Creative Writing Taught by Amalthea for Academy students of all ages
Rules:
1. Please only post when the class is open. 2. You may only enter two characters per stage per class opening for growing credit. 3. Be sure the activity you've completed is appropriate for the character you're submitting it for. No Freshlings doing Junior or Senior work and vice versa. 4. You may only claim credit for the class once you have been quoted that you have received a passing grade. 5. Should you not pass the class, you will be quoted that your student needs to retake the class and they may try again the next time the class is open. 6. Please be sure to follow the instructions provided for the activity as they will vary from time to time.
Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:05 pm
Class activities:
Please pick the activity that pertains to your characters stage and fill it in by the end date! Thank you!
FRESHLING:
My Favorite Thing...
Starts: October 1st Ends: October 15th, 10pm EST
Alright... this would be the last class with the Freshlings. He supposed he could give them an easy assignment before he returned to only teaching at Grendel... "We've gone over some basics, so I think we can take it easy this time..." He nodded a little, tail still flicking in that irritated fashion. "This time I'd like you to write about something you love. It can be a favorite toy, or a food, or a class... whatever you'd like to write about. Make sure to state clearly what it is you're writing about, and why you chose it." With the assignment described, he went on to finish up a short lecture abotu sentence structure.
Homework Project Rules: 1. Write a 100 word (or more) story about "My Favorite Thing..." for your Nightmare. This can be about food, toys, people, classes, anything your Nightmare feels strongly about as being their "favorite thing." 2. Post a small roleplay response with what your Freshling has written, as well as them turning it in at the end of the next class. 3. The roleplay response does not count towards the 100 words. 3. Quote nepsah when you post.
JUNIOR:
Point of View Quiz
Starts: October 1st Ends: October 15th, 10pm EST
It was his final class with the Juniors, so he figured he'd utilize it to go over perspective in writing. It would be fun for them, he thought... Well, it was fun for him, anyway. "We're going over point of view today... there are numerous ways in which to narrate your writing, this applies to both fiction and non-fiction." He nodded, then continued on to describe the difference between first, second, and third person point of views, as well as the difference between third-person omniscient and third-person limited...
Point of View Quiz
"I turned off the lights, but immediately realized that was a mistake. I couldn't see anything!" This is an example of what point of view? "You feel exhausted, you haven't slept more than four hours in the last two days but you still have work to do. For a moment you wish you could travel back in time to smack yourself, that'll teach you to take on more than you can handle..." This is an example of what point of view? "Marci couldn't understand why Trevor was being so cruel. She had only wanted to get to know him!" This is an example of what point of view? "Trevor and Marci did not get along. Marci wanted to befriend him, but Trevor found the tone of her voice to be aggravating, it dredged up old memories of past events... Meanwhile, Marci just thought he could use some more friends, he seemed to be alone all of the time!" This is an example of what point of view?
Rules: PM quiz answers (and the prompts) to nepsah. Include a small roleplay response of your Nightmare turning in their quiz. Do not post answers in the thread. You will be disqualified, as well as everyone who posts after you. Quote nepsah when you post.
SENIOR:
Acrostic Poem
Starts: October 1st Ends: October 15th, Midnight EST
Well, he'd given the other two age groups fun projects as their final pieces with him, he might as well do something fun but challenging for the seniors as well. "This will be our final class together. For those of you that may continue on to Grendel, I look forward to seeing you in my class." He nodded, tail flicking... "For now, we're going to work on acrostic poems. Acrostic poems are poems that spell out a word, or a phrase, with the first letter of each line. For this project you can use your own name or something else that you like...
Instructions Have your Nightmare write an Acrostic Poem. An acrostic poem is "[A] poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word, name, or phrase when read vertically."
[b]Name:[/b] [b]Poem:[/b]
Rules: Submit all responses to this thread. Include a short roleplay response responding to the prompt, and include your Nightmare turning in their assignment. Quote nepsah when you post.
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Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:06 pm
Students Attending
Freshlings
Juniors Zahneel
Seniors Yue Ashlynn Madla Sascha Ikki
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 12:52 am
nepsah
Name: Tayce Story Title: Cookies Are Better
Story: Drawn Version:
Written Version:
Once there was a Grimm but he was all alone. He was sad that he had no friends.
Then there was another Nightmare but she was not like him at all. She had no fur and was always mean so he ate her.
Now he is sad again because he is still alone but not hungry. He keeps walking until he sees someone fluffy like him. They are shorter but have a long and furry tail and he thinks yay I have found a friend. But they are mean and tell him that he looks weird so he ate them too. He burped and was very full but was also very sad and went back to walking. He walked for a long time. Then he got hungry again because he was walking for so long.
