Appendix 2

Appendix 2: WRT114 Writing Prompts

 UNIT I: Introduction: What Is Creative Nonfiction? / Flash Nonfiction Writing (4 Weeks)

 Unit 1 Assignments: writing portfolio of flash non-fiction, approximately 10-15 pp.; separate reflective essay (2-3 pp.) Due 10/5/2015.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #1

Why do you write?

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #2

Recall the neighborhood you grew up in, and describe the environment—the houses, buildings, landscape, and people.  Use your five senses to tap into concrete details of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.  Then, try crafting a scene—something that happened—in which you are the main actor in that world.

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #2A

Try re-creating a scene from your childhood or a moment in your past focusing on the sense of hearing. What music playing in the background? Whose voice in on TV? How loud is the sound of traffic? what do the trees sound like in the wind? Are THERE INSECTS, BIRDS, ANIMAL;S? rain, RIVERS, THE LAPPING OF A LAKE? What is the quality of silence?  Try TO PICK OUT AS MANY AMBIENT SOUNDS AS YOU CAN, THEN BEGIN TO AMPLIFY THE ONES YOU THINK HAVE THE MOST METAPHYSICAL IMPORTANCE. what kind of emotional tone do these sounds give to your writing?

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #2B

Take an inventory of the scars or marks on your body. How were they received? How do these external scars relate to any internal ” markings” as well?

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #2C

  1. What do you see when you look in the mirror/ What does your gaze land first? How does this gaze determine your attitude toward yourself and your life? Do you see your younger self beneath the present-date face? Can you determine your future self through this gaze?
  2. Using a photograph of yourself, a relative, or a friend, describe every detail of the scene. Then focus in on one object or detail that seems unexpected to you in some way. How does this detail trigger specific memories? Also imagine what occurred just before and just after this photograph was taken; what is left outside the frame?

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #3

Brainstorm some of the historical and cultural events that have come to define your generation in the way that 9/11 defined the consciousness of the generation before you.  Write about how you’ve witnessed this major event or cultural shift, how it has impacted you, your family, your community, your generation.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #3A

Read the essay, “On the Street” (In Short, 144-145). In her essay, Vivian Gornick says she feels “stricken” after the death of a writer she knew only casually (only through chance encounters “on the street”).  The woman Gornick mourns was not exactly a friend, but an important (though marginal) presence in her life.  Scan your own “landscape of marginal encounters” and write about a person you know who interests you greatly or is very important to you, but who nonetheless exists only as a peripheral presence in your life.  Focus on what you don’t understand about this person.  What mystery do they hold in your eyes?

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #3B

Alec Wilkinson’s essay “Call Guy” (In Short, 146-148) grows out of an overheard telephone conversation that also proved a bit scandalous and would have certainly embarrassed the woman in Apt. 7C had she known he was listening.  Try capturing a short bit of an overheard conversation, and write down (as precisely as possible) actual fragments of the dialogue exchanged.  Then use analysis and detective work to define the relationship between the speakers and the context, tone, and subject of their conversation.  What was at stake in this conversation?  In what ways does their conversation speak to some larger cultural truth?  Use your imagination to speculate on parts of the conversation you may not have been privy to.  Consider the ethics of representing this conversation, and make decisions in your writing that allow you to represent it in the most ethical way possible.

 

Writing Prompt:  Unit 1 #4

In the essay “We Are Distracted” by Michael Shay( In Short pp. 288), he portrays his “ADD” son Kevin through scene construction (rock climbing), setting( outdoor vs indoor), characterization, and dialogue. Write a character sketch of someone you know who impresses you as eccentric, weird, interesting, intense, or simply memorable—perhaps someone very close to you, someone you feel conflicted about, or someone who stands out as a unique individual.  Describe the person’s physical appearance, posture, facial expressions, hand gestures, way of moving or walking, nervous ticks, and significant behaviors or activities.  Think about this person’s general disposition, moods, and manner of speech (both the tenor of voice and the particular words and expressions this person would use).  Try to call up a few specific interactions with this person, and see if you can use your character description as a way into a scene.

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #4A

After reading the ” Museum Piece” by David Huddle, you will visit a museum site online and find a painting or sculpture or several paintings by the same artist that you are attracted to for some reason.  Look closely: what about the painting that stands out to you?  Who is there? What is the person doing? Is there a scene or event happening? What is the mood? Does the person have an  attitude? If the person would speak,  what would s/he say to you? What make you think so?

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #4B

n the ” Three Voices” by Bhanu Kapil, the author uses  food and common items in daily life to help portray her mood, such as ” drinking hoji-cha, eating toast with black cherry jam ” to show her peaceful inner mind. She also uses fragments such as ” beneath the pleasure, the hunger that’s made of eggshells” to express how fragile her state of mind is. She also uses Roman numerals I, II &III to separate her three different selves with three different inner voices.  Write about yourself or someone you are familiar with in three different moods or states of mind. How does the person act when s/he is in each of the three moods? What does s/he say? What body language does s/he use to convey the mood? How does she interact with others around her/him? You can also imagine a day in your life that was eventful and ultimately put you through various mood swings. You may have awakened in a good mood and ended with an devastating one. How did it all happen? Try to find items that represent your mood. Use fragments to represent your frantic or angry mood. Use free associations to show how your mind flies a thousand miles a minute when you are frantic or mad or confused or lonely. Try to capture some of those fleeting thoughts.  The three parts can be about whatever you want to write about but to connect them, you will need a common object or imagery as the thread to tie the three parts together. Like the orange in the “Three Voices” piece.

