Thursday, October 3
12:00 Courtney
1:00 Sara
3:30 Kristen
4:00 Kristi
Monday, October 7
1:30 Filip
2:00 Nikki
3:15 Angie
7:15 Alessia
Wednesday, October 9
2:00 Tobey
3:00 Rafael
7:15 Maria
Thursday, September 26, 2013
9.24 Getting ready for Draft 1 & segmented essays
Getting reading to write Draft 1. Your stories in response to the writing prompt were great. They all sounded like they could support a creative nonfiction piece that presents both a compelling experience and the relentless, reflective questioning that creates a thoughtful reflection on what that experience (or set of experiences) was "about." As we think back on the CNF we have read so far, we might notice that most of the pieces don't make their points directly. Rather, the dramatize events that cause us to feel the "aboutness" of the piece - which is often set up clearly (but in a way that only takes on its full meaning after reading the entire piece) => in the title.
You posted some brainstorming for your first draft, and after listening in on your discussions in your groups in class, it sounds like you are reading to get full version of the essay on the page.
This draft is a place to:
So have fun and I am looking forward to reading your work!
Segmented essays.
You did great work coming up with a list of "what segments do" = how they work. We had a pretty impressive list on the board which I erased without writing down, but if I remember correctly it included:
signal transitions
imply comparisons
set up a chronology (or other kinds of relationships)
tell the whole story/make the whole point
develop separate scenes/characters/ideas
build a novel overall structure (different from the more or less linear, cumulative structure of reading)
As we noticed in reading the segmented essays discussed in class, each essay's organization was integral to its meaning => the way the essay was built was part of the essay's "aboutness." In Teacher Training, only the title overtly states the focus on learning to be a good teacher. The parallel experiences in the paired segments is what embodies that point in its fullness without any direct statement. Again, in Schwartz's piece, the scenes move from the US to Germany and back, and the attitudes of the author and her father move in different directions as they grapple with the shared experiences portrayed in each segment. And Kahn's piece does many things within each segment - though in some sense each seems to come to an understated, not quite definitive resolution about organ transplants - as if each vignette is a whole story (with a conclusion) in itself. She could have come to different conclusions (or conclusions that contradicted each other) - but in a way, these three seem to work together to make a single point supported by the implications of the title.
Looking at the three essays gave concrete illustrations of how segments can function. These essays used segments in quite different ways with respect to how much & which parts of the story they told, the kinds of "points" they made with respect to the whole piece, their relationships to time, character, and scene - and so on. You can mix and match, invent and re-arrange these functions as you work on revising your drafts.
Segmenting and drafting
Sometimes, a draft will present itself in terms of the segmenting pattern you will eventually use for your essay - but not always or even often. The form of the segmented essays we analyzed was artfully constructed, and you may not be ready to impose the form until after you are deep into the "aboutness" of your material. On the other hand, because your feeling about how to segment/structure your essay can be part of what your essay is about, sometimes writing into a "structure" can facilitate the drafting process. Yeah, I know, thanks a lot for the clear advice. So if I try to give a little more direction here I'd say - if planning the form for your essay (choosing a structure - maybe even one of the named structures in the previous post) helps you get a lot of writing on the page = go for it. If it gets you stuck = let it go and just write, and you can think about structuring after you conference and workshop and have a more clear idea what kind of segmenting pattern will allow you to convey your meanings through form as well as content.
For next week:
Read: McPhee, p. 128, "The Search for Marvin Gardens"
Blog 4: Draft 1
You posted some brainstorming for your first draft, and after listening in on your discussions in your groups in class, it sounds like you are reading to get full version of the essay on the page.
This draft is a place to:
- take risks in terms working with writing content and form that you might not feel "in control" of
- get all your ideas out there - even if they are not perfect, and even the ones that (for now) you aren't sure how they fit in
- stumble around looking for a focus
- write into your strengths, and use that writing to open up or lead you to places you are less sure of
So have fun and I am looking forward to reading your work!
Segmented essays.
