Poetry 180

If you are looking for something to read in class on Wednesday, go here:

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/p180-list.html

Rubric for Short Story Final

	1: no evidence	2: attempted but limited	3: Fair	4: Good	5: Excellent
Attention to plot development  (Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution are all present. Logical sequence of events free of major plot holes or points of confusion )
Attention to character development (Attempts have been made to make characters realistic and/or compelling. Thought put into dialogue and character interaction).
Attention to setting (Setting details create sense of place that accentuates the plot)
Attention to theme (Attempts have been made to convey a theme or main message that is interpretable by the reader)
Attention to style (Word choice, sentence construction and variety and occasional use of figurative language all contribute to the dramatic feel of the plot/story.

Artiom K. Short Story Proposal

Exposition

The symbol of human achievements, the stone cold icon of pure power and glory, the crown jewel of a supreme empire, hardened by hundreds of years of survival through economic instability and political turmoil. Built on the blood and sweat, a beautiful city was raised which sheltered millions of its inhabitants from the blazing sun and resentfully cold nights of the harsh desert climate. As the empire continued its existence, it created close ties with liberalism and the strong belief the in the future. The vital part of the political formation and development was taken by the higher council, a group of influential priests that controlled the prosperity level in the city.

Inciting Incident

One of priests was a newly ordained man of middle age named Meti or righteous. As he was walking through the city, he was filled with zeal and ideas of the strong need to prove his eminence to the council. Before his visage fell a scene of a guard attempting to make a group of slaves carrying rocks move faster. As the group slowly accelerates its movement, a young woman overtook a huge and strong man. She was moving at a faster pace while carrying the same load. This act provoked disgust from Meti’s side as he would never expect a women working harder than a man who is several times stronger and in good medical health. This act also inspires the man to find a motivational factor to make the slaves work to their maximum physical capability.

Rising Action

As Meti continued to cogitate about the subject, he was gradually overtaken by exhortation for the need of reaching success in his task. He began imbibed by the idea of modernizing the social structure and system and dressed as a slave. He spent several weeks in a congregation of slaves trying to find what they truly want, what could make them work harder. His cellmate turned out to be the man he saw in the city whose name was Kamenwati which meant dark rebel who always pushed long and inaugurating speeches of glories freedom.

Climax

Meti understands that freedom is the most prominent aspect for motivating the slaves to work harder. As he continues to reason, he understands that by setting a slave free, he needs to provide an incentive for that individual to continue working. He comes to a conclusion to create a secondary currency that only the freed slaves would use. For each rock that is carried in, a freed slave will receive a specified amount of money that he will be able to spend to increase his material possessions.

Falling Action

With the cooperation with the higher council Meti imposes his system. Temporarily stunned by their sudden freedom, the freed slaves don’t know what to do with their newly acquired. As time continues to unravel, the system proves to be extremely affective as people try to earn as much money as possible. They built wagons to transport rocks faster, some people begin to serve food to the workers for money, and some provide medical assistance.

Resolution

The story ends with the people, unknowingly becoming slaves in another system that uses an individual’s natural desire for more against him.

Two Important Characters

Meti

Meti is a middle aged man who easily stood out of the crowd due to his differentiating features. He was a man of small proportions and seemed to be a dweller of establishments that focused upon their employee’s mental capabilities rather than physical. He had an ability to strike up a conversation inquiring any topic and had a calm personality. Just like any person in the higher council, Meti was affluent and had a strong sphere of influence in the city.

Kamenwati

Kamenwati was a young man that surpassed most of those around him in physical strength. During the time he spent with Meti, he has showed his passionate and emotional character and his wonderful abilities as an orator. Kamenwati is significant in the story because he provides Meti with the details of the life and the burdens and desires of a typical person in the lower congregations of society and acts as a stepping stone for Meti that will lead to a new social system.

Master Plot

I think this short story would be categorized as a pursuit without the elements of an adventure or quest because the main character remains more or less stationary throughout the story. This could also be categorized as a pursuit not as in the sense of escape but more like a moral struggle to achieve a goal. In the case of Meti, he wants to prove his is worthy of the position in the higher council and also wants to modernize the empire he loves.

Plot Frances Collins

Exposition: My story is about a teenage girl, 18 years old, who lives in Oregon with her powerful yet dysfunctional family. Her father abuses her, and she has flashbacks of the cruelty he unleashes upon her. She is then sent to a boarding school in Orange County CA, so that she keeps quiet about the abuse because her father is running for governor of Oregon.