Write a paragraph describing a place you remember from your childhood that   holds great meaning for you even now—whether joy, pain, or some other quality.  Don’t explain the meaning of this place, but try to reveal it through detailed description. Use present tense. How does using present tense change your way of remembering and describing the experience?

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #5A

Go through a piece of writing and find a passage of summary that could rot maybe even should be in scene. Don’t fret whether the scene is necessary here: the point is to develop that skill of automatically asking yourself whether that option will help you.

Sometimes we limit ourselves by imagining we must remember everything or we can;t describe anything. SO work with what you remember. You may forget the look of a room but remembr the sound or smell of it. Or create a bridge, such as writing a few sentences abut how this is what a dialogue sounds like in your memory as you try to re-create it, giving yourself permission to fill in what you don’t remember word for word. Remember that almost any device for reconstruction is fine as long as you let the readers in on what you are doing.

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #5B

To get a feel for writing scene, re-create an event that took place in the last week-one with characters you can delineate and dialogue you can remember. It doesn’t have to be important-it probably will help if it isn’t. The point is simply to write two or three pages in which a location is established through description, people are characterized and talk, and something happens.

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 # 6

As an individual, it’s only natural we find ourselves in discord with some our friends’ views on certain issues. Describe an incident or reoccurring issue that has bothered you because you don’t seem to go with the “flow”. Describe in details the incident or issue. What caused the discomfort? Discord? Who else were involved? What was their reaction? What did you learn from this experience? Use the language and depiction that are singularly yours to reveal the dilemma we all encounter.

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 # 6A

Write a portrait or character sketch. Think of someone close to you and try to convey their essence, through clothing, sound, dialogue, gestures, and so forth, in two or three paragraphs. This portrait does not ‘need to have action, merely characterization.

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 # 6B

Write a page or two of dialogue. Practice for this by using your notebook to record snippets of speech verbatim: exchange with classmates, friends and parents or teachers or coaches. How much slang appears in different speakers’ voice? When you are ready, write a page or two of typical dialogue with with someone fairly close to you. How much of  person you’re describing comes through in his/her voice.

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 # 6C

Pick out a piece you have written before. Then change the point of view from first to 3rd person to second person. It may sound awkward. Push through, and open yourself up to moments when the point of view works, when you feel interesting possibilities arise.

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 # 6D

Take a piece of writing you have done. Reread it and see: how long do your sentences tend to be? Do you vary voices or speech acts such as questioning, stating, and commanding, do you simply use declarative of simple voice? Challenge yourself to approach a piece of prose in a way you haven’t in the past- more short sentences or sentence fragments, or shifts in voice. See how this may change your work and opens up more possibilities.

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #7

Write about your earliest memory of being “yourself.”  Stay in the 1st person point of view.  Imagine yourself back in your small body, and feel what it was like to be that little person.  Go back to that moment in time, and try to recreate it in the form of a scene.  Use your five senses to tap into concrete details of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.  Try to remember what you were doing in that moment and describe your actions.

 

Writing Prompt:  Unit 1 #8

As a class, we will come to an agreement to write about an event with which we are all familiar. Write about the truth that you know about the event. You may consider describing the “river teeth” of the event or what Virginia Woolf calls “shocks of memory” or Karen Blixen ‘s “I will answer” or Bret Lott’s “ my truth”.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #9

Read Aleida Rodriguez’s essay, “My Mother in Two Photographs, Among Other Things” (In Short, 138-141).  Then, choose your own photograph—or, perhaps two or three photos that are loosely related in your mind.  Describe the person/people in the photo(s), including what they look like, what they’re doing, who they’re with, and the setting or context for the photo.  How well does this photograph represent the individual(s) it depicts, and what makes you say so?  What’s the occasion for this photo?  What meaning does it hold for you now?  What’s happening just before or after the photo is taken?  What’s happening outside the frame?  What information doesn’t the photograph supply that you think is crucial to completing this description or character sketch?  Who is missing from the photo and why?

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #9A

Think back to the way your family dealt with one of these subjects: money, sex, race, or religion.  What were their attitudes, and how did they strike you?  Where do you think these attitudes came from?  How did they teach you, or try to teach you, to share their sensibilities or abide by their rules?  What did they say, or communicate silently?  Write a scene in which you recall a family encounter around one of these issues.  As you write, pay special attention to describing the setting (time and place) and characterizing the members of your family in question.  Recall distinctive mannerisms, ways of speaking, lines of dialogue, actions, reactions, facial expressions, moments of conflict or shock, etc.

Writing Prompts: Unit 1 #10A

Write about a family ritual ( such as a family dinner described in Charles Simic, “Dinner at Uncle Borris’s,” 85-91).It could be something as simple as sitting down to a meal, going to church, going camping, or cleaning the house. Or it could be a ritual you suspect most families do not practice but that is/was unique to your family. In either case, describe your family’s special way of engaging in this ritual.  Step through the motions of the ritual in your mind.  Consider each person’s individual task, and their special way of completing that task.  What’s the history or basis for this ritual?  What do you like about it / hate about it?  What does it mean to others in your family?