Finally he saw someone else and she was also different and not like him. But she was nice to him anyway. He was still sad though because now he was hungry but she said that he would be even sadder if he ate her and was all alone again and this was true. So she made cookies and they were the best and he was happy again. Sometimes he still meets people that are mean but she tells him that he would be fat if he ate all the bad people and maybe they are not that bad except maybe how they taste and gives him cookies to eat instead. So now he is not alone anymore and has cookies and is happy most of the time.
The End.
RP Response: Her legs swung back and forth under her chair as she chewed on the end of her sleeve and looked at the teacher. Ears swiveling first, before her whole focus shifted in the direction of the sneezer. She eyed them for a moment and tilted her head curiously even after the man standing at the front of the class started to talk. Eventually she looked away and back to the front but she was already bored. She had a feeling that maybe Mr. Teacher was too. She was already doodling by the time he finished giving them their assignment, though her claws were sometimes frustrating for her to maneuver with the too-delicate crayon. Write a story? But she was too hungry to come up with a good one. Nibbling harder on her sleeve and definitely making holes with her teeth by now, she swung her legs together instead of alternating and looked at her doodle again.
If the teacher had more to say, she didn't hear it, instead focusing on her drawings before even picking up the sturdier pen she'd gotten that was easier to write with than her crayons. Once the doodles were done she set about explaining her tale, ignoring everything else around her. When she finished she picked up the paper and waved it in the air triumphantly before realizing that maybe she should get up and hand it to him. Sliding off of her chair with the paper still aloft, she marched up to his desk and dropped it in front of him; still obviously preoccupied with the slow consumption of her sleeve. She gave a small grin and a half of a tail wag he couldn't see before marching off again. Maybe there was still enough time to doodle something else before class ended.
Name: Zalir Assignment Response:Zalir had never really been one for fiction; while it was nice to read, zey usually preferred a good nonfiction book. But zey was lonely, and finding out that a friend was taking the class had encouraged zem to take it. Zey walked into class on the first day and sat down next to Aella. Zey smiled, said hello, and pulled out a notebook and pencils. Zalir waited for the teacher to talk; friend or no, zey didn't want to be disruptive in class.
When the class was taken outside, Zalir was confused. An outdoor class? Was this even allowed? But apparently it was, or Amal wouldn't be doing it. Zey listened to the assignment and made a tiny face. Making up a story about someone else--that was a bit odd, wasn't it? But then again, who hadn't made up a story about someone random they saw walking down the street? Zalir struck out on zeir own to find a bench in a hallway. Zey waited, watching people walk past, waiting for inspiration to strike.
It came in the form of a Demon senior, dressed in a denim skirt and a button-up shirt. Despite her neat appearance, zey could see dirt covering her shoes and dirt under her fingernails. She was walking towards an Imp freshling, who, in turn, ran towards her. Zalir smiled and ducked zeir head. That was enough to inspire a story.
She is a demon, fifteen years old; her name is Anaela. Her favorite class is social studies, but she is looking forward to taking herbalism. She likes social studies because it lets her learn about people, and the way they live; she likes herbalism because of the way people's lives have been tied to the very land they lived on and the environment they lived in. She's thinking of being an anthropologist someday, but she'll be an archaeologist instead. You can tell--she does better on assignments about geology than any other assignment in science class.
Anaela's lived her whole life at the Academy, from stone to senior. Her stone was found in the cache, so she's never known who her family was; but she longs to know. She wishes she had a family, a mother, or a father, or a parent. Someone to help her make the tough decisions. She's jealous whenever she meets a student who knows who their family was. She was part of the Big Sibling program as a freshling, and she is again as a senior. She likes making people feel like they belong. It's the closest she can get to having a family of her own. She's participated in every school event there's been so far, and whenever she wins a plush toy, she gives it to a freshling. She loves seeing the smile on their faces.
By the time zey had finished writing, both Demon and Imp were long gone. Zey stared at the page, chewing nervously on the end of a pencil. Was that enough backstory? Zey couldn't be sure. It would have to do, however, the half hour was almost up. Zey made zeir way back to the courtyard and handed in zeir paper.
nepsah
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 1:24 pm
Name: Aella Assignment Response:Aella was really only taking this class because she had to take something, and nothing else really seemed, appropriate to her. She was supposed to be in the house of creativity after all, so may as well try to be creative.
She was a little surprised when Zalir sat down next to her. She really hadn't expected the Litch to take a class like this. Maybe they were just trying to fill up requirements? After all they were far more interested in science and alchemy, and the latter wasn't even an option until next year. She smiled back at the Litch and waggled her fingers a bit, offering her own quiet hi.
She was a little flustered as the class was taken outside and the assignment explained. Make up something about someone else! What if they read it! What if they hated it! How would they know it was about them? Oh, good point...
