Technology Fiction

Today Assignment 04102010>Technology Fiction

In my lesson plan I am going to encourage the students of my upper division English majors class for secondary teachers who are aware creative writing has become required curriculum in reading and writing skills for 11th grade students in Florida high schools facing compliances ruled by legislative mandate to include writing skills in voice, word choice and sentence fluency, as components that will be evaluated, parsed and minced in validating the requirement among 11th grade students to assess their development of college level writing skills that demonstrate in particular the three primary traits of creative writing. Since becoming a component of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test battery of domains for the narrowing range finding, targeting, calibration and validation standards of the No Child Left Behind requirement for federal funding of schools in Florida and most other States.

As one of my media I am going to be using Ms. Cherry’s Hugo Award winning short story Cassandra; which is one of those tales that exist at the razor’s edge I desire to explore where the psychic world of the character narrator is created by the narrative voice and the imagination (as in Nabokov’s Bend Sinister which is nothing so much as outraged voice). The reader takes a step into the character’s mind and becomes emerged in the same nightmarish reality: that sounds all too familiar like the break time crush all the same at Starbucks in urban uptown Detroit… other side of the world… Bejing, {Peiping{?is anybody out there?

[Hell among the green ghostly trees, abandoned cars, boarded up businesses… smoke filled rooms, streets, skies (ne’er mention even of a cloud) shadowy patrons looked and whispered .The whispers troubled her. WAR the headline said in heavy type: (Orwell: 2084. [T]hen the alienated couple lingered over a dinner in Grabens: she in her dark hanging baggy sweater: the spectral patrons were all better dressed and stared at them sitting in a corner nearest the door where they wouldn’t be seen: Jared smiled at her without a touch of pity: only a wild fey desperation deep in his stare she understood: [full well understanding, contributing somewhat by hand gesture] why he was spending more than he could afford at a fancy restaurant like Grabens: (finally getting to the point of saying) she was beautiful: [a]nd in typical reactionary fashion she resented such triteness but fearful of offending his delicate sensibilities carried out her obligations later that evening you can be sure after more wine and so on]

Dim the lights open the curtains: Cherry knows her audience; her craft reflects what she sees through in flat details of the microcosm she shares briefly with her reader; we misunderstand Cassandra more to be pitied than those she consoles; and on and on: the drama we men love: the chase the what if; and are all too familiar forbidden ground of the commonplace we dabble with as writers; that move it too the sublime if we can write about it well; all amidst bleak olive drab conditions of dull ‘passion’ we witness at arms length though within hearing and seeing emotional distance; among: Ruins cold peaceful ruins: Back they went into the kitchens: he yielded to her sudden certainty: (she they the alienated would make it happen for a brief flicker in the night; even if waking up in the midst of flames: sirens wailing in the madness: they would somehow make it through the desperate but yet tender night and disappear as strangers in the early morning light}} } Somehow not ho hum lifted above by subtle craftsmanship an insightful word choice; inflection in dialogue unspoken; though there is none in the story you can create your own. Students should try to emulate her imaginative technique and style, word choice here and there a basilisk: the flaming fire hydrant in black and white color; a turn of a phrase, that avoids the cliché; Cherry maintains a simple, yet brilliant black and white sentence flow, a chiaroscuro amid the syntax of fragments of experience.

I am being all too brief here: this is an incredible lesson in the living color of cold grays and black and white; this style is conspicuously minus the high tech HD approach (in a sense anti classic world of the Terminator ) yet succeeding; using subdued low tones; how does the author achieve this sense of reality? We ask our students. Cherry speaks of life amidst the grind: I see it as a music video in shades of gray in my imagination: I will assign my students to use the same methods of ‘dissembling’ seamlessly the borders of reality of what the individual with the ‘gift of what if’ needs to get by in the hidden not publicized highly world that takes place in the fading shadows of the other life the character lived alienated format; at the same time detailing some of the many grays, black and whites: the trivial dramas of the human lives of those individuals living on the edge; that barely hang on amidst the ‘cracked crystal and broken china on insubstantial tables’

Into this menagerie of somewhat dulled landscape of vocabulary there remain fragments of emergent ‘desire’ among deserted street car ruins CJ Cherry spins the mysterious mythic element of the tragic tale of Cassandra daughter of Priam and Hecuba fallen royalty of Troy in flames in modern life; [s]he has the gift of prophecy but is destined never to be believed: the prompt for our students of writing is: how does (or does not) the character in the story suggest the meaning of the myth(?) Your writing students can take this assignment any direction they desire: but whatever direction they pursue should be able to answer that question: how does your story reflect the meaning of the myth(?) as in ‘I vaguely believe Cassandra is the name of a galaxy, in the Milky Way constellation discovered in my Astronomy class or later on the World Wide Web’ after attending a school, campus safety meeting for terrorism and so on I glanced at a shooting star; (what if? I was in that situation’); if the student elaborates and create a standard five paragraph essay with a topic sentence and conclusion and stays on course he may achieve a score from 4 to 6 depending maintaining voice, word choice and fluency, quality, effectiveness, persuasiveness all the intangible qualities of writing that make good reading..

