . . I was sitting out in this railroad yard watching the trains go by. The train stopped and these three hoboes got off. They told me they had come from Nazareth and was on their way to Jerusalem. They had three candles. They gave me one and told me to light it . . . but to be careful that it didn’t go out. Next thing I knew I was standing in front of this house. Something told me to go knock on the door. This old woman opened the door and said they had been waiting on me. Then she led me into this room. It was a big room and it was full of all kinds of different people. They looked like anybody else except they all had sheep heads and was making noise like sheep make. I heard somebody call my name. I looked around and there was these same three hoboes. They told me to take off my clothes and they give me a blue robe with gold thread. They washed my feet and combed my hair. Then they showed me these three doors and told me to pick one. I went through one of them doors and that flame leapt off that candle and it seemed like my whole head caught fire. I looked around and there was four or five other men standing there with these same blue robes on. Then we heard a voice tell us to look out across the valley. We looked out and saw the valley was full of wolves. The voice told us that these sheep people that I had seen in the other room had to go over to the other side of this valley and somebody had to take them. Then I heard another voice say, “Who shall I send?” Next thing I knew I said, “Here I am. (continued) 4 Send me.” That’s when I met Jesus. He say, “If you go, I’ll go with you.” Something told me to say, “Come on. Let’s go.” That’s when I woke up. My head still felt like it was on fire . . . but I had a peace about myself that was hard to explain. I knew right then that I had been filled with the Holy Ghost and called to be a servant of the Lord. It took me a while before I could accept that. But then a lot of little ways God showed me that it was true. So I became a preacher

Monologue

Exercise: The Monologue

ONE: Dealing with the Past

It is a common practice with monologues that a character relates a past story in order to illuminate something that is currently happening the plot of the play.

The problem with these types of monologues is when a character says, "I remember." "I remember" creates an insular experience; it's something that only happened to the character and it's difficult for the audience to share in the event. The audience doesn't remember.

Another problem with past monologues is the use of the past tense. When something has happened in the past, it's over, it's done. Using the present tense is much more alive and active.

EXERCISE

1. Write a monologue where the first line is 'I remember when...' and uses the past tense. Have a character talk about a childhood memory that has significant impact on how they are today.
2. Re-write the monologue, taking out all mentions of 'remembering.' Just tell the story.
3. Re-write the monologue in the present tense.
4. Read aloud the first version and then the third. Discuss the differences.

TWO: Making the Story Count

If a character tells a story in a monologue - "I went to the grocery store and THIS JUST HAPPENED," there has to be something besides the base story going on for the audience. There has to be more. The story has to show something: a character flaw, a plot point we didn't know, a lie, a romance, and so on.

EXERCISE

1. Write a monologue where the character tells a story about going to a parade.
2. Re-write the monologue so that by telling the story, the audience sees the character is a liar.
3. Re-write the monologue so that by telling the story, the audience sees the character is heartbroken.
4. Re-write the monologue so that by telling the story, the audience sees the character is in love.

THREE: The Need to Speak

In every monologue a character must 'need to speak.' Otherwise, why is the monologue there? In every monologue you write, you must determine the need for the character to speak. What drives the character? Is there anything that stands in the way of the character's need to speak? The character doesn't necessarily have to succeed with what they need. Maybe they're too afraid, or they change their mind, or there's something stopping them. Obstacles are good! But start with the need and then see what happens.

EXERCISE

Choose one of the following needs. What kind of character would have that need? Give them a name, an age, and a physical appearance. Who are they talking to? Who is the listener? What is the relationship? Decide if your character will succeed or fail with their need. Now write the monologue.

1. The character needs to reveal a secret to the listener.
2. The character needs to prove something to the listener.
3. The character needs to reveal they love the listener.
4. The character needs to reveal they hate the listener.
5. The character needs to stand up to the listener.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=how+to+write+a+dramatic+monologue&view=detail&mid=A2ED1B0F5F2C76364589A2ED1B0F5F2C76364589&FORM=VIRE2&adlt=strict

http://www.monologuegenie.com/monologue-writing-101.html

Ntozake Shange for colored girls....

