Associations to place. We started class with a visualization exercise to connect to "felt" experiences associated with place. I talked you through a visit to remembered places using techniques derived from work in active dreaming. In discussion of the writing you developed from this, we noticed that you tended to go to places from childhood, particularly the homes of grandparents, that many of you went to rooms or buildings, that the kinds of places you went to often were "good" or "safe" places (though some of them had an 'edge' to them). I also asked you to note whether beginning with a visualization worked to "prime the pump" of images and ideas to write about. Good writing! And I am hoping some of you noticed/experienced something of interest - something that might later play into a reflection or an essay.
Exploring strategies for writing creative nonfiction. We spent the rest of the class looking at the three "eye" essays "Secret Ceremonies of Love and Death," Whast he said there," and "Graven Images." You worked in groups to identify each essay's central concept, the descriptive, narrative elements that developed that concept - and the relationship between the development of an idea & the narrative, descriptive sometimes "plot-driven" features that articulate the idea.
In our twenty five second discussion of how "I" essays were different from "eye" essays you pointed out that "I" essays (memoir, reflective writing) is more grounded in the writer's sensibility and that the subject of the essay is some aspect of the author's self, and that "eye" essays (literary journalism, and descriptive writing such as travel writing) have a more objective (outside the self) focus - generally a reflection on the way the world is.
For Tuesday:
Read: Kidder, 67; Lopate,69; Lott, 194
Blog 2: Develop a definition of creative nonfiction - what it does, how it works, what it is good for. You may incorporate your observations from the sample "I" & "eye" essays we have discussed so far - and the ideas presented by Kidder, Lopate, & Lott.
In class on Tuesday - you will continue to explore definitions of creative nonfiction.
I will be reading over + replying to your first blog post over the weekend. You will have comments before class on Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment