Daily Blog: February 21

In class today on Mr. Rivers powerpoint he had these key things:

“Genre is an unbroken series of successful gestures.”

• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Patterns (Conventions)

Focusing on narrative

First genres? Drama/Tragedy usually ends with someone dying in the end

Conventions- choices that develop the genre

Conventions-> Patterns Across Texts

Structure - How narratives are shaped

Content - WHAT stuff is in the narrative

Different CONTENT, but same narrative shape

Ex. Conflict: escaping from captivity

Get Out, 12 Years a Slave, Halloween

Same Content, but different narrative shape

Ex. Content:

As we explore narratives:

Which narrative conventions are structural?

Which narrative conventions are based in content?

Bump, Set, Spike Season 4 Finale (Sports)

Rivalry week stirs up a conflict between star volleyball player, Connor Erickson of the Sparta Spartans and captains, Jack Simon of Pope John XVII. While Jack Simon tears it up on the court, Connor could steal Jack’s high school sweetheart, Lauren Mitchell, off the court.  Without knowing, a simple high school volleyball game could break up a friendship forever.

The couple sentences about was something he had his students do last year.  He has them pick a genre and then write a scenario involving that genre with using the students in the class.  From this example he had us create our own with a group of 2 or 3 people.  Our examples we made on a powerpoint on classroom.

My groups example:

Two minutes til the bell rings. Lily, Alexis and Tori are on the opposite side of the school. How will they possibly get there on time? They joke around ¨The last one to class has to  everyone lunch¨. This is where it begins. Tori pushes Alexis out of the way into a locker once they are in the same hallway. Lily grabs Tori's hair and pulls it so Tori falls to the ground. Now it is a race between Tori and Alexis to see who win have to buy everyone lunch. Tori ends up coming in right before Alexis. Alexis comes in laughing saying good race and I am not buying you two lunch.

In class we also discussed a little about our senior paper:

Mr. Rivers said- If you have questions about your grade or did well on your paper you can go and talk about your paper.

This relates to the real world, because we can make up so many different scenarios with different genres.  Film producers take a scenario and have it fit into a genre which is part of the process of making a movie or tv show. It is the same thing for authors.