Groundhog Day! - February 2nd

With Groundhog day falling on Saturday our writing assignment today will feature the great movie, "Groundhog Day." Hopefully you have seen the movie "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray, if you haven't here is a rundown of the plot:

Bill Murray plays an egocentric TV weatherman who is required to cover the annual Groundhog Day event where Punxsutawney Phil pops up to "see his shadow" When he covers this assignment he finds himself in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over again. The purpose of revisiting the same day over and over again is so that Bill Murray can change the course of his life forever. He learns that his arrogant, selfish attitude is not winning him any points with anyone he knows and he decides to change himself. Over the course of time and after many attempts, he finally breaks the "curse" and his life returns to normal, on February 3rd but Bill Murray is a changed man who has found a new love for life.

Here is your assignment:

Choose one day from your past that you would like to have a chance to re-do. The day can be from any time in your life as long as you are at an age and in a place that you can change the course of the day. First tell me about the original day. Then explain what you would do to change the course of that day and most importantly WHY you would change it? How would this have effected your life today?

25 points assignment
Must be 500+ words
Due by Monday, February 4 BEFORE CLASS STARTS

*Sparkle* Words Continued

Now take your list of "boring" words and create 2-3 sparkle words for each of the common, boring words.

A *Sparkle* word has a "WOW FACTOR" to it, you don't commonly see it in your everyday writing or reading or vocabulary but when you do use it, it is like "BAM! Yea, I just used that word correctly!" So, have fun, use a thesaurus if you need to and get to creating some sparkle words!

We will be combining all of your lists on Wednesday to make a large class list of sparkle words that can replace all those boring old words you listed first!

Class *Sparkle* Words

Some of you may recall "Sparkle" words when you were in Elementary school. (I used them as a teaching tool during my undergraduate hours at Arkansas with elementary students) Typically a list of "Sparkle" words will be posted somewhere in the classroom, yours will be posted on your own blog and then a large list will be created on this blog. Here is how we will start this 2-day assignment:

1. List all the "boring" words you can think of, these are words that are used all the time in everyday life like: big, cool, pretty, nice, went, said, very, and many, many more. Here is an example format:

   1. cool
   2. very
   3. pretty
   4. said

For today you will just be listing boring words. We will get to the "Sparkle" words tomorrow.

Whitney Turner's Blog URL

wturner7.blogspot.com

Riff Responses

You will be drawing names out of a hat and these are the Riff blogs you must respond to by Friday, January 25th. You will have to respond to 3 of your classmates. Your responses will be 15 points each. Last time you were just asked to respond to your classmates blog but this time you will be asked to critique their writing/blog. You need to answer the following questions about each individuals blog with a 3-4 sentence responses.

Some tips for critiquing other peoples work:

1. If you are going to tell them they did something wrong you need to offer constructive criticism. Tell them how to fix it or give them a suggestion to make it better.
2. Don't be negative through the entire post. A Critique could be something they did well and should do more often.
3. No rude or snide comments will be accepted or counted toward your grade. You can't be hateful just to be hateful.

Now for the questions you need to answer: (You may copy and paste these questions into your comment box for convenience.)

1. How does the new story compare to the original story? Keep in mind they are supposed to be totally different storylines but can include the characters.

2. How are the characters developed in the story?

3. Does the plot of the story contain all the important parts: Introduction, Rising Actions, Climax, Falling Actions, Resolution?

4. How does the ending satisfy you, the reader?

5. What is one thing that really stuck out to you in the story and why?

Riff on Opening Lines

Your new assignment for the week is "Riff on Opening Lines" It must be completed by Tuesday, January 22nd

You must choose one of your favorite children's books that you read when you were younger. Find the opening line to that children's book, this is the first sentence of the book, and create your very own story from this line. Your story must have a beginning, middle, end. It must also include a main character that we know a lot about and have a conflict somewhere throughout to complete the plot. Below is your rubric for the assignment:


_____/5 Title and author of children's book is given
_____/5 Opening line of children's book is typed out completely and fully
_____/15 Story has a beginning, middle, and end
_____/5 the main character is vividly portrayed
_____/5 there is a very distinct conflict/problem that has arisen
_____/10 The story is 1,000 words long (this leaves about 333 words for each part: beginning, middle, and end)
_____/5 Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are correct (HAVE SOMEONE PROOFREAD!!!!)
Total: ______/50

Here is a very short example of the format you should use on your blog:

My favorite childhood story was "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter.

The opening line of this story is: "Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, and their names were - Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter."

Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, and their names were - Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. They lived at the edge of the enchanted forest just outside the garden of Ol' McGee where they would travel to find fresh carrots and lettuce all week. Ol' McGee's farm had some of the best, freshest vegetables in the area and they were quite lucky to be able to feast upon them regularly. Their mother had warned them though to never go the garden without a lookout therefore they always traveled in pairs.

One Day Peter and Cottontail were playing bunny hop just at the edge of the forest when Mopsy and Flopsy approached them complaining about how hungry they were today.

Assignment #2 - Responding to Classmates

This assignment will be done on your own time. If you have extra time in class you may use it however you need to finish your Anti-Resolutions before you start replying to any other blogs.

Because you should be following all of your classmates this should be fairly easy to do. You must respond with at least 150 words to each of your classmates Anti-Resolutions blogs by Monday, January 14th!!! We will not be spending more time on the computers before then so you must do this on your own time use STUDY HALL, Free-time in classes, the PC Library computers, Come in early the library opens at 7:30 in the morning and stays open until 3:30 everyday!!  You need to be responsible for finishing your work on your own.

Don't forget to follow all of your classmates!!! Here are their blog URL's:

Jake Curtis:
jakecurtissenior.blogspot.com

Tyler Dill:
dilly1895.blogspot.com

Sura Yang:
commutingtoeducationalwriting.blogspot.com

Michael Sooter:
michaelsooter18.blogspot.com

Jacob Marcum:
callofthewildman.blogspot.com

Haley Crane:
doesthisblogmakemelookfat13.blogspot.com

Natasha Carpenter:
girlygirl1234562.blogspot.com

MicKenzie Brock:
midlifecrisisofaredneck.blogspot.com

Laura Dieckhoff:
lauradieckhoff.blogspot.com

Whitney Turner:
idratherbeinmytreestand.blogspot.com

Bayless Thompson:
friendswaffleswork.blogspot.com