Cassandra is one of a dozen short stories in “Visible Light” which range finds the galaxy and those beyond and inside each atom in it: Cherry’s is the universe of the science fiction genre; that mirrors the familiar microcosm we live in composed of fragments of the author's imagination, particles of crystal and china is accessible and assessable in the depths our writer’s exploration, and experience of his material.

Presumably these education track students the NCLB is designed to assess are high school juniors and seniors preparing to take college classes familiar enough with writing so they are beyond the basics; and, have submitted some samples of their writing that brings them to the space cadet level required to be in the class; although they may have not yet produced grade level writing in creative writing students have demonstrated mastery of the basics in content, organization, and style, as well as conventions, in other subjects such as history, social science, and physical science: (expository writing).


1st Assignment: read the story Cassandra by CJ Cherry; (part one)pick out as many examples as you can find in the future scenario story where the character imagines uncomfortable weird but common scenes: such as

she in her hanging baggy sweater: the spectral patrons around them were all better dressed and stared at them sitting in a corner nearest the door where they wouldn’t be seen (or)
bare human scenes of ‘passion’ among cold peaceful ruins: Back they went into the kitchens [amidst novel dishwashers, appliances,warrantees, service agreements] he yielded to her sudden certainty: waking up in the midst of flames: signs of danger flash in the madness; returning to the streets as burned out cars smoked in the dust, the Cherry explores
the barren inner landscape portrait..

Mercifully the estranged aliens have a brief vague arrangement for one night making trifling meaning out of the madness something less trivial, than chaos, -human, physical to hang on to as technology improves and so on; they make it through the cold, desperate but nonetheless tender night and disappear estranged in the early morning light: Cherry makes meaning of the cliches

Are you the reader responding to the humor, rolling in the aisles no, but the detailed word choice aleviates the boredom –the universl techno comedy.

In what ways are the traits of the characters one and the same?
How does the psychological drama transcend the blandness of physical reality as it does in the myth?

Part two: Answer the question: How do you feel that the mythical story of Cassandra relates to the science fiction story that CJ Cherry is telling the reader; you may or may not see any relationship or resemblance between the myth and the reality the author is writing about in a short essay; write about that

Part Three: In one of her shorter stories space travel sounds similar to modern transcontinental flight: a young man and a woman hold hands …over in a corner; one of the ‘desperate’ passengers has locked himself in the john a flight attendant and security personnel are trying to talk him out; some passengers delight in the ‘drama’; look at the rest of these people around here; they sip their cocktails and tune in to head sets; and when space traveler peer outside the windows they don’t see stars they just see lights whizzing by;that’s the tragedy of future travel; and so on.



2nd Assignment: choose from either one of these two passages of writing, scenarios of CJ Cherry that you can use as a benchmark for your first long short story (about twenty pages); use it as a source of imitation, imagination and ideas to write your own ‘Technology Fiction’ story: if you choose use the narrative or expositional style creative writing teachers will each write a story; it can be based on reports about this person’s life; can be a memoir; what ever works for you the student; as Nabokov wrote: ‘great ideas are hogwash’; that describes the territory to avoid in writing; the area of vagueness and generalization; there is a deal of work already laid out like a mine field for the imagination to trip into; we want to hear the true voice of the writer’s life on the razor’s edge of experience which gives them authority to make a prophecy that nobody believes: to create fiction that gives us a glimpse of the more omniscient empowered psychological personalities, the characters: the traits that make them real; dialogue that transcends the hogwash, we need dialogue at the razor’s edge; the details, the broken china that make character’s lives important; that raise them above the mundane daily grind at crunch time and so on; this piece of work at least in final draft form will be submitted two weeks prior to the last class period copies will be distributed to the small workshop groups of four the class has divided into after mid quarter break

part two : assignment: Final class: (with pizza from Davanni’s) Each group member will present a short synopsis of another member’s work in the group: then the person who wrote it will deliver a critique and assessment of their short story and how they would use it as a tool in their own secondary college prep writing course for juniors and seniors at a diverse inner city school such as Minneapolis South; or in their adult education classroom.


Lesson 3. published on April 6, using a child’s voice; and experimenting with other voices.

Read the story: The Emerald Rosary: (Grandma went ballistic…)

I was pretty young at the time, three at least; because I learned more after those days; and wouldn’t have done the things I did: I only came up to about Dad’s hip; sometimes I would tag along hunting with him as far as I could go along a worn path at the edge of the deep ravine we made forts, and caves in on the edge of, -carrying his double barrel on his shoulder watching him descend into the ravine in back of our house wearing full hunting gear. Around supper time he would bring home a dead pheasant or two.