Writing Prompts: Unit 1 #10B

Write about a food you loved growing up that’s particular to your family or your heritage. Who made it, or where did you get it?   Describe what it was like to make this food, to watch someone else make it, or to go to the place where you’d eat it.  Describe the experience of anticipating this food and eating it.  What ceremonies or rituals were attached to it?  How did it smell before you ate it?  Who else would be there with you when you’d have this food?  Would it be something you’d make/get in order to give away or in order to eat yourself?  As you recall all this, pay attention to the dialogue of your memory.   Is there anything coming to mind that has nothing to do with the food itself?

Writing Prompts: Unit 1 #10 C

Describe every member of your family in terms of a part of the body. For instance, describe the hands of your mother, father, siblings, grandparents, and your self. How are they alike? How are they different? Push the exercise further by going for the smallest images. Look at finger prints, moles, toenails, or finger nails or moth. If necessary, imagine the details. For instance, imagine your grandmother’s hand before she was a grandmother. Which traits emerge in your own physical make up? Which one do you hate? Which one do you love? How do you imagine you will looks 20 years form now?

Writing Prompts: Unit 1 #10 D

Begin an essay by imagining the life of someone close to you-a family member, friend, mentor before you knew them. Use your own imagination coupled with your experience of this person.  Use any clue that may exist: objects from the past, documents, photos, etc.  to form a portrait of this person before you were in the picture. Then complete the essay buy contrasting this portrait wt the person you know today. How are they different or similar?

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #11

Examine the beginning of “Three Spheres “ by Lauren Slater, In Fact 3-21 , “Mix-Blood Stew” by Jewell Parker Rhodes and “LZ Gator, Vietnam, Feb. 1994” by Tim O’Brien In Short 60-61. How effective ids each beginning? Why? In what way does the beginning suggest deeper layers that are yet to be revealed? Use ideas from our discussion to revise the beginning of your selected essay.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #11A

Create a story board based on one of the essays- “Three Spheres “ by Lauren Slater, In Fact 3-21 or “ Mix-Blood Stew” by Jewell Parker Rhodes 382-394. Place a one-sentence summary of each important scenes in a box. Then describe how the author moves from scene to scene (horizontal movement). Once you have understood how the author moves horizontally through scenes, observe in between the scenes: How does the author use self as a “historical actor” or reveal his/her inner voice? How does s/he frame the narrative in a way that it logically delineates to deeper reflections or goes inward (making pack with the reader or vertical movement)?

Writing Prompt: Unit 1 #12

How can we complicate an essay by moving a narrative both horizontally and vertically?

  1. How can we use the other writers as mentors to help shape your own writing?
  2. Identify traits and examples in Slater and Rhodes’ essays to help shape your writing.

We will use this activity to revise one of the pieces you have done. You will incorporate distinctive craft to develop the narrative movements both horizontally and vertically. You will need to tell the story as well as making a “pack with your reader”.

  • Read the two essays- “Three Spheres “ by Lauren Slater, and “ Mix-Blood Stew” by Jewell Parker Rhodes, and analyze how each writer develops both horizontal and vertical movements at the same time. Identify the specific craft each author uses to make his/her moves. Pick one of the essays you enjoy the most and illustrate the author’s moves by identifying key scenes and moments when the author “packs with the reader”.
  • First, create a storyboard and place a one-sentence summary of essential scenes in each box. Then describe how the author moves from scene to scene (craft).
  • Once you have understood how the author moves horizontally through scenes, observe in between the scenes: How does the author use self as a “historical actor” or reveal his/her inner voice? How does s/he frame the narrative in a way that it logically delineates to deeper reflections or goes inward (making pack with the reader)?
  • Select strategies that are appropriate for your essay development and incorporate them in your revision.
  • Save the 1st draft, at least one revised version and the final work. Write a reflection on how you have come to the final draft of the piece. You may reflect on how you decided to frame your narrative, add tonal range or lyricism to your piece, etc.

 

UNIT II: Personal Essay / Lyric Essay (4 Weeks)

Writing Prompt:  Unit 2 #1

Write a 1-p. description of your “burning question.”  Your burning question should take root in some aspect of your existence that you need to explore in writing.  You do not have to frame your concerns entirely in the form of a question, but try to work your way into a question or questions that represent things you want to further explore.  It may be that you already know what story you want to tell, but the story is bigger than just one moment in time, and your exploration will involve connecting the pieces around a certain topic.  In confronting this question, consider the ways in which you feel a little unsettled inside, conflicted, uncertain, or where things feel unresolved for you.

 

Writing Prompts: Unit 2 #2

Call up some “key facts” or things you know about your burning question.  Make a list. Tap into one of the “key facts” you listed and develop a scene or narrative paragraph that links to or expands on this fact. Using researching to develop your scene.

Or

Write a story or scene based on something that led you to your burning question—a moment or incident, or something that happened to you, or something you observed or experienced directly or indirectly.  Maybe you have many such moments, and just need to make a list. Or maybe there is one dramatic moment that led you to your question, or relates to your question.