Inciting Incident: After two years of beatings, she is finally found, by her mother, in a pool of her own blood at the bottom of the main staircase. She finally tells her mom what has been happening to her, but her mother is so repressed that she refuses to believe her daughter. She threatens to send her daughter to a psychiatric ward is she doesn’t stop telling lies, but for good measure Gwen is sent away to Ocean Academy, a boarding school in Orange County, CA.

Rising Action: The teenager goes to Ocean Academy, but is only a ghost of the person she used to be. She lives in a dorm and in her first week she meets a trio of boys who take her in. The treat her like a normal person, but soon she starts falling for the handsome soccer star in the trio. As they become closer, and spend romantic nights on the beach talking, he starts to realize she has a sticky past. He vows he will do anything to get past her walls.

Climax: One night, the teenager has a horrible flashback while she is sleeping and she cannot stay in the dorms any longer. She tries to pack up her stuff and run away, but the boy is close behind her. She tells him about her “dream,” while sobbing and he understands that it is not a dream. He doesn’t know what to say, and he has no idea how to comfort her.

Falling Action: After that night she goes back to see her father the next day. She tells him she’s getting all her stuff, and that after high school she’s never coming back. She also says that he might have won in the political field, but he failed her as a father, and that she was done feeling guilty about what he had done to her. She also tells him that if he ever touches her little sister, she will kill him. She leaves before he has a chance to say anything.

Denouemente: The story ends with the girl walking into her dorm room, dropping her stuff and walking out onto the each where the boy playing sand soccer.

Amar Khalilollahi's Short Story Proposal

RESILIENCY

Exposition: During the Cold War in 1963, a Special Forces-trained and war-hardened American spy named Harry Dermot is surveying the Soviet Union on a recon aircraft, scanning a huge area for missile silos and nuclear weapon plants. He is able to pinpoint the coordinates of 8 massive missile silos, with hundreds of warheads in each, and they are aimed right at the United States. He sends the data, along with the crucially important coordinates of each silo to Washington via satellite.

Inciting Incident: Harry’s aircraft is spotted by Soviet officials in Siberia, and is shot down with a SAM missile. Harry just escapes death, finding a parachute in his plane and fleeing before the explosion. He lands in hostile territory in Siberia and is soon caught and arrested. He is taken to one of the most infamous gulags in Russia, called Konomchutski in eastern Siberia.

Rising Action: Harry experiences horrifying conditions at the Soviet gulag. Food is served once a week, the temperature never gets higher than -5 degrees, there is no medicine for inmates whatsoever, he is forced to work incredibly hard at dangerous jobs without breaks and is essentially a slave. His stall has no real bed, is not heated, and there’s only a small hole for a toilet. Harry starts to plan a daring escape from the gulag; he has been there 5 miserable years, every day of which he has planned religiously how he will escape. Since day 1 he has planned for a Shawshank Redemption approach to breaking out. After he breaks out, he will trek 600 miles northeast to the eastern tip of Russia, along the Bering Strait. He will then build a makeshift raft with any tools and any materials he can find, and sail/paddle eastward 22 miles to Little Diomede Island, Alaska – which is American territory. In Alaska, he will be welcomed with open arms and cared for as an American hero. His geography and survival skills, along with his Special Forces training will keep him alive on the 600 mile trek (while being chased by Soviet authorities) in the coldest place on earth.

Climax: Harry carries out his plan at night and succeeds. The temperature is so low that his spit freezes before it hits the ground. He treks the grueling 600 miles northeastward and is the closest to death he has ever been in the story, cheating death by hypothermia several times, and probably would have died if he hadn’t succeeded in killing a bull caribou and sheltering himself in its entrails. He eats every single piece of flesh on the animal, desperately hungry. As he finally approaches the Russian coastline on the Bering Strait, he successfully builds a raft and sets sail for Little Diomede Island, having a close encounter on the coast with a Russian Hind helicopter, searching for him. He thought he does a good job evading this patrol chopper and seems to have taken to the sea unspotted.

