Pomfret School - Winter Term Grades

Thoắt cái học kỳ mùa Đông đã trôi qua. Đạt kết quả cao ở học kỳ đầu (Fall Term) đã khó vì tất cả còn rất mới mẻ nhưng để tiếp tục giữ được điểm cao cũng khó khăn chẳng kém. Vì các môn học ngày càng khó hơn; sức ỳ tâm lý khi đã quen. Chạy nhanh khó nhưng chạy đường dài càng khó hơn.
Rất may là học kỳ này Su vẫn giữ được vị trí, dù có chuệch choạc lúc ban đầu với một điểm B+, mà cũng chính nhờ điểm B+ này giúp Su choàng tỉnh khi ngủ quên trên chiến thắng.

Well done, Su!!!

Còn rất nhiều lớp AP đang chờ phía trước!!!

School Year: 2011 - 2012
Academics
Subjects	Teacher	Mid Winter	Winter
Eng IV: Writing Short Fiction	Brown	A-	A-
English II - Honors	Rowe	B+	A
English II	Ford
Precalculus Honors	Eaton	A	A
Modern World History since 1750	Keough	A	A
BIO: Marine Biology	Gibbs
Chemistry Honors	Gibbs	A	A
ENV: Earth and Environmental	Tucker
Chorus	Hourmard	A	A
Private Instruction - Voice	Hourmard
Recital Class	Hourmard	A	A
Social Issues	Miller	A	A

Winter Comments

Eng IV: Writing Short Fiction, Michelle Brown

In the second half of the term, we turned our attention to short-shorts or flash fiction, working with units of 10, 100, and 250 words. Students were called upon to “kill their darlings” and become aware of using descriptive language for narrative purpose. Students continued to write short exercises and full-length stories towards the culmination of the winter, the portfolio, and practiced reading and presenting their work for recording in a Selected Shorts-style podcast that will be broadcast on Pomfret’s own radio station. We also discussed revision versus editing, and read selections from the Scribner Anthology and National Public Radio.

Blood, sweat, tears…agony. I know the revision and critique process was painful for you, and pain, coincidentally, seems to be the theme that permeates your collection. You will be glad to know that your writerly anguish will not go unrewarded, because the drastic revisions you’ve made to these have improved them considerably. You’ve resisted clichés in plot and character, and the resulting three stories are surprising and strange. “The Pain of a Mother” is the most polished and “complete”; you’ve done good work creating an unreliable narrator. I would reconsider the title, though, which gives up the jig.

And I wonder a little about plausibility (even though we are seeing events through her eyes) – would the child yield so easily? Would the mother act so quickly in taking him? The story could be expanded, and there’s a lot of room for additional scenes in the time between the mother’s discovery of the child and her kidnapping (preparations, strategy, etc.). I might also consider using more imagery in the back-story. Create a single, precise image of the lost child, rather than a collage of familiar child-in-hospital stills, and that section might be more original. “The Pain of a Father” is your most problematic story – and your most ambitious. The way you handle grief here is genuinely fresh, but the reader gets distracted with all the action in the story, some of which doesn’t seem totally necessary or interesting, You’ve tied up a lot of loose ends here; many of the formerly superfluous details now feel essential. Of all the members of the workshop, you’ve done the most with the peer critique, and this ability to be self-critical will serve your writing well. I look forward to seeing you in another class.