Be Reel Blogs, Construction of Essays, Seeds for Synthesis, Thematic Assertions & The Craft of Adaptation

     Today in class we spoke about our Be Reel Blogs that are due on October 10th.We also spoke about the construction of essays. One of my classmates questioned, "What exactly should the blog be about?" Mr. Rivers replied that the first paragraph of the blog should be from an objective point of view, and that the second paragraph should be from a subjective point of view. I will be doing my Be Reel Blog on The Joker. After discussing about our Be Reel Blogs, we spoke about how to construct our essays for summer reading. Mr. Rivers told us that what we were taught over the years is wrong. He said that no one actually follows the normal structure of an essay after they are done with school. An essay can range from four paragraphs to twelve paragraphs according to Mr. Rivers. I happen to like and agree with his statements about how to construct essays. Adding on to what we accomplished in class today, we jotted down notes on seeds for synthesis. Seeds for synthesis includes the following:

• Thematic Assertions
• Scene (movie) vs Scene (book)/Choice vs Choice
• Specific Narrative elements
  Lastly, we discussed about explaining or arguing about the craft of adaptation. Questions for explaining or arguing about the craft of adaptation are, Better? Worse? Less realistic? More obvious? Too political? Overly sentimental? Lacking in development? More comedic? All of these questions help people get a better understanding about the craft of adaptation.