AGENDA:

Go to library for copies of for colored girls


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntozake_Shange

Read For Colored Girls aloud

For colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, Ntozake Shange’s first work, tells the stories of seven women who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society. The choreopoem is an innovative combination of poetry, drama, music, and dance. For Shange, the combination is important. She learned about her identity as a woman through words, songs, and literature; she learned about her identity as an African through dance.

The seven women are not named; they are meant to stand for the women who make up the rainbow. They are called “lady in brown,” “lady in red,” and so on. Each tells her own story. The stories are interwoven together. As the women tell their stories, they reflect on what it means to be a woman of color, what chances and choices they have. These women are in pain; they are angry. They have been abused by their lovers, their rapists, their abortionists, and they have been driven to the brink of despair. What strength they have left they find in music and in each other.

Many have criticized the play for being too negative toward black men, but Shange has always attempted to direct the focus of the discussion back on the women. The play is about the women, about who they are and what they have experienced. To insist on a “balanced” view of the men in their lives is to deny these women’s experiences. These women deserve a voice. The play, she insists, does not accuse all black men of being abusive. These women are not rejecting men or seeking a life without men. The women desire men and love them, and ache for that love to be returned.

Although the stories these women tell are tales of struggle, the play is ultimately uplifting. The seven women grieve, but they also celebrate their lives, their vitality, their colorfulness. As the play ends, the women recite, one at a time and then together: “i found god in myself/ & i loved her/ i loved her fiercely.” These women are not entirely powerless; they have the power of their own voices. They find the courage to tell their stories and thus triumph.

All the ladies come onto the stage and freeze in positions of distress. The lady in brown calls upon the others to sing a black girl’s song, to give her words and to bring her out of herself. Each lady declares her origins—the lady in brown outside Chicago, the lady in yellow outside Detroit, the lady in purple outside Houston, the lady in red outside Baltimore, the lady in green outside San Francisco, the lady in blue outside Manhattan, and the lady in orange outside St. Louis. Then they begin to sing songs of infancy and childhood: “Mama’s Little Baby Likes Shortnin’ Bread” and “Little Sally Walker.”

The lady in yellow tells the story of graduation night when she was the only virgin in the crowd. She drank and danced and went out to the parking lot with Bobby, where she made love to him in the back seat of a Buick. The lady in blue then relates how, pretending she was Puerto Rican, she ran away at sixteen to the South Bronx to dance with Willie Colón, the famous salsa musician. When he did not show up at the dance hall, she got mad, refused to dance with anyone, and started yelling in English. Later she was possessed by the subtle blues of Archie Shepp, and she recited her poem as a thank-you for music that she loved “more than poem.”

The lady in red recites a note attached to a plant she gave to her lover when she ended the affair. She loved him for eight months, two weeks, and a day; was stood up four times; left him presents, poems, and plants; drove miles to see him before work; and finally decided that her experiment of debasing herself to gain love was a failure. All of the ladies then dance to Willie Colón’s “Che Che Cole”—they dance to keep from crying and to keep from dying.

A sudden light change stops the dancing, and the ladies in green, yellow, orange, and brown leave the stage. The ladies in red, blue, and purple discuss how difficult it is to press rape charges against someone you know, someone who took you out to dinner or made dinner for you and then beat you and betrayed you. The nature of rape changed; it haunts the places and people where companionship is sought. When the light again changes, the ladies are hit by an imaginary slap. The ladies in red and purple exit. The lady in blue reveals her experience of a lonely abortion. She went alone because she did not want anyone to see her or to know that she was pregnant and ashamed. After her monologue, she exits the stage.

Soft, deep music is heard and voices call “Sechita.” The lady in purple enters and describes the quadroon balls in St. Louis and the gambling boats on the Mississippi. She narrates the story of Sechita, as the lady in green dances her life. Sechita dances in a creole carnival after the wrestlers finish their match; she dances the dance of Nefertiti, of the Egyptian goddess of love and creativity, of the rituals of the second millennium, and then she leaves the stage. Portraying an eight-year-old girl in St. Louis, the lady in brown explains how she was disqualified from a library reading contest because she reported on a book from the Adult Reading Room. The book, a biography of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the liberator of Haiti, introduced her to her first black hero, and she fell in love with him and decided to run away to Haiti. When she got down to the docks, she met a little boy whose name was Toussaint Jones, and she decided that they might be able to move some of their own spirits down by the river in St. Louis, 1955.