It still made her uncomfortable though but she settled on a bench and looked around. An Imp freshling was playing with a doll nearby and after a few minutes they ran off to a Demon senior. It wasn't the Demon though that caught her interest but the child.
Corelin is seven years old, and an Imp freshling. Their father is a cartel boss in Shellmount, but they've been sent here because after the death of their mother, their father just doesn't have the time to raise them. They get letters from their father every week, and he encourages them to do well in math and business oriented classes, they however want to take more art and music classes. They don't know how to tell their father that they don't want to be the next cartel boss and instead want to be an artist or musician. Despite everything, they love their father, but don't want to disappoint him. He's hurting enough after the death of mom after all. They're hurting too, but they don't want the other kids to make fun of them for being weak so they hid their feeling deep down inside of themselves.
When someone suggested they be part of the Big Sibling program they agreed, and now they have a big sibling all of their own, but it was kind of strange at first because they aren't an Imp like them. Luckily their big sibling is the sweetest person ever and they got over their reservations they had had over having a Demon sibling. They look forward to every minute they get to spend with her, and it's become the bright spot in their life and is helping them cope with the loss of their mom. Soon with her love and support, Corelin will write their father and discuss how they'd like their education to proceed from here on out.
Aella finished and glanced around. Not very many students were still writing, and she wondered if she'd taken too long. She carefully pulled the paper out of her binder and walked back to the courtyard to turn in her assignment
Sorren thought about it for a second before writing. She wanted to get into Grendel, although for art and not writing, so she hoped to impress him. Once she had the thoughts formed in her head she started to write.
Yes and no. Some narrators can be unreliable, and those are the ones you can't always trust. Children and crazy people are two narrators that sometimes you have to stop and think about before you can trust them. What person the story is told in (first, second or third) and if it's omission or limited also has something to do with if you can trust the narrator or not. In my experience as a read it's always best to take what the narrator says with a grain of salt. There are times when you don't need this, where the narrator tells all, but for the most part there are things the narrator doesn't know about as well as things they choose not to share with the reader.
Hopefully that would be enough. Sorren turned in the assignment and left for her next class.
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 4:28 pm
Name: [Nightmare's name] Nott Prompt Response: That was an really interesting question, kind of a fun one too. Not that it didn't add a certain extra... pressure to impress since he was one of the teachers for Grendel.
Can you trust the Narrator? Yes... to a point. Much like an 'unreliable narrator' character, any force of narration, even by the author, is going to show a little bit of their own bias, consciously or unconsciously, in their fiction. Deliberately being an unreliable narrator could even be used as an valuable tool in fiction, to sway the reader to holding certain opinions on the characters, even if those opinions are based on false pretense or bias, maybe to be revealed later. Mainly, I suppose we can trust a narrator to do one thing, to get us from the start of the story to the end, whatever that end is.
She put down her pen, made a silent wish for luck, or at least, a decent grade... hoped she didn't sound pretentious. There were other classes to prepare for but THIS teacher was involved in the major she wanted to study if she could get into Grendel.
Name: Lazarus Assignment Response: Although Lazarus was more into poetry than making up characters, it still was something he was relatively good at. Well, at least he thought he was good at it. Sitting down in a patch of grass, he looked around the courtyard to see if any of the nightmares walking around caught his attention, and one of them sure did! A young female adult imp who was going for a jog, her red hair in a braid. Taking out his pencil to start writing, he then began to imagine what this nightmare was like, writing down everything that came to mind.
A female imp the age of 24, Rosemary is a really energetic nightmare who likes going for jogs to keep her energy levels under control and for her daily exercise. That way she can focus on her work at the coffee shop she serves coffee at and not be bouncing off the walls. She prefers to wear her long red hair in a braid due to an incident when she was a freshling. Rosemary had managed to get some strands of her long hair caught in her desk, unable to get out while all her classmates laughed at her. She tried to cut it short, but hated how it looked on her. Once she managed to grow it back out, Rosemary decided to start putting it up in different hairstyles so it wouldn't get caught on stuff as easily, deciding she liked the braid most. To this day she keeps that hairstyle, but has long overcome the embarrassment that came to her on that day in class.
Her dream job would be a fitness trainer, currently going to school for it while she works at the coffee shop to make some money along the way. Due to her high energy, she has always been really into athletics and staying fit, always doing well in her PE and Health classes because of it. One day soon, Rosemary hopes her dream will come true, and she can help other nightmares remain healthy.
Once Lazarus finished the assignment, he looked up to see if the imp with the red hair and braid was still around, finding her nowhere in sight. Getting up from his spot on the grass, he then made his way over to Amalthea, turning in the assignment with a smile. Perhaps he could do this more often? Nightmare watching was actually kind of fun.