Falling Action: Harry spots Little Diomede Island in the distance, but hears the Russian helicopter from earlier approaching him. It’s got him locked on target. The infamous, deadly Hind helicopter starts to fire its machine guns on him, then knocks him off his raft with a 30 mm cannon that just misses the kill zone. However, Harry is critically injured. The raging water around him is red. The Hind zeroes in, ready to fire its deadliest gun: an anti-armor missile.

Resolution: Harry knows there’s nothing he can do to save himself. But the American Air Force can. Out of nowhere, a missile hits and annihilates the Hind, and a Bell AH-1 Cobra comes out of nowhere. The angelic helicopter hovers over him, and drops a basket. Harry is bleeding profusely and, as an ominous sign to him, he cannot manage to climb into the basket. A man on the helicopter comes down to grab him and get him into the cabin. They try to bandage his wound in a futile attempt.

Denouement: He is transferred helicopters on Little Diomede and is rushed to an Anchorage hospital. He has a gaping hole in his torso, and his liver is hemorrhaging blood. The president makes a special trip to visit him in the hospital to pay his respects and hear Harry’s compelling story. Harry dies at the hospital right as the president walks out of the room.

Tenzin Arya-plot summary

Exposition

5yrs ago, Maya Sharma received a life changing opportunity to attend Cornell University. She is now back from U.S after 4 yrs. Her family greets her at the front gate of the airport.

Inciting Incident

 Maya is suddenly wakened up in the middle of a night by a loud mournful cry. The very next morning she learns that some thugs have been roaming around at nights and beating people just for fun.

Rising action

 Maya reunites with some old friends and goes out for dinner. She loses track of time and it’s already dark when they end their little reunion .She then starts walking fast hoping she won’t encounter those thugs.

Climax

She suddenly hears a kid crying and some men laughing. Maya cautiously creeps behind a wall and look over to see what’s happening. Some Masked men were beating up a street child .

Falling action

Terrified and scared, she flees from the crime scene for her safety and leaves the boy alone, hurt and dying.

Resolution

Maya reaches home safely but she feels guilty for not helping the poor innocent child. She realizes her degrees and awards have taught her nothing but increased her selfishness. Selfish enough to leave an innocent child die.Maya filled with guilt, could no longer stay in India. She goes back to United States to start a new life, trying to forget everything that happened.

Exposition: The story begins when Rick, an ex-cop wakes up, finding himself in an isolated chamber. His head throbs with pain and realizes he is handcuffed. Trembling in fear and hunger, he forces himself to sleep. As he sleeps there is a flash back taking him back to his incident.

Inciting Incident: It was just a normal day, some speed tickets and some paper work. Rick then receives a phone call from his wife who was screaming for help. and then dead silence. He rushes into his car and drives to his house. He takes his pistol out from his side belt and places the magazine inside. As Rick enters the house he finds his wife and he doesn't recognize tied up. Before he could untie his wife, he felt a crack on his skull. The next thing Rick knew was that his wife and the man was covered in a pool of blood. Both of them had died by a gun shot. and the gun used to shoot them, was his very own pistol. Charged with murder because of the killing of his wife and the man whom she had an affair with, was the death row. He was boiling with rage and wanted revenge to kill the person who had framed him.

Rising Action: Many of the other prisoners took their anger out on Rick because he used to be a cop. Each day his food was taken and he was constantly beaten by other criminals. A gang offers Rick an offer he could not refuse...freedom. They were planning on escaping the prison by force.

Climax: Rick awakens from his dream/flash back and remembers that today was the day to escape. (somehow they take the warden hostage, still thinking on how they do it) they force their way out of the prison. As the gang runs out to escape, Rick stays behind with the warden. the gang rushs out of the perimeter of the prison but waiting for them were prison guards. prison guards open fire with their pistols and kills all the gang members. Rick remains unhurt and takes the warden back to the prison. His rage and lust for revenge were too much. The next thing he saw was the warden, beaten to death by his own fists.

Falling Action: Rick falls on his knees and begins to weep. He regrets what he had done.

Resolution: He looks around the dead warden's body and finds a gun. Rick takes the gun and points it at his temple...

denouement: Rick was a character who decided to kill himself because he had broken his own morals. As a policemen, he obeys the laws and killing the warden had broken these rules. He had taken the life of someone who had nothing to do with his revenge. his own wanting for vengeance had led to his own death. The manifestation of revenge kept growing until he snapped. The warden represents the law, order and also Rick's moral. By killing the warden, he had killed his inner self.