Writing Prompts: Unit 2 #2A

Write a description of a place that relates to or grounds your thinking about your burning question, or that you connect to your question in some way.  This could be a place where something specific happened relating to your question, or this could be a place that is central to your question.  Think about the question of landscape as broadly as possible—not just as nature, but as place and environs.  Incorporate as much concrete observable detail into your description as possible.  Use your five senses to access these details. DO research and find some historical context as the backdrop of your narrative whether there was a direct or indirect connection.

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #3

Reread all the writing you did during Unit 1 and see if any of this writing seems to be connected to the writing you’re doing on your burning question.  Choose one piece of writing from Unit 1, and try establishing some points of connection to your burning question by adding an additional character or dialogue.

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #3A

According to Phillip Lopate, “It’s having made the wrong choice, curiously enough, that we are made all the more aware of our freedom and potential for humanity.” Recall a time when, in retrospect, you made a wrong choice. What was the circumstance that led to the choice? Who was hurt by your decision? Think about the consequences of your actions, whether they were prompted externally or self-imposed. What did you realize about your character as result of this choice?

 

Unit 2 #4 Writing Prompt based on the following essays:

  • “ On the Necessity of Turning Oneself into a Character” by P. Lopate,
  • “A Walk Through the Jewish Divorce Ceremony by Judyth Har-Even, and
  • “Growing Up Game “ by Brenda Peterson

Think of yourself in the 3rd person–seeing yourself move through the world as a protagonist.

  • First, make a list of your quirks ( “mine your quirks”) -idiosyncrasies, stubborn tics, antisocial mannerism, and so on that set you apart from the majority of your fellowmen( learning to drive at a much later time in life; growing up game). Quirks can also be those small differences that make us feel self- conscious when standing among a crowd. Then focus on one particular “quirk” and describe it in details using all the five senses if necessary.
  • Now dramatize the protagonist. Situation yourself in a setting or a social situation. Describe it. Put yourself in an action scene(s), engage in a dialogue and see how your quirky characteristic gets played out (revealed) layer by layer (typically characteristic gestures, the ways the character speaks, i.e. “ I imagined his fingers twirl them with his blunt carpenter’s fingers”
  • All good drama needs tension. What is the tension (conflict)- physical, psychological, emotional? What seems to create the tension? Does it involve other characters? How? Portray other characters’ “quirkiness “through thoughts, direct speech and action. Let the readers feel the tension through characters’ action and words.
  • Finally, draw connections between the physical event and philosophical reflection, which may serve to help the readers question themselves or the world they live in.

 

Writing Prompt Unit 2 #4A

Use the Stephan Corey’s essay as an inspiration and write about a song or your favorite singer whose song inspired you or connected you to your “ burning question”.  Write down the lyrics, or at least those you remember, and then take a few minutes to jump off of that into a freewrite.  With whom do you associate this song/rhyme?  Is there a particular occasion, place, or time of day you connect with it?  When you think of this song/rhyme, what feelings and/or memories do you associate with it? 4) Bring a paragraph or two to the class for a read-aloud tomorrow.

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #5

Write about something you have decided you will never write about—or you were told never to “tell”—without saying exactly what that is.  Try, of course, to do this in the context of your conversation with your burning question.  Have others instructed, urged, or pressured you not to talk about certain issues?  Not to talk or write in certain ways or in certain kinds of language?  Or perhaps actually forbade you to “talk”? You might do this exercise by writing a dialog that imagines someone’s response to your “telling.”  For example, “If I told about X, so-and-so would ______.”  Or by writing an anecdote that tells a story of an imagined consequence of your “telling.”  Or you could free-write a list of reasons you haven’t told—with concrete, narrative or descriptive details for each reason—if for any reason you do not want to “tell.”  (Note: You do not have to include the writing you do here in your essay—this is just an exercise.)

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #6

In “Three Spheres”, “Mixed-Blood Stew” and “Shunned”, and “A Match to the Heart,” how does each author frame the narrative? Which is a prose poem (flash nonfiction), collage or the braided essay? What distinctive characteristics do we see in each form? How could the form of a braided essay serve your needs to connect your various, seemingly disconnected pieces?

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #7

                Select three moments or scenes from your writing. Develop each scene. Juxtapose them as montage or collage. Separate them by an *.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #8

Choose an event from the past for which you have a collection of photos and write a narrative using the photos to help you create the scene. Use the following research techniques to expand your writing-

  • Reliving the past through photos
  • Doing fact-checking by sifting through notebooks and scrapbooks
  • Old-fashioned research about a particular time and place
  • Research into your own past ( what books you used to read, music you used to listen, a store you used to visit, friend you used to hang out with, )
  • History
  • Time travel ( revisit the place)

As Joan Didion describes, “We write to discover about what we think”. Or as Michael Pearson claims, “Through research, you may be able to reenter the past, relive it in your imagination and re-create it for the future”

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #9

Now that you have written several pieces. Find a form that you may like to adopt to “host” all the contents (Hermit Crab style).You may also consider emulating one of the lyric essays we have read to connect the fragments together. Or you may use subtitles or simply * to separate the fragments. You may even use lines of a song or poem or a group of related photographs, or different people on the same photograph or a collection of artifacts that remind you of the past to connect your fragments.