Cassie chewed the inside of her cheek, tapping her pen on her table. She wasn't sure she really liked this assignment as there were a thousand different tangents bouncing around in her head. What narrator? Which one?
The narrator can only be trusted when they are from outside the situation, or when the narrator is self-reflecting. Narrators that were involved in the story they are telling cannot be trusted to accurately recall the facts, no matter what race they hail from. Such is the same reason why eye-witnesses are never the deciding factor in a case. Similarly, Nightmares are more likely to believe their friends than the other party.
When the narrator is self-reflecting, such as in a journal or memoir, sometimes realizing mistakes made in the past or correctly identifying things that had been lost in the moment can be beneficial to the reader. In those situations, additions to the narrative should be accepted, especially if they help the reader understand why or how things occurred.
Other times, the story needs to be finished before a decision can be made to trust or distrust the narrator. Some stories are made to intentionally lead, and when discussing history, when the victor is the writer, some biases and outcomes cannot be seen until the subject is reviewed as a whole.
---
Cassie quietly went to hand in her assignment immediately as she entered the room. She felt like she hadn't completed it to the best of her abilties, but it was such a wide question. She could think of plenty of stories where the narrator had intentionally led astray, and others that were wrong because they were dated. She sighed, pinning her paper down with a finger on the pile before turning and going to her seat.
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Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2015 1:45 pm
Name: Starlet Prompt Response:
Starlet stared at the teacher as he spoke, finding it odd that he used terms like 'interim' and 'until further notice.' Perhaps he wasn't hired on to be permanent... Either way, he seemed dedicated to the topic, since he taught it at the university level. He wasn't sure if he wanted to double-major or not, but Grendel was on the table as a place he might go in the future. He'd taken this class after a suggestion from an adviser, something about his writing was very... stale. He had hoped this class would help, but the question didn't seem to have anything to do with that. Oh well.
"I have never considered that you cannot trust the narrator. I do wonder what narrator is being questioned, though. Do you mean to suggest that authors of nonfiction books cannot be trusted? I suppose that is true, internal biases do play a part in everyone's writing.
Perhaps because I am not a fan of fiction I have not considered whether or not the narrator should be trusted. I cannot imagine why an author would withhold information from their readers via the narrator, though. It seems as though it might be counter productive to the story. But then again, I do not typically read fiction, so I am probably mistaken in my assumption."
Satisfied with what he'd written, he carefully removed the paper from his notebook and then set it aside until the next class period in which he set it on Amal's desk with the others.
nepsah
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 12:45 am
Name: [Nightmare's name] Morin Prompt Response: Weren’t electives supposed to be fun? Then again the teacher did need to know what the students knew, and truth. So of course any elective needed to have some actual writing/lecturing involved. Truthfully if he thought about it he really didnt mind, He just wondered why it had to be such a hard question. Luckily he knew partially what he wanted to answer with. He just had to make sure it fit the word requirement was all.
Can we trust the Narrator? This is a difficult question to answer in the fact that most people rely on a narrator to guide them through a story. They’re our gateway to the piece that we’re reading. However not all narrators are reliable. If they are merely reflecting back on the story or if they’re someone in the story they don’t have all the facts. They aren’t all omnipotent. In fact in some stories the author will purposefully mislead you with the narrator. So to trust in the narrator one must look at its role in the story and the type of story.
Morin walked in the next day giving a slight nod to the teacher before dropping the assignment off. He quickly took his seat and wondered what the topic for today was going to be.
Do you ever wonder if Hope is a fragile thing? Rare and beautiful in form, Everyone wishes to have it, Although it doesn’t seem to stay with everyone, Mighty and powerful when obtained Since it topples and raises kings
It would be sad to see Mr. Amalthea go, especially since she was planning to go to Asterion for her university, but she was glad she at least got the opportunity before he left. This wasn’t to say that the next teacher would be bad… although why did he have to pick Poetry of all things.
Still poetry could be fun, and she had a lot to work with, just as long as it spelled out a word. Deciding on her poem she carefully wrote a poem out and after finishing walked up depositing it on Mr. Amalthea’s desk and ran off to catch her next class.
Name: Ashlynn Poem: Freedom and fight on the wing Lifting spirits and dreams Into realms both mundane and wonderful Gravity defying insolence Hailing to the stars in passing Tempting the desires of the dreamers
When Ashlynn had signed up for Creative Writing, she'd been expecting to learn how to punch up what she wrote so it was at least interesting. Sure, she'd expected to learn a little about poetry.
She hadn't expected to have to write one for a final assignment. Still, she'd managed to write something... passable. She was no poetic genius and she knew it! Sighing a little, she gathered the poem up and made her way towards the desk. Dropping the paper where a small stack was building, Ashlynn nodded to her teacher and headed for the door.
Name: Zalir
Name: Aella
Name: Yue
Name: Ashlynn