You did great work coming up with a list of "what segments do" = how they work. We had a pretty impressive list on the board which I erased without writing down, but if I remember correctly it included:
signal transitions
imply comparisons
set up a chronology (or other kinds of relationships)
tell the whole story/make the whole point
develop separate scenes/characters/ideas
build a novel overall structure (different from the more or less linear, cumulative structure of reading)
As we noticed in reading the segmented essays discussed in class, each essay's organization was integral to its meaning => the way the essay was built was part of the essay's "aboutness." In Teacher Training, only the title overtly states the focus on learning to be a good teacher. The parallel experiences in the paired segments is what embodies that point in its fullness without any direct statement. Again, in Schwartz's piece, the scenes move from the US to Germany and back, and the attitudes of the author and her father move in different directions as they grapple with the shared experiences portrayed in each segment. And Kahn's piece does many things within each segment - though in some sense each seems to come to an understated, not quite definitive resolution about organ transplants - as if each vignette is a whole story (with a conclusion) in itself. She could have come to different conclusions (or conclusions that contradicted each other) - but in a way, these three seem to work together to make a single point supported by the implications of the title.
Looking at the three essays gave concrete illustrations of how segments can function. These essays used segments in quite different ways with respect to how much & which parts of the story they told, the kinds of "points" they made with respect to the whole piece, their relationships to time, character, and scene - and so on. You can mix and match, invent and re-arrange these functions as you work on revising your drafts.
Segmenting and drafting
Sometimes, a draft will present itself in terms of the segmenting pattern you will eventually use for your essay - but not always or even often. The form of the segmented essays we analyzed was artfully constructed, and you may not be ready to impose the form until after you are deep into the "aboutness" of your material. On the other hand, because your feeling about how to segment/structure your essay can be part of what your essay is about, sometimes writing into a "structure" can facilitate the drafting process. Yeah, I know, thanks a lot for the clear advice. So if I try to give a little more direction here I'd say - if planning the form for your essay (choosing a structure - maybe even one of the named structures in the previous post) helps you get a lot of writing on the page = go for it. If it gets you stuck = let it go and just write, and you can think about structuring after you conference and workshop and have a more clear idea what kind of segmenting pattern will allow you to convey your meanings through form as well as content.
For next week:
Read: McPhee, p. 128, "The Search for Marvin Gardens"
Blog 4: Draft 1
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Interesting classification of segmented essays
In his essay "Collage, Montage, Mosaic, Vignette, Episode, Segment," Robert Root names segmented structures in terms of the relationships between their sections. The following listing is taken from his essay, with a few modifications.
- juxtaposition - arranging one item alongside another item so that the comment back and forth on one another
- parallelism - altermating of intertwining one continuouse strand with another (a present tense strand with a past tense strand, a domestic strand with a foreign strand, etc)
- patterning - choosing an extra-literary design and arranging literary segments accordingly (for example, using the structure of/associations with the seasons, a musical piece, preparing a meal as the sequential frame for an essay)
- accumulation - arranging a series of segments or scenes or episodes so that they add to or enrich or alter the meanings of previous segments with each addition, perhaps reinterpreting earlier segments
- journaling - actually writing in episodes or reconstructing teh journal experience in drafts (this approach may include notes, earlier versions of the essay, reflections on how to revise earlier sections, etc.)
Thursday, September 19, 2013
9.18 More brainstorming, truth, and a functional definition of CNF
Notes on in-class brainstorming. We started class with some more practices for looking around in your head for stories you haven't told yet. As made clear in the discussion of Lott later in class, CNF (at least Lott's definition of it), is about serious, reflective interrogation of the self "through the subject at hand". This suggests that you will need to find ways to see things differently (from multiple perspectives), and do some of the scary work of questioning experiences, feelings, and intimations that you might not yet have worked out. So while you might write about a story/experience you have told many times before, for that story to work as CNF, you need to see something new in it, to take your reader with you into that experience in ways that are deeper and more purposeful than in your usual tellings of that story.
So that's what we are going for. To do that kind of creative, opening-up new territory, seeing-things-from-new perspectives brainstorming, it can help if you step into patterns for "thinking" differently. And that was my reasoning for selecting the strategies we've spent time on in class.
Active imagination. The technique I walked you through for spending some time in dream spaces is about giving you a place where you can look around at what is going on in your mind in terms of feelings, thoughts, and ideas that you might not even have words for. You shared some remarkable observations and stories (and I am hoping you wrote even more down). Once you have these experiences on your page - cultivate a generous relationship with them. Be reluctant to name them or say "what they mean" too quickly. They are travelers from a different country and you have a lot to learn from them if you don't try too hard to make them "make sense" in terms of the culture/language you already know. Recognize them as different, ask them questions, ponder what they say and allow that you will probably only get a small part of "what they mean".
