It's time for another psychology lesson. I think that yesterdays guest lecture went very well and hopefully everyone enjoyed the story. If you didn't get a chance to read it you'll want to take a look at it.
Zone of Proximal Development was developed by social constructivist Lev Vygotsy in the early 1900's. Lev explained that children will follow the example of adults and will gradually develop new abilities without help. However, if the child is helped at certain points then that child will grow much faster. The zone of proximal development defines functions that not matured yet, but are in the process of maturing.
This concept is also known as scaffolding. Scaffolding is like stairs that a child/person must climb but can only get up the steps by someone on the step above them helping them up. This is where adults and other people step in to help the child up.
If we look at our characters and how they change throughout our stories we will see how they work along to accomplish their goals, but then they get stuck. Our characters generally then receive support from another source that helps them accomplish the goal and helps them grow. Think about The Hunger Games story as an example. Katniss is pretty dependent in the beginning of the books and has learned to take care of her family, but without the support and training of those around her the story would have been over in the first book as she enters the arena. It doesn't stop there though. Throughout the series she is receiving support and help to get ther to the point she needs to be at in the end to accomplish.... I won't tell you what she accomplish I wouldn't want to spoil it, but you get the picture.
Our stories will be more realistic as we use the zone of proximal development with our characters. Our characters will not know everything on the first page; they need to learn and grow just like everyone else in this world.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Guest Author (Brian Miller)
I'm so excited to introduce our
first guest author Brian Miller. He is an amazing poet and I love to read his poems on a
daily basis. You got that right, he writes a new poem almost every day! He is
also an amazing support to everyone around him, always taking the time to
comment on blogs and giving excellent feedback. I hope that you will all give
him a huge round of virtual applause with me.
Thank you for the opportunity to share here Josh. My name is
Brian Miller. I blog at Waystationone (http://www.waystationone.com)
and Dversepoets (http://www.dversepoets.com) Waystationone
is my personal blog where I write poetry of various forms as well as short
story (both fiction and non) I have been blogging at the Waystation for not
quite three and a half years.
Dversepoets is an online venue that I cofounded with Claudia Schoenfeld and several poet friends to create a space for poetry to be brought to the forefront. We opened the pub about eight months ago and regularly have hundreds of poets come through each week to showcase their work.
I have been published in a few collections and magazines. I had a book that included some of my poetry come out at Christmas and I am currently working on a large collection of both my poetry and short stories, which is currently in the editting stage. I have a much larger story that I have been tinkering with for a while that is eco-horror in genre. I don't post much of it at the Waystation but pseudo-horror is one of my favorite genres to write.
Below is a piece of flash that I wrote on a day when the words were just not coming.
Writing Life Writing Life
Clickclickclickclickclickclick
Shzipp
Dversepoets is an online venue that I cofounded with Claudia Schoenfeld and several poet friends to create a space for poetry to be brought to the forefront. We opened the pub about eight months ago and regularly have hundreds of poets come through each week to showcase their work.
I have been published in a few collections and magazines. I had a book that included some of my poetry come out at Christmas and I am currently working on a large collection of both my poetry and short stories, which is currently in the editting stage. I have a much larger story that I have been tinkering with for a while that is eco-horror in genre. I don't post much of it at the Waystation but pseudo-horror is one of my favorite genres to write.
Below is a piece of flash that I wrote on a day when the words were just not coming.
Writing Life Writing Life
Clickclickclickclickclickclick
Shzipp
The page stares back into his heavy lidded eyes, bloodshot
and burning, he forces a blink knowing the contest is unnecessary. Flexing his
fingers, he feels tension release from within each joint, then brings them to
his face, dragging them down from hairline to hollow cheeks. His tongue dampen
his lips, as if he has something to say, but doesn't. A fly lands atop the
typewriter, rubbing its front legs.
Taking a cotton cloth from the table top, he works his hands,
removing ink and oil, paying close attention to the nails. Longer than he
usually kept them, he wishes for a moment he had clippers nearby, contemplates
retrieving them from the bathroom. This would mean crossing the room and he can
barely feel his legs as it is, just little pin pricks of life along their
length.
Stretching his legs under the desk, a small fire erupts in
the muscles. It hurts, but feels so good. He smiles and retrieves a crumpled
pack of cigarettes from one of the drawers that run along the right side of the
desk. Shaking one loose he places it between his lips, where it dances. He inhales,
even though it is not lit, savoring the smell of the tobacco as he centers on
the fly on the typewriter.
The fly walks a small circle, now facing the page that still
rests, pinched in the roller. He wonders if the fly is reading and if it likes
what it sees. Kill it, a stray thought dances through his thoughts, but he
dismisses it. The desire to touch it, to feel its wings, is almost
overwhelming. The tobacco tastes sweet on his tongue.