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #9A

Read Eula Biss, “The Pain Scale” ( at least 4 fragments). How does the author connect her fragments? What gaps do you notice between the fragmentation, which emphasizes the unknown? How does the space or gap serve a particular purpose? Is there a strand or central image or thread that you follow to write your narrative? It goes among things or events that change but it doesn’t change?  Or perhaps there are several strands that are intersecting each other but you can create a pattern so that the separate strands give a sense of wholeness?     

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 # 10

Is there a strand or central image or thread that you follow to write your narrative? It goes among things or events that change but it doesn’t change?  Or perhaps there are several strands that are intersecting each other but you can create a pattern so that the separate strands give a sense of wholeness?

                                                I’m considering to braid or piece the fragments in _________________ but I may also consider leaving some spaces blank because________________.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #11

Select 3-5 short pieces/fragments of writing you’ve done since the beginning of Unit 2 that you feel are central to your burning question, and collage them together.

 

Writing Prompt Unit 2 #12:

Collaging Exercise: Print out everything you’ve written so far for this class—including the writing you produced during Unit 1 and during Unit 2, single sided and double-spaced.

  • Then, using a scissors, cut out the parts that you think comprise your sharpest, most important writing—the parts that contribute to telling/showing your story, and the parts that provide important reflective moments. Some of these pieces may follow very different tracks and may seem not to belong in an essay with other pieces.  Don’t censor too much—just go with your instinct that these fragments belong (or might belong) in the same essay.
  • Next, begin selecting and arranging some of these fragments according to how they seem to be “talking” to each other.
  • Experiment with revision by putting together several of these separately created pieces that feel related. You may combine the pieces in a variety of ways. Use Lee Gutkind’s essay entitled “Montage” to help you conceive of possible relationships between sections.  Other ways of transitioning from one narrative moment to the next are:
    • alternating portions of two or more pieces of writing
    • putting one complete narrative “inside” another to create a “story-within-a-story” (the movement here will be a digression and return—perhaps a flashback or a move to interject context)
    • linking seemingly dissimilar pieces together to form a “chain”—with a word or image at the end of one piece turning up at the beginning of the next
    • using a “container” of some sort to structure the presentation (see TIS ch. 10, “Hermit Crab” essay)

These are just a few ideas. The point is to develop in some way the related meaning of the pieces.  Once you know how you want the pieces to be arranged—how the presentation seems logical to you—then you can work to build transitions between sections to communicate your logic to the reader.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #13

Go back to a previous short fragment you’ve written, and work to develop it by adding characters, characterization, dialogue, description, backstory, or reflection. Make moves both horizontally and vertically. Does the person or yourself you are writing about remind you of a story you read in a book or history or media? Is there a historical character who inspires you and serves as an aspiration in your life? Does the relationship you are describing parallel with a famous story portrayed in a film or real life? How does the knowledge or connection shed light on the universality of your story?

 

Workshop: Revision: point of view and verb tense

On the surface, the writer’s choices of point of view (first, second, or third person) and verb tense (past, present, or future) may seem intuitive, uncomplicated, and even inconsequential.  However, when we examine the impact these choices have on the essay, we find that point of view and verb tense can be powerful rhetorical tools used to position both the writer and reader in relationship to the subject.  For example, whereas first person point of view is used to establish the writer’s intimacy with and involvement in the events being narrated, third person point of view is the voice of witness and objectivity.  Second person point of view must be understood in context.  Is the writer really speaking to the reader?  Or is there some other imaginary “you” that is the target of the writer’s address?  How, then, is the reader positioned?  The writer’s choices of point of view and verb tense go a long way in shaping the reader’s experience of the essay, so it’s important to think about what’s at stake in making these choices.

Read the following excerpts and analyze the writer’s use of point of view and verb tense, as well as any other features of the writing that contribute to shaping the reader’s experience of the piece.

  • Hank’s teeth were inextricably tangled with long strings of bright green spinach. They sat there damp and alive, staining the linen cloth, while he went on eating.  I began whimpering—what a fool of a child I must have been—and there was a scene.  I wish I could remember how it came out.  I wish I knew if Uncle Hank was drunk that late afternoon; I wish he was here now. (From “Interlude,” by William Kittredge)
  • “I can take almost anything at this point. For instance, that my vanished husband is neither here nor there; he’s reduced himself to a troubled voice on the telephone three or four times a day.

Or that the dog at the bottom of the stairs keeps having mild strokes which cause her to tilt her head inquisitively and also to fall over. She drinks prodigious amounts of water and pees great volumes onto the folded blankets where she sleeps.  Each time this happens, I stand her up, dry her off, put fresh blankets underneath her, carry the peed-on blankets down to the basement, stuff them into the washer and then into the dryer.  By the time I bring them back upstairs they are needed again.” (From “The Fourth State of Matter,” by Jo Ann Beard)