Associating to assumptions/beliefs. The second exercise was about connecting to ways of thinking/feeling/being in terms of particular experiences. It can help you unpack or understand where your inner core of beliefs/assumptions come from - and maybe even to rethink them through examining the experiences that created them.
I asked you to think of something that you know now that you didn't know when you were younger. We came up with a list of platitudes (which is typical of the way humans tend to "feel/say" the really big realizations - maybe because there is so much associated with them that an overgeneralization is the only way to "hold" them?) - good platitudes - platitudes that many of us connected to, recognized and felt. What this does is it directs you to a kind of "box of memories/stories/feelings" that have a complex focus. Then you wrote about "moments" or particular experiences that were in that box. If this exercise sets you up to write about a "set pieces" - stories you have told over and over again - dig deeper, cast a wider net, or look at the edges of your set piece - how did it get set up, who were the important people and why? Work on seeing it a different way. This exercise can be focused to associate to lots of different kinds of knowing - what you believe/know about being happy, sad, angry; what you believe about fairness, truth, kindness, integrity, personal autonomy, and so on.
Gutkind and Lott.
As our discussion revealed - how CNF writers relate to truth connects strongly to how they define CNF's purpose - or what it does. The definitions we developed last week were formal definitions = in that they functioned primarily on the ways CNF is built. Lott's definition was a functional definition=focused on what CNF does. He developed a list of purposes beginning with the mundane (to keep our lives from passing away) and working their way toward the profound (to answer for our lives), with descriptions of the processes of asking always deeper questions, stepping outside of our own self-interested perspectives, experimenting & taking risks while searching for a personal truth. This definition suggests that the writer's representations of the truths s/he is searching will necessarily need to be carefully crafted - and that was what Gutkind's piece was about. As I said in class, I clearly chose to discuss the two pieces in the wrong order. Oh well. No one's perfect.
Gutkind offered as set of suggestions for how CNF writers need to relate to truth (354). We got to those pretty quickly - though we weren't 100% in agreement about how to "use" them. We spent the most time on rounding corners & compressing (the writer's relationship to the literal truth); and allowing the cast of characters in your writing opportunities to read (and to have input into?) your writing. For the purposes of this class, I want to ground assignments in Lott's definition, and any writing you do which is true to the purposes he sets forward, will have a careful - integrity based - relationship to truth (in terms of fabrication, rounding corners, and compression). In other words, if you know you are doing it (sometimes we don't) - you need to give your reader a heads up.
In terms of sharing your work with individuals whose stories overlap with your own - from my perspective, that is up to the individual writer. If you have told your story honestly, how you work out issues with others who might be involved belongs to you. While I may be able to comment on whether or not a piece has explored multiple perspectives and interrogated its own "truths" in complex ways, I'm not really in a position to make moral judgments about who owns what story and who has the right to tell it. I will say that, because we are posting writing on blogs, you should not mention illegal activities - your own or others. From my personal perspective, I am a strong advocate for writers to write their own stories, and I have benefited immensely for the generosity of writers who have told "dangerous" stories about experiences I would have otherwise faced alone. At the same time, each of us has to consider our relationships to the people in our lives who will inevitably be in our writing - and consider how we want to balance reaching out to strangers (our readers), and being respectful and caring of the people we live with.
For next week
Read: Schwartz, 194; Pope, 388; Kahn, 95
Pay attention to how the authors use segments in their work. How are the spaces meaningful? What do they affect the reader's experience?
Blog 3: Invention writing for essay 1
By this time, your writing journals (hopefully) have some lists, some descriptions, some scenes, and some writing you aren't sure what it is. Read through what you've written, maybe add some more freewriting, and then do a post where you "muse" over some ideas for your first essay. Musings might mention: the idea or question, or feeling you are interested in writing about; a list of stories/experiences from your life that are relevant to that focus; and maybe some drafty indication of what you might put in each story.
Or - you might explore several subjects/topics in less detail.
In class you will talk about your ideas - and comment on each other's blogs. Once everyone has a feel for how to get started, we will talk about segmented essays and how you might use segments in your essay.
So that's what we are going for. To do that kind of creative, opening-up new territory, seeing-things-from-new perspectives brainstorming, it can help if you step into patterns for "thinking" differently. And that was my reasoning for selecting the strategies we've spent time on in class.
