Creative Writing Study Guide
A. Image- a representation in words of a sensory experience or of an object that can be known by one or more of the senses.
B. Image start up activity:
A. Image- a representation in words of a sensory experience or of an object that can be known by one or more of the senses.
B. Image start up activity:
Write a paragraph about a very small detail of this picture. Include the color, the smell, sound, texture, and taste of the thing described? How does this focus on sensory detail create a particular feel or emotional response? How does it differ from the impact of the picture as a whole?
C. Essential Questions for Annie Dillard, The Giant Water Bug:
1. What moments in the text are our senses alerted?
2. What effect do the sensory details contribute to the text?
D. Text:
A couple of summers ago I was walking along the edge of the island to see what I could see in the water, and mainly to scare frogs. Frogs have an inelegant way of taking off from invisible positions on the bank just ahead of your feet, in dire panic, emitting a froggy "Yike!" and splashing into the water. Incredibly, this amused me, and, incredibly, it amuses me still. As I walked along the grassy edge of the island, I got better and better at seeing frogs both in and out of the water. I learned to recognize, slowing down, the difference in texture of the light reflected from mudbank, water, grass or frog. Frogs were flying all around me. At the end of the island I noticed a small green frog. He was exactly half in and half out of the water, looking like a schematic diagram of an amphibian, and he didn't jump.
He didn't jump; I crept closer. At last I knelt on the island's winter-killed grass, lost, dumbstruck, staring at the frog in the creek just four feet away. He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating football. I watched the taut, glistening skin on his shoulders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon, part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing. I gaped, bewildered, appalled. An oval shadow hung in the water behind the drained frog; then the shadow glided away. The frog skin bag started to sink.
I had read about the giant water bug, but never seen one. "Giant water bug" is really the name of the creature, which is an enormous, heavy-bodied brown beetle. It eats insects, tadpoles, fish, and frogs. Its grasping forelegs are mighty and hooked inward. It seizes a victim with these legs, hugs it tight, and paralyzes it with enzymes injected during a vicious bite. That one bite is the only bite it ever takes. Through the puncture shoot the poisons that dissolve the victim's muscles and bones and organs – all but the skin – and through it the giant water bug sucks out the victim's body, reduced to a juice. This event is quite common in warm fresh water. The frog I saw was being sucked by a giant water bug. I had been kneeling on the island grass; when the unrecognizable flap of frog skin settled on the creek bottom, swaying, I stood up and brushed the knees of my pants. I couldn't catch my breath.
Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft
Informal Outlining
I chose the informal outlining strategy because it fits the styles and desired outcomes of creative writing and my unit specifically. There are many subtopics within creative writing so visually; an informal outline helps to organize the mind when searching for the “big ideas”. Also, informal writing leaves room for personal preference and style, which goes hand in hand with the format of creative writing. With an informal outlining strategy, students will be able to grasp the essential ideas of the unit while differentiating in order to hear their own creative voice.
IMAGE
*Deals with detailed explanations that alert or involve the senses
*Adding sensory details brings a picture to life, brings focus to any particular moment or object, and engages the reader on a relatable basis
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
*Sensory details
Feels
Smells
Looks
Sounds
Tastes
*Effect
Extra comments/ notes
`
C. Essential Questions for Annie Dillard, The Giant Water Bug:
1. What moments in the text are our senses alerted?
2. What effect do the sensory details contribute to the text?
D. Text:
A couple of summers ago I was walking along the edge of the island to see what I could see in the water, and mainly to scare frogs. Frogs have an inelegant way of taking off from invisible positions on the bank just ahead of your feet, in dire panic, emitting a froggy "Yike!" and splashing into the water. Incredibly, this amused me, and, incredibly, it amuses me still. As I walked along the grassy edge of the island, I got better and better at seeing frogs both in and out of the water. I learned to recognize, slowing down, the difference in texture of the light reflected from mudbank, water, grass or frog. Frogs were flying all around me. At the end of the island I noticed a small green frog. He was exactly half in and half out of the water, looking like a schematic diagram of an amphibian, and he didn't jump.
He didn't jump; I crept closer. At last I knelt on the island's winter-killed grass, lost, dumbstruck, staring at the frog in the creek just four feet away. He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating football. I watched the taut, glistening skin on his shoulders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon, part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing. I gaped, bewildered, appalled. An oval shadow hung in the water behind the drained frog; then the shadow glided away. The frog skin bag started to sink.
I had read about the giant water bug, but never seen one. "Giant water bug" is really the name of the creature, which is an enormous, heavy-bodied brown beetle. It eats insects, tadpoles, fish, and frogs. Its grasping forelegs are mighty and hooked inward. It seizes a victim with these legs, hugs it tight, and paralyzes it with enzymes injected during a vicious bite. That one bite is the only bite it ever takes. Through the puncture shoot the poisons that dissolve the victim's muscles and bones and organs – all but the skin – and through it the giant water bug sucks out the victim's body, reduced to a juice. This event is quite common in warm fresh water. The frog I saw was being sucked by a giant water bug. I had been kneeling on the island grass; when the unrecognizable flap of frog skin settled on the creek bottom, swaying, I stood up and brushed the knees of my pants. I couldn't catch my breath.
Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft
Informal Outlining
I chose the informal outlining strategy because it fits the styles and desired outcomes of creative writing and my unit specifically. There are many subtopics within creative writing so visually; an informal outline helps to organize the mind when searching for the “big ideas”. Also, informal writing leaves room for personal preference and style, which goes hand in hand with the format of creative writing. With an informal outlining strategy, students will be able to grasp the essential ideas of the unit while differentiating in order to hear their own creative voice.
IMAGE
*Deals with detailed explanations that alert or involve the senses
- How something feels, how something smells, how something looks, how something sounds, how something tastes)
*Adding sensory details brings a picture to life, brings focus to any particular moment or object, and engages the reader on a relatable basis
- Giving detail about the leash in the picture moves the focus from the giant beast in the room to the idea of control and power
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
*Sensory details
Feels
Smells
Looks
Sounds
Tastes
*Effect
Extra comments/ notes
`