The lady in red follows with the tale of a dazzling coquette who lured men to her bed and made divine love to them. At four-thirty in the morning she arose, bathed, and became herself, an ordinary brown-braided woman who chased the men from her bed, wrote accounts of her exploits in a journal, and cried herself to sleep.

The lady in blue explains how she used to live in the world until she moved to Harlem, and that she felt her universe constricted to six blocks and a tunnel with a train. The ladies in purple, yellow, and orange enter and represent the strangers that the lady in blue feared. In another tone, the lady in purple tells the story of three friends all attracted to the same man, who dated one and flirted with the other two. When the first romance waned, he sought out one of the others, who told her friend that he claimed the relationship was over. The two found him with another woman, and the friends comforted each other.

A quartet of the ladies—in blue, purple, yellow, and orange—sing of their lost loves and pain until they are joined by the ladies in red, green, and brown, who chant with them an affirmation of their love, dancing until they are full of life and togetherness. The lady in green then celebrates the recovery of all of her stuff that “somebody almost walked off wid.” After the ladies recite the excuses and apologies men gave them, the lady in blue asserts her right to be angry and to accept no more apologies.

The last story of Crystal and Beau Willie is told by the lady in red. Beau Willie, a Vietnam veteran, came home “crazy as hell” from the war. When he tried to go to school, he was put into remedial classes because he could not read, so he drove a gypsy cab that kept breaking down. His girlfriend Crystal had a baby while he was in Vietnam that he was not sure was his; she got pregnant again when he returned, so Beau Willie had two children, a girl and a boy. When Crystal refused to marry him, he got drunk and started swinging chairs at her, including the high chair with his son. Having almost died, Crystal got a court order to keep Beau Willie away. He went to Crystal’s to try to convince her to marry him; when she would not open the door, he broke it down. He coaxed the children into his arms. When Crystal again refused to marry him, he held the children out of the fifth-story window and dropped them. The ladies come out and chant how each misses a “layin’ on of hands” until “i found god in myself & i loved her/ i loved her fiercely” arises as a song of joy to each other and to the audience.

Golden Shovel Poem

3. Introduce the "Golden Shovel Poem" and Terrance Hayes

From Writer's Digest: Golden Shovel: Poetic Form

By: Robert Lee Brewer | June 24, 2014

Earlier this year, I came across a mention of the “golden shovel” form created by Terrance Hayes and made a note to check it out. I’m so happy I did, because it’s a fun poetic form.

HERE ARE THE RULES FOR THE GOLDEN SHOVEL:

• Take a line (or lines) from a poem you admire.
• Use each word in the line (or lines) as an end word in your poem.
• Keep the end words in order.
• Give credit to the poet who originally wrote the line (or lines).
• The new poem does not have to be about the same subject as the poem that offers the end words.

If you pull a line with six words, your poem would be six lines long. If you pull a stanza with 24 words, your poem would be 24 lines long. And so on.
If it’s still kind of abstract, read these two poems to see how Terrance Hayes used a Gwendolyn Brooks poem to write the first golden shovel:

• We Real Cool, by Gwendolyn Brooks (original poem)
• The Golden Shovel, by Terrance Hayes (golden shovel poem)

As you can see, the original golden shovel takes more than a line from the poem. In fact, it pulls every word from the Brooks poem, and it does it twice.
This form is sort of in the tradition of the cento and erasure, but it offers a lot more room for creativity than other found poetry.
*****
Workshop your poetry!

HERE’S MY ATTEMPT AT A GOLDEN SHOVEL:

“Aging Well,” by Robert Lee Brewer
-after Basho as translated by Allen Ginsberg
The funny thing about growing old
is you never know how to respond
until after the fact. Like a frog
that sits and then eventually jumps
there’s absolutely no thought given
to the process. You’re young; then, kerplunk!

www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/golden-shovel-poetic-form

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55678/the-golden-shovel 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/92023/introduction-586e948ad9af8 

https://web.njit.edu/~ronkowit/poetsonline/archive/arch_goldenshovel.html 

4. Write a Golden Shovel poem:

Resources: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems?page=4

Poetry 180:  https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2016