Active imagination. The technique I walked you through for spending some time in dream spaces is about giving you a place where you can look around at what is going on in your mind in terms of feelings, thoughts, and ideas that you might not even have words for. You shared some remarkable observations and stories (and I am hoping you wrote even more down). Once you have these experiences on your page - cultivate a generous relationship with them. Be reluctant to name them or say "what they mean" too quickly. They are travelers from a different country and you have a lot to learn from them if you don't try too hard to make them "make sense" in terms of the culture/language you already know. Recognize them as different, ask them questions, ponder what they say and allow that you will probably only get a small part of "what they mean".
Associating to assumptions/beliefs. The second exercise was about connecting to ways of thinking/feeling/being in terms of particular experiences. It can help you unpack or understand where your inner core of beliefs/assumptions come from - and maybe even to rethink them through examining the experiences that created them.
I asked you to think of something that you know now that you didn't know when you were younger. We came up with a list of platitudes (which is typical of the way humans tend to "feel/say" the really big realizations - maybe because there is so much associated with them that an overgeneralization is the only way to "hold" them?) - good platitudes - platitudes that many of us connected to, recognized and felt. What this does is it directs you to a kind of "box of memories/stories/feelings" that have a complex focus. Then you wrote about "moments" or particular experiences that were in that box. If this exercise sets you up to write about a "set pieces" - stories you have told over and over again - dig deeper, cast a wider net, or look at the edges of your set piece - how did it get set up, who were the important people and why? Work on seeing it a different way. This exercise can be focused to associate to lots of different kinds of knowing - what you believe/know about being happy, sad, angry; what you believe about fairness, truth, kindness, integrity, personal autonomy, and so on.
Gutkind and Lott.
As our discussion revealed - how CNF writers relate to truth connects strongly to how they define CNF's purpose - or what it does. The definitions we developed last week were formal definitions = in that they functioned primarily on the ways CNF is built. Lott's definition was a functional definition=focused on what CNF does. He developed a list of purposes beginning with the mundane (to keep our lives from passing away) and working their way toward the profound (to answer for our lives), with descriptions of the processes of asking always deeper questions, stepping outside of our own self-interested perspectives, experimenting & taking risks while searching for a personal truth. This definition suggests that the writer's representations of the truths s/he is searching will necessarily need to be carefully crafted - and that was what Gutkind's piece was about. As I said in class, I clearly chose to discuss the two pieces in the wrong order. Oh well. No one's perfect.
Gutkind offered as set of suggestions for how CNF writers need to relate to truth (354). We got to those pretty quickly - though we weren't 100% in agreement about how to "use" them. We spent the most time on rounding corners & compressing (the writer's relationship to the literal truth); and allowing the cast of characters in your writing opportunities to read (and to have input into?) your writing. For the purposes of this class, I want to ground assignments in Lott's definition, and any writing you do which is true to the purposes he sets forward, will have a careful - integrity based - relationship to truth (in terms of fabrication, rounding corners, and compression). In other words, if you know you are doing it (sometimes we don't) - you need to give your reader a heads up.
In terms of sharing your work with individuals whose stories overlap with your own - from my perspective, that is up to the individual writer. If you have told your story honestly, how you work out issues with others who might be involved belongs to you. While I may be able to comment on whether or not a piece has explored multiple perspectives and interrogated its own "truths" in complex ways, I'm not really in a position to make moral judgments about who owns what story and who has the right to tell it. I will say that, because we are posting writing on blogs, you should not mention illegal activities - your own or others. From my personal perspective, I am a strong advocate for writers to write their own stories, and I have benefited immensely for the generosity of writers who have told "dangerous" stories about experiences I would have otherwise faced alone. At the same time, each of us has to consider our relationships to the people in our lives who will inevitably be in our writing - and consider how we want to balance reaching out to strangers (our readers), and being respectful and caring of the people we live with.
For next week
Read: Schwartz, 194; Pope, 388; Kahn, 95
Pay attention to how the authors use segments in their work. How are the spaces meaningful? What do they affect the reader's experience?
Blog 3: Invention writing for essay 1
By this time, your writing journals (hopefully) have some lists, some descriptions, some scenes, and some writing you aren't sure what it is. Read through what you've written, maybe add some more freewriting, and then do a post where you "muse" over some ideas for your first essay. Musings might mention: the idea or question, or feeling you are interested in writing about; a list of stories/experiences from your life that are relevant to that focus; and maybe some drafty indication of what you might put in each story.
