Watch three different biography programs on TV or video and write an essay, discussing whether they prove that essence precedes existence or the other way around.
Does Essence Precede Existence?
Surprising Change
Recall a personal experience when a surprising change took place in your life. Write a narration of the experience, showing your readers what happened and why it is important to you.
Plinky Prompt
Should coffee shops limit the amount of time that laptop users can occupy tables?
Wordle: Decisions
a Wordle created with a Mac or PC
a Togul created with a Chromebook
Search the net for a few quotes about decisions. Recall these focus questions to help you in your search.
Collect a handful of phrases that give you pause to think. Avoid anonymous quotes, note the author. (Keep the unharmed list safe in your notes somewhere.)
Go to wordle.net (on Chromebooks try tagul clouds while logged in with a google account) and and blast one, or some, or a whole pile into your own “wordle”. Try several attempts till you have something rich in thought, an inspiration to a deep thinker like yourself.
When you have a “wordle” you like, take a screen capture of it (Mac: command+shift+4 or Windows: Print Screen key) and upload the “png” to your blog and ….
Write a creative narrative (a short short story of about 500 words) that develops an idea about decisions inspired from your “wordle“.
Warning: the ideas you spawn from generators like these should be used with caution, seriously.
Story Idea Generator (tv tropes)
Plinky Prompt
What albums did you listen to the most while growing up?
Plinky Prompt
If you were a breed of dog, what kind would you be?
Plinky Prompt
Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met?
Top 10
List your 10 best qualities.
Grown Up?
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
Plinky Prompt
Is there a goal you’d like to accomplish by the end of 2012?
Customer service
What companies provide the best customer service? The worst?
Unwell
When you’re unwell, do you allow others to take care of you, or do you prefer to soldier on alone? What does it take for you to ask for help?
Plinky Prompt
What’s the scariest thing you’ve experienced this year?
Free trip to the moon
If you were offered a free trip to the moon, would you go? Why or why not?
Plinky Prompt
Would you say that you enjoy driving?
Sensation
Tell us about a sensation – a taste, a smell, a piece of music – that transports you back to childhood.
Plinky Prompt
If you were forced to lose one of your five senses ??? which sense would you give up? Why?
Recent Movie
Name the most recent movie that disappointed you.
VIBE Digital Histories – Seniors
ask VIBE for details
Plinky Prompt
If you could only eat one type of food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Tropes in Film
4 Replies
Investigate tropes. What is a trope?
- View a film and review it with the aim of pointing out several tropes.
- note the broad categories tropes fall into, identify several examples from at least 3 categories.
- Write a short story(that one day could be turned into a feature film) based on an idea generated by tvtropes.org Story Idea Generator.
- Incorporate at least one common trope from the film into your story. There is no need for your story to parallel the film in any other way.
- Focus/comment somewhere in your story on the theme of global warming.
Worst Trip
Describe the worst trip you have ever taken.
Down Came A Blackbird and Pecked Off Her Nose!
“Let me write a nation’s songs, and I care not who writes its laws.”
Much has been written of the impact on children of mass media, with their excesses of violence and sex and their distortion of reality. The trouble may start at the parents’ knee with indoctrination through nursery rhymes.
Make a list of rhymes and stories that you remember and discuss their unpleasant overtones.
For example, did you ever think of the “four and twenty blackbirds” being baked alive?
Plinky Prompt
How early do you usually start your holiday shopping?
Plinky Prompt
List your top celebrity sightings.
Plinky Prompt
Are there any news stories you’re sick of hearing about?
Comparison and Contrast
Compare and/or contrast one of the following pairs. (See also the guidelines that follow.)
1. A newborn and an elderly person
2. Front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive cars
3. The newspaper and the TV newcast
4. Cats and dogs
5. Renting and owning your home
6. Using credit and using cash
7. Touring bikes and mountain bikes
8. The novel and the short story
9. Any two martial arts
10. The classical music fan and the rock music fan
11. A Canadian city and an American city of the same size
12. A wedding and a funeral
13. Writing on paper and using a word processor
14. Natural and synthetic fabrics
15. The authoritarian parent and the permissive parent
16. Luxury cars and economy cars
17. Speaking and writing
18. Community college and university
19. The analogue watch and the digital watch
20. A team sport and an individual sport
21. Sales tax and income tax
22. Glasses and contact lenses
23. Driving a motorcycle and driving a car
24. Two newspapers(news channels or news sites) that you know
25. Large families and small families
Process in Writing: Guidelines
Follow at least some of these steps in writing your essay of comparison and contrast.
