Basic Letter Format

Mr./Miss Your Name
Your Street Address/PO Box
Your City, Your State, Your Zip Code

Person Receiving Letter
His/Her Street Address/PO Box
His/Her City, State, & Zip Code

Today’s Date (ie – March 29, 2012)

Dear Receiver,

This is a basic letter in block format.  When writing letters you need to use complete sentences, correct spelling, and proper punctuation. Put one space between each word and do not use enter on the keyboard until you get to the end of the paragraph.

The first paragraph in a letter should explain who you are and why you are writing.  In the second paragraph you will give details as to the content and purpose of the letter.  In the third paragraph you will restate the purpose in the first paragraph, and thank the reader for their time.

Use only proper English in written communication.  Abbreviations, text-language, and emoticons make a poor impression on your letter readers.  Written communication makes a lasting impression on the reader, and letters - although they are a lost art - are a big deal. So follow this simple format when you write a letter for your multi-genre project!

Thank you for your time,

Your Name

Those of you who are missing class Friday, make sure that you post either your poem, your diary entry, or your letter to your blog by Friday at 4pm.  Polish up your work, and give a brief explanation of how the piece you chose to post could be incorporated into your multi-genre project!  As usual, this assignment will be worth 50 points, and I'm expecting perfection, so take it seriously!  See you all Monday!

The Lost Art of Letter Writing

Taken from Google Images



With email, text messaging, and the capability of calling someone on the phone, writing a letter (and subjecting oneself to "snail mail") has become a lost art, and yet there are many types of letters to write: letters of complaint, letters of recommendation, cover letters, business letters, and love letters (does anyone write love letters anymore?).  I hope they do.

For this genre, you are going to write a letter that goes along with your multi-genre topic.  Depending on the nature of your topic, you will have to determine what kind of letter you need to write and how that letter may fit into your multi-genre puzzle.  Perhaps you will create a character and write a letter from his/her perspective that pertains to your topic.  Perhaps you are the person writing the letter if your topic is personal.  Brainstorm some ways to incorporate some "snail mail" in your multi-genre project!

It's also time to begin thinking about how your multi-genre project will take shape: how you will use repetend, which writing styles you will incorporate in the finished product, what message you want to send to your readers.  So far, you've made an advertisement, written a poem, a diary entry, and now we are focusing on letter-writing.  How can you include these 4 genres in your project? 

Dear Diary...

Anne Frank
Taken from Google Images

"It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary; not only because I have never done so before, but because it seems to me that neither I - nor  for the matter of anyone else - will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.  Still, what does that matter?  I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart." -Anne Frank

If you haven't already guessed, the genre we will be focusing on today is a diary or journal entry.  What's the point in keeping a diary, you might ask?  A diary entry is one of the most personal forms of writing simply due to the fact that the writer believes that his/her eyes will be the only ones to ever gaze upon the page.  A diary is a place where one can disclose innermost thoughts - the reality, the raw nature, of one's life.

Anne Frank had thought this, but when her diary was discovered, a piece of history and a piece of a human heart were also discovered.  Frank's diary has become one of the most famous pieces of literature in all history, and all because a little girl got a blank book as a gift.  Her diary is history, thoughts, and emotions frozen in time.

For this piece, I want you to think about how you could incorporate a diary entry into your multi-genre project.  Depending on the nature of your topic, you could incorporate a journal entry from your perspective (if your topic is personal to you) or from the perspective of a character that you make up for your project.  An idea for repetend is to create a character and give snippets of a diary entry from that character's perspective in between your various pieces of writing to create unity between your work.

Remember that a diary entry is a raw and personal thing: hold nothing back!

Creating an Ad

Taken from Google Images

For this assignment, I want you to think about the topic you chose for your multi-genre project.  Since our focus this week has been on advertising, I then want you to imagine what an ad would look like that pertains to your topic.  What message could you leave with your readers by using an advertisement in your multi-genre project?   Consider the following questions:

What kind of ad could you come up with for your topic?

What message do you want your advertisement to convey?

Who is the audience in which you are targeting this advertisement? 

What kind of photo or imagery would be most effective?

Which words or text on your advertisement should be bigger than the others?

What colors should you use in your advertisement to set the tone?

What language are you going to use to be catchy and convincing?

Your topics vary greatly, but as we have discovered this week, there is always something to sell, and there will always be ways to sell it - whatever it may be.  So, consider this a starting point: how could you incorporate an advertisement into your multi-genre project? 

Remember that you might actually be able to incorporate this into your final product, so put some time, energy, and effort into it!

After you create your advertisement using the suggested criteria above, I want you to type up an explanation of your choices: why did you construct the ad in the manner you did?  How is your ad effective?  What would you have chosen to do differently if given the opportunity?



What tactics do these companies use to get you to buy their products?
Taken from Google Images



Evil Advertising

Sex Sells.  Pamela Anderson (in a bikini)
urges you to "go Vegetarian" - will you?
Taken from Google Images



The first genre we are going to explore in the multi-genre unit is something you are exposed to on a daily basis: advertisements!  Before I show you a film clip regarding advertising, I want you to ponder these questions:

What is advertisement?
What purpose does it serve?

What tactics do companies use to get people to buy products?

Have you ever bought something just because the ad was cool?

How do ads target specific groups of people?

How could advertising be considered "evil"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSXDCMSlv_I

I want you to flip through the pages of a magazine and take a deeper look at the ads you see.  What message is each of the ads trying to convey?  What audience is the ad targeting?  What tactics are being used in order to sell products?  How are the ads you see essentially "evil"?

Now I want you to take an ad (or several) and come up with one of your own that exposes the dark truth behind what advertising agencies want people to see.  There are two sides to advertising: the flawless and glitzy images shown, but the reality behind what is being sold.  You are now an agent with one mission: expose the menacing side of the ads you see...go!

*Think about how you could incorporate an ad into your multi-genre project - the ideas are endless for there is always something to sell!

Baraka and Multi-Genre Writing

Taken from Google Images



Baraka: a blessing; the thread that weaves life together.

When you create your multi-genre project, you will piece various writing styles together tell a story that maintains a theme/topic of your choosing.  I showed you the film "Baraka" to serve as a metaphor for your future multi-genre project - the piecing together of unlikely elements in order to evoke emotion in readers.

The images in the film were fragmented, and watching each piece as it stood alone could have been inspiring, comical, intriguing, or horrifying to you.  However, these images (much like the various styles in a multi-genre piece) were pasted together in a particular fashion to evoke emotion in viewers.  A message was sent, but what message was that?  The beauty of this film is that each person who watches it sees it through their own eyes, gaining something completely different from the images than the person sitting beside them.  My hope is that your multi-genre piece will do exactly what this film does: piece together the unlikely, and yet emotionally move your readers.

For your blog this week, I want you to think about the message this film sent to you.  Use one of the genres on the handout I have given you to come up with an original and interesting way to explain (through writing) what you gained by watching this film.  There are no right and wrong viewpoints here, and I look forward to reading about what you thought of "Baraka" and the message it gifted to you. 

This is your last grade for the quarter, so please take it seriously!  Rather than being due next Monday, this post will be due this Friday (March 16th) at 4 pm!