  • “Out through the school gate, farmers from the countryside hunch behind wicker baskets of potatoes, green beans, onions. A woman in a frayed black coat tilts back her head and sucks on an egg as if it held fine whisky. A tailor cuts patterns on a card table under a tree, and a bald man who looks about a thousand years old smokes a metal pipe. They all stop what they’re doing to watch the dark-bearded foreigner clump by. I draw stares every minute of the day, and not always friendly ones. I smile at the bald man, who is squinting hard at me through his pipe smoke. He makes a fist, sticks up his thumb, and laughs.” (From “Running Xian,” by John Calderazzo)
  • “My mother heard a man plead for his life once. She remembers the stars, the dark shapes of trees along the road on which they were fleeing the Austrian army in a slow-moving-ox-cart. ‘That man sounded terribly frightened out there in the woods,’ she says. The cart went on. No one said anything. Soon they could hear the river they were supposed to cross.” (From “Three Fragments,” by Charles Simic)
  • “You feel a gradual welling up of pleasure, or boredom, or melancholy. Whatever the emotion, it’s more abundant than you ever dreamed. You can no more contain it than your hands can cup a lake. And so you surrender and suck the air. Your esophagus opens, diaphragm expands. Poised at the crest of an exhalation, your body is about to be unburdened, second by second, cell by cell. A kettle hisses. A balloon deflates.  Your shoulders fall like two ripe pears, slack at last.” (From “The Fine Art of Sighing,” by Bernard Cooper)

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #13 Now that you’ve thought about how point of view and verb tense shape these pieces of writing, select one of your own flash nonfiction pieces, and recast either a portion of the piece or the entire piece in another point of view.  You may or may not wish to alter your verb tense, but it’s important that you make deliberate and controlled grammatical decisions in this regard.

Writing Prompt: Unit 2 #14 Read through all the writing you’ve done so far and look for “gaps” where you see you need to know more or include more information. How would you get that information? Talk to a living, breathing person?  Go to Google?  Go to a book you know or have? Use something you’ve already written, before you began this class? Do a memory recall exercise?  Choose one smaller piece of writing that has a “gap” and revise by adding material drawn from the appropriate “research.”  Label your revision exercise to show which original writing exercise you were drawing from.

 

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UNIT III: Writing About Culture (4 Weeks)

Unit 3 Assignments: sustained essay (6-8 pp.) that engages with an aspect of culture that you are either part of or witness to; separate reflective essay (2 pp.) Essay due 11/30/2015.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 3 #1

Write about a place that stood clearly in your memory and to which you still feel connected to. Describe the place in details using as many sensory details as possible. Why is the place sharp in your memory? Who are in it? What event comes to your mind when you see this place again in your mind? What kind of feelings are associated with it? Why? Is there particular detail about the place that you feel has a lingering effect on you today?

Writing Prompt: Unit 3 #2

Frame the place you have been writing about or a new place in a scene. Describe the place as the main character. In that particular setting, what does it look like? What season, time of the day, weather, its geological features, any existence of animals? What makes the place unique at that moment? Now, look closer. Is there any cultural element to the place, which makes it more distinctive? What is it, a visual, a sound, a sight such as cemetery, monument, flag pole, a statue, etc.? What is the significance of the additional elements to the place? Why do you remember them (it)? How does it make you feel, connected, revoked, inspired or embarrassed, etc.?

Writing Prompt: Unit 3 #3

Choose a particular thought of writing about a place from our discussion as your writing prompt and start from there. In addition to the feelings associated with the place, is there particular culture in the place that struck a chord with you? Describe it.

Writing Prompt: Unit 3 #4

Many of us find our sense of “desh” blends real and distant-maybe unseen- places. Is your family one of the many in this country that embodies a divided sense of home? What does home man to you, your siblings, your parents? Some may say “home” is where there’s a room for me to unpack my things’. Think about whether there is a single place- a physical location- your family defines as “ home,” or what you do to as you move around to bring the sense of home with you. Consider writing an essay in which you unpack the complex layers of meaning in the word home, with specific references to all the possibilities (Tell It Slant 36).

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 3 #5

Is there any particular trait of an external landscape that has somehow shaped your “internal landscape”- your views, character, and identity? Describe the particulars about the external landscape that have had profound impact on making you on you are today. The external landscape can be from your childhood where you grew up or the urban landscape you live in right now. What is one part of you that you feel is imprinted by your environment such as your neighborhood? Avoid writing the most obvious or cliché (tough personality shaped by rough neighborhood, etc.) . Delve into the physical specifics of the place and why they have shaped your identity. Think of Michael Dorris’ “Three Yards”, Richman’s “Why I Ride” and Gretel Ehrlich’s “From the Solace of Open Spaces”. To go even further, write about a particular culture that is embedded in certain physical traits of the environment you live in. How is the place unique in its own way although it is part of broad urban landscape? Why is it special to you? Continue to draw connections between what Barry Lopez’ describes as “the shapes and climate of these relationships in a person’s thinking” and “where on the earth one goes, what one touches, the patterns one observes in nature- the intricate history of one’s life in the land, even a life in the city where wind, the chirp of birds, the line of falling leaf, are known”.

Writing Prompt: Unit 3 #6

Reframe the place you have been writing about or seek a new place in your memory. Is there a particular cultural or historical context about the place? Do some research and dig it out. How does the cultural or historical context shape who you are or the people who live within? Is there a particular language people use, a health issue people share, ritual or belief they follow, certain attitude, the way they demarcate the place, a shared identity? Do you fit in the culture of the place? Is there a tension among different people who live in the same place? What cause the tension? Where is it going? How do the culture, tension, and changes affect you? Do you want to stay or leave? Do you have conflicted feelings? Why?