Or - you might explore several subjects/topics in less detail.
In class you will talk about your ideas - and comment on each other's blogs. Once everyone has a feel for how to get started, we will talk about segmented essays and how you might use segments in your essay.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
9.11 Indirect brainstorming - and definitions of CNF by induction
Indirect brainstorming. We started class with some exploration of what I think of a indirect brainstorming. A lot of brainstorming taught in writing courses is about developing ideas for a specific purpose. Indirect brainstorming is more about spending some time inside your thoughts and feelings and watching what comes up. Time spent in these kinds of processes helps in two ways. It gives you some experience noticing what you are thinking/feeling; and it allows you to recognize and accumulate writing about ideas/feelings/thoughts/stories that are "in" you. Think of it as pro-active brainstorming. It puts you in a position where you might be able to "look up" (in your journal) writing your thoughts on a topic - rather than generating it specifically for an assignment.
Variation on meditation. IOur first exercise was to sit quietly with eyes closed and simply notice what passes through our mind -without judging or trying to control our thoughts in any way. We did this together, for 5 minutes. After sitting, I asked you to write about your experience - what you "saw" and how it felt.
Your reflections on the experience were that it was hard to sit and be quiet, that there was some discomfort in doing this in a group, that disturbances (noises, movements) seemed magnified, that it was hard to sit still - and stay awake. This is all pretty regular. You also noticed that your ideas were more vivid. Some of you had "thoughts" visually - for others it was in language. There was curiosity and worry, and a wish not to think some of the things you were thinking. Thoughts jumped around - followed by association, and feelings were attached to thoughts. This list reflects what many people notice in this kind of experience.
In our discussion of why we might want to spend time sitting and watching what comes up in our minds, we said that if you watch your mind as a habit - you will get better at knowing what is in your mind, and you may even begin to notice patterns. Becoming conscious of consciousness is, in many ways, a necessary writerly accomplishment - since writers need to be aware of how consciousness works in order to represent human behaviors, and in order to be able to write materials that evoke felt resoonses from their readers. Specifically, you pointed out that this approach might help with writers' blog, opening up or inspiring creative work, and giving us more choices about how to go (or not) particular places in our minds.
Sensual association. The second brainstorming activity was to associate to our sensual memories: smells, sounds, touches, sights and tastes. In our talk, smells were particularly evocative. As you read out your lists, sounds of the ocean, the smell of first rain, fall, our mothers, and pierogis, all of us went with you into related bodily experiences. As set up in my introduction to this exercise - memory is deeply associated with the senses. That makes sensory association an important technique for brainstorming - and for writing powerfully evocative prose.
Analysis of features of creative nonfiction.
We started by listing features you noticed in all of the assigned readings. Our list on the board included the following.
colloquialism - local language = sense of coming from a particular place
Great class and see you next week.
For next class:
We will continue work on indirect, associative brainstorming and finish discussion of how to define creative nonfiction.
Variation on meditation. IOur first exercise was to sit quietly with eyes closed and simply notice what passes through our mind -without judging or trying to control our thoughts in any way. We did this together, for 5 minutes. After sitting, I asked you to write about your experience - what you "saw" and how it felt.
Your reflections on the experience were that it was hard to sit and be quiet, that there was some discomfort in doing this in a group, that disturbances (noises, movements) seemed magnified, that it was hard to sit still - and stay awake. This is all pretty regular. You also noticed that your ideas were more vivid. Some of you had "thoughts" visually - for others it was in language. There was curiosity and worry, and a wish not to think some of the things you were thinking. Thoughts jumped around - followed by association, and feelings were attached to thoughts. This list reflects what many people notice in this kind of experience.
In our discussion of why we might want to spend time sitting and watching what comes up in our minds, we said that if you watch your mind as a habit - you will get better at knowing what is in your mind, and you may even begin to notice patterns. Becoming conscious of consciousness is, in many ways, a necessary writerly accomplishment - since writers need to be aware of how consciousness works in order to represent human behaviors, and in order to be able to write materials that evoke felt resoonses from their readers. Specifically, you pointed out that this approach might help with writers' blog, opening up or inspiring creative work, and giving us more choices about how to go (or not) particular places in our minds.