Careful not to disturb the fly, he puts one hand on the roller
knob and takes the top of the just completed page in the other and rolls it
until released. The fly cares little, remaining where it is, as the man lays
the freed page on an inch deep stack of its brethren.
The wall behind the typewriter is grimy with years of
fingerprints and sweat of its occupants. Notes are etched in its surface, notes
he has left himself among those of others, he left while typing, too busy to
pause and find paper. Some he can read and understand, others are nearly
intelligible, scrawled hastily in manic swirls.
كلمات غير מילים לא
נעמרות Unausgesprochene worte
parole inespresse
Gouged deep in block letters he recognizes as his own,
UNSPOKEN. Puckered edges bite his fingers as he traces each letter, he is sure,
not for the first time. His eyes spasm wide, accompanied by a sharp intake of
breath. The fly launches itself from the typewriter, turning a sharp corner
over the man's shoulder disappearing from view.
Grabbing the stack of completed pages, he flips through, a
river of white cascades to the floor where pages splash in various directions.
Blank, how can they all be blank. A moan begins deep within him, the distant
call of a train rising into a howl. Abruptly, he wrenches open the top drawer,
removes a fresh sheet of paper and feverishly feeds it into the machine.
Clickclickclickclickclickclick
The fly lands on the crest of the man's ear, crawling to the
point where it joins the rest of his head and begins rubbing its legs, which if
the man could hear so minuscule a noise, would sound like chaotic laughter.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Roles in dysfunctional families
Today I wanted to take a look at different roles children tend to take on in dysfunctional families. There are four different roles that they tend to take on: Hero, Scapegoat, Caretaker, and the Lost Child.
The Hero is the child that takes on the parent role becoming self sufficient and responsible. This child is rigid and is very judgmental of other families members and secretly of him/herself. These children receive a lot of praise because they are doing what is expected of them, but they are often cutoff from their inner emotions and push away from it. These children often grow into insecure adults.
The Scapegoat is the child that the family is ashamed of. This child acts out the anger and tension that the family ignores. This child is the distraction of the real family problems and becomes the one that is most self destructive. They are the most sensitive to emotions and are hurt most because of this.
The Caretaker is responsible for the emotional well-being of the family by becoming the social director or clown. They distract the family from the pain the family is feeling. These children become caring adults whose whole self-definition is thinking of others, but they don't know how to get their own needs met. They generally have low self-esteem and feel a lot of guilt.
The Lost Child is the child that becomes invisible and withdraw from reality. They deny having feelings and don't get upset, "Why bother no one will hear me." These children grow into adults who are unable to feel and have very low self-esteems. They are withdrawn and shy and socially isolated. An interesting note is a lot of actors are the lost child because they can act out their emotions by hiding behind their characters.
Interestingly enough like we discussed in a past post when the family dynamics change the roles can shift as well. The scapegoat child goes to juvenile detention and another child takes up the role of the scapegoat. You may find yourself thinking that your family falls into these roles, but these roles are generally extreme and may appear in other families, but generally they are not lasting and are not to the extreme that you would see in a dysfunctional family.
When applying this idea to our characters we can use it as a tool to make sense of why a character behaves how they behave around family and around others.
The Hero is the child that takes on the parent role becoming self sufficient and responsible. This child is rigid and is very judgmental of other families members and secretly of him/herself. These children receive a lot of praise because they are doing what is expected of them, but they are often cutoff from their inner emotions and push away from it. These children often grow into insecure adults.
The Scapegoat is the child that the family is ashamed of. This child acts out the anger and tension that the family ignores. This child is the distraction of the real family problems and becomes the one that is most self destructive. They are the most sensitive to emotions and are hurt most because of this.
The Caretaker is responsible for the emotional well-being of the family by becoming the social director or clown. They distract the family from the pain the family is feeling. These children become caring adults whose whole self-definition is thinking of others, but they don't know how to get their own needs met. They generally have low self-esteem and feel a lot of guilt.
The Lost Child is the child that becomes invisible and withdraw from reality. They deny having feelings and don't get upset, "Why bother no one will hear me." These children grow into adults who are unable to feel and have very low self-esteems. They are withdrawn and shy and socially isolated. An interesting note is a lot of actors are the lost child because they can act out their emotions by hiding behind their characters.
Interestingly enough like we discussed in a past post when the family dynamics change the roles can shift as well. The scapegoat child goes to juvenile detention and another child takes up the role of the scapegoat. You may find yourself thinking that your family falls into these roles, but these roles are generally extreme and may appear in other families, but generally they are not lasting and are not to the extreme that you would see in a dysfunctional family.
When applying this idea to our characters we can use it as a tool to make sense of why a character behaves how they behave around family and around others.
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