Workshopping: Share your feedback with the writers in your group (Refer to the heuristics about “Strategies for Productive Workshopping” and “Craft Questions”). You may also consider the following at this point-

  • Is there a distinctive theme emerging in your essay (themes as borders, relocation, immigration, resettlement, exile, homelessness, diaspora, pilgrimage, refuge, sanctuary, travel, the environment, urban spaces, suburban and rural landscapes, farming, gardening, architecture, and the emotions and relationships that accompany these many links to place and displacement)?
  • Did you explore conflict over a given space between individuals and communities?
  • Are there any individual and group encounters that give meaning to certain spaces?
  • In your essay, have you started addressed any of the following questions?
    • What is culture? How is it linked to place?
    • What’s the role of places in shaping culture?
    • How do the rules and rituals associated with a place shape the behaviors, beliefs, and bonds of the people who inhabit it?
    • How does the history of a place leave its mark on the present?
    • What’s the role of culture in leading to certain acts of place-making: i.e., the construction, architecture, interior design, arrangement, and decoration of the place?
    • How do our identities and social positions determine our experiences of particular places?
    • How much control do we have over our participation in and experience of culture and place?
    • To what extent do we construct culture, and to what extent does it construct us?

Writing Prompt: Unit 3 #7

 Even if we don’t travel abroad, we still experience “foreign” culture in our own neighborhood. What makes the culture foreign to you? How does it affect you? Does it conflict with your own culture? How? How has the “foreign” culture played out in shaping the identity of the place (neighborhood) and you as an individual?

Writing Prompt: Unit 3 #8 Identify places in your writing where you need to add more information. Consider what kind of information you will need and why you will need it. How would you make the information a seamless part of your essay?

For this essay, consider more seriously how research might enhance the interest of your essay.  What kinds of non-traditional research might work well in grounding an essay on culture and place?  Your research may take the form of travel, observation, interviews, online research, archival research, or any other kind of research suited to the project you establish for yourself.  You do not necessarily need to do extensive “book” research, but you may find printed sources useful as a supplement.  There is no formula for how much research you need to do in order to write a successful essay, or how much time you need to spend as a researcher, but you should know that research is important to this project.  You will have to figure out what’s “doable” for you, what’s relevant and important, and what kind of research will strengthen your essay.

 

Unit 4: Literary Journalism

Assignments: literary journalism piece (6-8 pp.) Due 1/7/2016; separate reflective essay (2 pp.) Due 1/8/2016

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #1

Go to a neighborhood that is new to you. Describe it. Watch the people. Say what they look like and how they interact with one another. Remain anonymous. Make general observations based on what you see and hear ( e.g. if people on this block tend to be especially loud and shrill, why? Can you come up with a theory? Bring the story to you. Make it yours.

        Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #2

If you were to write a biography of a person, who would that be? Why? Brainstorm a list of three individuals, historical, local, familiar, or known public figures about whom you have great interests in telling a story. Describe the reasons why you would like to write about the person and why your report of the person may be of interests to other readers. Is there any particular social issue involved? What might it be?

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #3

 Think of a story that has already been written as news and write it from your own perspectives. Make sure it’s a story you are drawn to that, for you, poses unanswered questions, such as, How could this have happened? Talk to people, read articles, stories, or books that have already been written. Try to think of something that happened in a place you can actually visit.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #4

Based on the information you have collected about one of the characters, write a character sketch of the subject. Or you can select a person with whom you are very familiar and write a character sketch of the person using one of the techniques-

 

  1. As in Tobias Wolff’s “Last Shot,”( In Short 57-59, write about a person who is no longer alive but memories still hold dear to you. Mix the memories with your own imagination about the person.
  2. As in Kelly Cherry’ “A Note About Allen Tate,” (In Short 172-174), create a sketch of a teacher whose quirky behavior endures certain significance to you.
  3. In Ian Frazier’ “Crazy Horse,” (In Short 237-238), the author creates a sketch of a legendary character through research. Create a sketch based on a legendary character who mystifies you or whom you admire.

Here is an example of a character sketch-

“Painless”: Opening Paragraph

The girl who feels no pain was in the kitchen, stirring ramen noodles, when the spoon slipped from her hand and dropped into the pot of boiling water. It was a school night; the TV was on in the living room, and her mother was folding clothes on the couch. Without thinking, Ashlyn Blocker reached her right hand in to retrieve the spoon, then took her hand out of the water and stood looking at it under the oven light. She walked a few steps to the sink and ran cold water over all her faded white scars, then called to her mother, “I just put my fingers in!” Her mother, Tara Blocker, dropped the clothes and rushed to her daughter’s side. “Oh, my lord!” she said — after 13 years, that same old fear — and then she got some ice and gently pressed it against her daughter’s hand, relieved that the burn wasn’t worse.  (Excerpted from “The Hazards of Growing Up Painlessly” by Justin Heckert, originally published in the New York Times November 15, 2012)

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #5

According to Jacqui Banaszynski,  “A paragraph profile transforms a fairly flat story into one with real characters. That helps your readers move through the story, because names are no longer merely names. The paragraph profile reveals something about a person’s character that is germane to the broader story.” Select a character from your report – it could be the subject or a minor character and write a paragraph profile to reveal his or her character that is relevant or essential to the broader story.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #6

According to Jacqui Banaszynski , “the key to the niche profile is figuring out exactly Why a person is in the news and building on that.” In your narrative, select a subject and write a niche profile of him or her. You may start by describing an event or action that is startling to you about the subject in details (specifics) and spread out why and how by providing more background information of the event or the subject, more physical descriptions of the character, his/her emotional and physical experiences, your underlining questions that need to be answered through the subject’s experiences, some preliminary dialogues, etc. Try to reveal the “spirit of the place or character” though events.