1. Spend enough time with the topic list to choose the item that best fits your interest and experience.
2. Draw a line down the middle of a blank page. Now brainstorm: jot down notes for subject “A” on the lefl and for subject “B” on the right. Join related items with lines, then take stock of what you have: Is A better than B? Is it worse? Similar? Opposite? Or what? Express their relationship to each other in a thesis statement.
3. Now choose either “halves” or “separate points” to organize your argument, depending on the nature and size of your subject, then work your notes into a brief outline.
4. Write a rapid first draft, leave extra white space, not stopping now to revise or edit.
5. Later analyze what you have produced. Does it follow your outline? If not, is the new material off-topic, or is it a worthwhile addition, an example of “thinking in writing”? Revise accordingly.
6. In your second draft cut all deadwood. Sharpen word choice. Add any missing examples. Strengthen TRANSITIONS.
7. Test your prose aloud before writing the good copy. Save the essay in case your teacher suggests further revision.
Plinky Prompt
Describe what perfect weather means to you.
Love
What activity, task, or game do you love most in the world? Why?
Plinky Prompt
Name a musical artist or group that you’d enjoy performing with.
Simplify, simplify
The American author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who left town life for his cabin by Walden Pond, wrote, “Our life is frittered away by detail. … Simplify, simplify.”
In your opinion, has technology simplified or complicated our lives? Defend you answer with personal examples.
Happily Ever After
“And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there?
Gamer Poem
Watch closely two people playing a board/video game.
Write a poem about your experience.
Something Never Thrown Away
Name something you wish you had never thrown away.
Favourite month
What’s your favourite month? Why?
Your Ideal Home
You have all the resources you need to built your ideal home. Tell us about it.
Plinky Prompt
What does wealth mean to you?
Rabindranath Tagore
Read about Rabindranath Tagore. Read something from the writings of Rabindranath Tagore.
Read the Introduction to Gitanjali by W.B. Yeats. Read Gitanjali.
Write a post in which you explore the idea that “children gather pebbles and scatter them again.”
Create your own photo-poster from a brainy quote of Rabindranath Tagore.
Plinky Prompt
Describe what it feels like when the season starts to change.
Habit
What’s the one habit you’d change about yourself, if you could simply flick a switch and have it happen?
Plinky Prompt
Have you ever been on stage?
Weekend!
Some people live for the weekend when they can do the things they like doing, when they can participate in the form of recreation they enjoy most. Describe your weekend recreation.
Plinky Prompt
Do you think you deserve an apology that you haven’t yet received?
Slang or Dialect
Write about whatever you’d like, but write using regional slang, your dialect, or in your accent.
Plinky Prompt
What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?
Smile
What makes you smile like nothing else can?
Plinky Prompt
What’s the lesser of two evils: Body odor or bad breath?
Plinky Prompt
Tell us about one photograph that means a lot to you.
Plinky Prompt
Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased.
Time Loop
In the comedy “Groundhog Day” Bill Murray experienced the same day again and again, stuck in a time loop until he got the day ?right.? What day would you choose to repeat until you got it right? Do you think it’s ever possible to get life “right”?
Wow!
Describe the most impressive ceremony you have ever witnessed. It may have been a marriage, a graduation, or a religious ceremony. It may have been an awards ceremony. Where was it held? Who was there? How were people dressed? What was said? How did you feel about it?
Trouble
What’s the most trouble you’ve ever got in?
Devotion
In your opinion, is it possible for one person to devote himself or herself totally to another person?
Live without internet access
What’s the longest you’d want to live without internet access?
Plinky Prompt
Share a story about a risk you’re glad you took.
Walls
Research and find pictures and news stories about:
- The Western Wall in Jerusalem,
- the Walls of Jericho,
- the wall from Pyramus and Thisbe,
- Pink Floyd’s The Wall (film),
- and the Berlin Wall
Explain any literal, symbolic, or archetypal connections of these walls to a text you have read.
Plinky Prompt
What sports teams do you root for?
Plinky Prompt
Recall the last time you were on a Ferris wheel.
Plinky Prompt
If you had your own television show, what would it be about?
Privacy
How do you manage your online privacy? Are there certain things you won’t post in certain places? Information you’ll never share online? Or do you assume information about you is accessible anyway?