Sensual association. The second brainstorming activity was to associate to our sensual memories: smells, sounds, touches, sights and tastes. In our talk, smells were particularly evocative. As you read out your lists, sounds of the ocean, the smell of first rain, fall, our mothers, and pierogis, all of us went with you into related bodily experiences. As set up in my introduction to this exercise - memory is deeply associated with the senses. That makes sensory association an important technique for brainstorming - and for writing powerfully evocative prose.
Analysis of features of creative nonfiction.
We started by listing features you noticed in all of the assigned readings. Our list on the board included the following.
colloquialism - local language = sense of coming from a particular place
rawness, vulnerability = no holding back "out there
sincere, open
detailed setting + stories
internally observed = reflection
writing techniques - elements of fiction
flashback, figurative language, dialog, metapho = literary
drew from memories
reflection point <=>vivid experience/story embodied idea
--
essay features = reflection/point/
fiction features = embodied, evoked experience, scenes /detailed showing rather than telling,
not chronological
I then talked through your assignment sheet for the long essays (posted to the right).
We finished class with group work to analyze the long essays in terms of: focus, organization, directness, literariness, word choice, and point of view. At the end of group work I asked for one brilliant statement from each group relevant to your analysis, and you came up with the following.
1. CNF makes readers FEEL the story (as opposed to just staying in the words).
2. The writing's organization makes the point: it is critical to the way the reader "gets" what the story is about.
3. Word choices create the character of the narrator (the voice of the "I" who tells the stories).
4. Both writers of these essays used their writing to explore their identities.
AWESOME - and truly brilliant observations about CNF!
Great class and see you next week.
For next class:
We will continue work on indirect, associative brainstorming and finish discussion of how to define creative nonfiction.
Read: Lott &
Gutkind on creative nonfiction (handout in class - copies available in my mailbox)
Blog 2: Use today's class discussion + what you are
reading in Lott + Gutkind to develop your definition of creative nonfiction. What to Lott & Gutkind leave out? How are definitions of creative nonfiction
changing in light of digital publishing?
Thursday, September 5, 2013
9.4 What we did in class
Note on making sure you have access to a book: I have a book in my office that you can make copies from. Also, two students from last Fall contacted me and will sell you their books and have them available for immediate exchange. If you contact me I will put you in touch.
What we did
What a great first class! We started class with the regular introductions, and after that you did some writing to a prompt. Thanks so much for sharing your stories - hearing and reflecting on the group's experiences is one of the most important experiences of this course.
In-class writing + writing journals. Tonight's work writing to a prompt, sharing, and reflecting is pretty much the way we will begin every class for about the first half of the semester - so bring a dedicated journal, or your laptop, or sign into a private space on the computers. This writing journal will allow you to accumulate and write into a treasure trove of possibilities for your writing. In CNF, your experiences, reflections, observations, and questions are the basis for your writing - and you use writing to open up your experiences so you can feel them, understand them, think about them in new ways.
As I said in class - you do not need to share what you write in your journals. The idea is to give you a safe place to explore material that is risky or unconventional. Reading/talking about what you write in your journal is not competitive - it is not about being the best, but about sharing so you can "see" your thoughts/possible writings in a space outside yourself as you work on them and re-shape them.
Definitions of CNF. We spent most of the rest of class grappling with what CNF is. I gave you a start with a list of words I put on the board: it is in first person, it is true, and it uses the craft associated with "fiction" (scene, character, dialog, etc). We then put a list of works on the board that we thought might be CNF. If they are "fiction" => then are not CNF. If they are not presented through the first person narrative of the author, they are not CNF. If they are all "telling" with no "showing" => then are not CNF. As you will see from the readings, CNF has many more subtle features - both "essential" things that it HAS to do to be CNF (like being in the first person), and it also has an array of moves that it "often" makes (such as using a non-chronological presentation of 'what happened') - but not always. The "often" moves are associated with the art of the individual author - and there are many possibilities an more are continuing to evolve, especially in digital compositions.
Blogs. You spent a chunk of the second part of class setting up your blogs. I put up all the links that were sent to the course email. If you don't see your link up there - send me a reminder and I will get on it. So far so good!
Books. MAKE SURE YOU GET THE SIXTH EDITION. (Earlier editions have different readings) If you can't get a book from the book store (if they run out), options include:
Available on Amazon (used from 32.62 = you might spend the savings on expedited delivery).
Ask me for a copy and we can arrange a pick-up; I have reached out to last year's class and am hoping I can rustle up the necessary copies for you.
