Rubric for Short Story

Short Story Writing	Excellent	Very Good	Satisfactory	Min Acceptable
Details and Description	●      Use good detail and description throughout the story that also develops themes and mood	●      Give good detail and description to develop setting, characters, events and images	●      Give some detail and description to develop characters, events, and images	●      Contains limited detail and images
Word choice and sentence structure	●      Show variety and precision in word choice and use a variety of sentence types and lengths effectively	●      Use a variety of words and sentences but more complex sentences may be awkward	●      Incorporate some variety in words and sentences but some sentences are short and choppy or long and awkward	●      Uses basic language with many errors
Story Structure	●      Build a story through believable events that are generally not predictable ●      Create a climax with audience impact ●      Create an emotional impact on the audience or makes a strong point	●      Build the story on believable events with some sense of uncertainty ●      Develop a clear climax with some build up and impact ●      Engage the audience with the beginning and create a believable ending	●      Build the story on a series of predictable events ●      Develop a basic climax  ●      Establish the problem or situation and introduce main character(s) in the beginning ●      Ending is abrupt, seems forced or unlikely	●      Contains a beginning, middle, and end
Characterization	●      Create characters who reveal motivations and relationships	●      Develop characters through their words and behavior	●      Describe characters in a way that focuses on physical traits or stereotypes	●      Characters have little description or depth
Dialogue	·         Use natural and interesting dialogue	·         Use natural dialogue	●      Use dialogue but may be overused, underused, confusing, or forced	·         Dialogue is present but weak
Devices	·         Use 5 or more devices in creative and appropriate ways	·         Use 4 or more devices in some creative and appropriate ways	·         Use 3 of the devices	·         Uses 1 or 2 devices

Short Story Elements

These are the short story elements we will use in our stories.

Literary Devices

Alliteration: the repetition of the same sound at the start of several words. For example, “my mother makes marvelous muffins.”

Imagery: descriptive language involving multiple senses to make a word picture. For example, “The sharp crack of the frost shattered the inky night air.”

Irony: when a statement or situation means something different from (or even opposite of) what is expected.

Metaphor: an implied comparison of two things that are not alike. The comparison suggests that they do share a common quality. For example, “Her words were a knife to my heart.”

Mood: The feeling that the author wants the reader to have.

Onomatopoeia: words that imitate sounds. For example, Bang!

Oxymoron: a device that combines contradictory words for dramatic effect, for example, jumbo shrimp.

Personification: When objects, ideas, or animals are given human qualities. For example, “The sun smiled down on me.”

Simile: A direct comparison between unlike things using the word “like” or “as” to connect them. For example, “Potatoes are like apples of the earth.”

Stereotypes: an oversimplified picture, usually of a group of people, giving them all a set of characteristics, without consideration of individual differences.

Tone: The writer’s attitude towards the subject or the audience.

Summary of Today's Discussion

Today we looked at two recent rants from Rick Mercer and discussed the techniques we saw with presentation style and camera work. We also watched our own rants and discussed what we like and what we could work on.

Here are the things we noticed in Rick's Rants

• consistent eye contact
• good expression in voice with dramatic pauses and emotion
• uses hand gestures to emphasize points
• the rant is memorized
• He walks around as he talks
• set in an interesting background
• He emphasizes main points and arguments when he stops walking suddenly 
• He ends with a strong sentence that is thought-provoking or a call for action
• the camera follows Rick from a constant distance of about a meter
• we see his upper body from a fairly consistent level of zoom
• both Rick and the camera walk at the same pace and with confidence
• the camera is generally at an angle
• the camera sharply goes to a 45' angle at the start of a point or to emphasize and then slowly rights itself
• A sharp camera angle often corresponds with Rick stopping walking to emphasize a point. 

Some of the things we liked in student rants

• we had confident speakers
• our speakers knew their information
• our speakers stayed focused during distractions
• people often made good eye contact
• we appreciated speakers who seemed to care about their topic
• we like when rants end with a strong sentence or call to action
• we like when the speaker's voice was loud and clear
• we prefer when the speaker is the centre of focus (there is no background silliness)
• The camera used interesting angles
• there were interesting settings

Some things we wanted to work on 

• memorizing more of our speeches
• maintaining more eye contact
• keeping focus
• pausing between points 
• emphasizing important sentences
• using more expression
• making sure the development of our argument is clear to all viewers