My brother was a rascal; I caught him lighting matches around the propane tanks trying to blow up the house; he got whipped for it good at least once; he deserved a licking; he got in trouble a lot in those days I was the watchdog because our Pekinese Dusty would always run away; get lost dull dog.

One Sunday we were over at grandma’s house for an Easter Egg hunt with my eight cousins and my two brothers Patty wasn’t born yet; there were a lot of relatives around including my aunt who I had a crush on; she was just a couple years older than me.

For some reason both my grandma’s believed I was more righteous compared to my brother; and, rightfully so.

One time to prove how spiritual I was Grandma brought down a sparkling emerald Rosary from her bedroom jewelry box below the mirror on her dresser where I knew it was laying. She had a sheriff badge in there too.

Us kids were going to have cake and grape koolaid from a big punch bowl with ice in it for lunch after the egg hunt; in front of everybody in the dining room Grandma handed the sparkling Rosary to me saying Tony knows what to do with it don’t you Tony: as I lifted it up over my head with both hands to place it around my neck Grandma went ballistic:

“Ahh,! no no not that way….”

She screamed, raging mad in an instant; grabbing the necklace off my neck with cold sharp fingers before it settled in place snapping it off my head cradling it in her hands; Oh my God she thought I had defamed the Blessed Virgin who I didn’t know who that was. My Aunt Kate who I loved was there for me and wasn’t much taller stepped in for me calmed her down; he’s only a kid mom; no harm done.. Some of my older aunts walked it off with Grandma into the kitchen; I think she was shaking mad…..

I was always afraid of Grandma Dad’s mom after that until I grew up; there was some friction there, some apprehension there she never noticed it. And later let me know I was her favorite grandson of my dad. I did disappoint her that time; but, after that incident she liked me better; was trying to make up too; this is how I grew up before I was five and never forgot that lesson. If I had placed it around my neck I always wondered if I would have become inflamed like Hercules when he put on Deianira’s cape and might not be here today.


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After reading the story the class has a brief discussion the student assignment is
List some of the details of the story such as voice, word choice and sentence flow that

(1) enhance the idea that the story is being told from the child’s point of view
(2) suggest the author is shaping the story
(3) Imagine any other voices in the story that might have been used by the writer such as:

Acting like the Benedictine nun with twelve kids that she was, raising her voice sternly Grandma: admonished her 3 year old grandson harshly: ‘NO NO DON’T EVER DO THAT; naughty boy, snatching the blessed object into cupped hands for safety; where did a child learn such atrocious behavior she thought not from our side of the family. You NEVER handle holy things like that. She scolded, close to slapping her grandson on the wrist but restrained by Katie her daughter a few years older than her grandson as his aunt held Grandma’s backswing.

Or.

Oh no she thought I misjudged, the little actor he’s walking out in front of his cousins to show off his prize; to don his laurels I judged him far beyond 3.6 yrs in his fourth year of existence. Grandma’s eyes framed in glasses widened in terror spry for her age she lunged at the boy both her hands grasping the icon: he didn’t have time to flinch in shock: NO NO NO. Mary Queen of Heaven for God’s sake she thought silently, spare the boy he’s too young die: knowing the green beads artifacts of the Savior’s bloody death had touched his hair; if that emerald green necklace she knew was bewitched meant life or death, an icon with great religious power was about to descend around the child’s innocent neck: he was as well as dead. If she let it happen…Lord don’t let him be a victim of my mistake to an amulet curse for misuse of holy objects; ancient yes but achieving deserved recognition in this day and age it deserved. Since St. Agnes’s vision was validated but at what cost to the trinity so valued at the heart of it; her late Father believed in. It will soon be discarded like catechism; she reflected in an instant as she sprang into action like a panther protecting her cubs from cobra’s venom; observing only the metal of the Holy Cross of the Savior actually touched flesh; and maybe a few beads below that for the introductory prayers Apostles Creed Glory Be’s actually scraped his face as she pulled the rosary chain free in her protective grasp imaginary sparks of static appeared as if by magic as the rosary separated from the child’s hair; she knew it brushed her grandson inadvertently through no fault of his own snared in an accidental sacrilegious act; might not be enough to actually trigger the curse: at least the actual noose part of the emerald green necklace didn’t get below his ears. Only time will tell the tale she reminded herself.

Think of using a child’s voice in one of your stories; write a short story from the child’s landscape view; in any case the author is at work behind the scenes shaping the story. note: I don’t believe this story would have emerged unless I took the suggestion of Bernays & Painter; it came back from flat liner status resuscitated from below consciousness by a child’s voice, to a stage of life it never had in adults voice; it wouldn’t have been that interesting an event for the other persons in the drama to have recorded anyway. I doubt my aunt would recall the story; although I may some day ask her; and, my grandma has passed on.