For next class:
Read: Check out course blog + browse your text and read carefully: Beard, p. 3,"Out There," Marquart, p. 118, "Some things about that day," Lopate, p,107, "Portrait of my body," Ebert,p.258, "I think I'm musing my mind," (then check out a couple entries + comments on his blog http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/
Blog 1: Using the sample essays from your text - identify and discuss what you see as features of creative nonfiction, then make a list. What are the "essential" features? What are the sometimes there and sometimes not features? What are some of the differences between short and long forms?
What we did
What a great first class! We started class with the regular introductions, and after that you did some writing to a prompt. Thanks so much for sharing your stories - hearing and reflecting on the group's experiences is one of the most important experiences of this course.
In-class writing + writing journals. Tonight's work writing to a prompt, sharing, and reflecting is pretty much the way we will begin every class for about the first half of the semester - so bring a dedicated journal, or your laptop, or sign into a private space on the computers. This writing journal will allow you to accumulate and write into a treasure trove of possibilities for your writing. In CNF, your experiences, reflections, observations, and questions are the basis for your writing - and you use writing to open up your experiences so you can feel them, understand them, think about them in new ways.
As I said in class - you do not need to share what you write in your journals. The idea is to give you a safe place to explore material that is risky or unconventional. Reading/talking about what you write in your journal is not competitive - it is not about being the best, but about sharing so you can "see" your thoughts/possible writings in a space outside yourself as you work on them and re-shape them.
Definitions of CNF. We spent most of the rest of class grappling with what CNF is. I gave you a start with a list of words I put on the board: it is in first person, it is true, and it uses the craft associated with "fiction" (scene, character, dialog, etc). We then put a list of works on the board that we thought might be CNF. If they are "fiction" => then are not CNF. If they are not presented through the first person narrative of the author, they are not CNF. If they are all "telling" with no "showing" => then are not CNF. As you will see from the readings, CNF has many more subtle features - both "essential" things that it HAS to do to be CNF (like being in the first person), and it also has an array of moves that it "often" makes (such as using a non-chronological presentation of 'what happened') - but not always. The "often" moves are associated with the art of the individual author - and there are many possibilities an more are continuing to evolve, especially in digital compositions.
Blogs. You spent a chunk of the second part of class setting up your blogs. I put up all the links that were sent to the course email. If you don't see your link up there - send me a reminder and I will get on it. So far so good!
Books. MAKE SURE YOU GET THE SIXTH EDITION. (Earlier editions have different readings) If you can't get a book from the book store (if they run out), options include:
Available on Amazon (used from 32.62 = you might spend the savings on expedited delivery).
Ask me for a copy and we can arrange a pick-up; I have reached out to last year's class and am hoping I can rustle up the necessary copies for you.
For next class:
Read: Check out course blog + browse your text and read carefully: Beard, p. 3,"Out There," Marquart, p. 118, "Some things about that day," Lopate, p,107, "Portrait of my body," Ebert,p.258, "I think I'm musing my mind," (then check out a couple entries + comments on his blog http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/
Blog 1: Using the sample essays from your text - identify and discuss what you see as features of creative nonfiction, then make a list. What are the "essential" features? What are the sometimes there and sometimes not features? What are some of the differences between short and long forms?
And: Bring your writing
journal to class
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
9.4 First day of class
Welcome to ENG 4017/5017: Creative Nonfiction.
As you can see, I have left the posts and the blogs from last term. If you like - you can look through them to get a feel for how the class will go. By the end of class today - the links will be to your blogs, and the posts will be for our class.
As it says on the course syllabus & calendar (posted under course documents to the right), we will use this blog as a hub for course communications. After each class I will post an update of what we did - and the assignment for what to do for the next class. To do well in this class - you will want to check the blog after every class. If it is more than 24 hours after class and I have not yet posted the update - I am hoping one of you will do me the favor of sending me a reminder!
So we will see how this goes. . . .
As you can see, I have left the posts and the blogs from last term. If you like - you can look through them to get a feel for how the class will go. By the end of class today - the links will be to your blogs, and the posts will be for our class.
As it says on the course syllabus & calendar (posted under course documents to the right), we will use this blog as a hub for course communications. After each class I will post an update of what we did - and the assignment for what to do for the next class. To do well in this class - you will want to check the blog after every class. If it is more than 24 hours after class and I have not yet posted the update - I am hoping one of you will do me the favor of sending me a reminder!
So we will see how this goes. . . .
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