Schedule for Wed, March 7, and SPRING BREAK

The assignment for Wednesday, March 7 is to come with a "start," rough draft, or detailed "concept" of your displaced fairy-tale.

We took a vote in class and have decided to cancel class this Friday, March 9. so No Class Friday, March 9


Spring Break Homework

Due in class on March 19 will be your displaced fairy-tale (aka Modern Day fairy-tale).

Length: 3-4 pages.

Source Material: Feel free to use everything we've talked about in class this semester as fuel for your creative process. By this I mean, remember the themes, the big concepts of what we have discussed. Take these themes and make them your own in your "modern day fairy-tale".

Here are some of the topics that may help in your creative writing: Eros, Love, Hades, Underworld, Dream, Myth, Song sung to Death, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pyramus and Thisbe, Romeo and Juliet, Soul-flight, Ring of Fire, Borges. . .

Please take your time on this assignment so that the themes begin to resonate within your story.

Hint: Post your work on your blog so that others can read what you are writing, and so that you can go to other blogs for ideas and inspiration.

Good luck!!! I'm confident you will do well. Have a safe, and fun-filled break. When you return the semester will be practically over!


Visualized Concepts of Displaced Fairy-tales
In a displacement of a myth or fairy-tale, the fantastic elements morph to become our "common" everyday elements. For example, the coach drawn by magical horses might become a 1982 Volvo Station Wagon. And Cinderella might become a single mother trying to make ends meet, or she might become a man who has lost everything except....what?.... perhaps his passion for sailing.





An enchanted castle becomes a very real Seattle.













And Eros might become a simple barmaid whose dating advice is as good as the drinks she pours.





Like metaphors, displacements of mythical, magical, surreal, and religious elements can permeate this assignment. The trick is to make sure the similar elements "do the job" that they did in the fairy-tale. If the magic castle holds a sleeping prince who will only awake upon the kiss of true love, then so too does Seattle hold such a prince, be he a janitor, a lonely college student, the son of the mayor. And likewise, the kiss will wake him up from his metaphorical "sleep".