Introduction
"The cleverer I am at miniaturizing the world, the better I possess it."
Gaston Bachelard
French Philosopher
(1884-1962)
Possessing the world, literally and figuratively, has been a desire of Homo sapiens for thousands of years. What better way to achieve this goal than by charting it? Charting terrain turns the unknown into the known, vanquishes the fear, and allows one to confidently undertake a journey to even the most remote lands. This is the journey students will undertake in this unit through mapping and exploring the places that have shaped them. They will combine the creation of personal maps with a unique form of writing called "short short" stories. Their short short stories will be linked not only through the personal voice of the storyteller, but also by the use of writing strategies such as a recurring motif, rich language, assonance, and an economical choice of words.
The unit begins with an exploration into the history of cartography with a careful examination of maps with decorative elements common in medieval mappe mundi and portolans. These pilot charts and maps created to illustrate a principle are sprinkled with artwork like ornate borders, elaborate hand drawn frames encapsulating cultural philosophies, and fantasy creatures like sea monsters, gods and goddesses, angels, and muses. Examining these works will allow students to push their visual creative skills when drawing their personal maps.
As students begin creating their personal maps, they will explore the sub-genre of short short stories through the format's history and examples of classic and modern pieces. They will begin writing their own pieces of short short stories using their personal maps as a guidepost. In order to best facilitate this work, a series of writing exercises in teaching the features of a short short story have been included as well as the rules of short short stories, a detail of the necessary elements, a series of writing exercises to help students generate pieces, and revising tips unique to short short stories.
Finally, I have created individual assignment sheets and rubrics for the students' personal maps and the episodic short short story assignments. These will aid in providing clear guidance for the students, and you, as their teacher.
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