Writing Assignments
Create one of the following assignments and submit by Monday, 4 PM. You may only complete each assignment once.
Interview With The Deceased
Pick a famous person who has passed away. "Interview" this person and ask them the tough questions about their life, a single experience, etc. Do your research beforehand. Watch videos of them, if available. Capture their voice or tone in your writing. Write up your interview using the magazine interview format. For example:
LK: The Chant recently sat down with Alfred Hitchcock, famed horror master and director over lemonade and cookies at his Southern gothic manse on November 1, just in time for Halloween. Alfred, what projects are you currently working on?
AH: Well [laughs], I've been taking it easy recently, being dead and all. But since it is the Day of the Dead, I'll spare a minute to tell you about my impression of these heinous horror films you all insist on shelling out 10 dollars a ticket to see. The House at the End of the Street? More like Snore at the End of the Street!
LK: The Chant recently sat down with Alfred Hitchcock, famed horror master and director over lemonade and cookies at his Southern gothic manse on November 1, just in time for Halloween. Alfred, what projects are you currently working on?
AH: Well [laughs], I've been taking it easy recently, being dead and all. But since it is the Day of the Dead, I'll spare a minute to tell you about my impression of these heinous horror films you all insist on shelling out 10 dollars a ticket to see. The House at the End of the Street? More like Snore at the End of the Street!
Caption Writing
Research what makes up a strong caption. Captions should tell a story. Choosing an image that you have taken or found, write a strong caption. Then, create a tutorial for how to write a good caption and what they should include.
Google maps story
Using a former family vacation, a trip you have taken, a trip you have researched, go onto Google Maps to track your trip in several different images/screen shots. Then, write your story of your trip in a series of well-organized captions.
Find Your Voice
The best blogs are ones that express a person's personal voice: whether that be their sense of humor, wit, likes, dislikes, etc. Find an example of a blog where the author's voice shines through their posts and write an analysis of their posts that include voice. Then, mimic their post by writing your own blog post on a topic that demonstrates your unique voice and perspective.
Police Beat
Essentially, identify an innocent seeming song that advocates some odd/criminal behavior and reformat it as a police report style article. My example based on “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” is below.
Example
Eddie Kendricks, 46, was arrested at his former residence, 12 Jones street, at 4:37AM. Kendricks is accused of stalking and violating an order of protection filed by his former wife, Angela Berry, after their recent divorce.
Kendricks is accused of sleeping on the doorstep of the residence they previously shared. Kendricks is also accused of actively preventing Ms. Berry from leaving her home. Witnesses report that Kendricks often appeared incoherent, at times sobbing and begging at the door of Ms. Berry’s residence for hours at a time.
“At first, it was funny,” reported Berry’s neighbor, Ron Paxton. “We’d laugh at him, a grown man, behaving like that. But then he just wouldn’t stop. Poor Angie couldn’t even leave the house. Something had to be done.”
Prosecutors say more charges may be pending for Kendricks who has defied previous restraining orders and was out on bail at the time of his latest arrest.
Example
Eddie Kendricks, 46, was arrested at his former residence, 12 Jones street, at 4:37AM. Kendricks is accused of stalking and violating an order of protection filed by his former wife, Angela Berry, after their recent divorce.
Kendricks is accused of sleeping on the doorstep of the residence they previously shared. Kendricks is also accused of actively preventing Ms. Berry from leaving her home. Witnesses report that Kendricks often appeared incoherent, at times sobbing and begging at the door of Ms. Berry’s residence for hours at a time.
“At first, it was funny,” reported Berry’s neighbor, Ron Paxton. “We’d laugh at him, a grown man, behaving like that. But then he just wouldn’t stop. Poor Angie couldn’t even leave the house. Something had to be done.”
Prosecutors say more charges may be pending for Kendricks who has defied previous restraining orders and was out on bail at the time of his latest arrest.
Emerging Website Trends
Choose a new, emerging website that recently came out and review it. Use it for a few days and report back about its setbacks and its benefits. Make sure you follow review guidelines!
Emerging App
Choose a new, emerging app that recently came out and review it. Use it for a day or two and report back about its setbacks and its benefits. Make sure you follow review guidelines!
Emerging Technology Review
For this assignment, choose a new, emerging technology that just came out in the past few years. Review this new piece of technology. Be sure to include how it made the pre-existing technology better, what is can now do for us, how much is costs, what it's used for, etc. Make sure you follow review guidelines.
Tweet a Film
Pick any movie and summarize it in ten tweets! Hashtags optional, but encouraged--especially if they offer entertaining or relevant, witty commentary.
Same Place--Different Point of View
Take a scene from any movie (that includes more than one character) and rewrite it from the perspective of a different character. Write about the emotions and thoughts the character is having without acknowledging what you know from the original scene. For example: You could write on the scene from Titanic using Jack's perspective while they were in the water and Rose was on the door. Be creative! The possibilities for this are endless.
Changing the course of time
Imagine if certain events in history never happened - what would the world be like today. Write about something that occurred in history as if it never happened. How would the world be different - would people be different? Feel free to write about anything from if JFK never had been killed to if Clay Aiken had actually won American Idol.
Twitter Trend Lyrical Poetry
Take a screenshot of the current Twitter Trends (on web) and use the words and hashtags to make a lyric or poem.
Your Adventure is Over
Create a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' styled demise in a single blog post. The You Chose Wrong tumblr blog - http://youchosewrong.tumblr.com/ - gives a number of great examples of single pages that describe 'your' death after having picked the wrong path for the next page in your adventure.
From Wikipedia – "Choose Your Own Adventure is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's outcome."
From Wikipedia – "Choose Your Own Adventure is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's outcome."