NaNoWriMo--Writing Circle

Dear NaNos,

I need everyone's username so that we can be writing buddies--but you guys also need the usernames. Mine is jjhoward--please post your username as a reply to this post, and then add one another (and me) as writing buddies on your NaNoWriMo profile. If you need help with this, just let me know.


Remember the event kicks off tonight at midnight, so if you want to hit the ground running, block out some time to write on Thursday. If you divide up the word count, it's 1667 words per day ;)

-Ms. H.

We are humans

Hey Bloggers, 

Please turn off the CAPTCHA on your blog: it's the annoying box that pops up when someone tries to post a reply to your post. These are hard to read, and take a lot of time! Plus, we have all met and we have established that we are, in fact, all human. 

Go to: Design, settings, posts and comments. 

Click NO for Text Verifications. 

Done!

Come see me if you have questions, or if a lot of German robots start posting nonsense replies on your blog. 

Micro-Story

“She knows herself to be at the mercy of events, and she knows by now that events have no mercy.”

-Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

  

Rotten Apple

“It’s fine,” I told them, and I tried to make my mouth form something that would pass for a smile.

“Next time,” Jordan said, smiling. Her smile was real. Not because the smile stood for anything nice or good. But a real smile happens on someone’s face when they are happy, and other people’s pain makes Jordan happy. This time it was mine. My pain.

I told them it was fine, but it wasn’t fine. I wasn’t fine. I used to be, before she got here. I had friends who seemed to like me and they sometimes laughed at my jokes and one time Sara Miller bought the same shirt I had only in a different color. We all sometimes copied each other because imitation= flattery but it also=safety, because nobody wants to stand out too much. Not really.

A long time ago my seventh grade teacher said that Kevin Monroe was a rotten apple. She said it after his family moved to Nebraska and she knew he was never coming back. She told us our class would be better now, because Kevin had been the one to poison everything. I guess she meant his rottenness seeped out and made Joey Walsh and Matt Sanders into bullies, too. I thought at the time that my teacher, Mrs. Adams, was being kind of dumb. Joey and Matt weren’t apples. They didn’t turn because of Kevin. Except then she ended up being right. They both started being almost…nice, after Kevin left. That's when I learned that some people are just poison.

I was fine before Jordan got here. For some reason, she decided to that she didn’t want to copy me—she wanted to take my place. I know that she whispers and she lies. I always almost almost catch her in the act, but never dead to rights. She’s like a snake.

I told them I was fine but I was lying. Mrs. Adams had taught me that the only thing to do with rotten apples was to move them away from the rest. Mrs. Adams had just waited until Kevin moved away. But Jordan’s family had just built a new house here. I couldn’t count on that kind of luck.

Rotten=you smile because you make somebody else cry. It was a simple equation. I understood what came next. It was simple too.

Welcome to the AP Lit Blogging Circle!

Create your own blog on blogger (if you were in AP Lang last year, just be sure to follow this new blog).
Throughout the course, you will be posting and publishing your work on your blog.

For this first assignment, please post a polished version of your Micro-Story.

Then, respond to others' posts (at least two)--give constructive feedback on their stories, and discuss the literary elements and use of language you find in each work.