The Alphabet

Is really hard to write sentences in the order of.

My next chosen assignment was "To spark new and unusual ideas, have students work alone or in small groups to write a sentence where each subsequent word begins with the next letter of the alphabet" 


I don't think it sparked much other than frustration. In the end, I split my sentence into several absolutely nonsensical sentences, creating a paragraph with little to no connection from one sentence to the next. 


"A balloon called Derek endeavors for great help in jolly kooky laments. Moreover, no one pardoned quaggas randomly searching trees under vacuums. Witty xylem yodels zealously."


However, it is a great expander of knowledge and vocabulary. For example, I learned there is an extinct type of zebra that they are bringing back to life in South Africa through genetic things, called a quagga. How this relates to creative writing? The word is a noun that starts with 'q', a relatively rare thing. And it's really cool, so I just had to use it in my paragraph. They look like this: 

I love quaggas. 


And now that I am finished with my off-topic, I will show an example of an alphabet song. This is about how to pronounce the letters, just in case you don't know. A catchy song, too. Although I don't recommend watching it past about the first minute, because it just repeats itself.

Strawberries

So the first activity I have decided to do was one of those descriptions ones. I was asked to: 
"Describe your favorite food in intense detail. Include the taste, but also the other senses. How does it smell, feel, look? Does it make noise when you eat it? Now, describe it again in a way that seems completely unappetizing."


So I did. 


My favorite foods are strawberries, by the way. For the 'good' version, this is what I came up with. 


"The ruby red fruit vibrantly fights to be seen behind the many, pin-head tiny seeds that cover the surface. The top of the cone shaped fruit is covered in a leafy bush that is coarse, scratchy to the touch. The inside is a delicate peach pink, with a light, fresh, happy scent that wafts towards you from the infused inside, combined with the gentle squelch the sweet fruit releases when bit. Juice floods your mouth, providing a sugary tang with a touch of sourness that combines to create a sensual illusion of summer."


It's always fun to describe something to within an inch of its life, I must say.  As for the bad version, I've never done it before, and it definitely has some potential too.


"The unhealthily bloody looking fruit clashes nastily with its floppy olive green appendages. The many little seeds are extremely reminiscent of aphids, crawling over a bloody corpse. The inside is slimy with sickly sweet smelling juice. There is a cavernous space, surrounded by fuzzy feelers coming off the center of the gum-pink flesh. When bit into, it makes a sound made as accurately only by a rubber boots coming out of knee-deep slimy mud. The fleshy quickly turns into a sticky mush, that combines an incredibly awkward flavor combination of sweet honey & manufactured lemon."


And this is roughly what I was working off:

A lovely, bloody stock image. Taadaaa.

Strange Little Mini Excercises

In this world, there are a lot of teachers. Some of those are called 'creative writing teachers' . 

These teachers generally tell their classes to do strange little assignments that apparently (to the eye of the student) have no meaning, and are astonishingly hard to start or finish (oftentimes most people are sitting staring blankly a a piece of paper). 

So I have decided that I will find some samples of these little mini exercises and do them, just to see.