Mr. T. Johnson

CONTACT

Email: Thomas_J.Johnson@mpls.k12.mn.us

Creative Writing

The goal of Creative Writing is for students to experience a freedom to create unlike any other English class they’ve ever had. A student’s imagination and creativity will be nurtured in a nonjudgmental, supportive space. The class is centered on student choice reading—reading books that you want to read—and daily journaling designed to improve craft and writing skills. The four creative works we generate during the year are 1) a collaborative short story collection based on a shared metaphor, 2) a graphic novel, 3) a genre short story, which means a mystery, fantasy, action, horror, science fiction, romance, or magical realism genre-type of short story, and 4) a collection of poetry. Final creative pieces ARE NOT GRADED. We want to support you to create work that you value and can be proud of! Classroom points are based on daily work and participation only. Journal entries are private and do not need to be shared to the class. The class structure and policies are based on the Amherst Writers & Artists Workshop Method. Above all, we believe creative writing and freeing the imagination should be fun, exciting, and rewarding!

So welcome to Creative Writing! Creativity is not something we can sneak up on, ambush, or capture. Creativity doesn’t respond well to brute force. “Be creative right now!” usually leads to shutting down. But here is the magical thing about creativity: we all have it. Harry Potter discovered, unknown to him, that he actually had the rare powerful gift of magic. There is an equivalent to "magic" in the real world: creativity and the imagination. Few things in the real world are as mesmerizing as the creatively written word. Each of us will discover this during the course. But we can’t release the hounds and hunt our creativity or our imagination down like a cornered fox. We need to create an atmosphere where creativity and the imagination feel safe to emerge. If we are careful and diligent and patient, and we wait for a while, undisturbed, at the edge of the woods, a little hedgehog will emerge and snuffle about. With practice and patience, the hedgehog, like our imagination and creativity, will get used to us, and we will delight in its presence.

Grade 11 IB Higher Level Literature

Welcome. I like to think of this course as an adventure, except that the thrill of discovery will not be found on a mountain top, in a foreign city, or around a bend in a river. In this course you will discover what is essential in you. We will journey with some of the greatest writers and thinkers the world has ever seen, and they will guide us as we consider beauty, truth, and existence in the world we live in today.

According to an official IB description of this course, “You will need to put in hours of reading, writing, and thinking” to successfully pass and for you to get the most out of the course design. IB Higher Level English 11 is designed to fulfill the requirements of the first phase of the Diploma Program in English, but students can also take the course without completing the Diploma Program. This is Part One of a two-year curriculum to be finished senior year. One of the IB’s stated goals for the course is to help you to “develop very important skills” and “teach you to read carefully and analytically; it helps you to become a more confident writer, and it encourages you to think deeply about the world around you.”