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #7

Go over your profile writing and determine what background information you will need to find through research so you can frame your narrative. You may also need certain contexts for the events you are describing. Find enough preliminary information about the subject through research so you can prepare interview questions that will help you dig deeper. Prepare a set of questions you will use to interview the subject. Bear in mind Wilkerson’s suggestions about interviews, “Define a natural relationship between you and the source; Ask many questions and be a great audience (nod, look straight into their eyes, laugh at their jokes etc.); Consider interviews as guided conversations- make the interaction as enjoyable as possible; Interview is like pealing an onion- we need to make sure we don’t give up before the 7th phase.”

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #8

Examine how Ariel Levy, in her essay “Either/Or: Sports, Sex, and the Case of Caster Semenya”, takes a central idea, “pursues it and turns it into a story tells something about the way we live today”. How does Levy control her story and has it worked? Why? Write a paragraph or two to describe a central idea you have had. In your writing, explain how the story you are reporting and writing is connected to the idea. If you don’t see the connection, what steps do you need to take ( more reporting of relevant event, action or the character, more interviews, more research ) so you can turn the idea into a story that represents the way we live or human conditions.

               

                Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #9

Examine the beginning paragraphs of a story written by Deneen Brown-

                Jessica Bradford knows five people who have been killed. It could happen to her, she says, so she has told her family that if she should get shot before her six-grade prom, she wants to be buried in her prom dress.

                Jessica is 11 years old. She has known since she was in fifth grade what she wanted to wear at her funeral, “I think my prom dress is going to be the prettiest dress of all,” Jessica said. “When I die, I want to be dressy for my family.”

                In the last five years, 224 children younger than 18 have been killed in the District of Columbia either as targets of shooting or as bystanders. The carnage has been taken in by children who live close to the gunfire, such as Jessica, and by some children revolved from it.

                As they’ve mastered Nintendo, double Dutch and long division, some children have sized up their surroundings and conclude that death is close at hand. SO, LIKE Jessica, they have begun planning their funeral.

Take some ideas from Deneen L. Brown’s “To Begin the Beginning” and start shaping the beginning of your narrative. “Begin with the specifics and then explain why; What’s the story about? What’s the theme? Where can I place a character quickly in a scene? How can I tempt the reader? How can I allow a reader to enter the subject’s thoughts, show her feelings? How do I use the beginning to establish a relationship with the reader? Beginning to read a story should feel life embarking on a journey, starting toward a destination.”

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #10 In Benham’s ““Hearing Our Subjects’ Voices…”, Benham provides an example of a dialogue-

Kimberly: I made the mistake of mowing one time, like to have caused a divorce,”

Mike, to Kimberly: “ But tell her what speed setting you led it on the entire bloody time.”

Kimberly

Mike: “Slow”

Slow!

What does the short dialogue reveal about the characters and their relationship? How does the author succeed in using such a short dialogue to reveal something very deep about each character? Consider the quotes you will use in your profile. Can you use a dialogue instead? Will the dialogue be crucial to the development of your character or instrumental to the event? Create a new scene or work on an existing one and try to use dialogues to help the reader hear the subject’s voice.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #11

In LeBranc’s essay, she provides advice for writers who have never attended journalism school and yet need to report their subjects journalistically? She streamlines ideas from picking a topic to determining the topic to when to start drafting scenes to how she should conduct interviews. Write a paragraph or two to explain what your own responses are to the events or situations described in your narrative as well as what you want to believe on the issue involved. Are there any “blind spot” or “dead end”? What are they? How can you unravel them? If you still feel on the outside, how can you move closer to the inside? Read the parts you have written, is there a particular person or subject you keep coming back to? Are there any dialogues between you and the subject? If not, how can you move forward to secure one? If yes, is the dialogue revealing about your subject? Do you need to go deeper through more interviews? What has your experience been like since the day you started the project? Have you been taking notes or writing journals to keep records of the development of the project?

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #12

Lowery advises, “You go with what instinct tells you”. Set up an interview with someone you don’t know but may be able to provide information about the person or event you are writing about. Explain why you want to talk to the person. The story you are after may be an event of some consequence or of little significance at all. Prepare questions. Do your homework. Be ready to explore new territory when unexpected news comes your way. Write a scene. Fit the interview into the story, using direct quotes only when they contribute to the story you are telling and move the story alone.

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #13

Review the story you have written so far. If you have had a strong beginning that immediately and clearly drives the reader to read on, then how is the body of your story? Are all scenes or events written in a chronological order? Try to switch scenes around and see the effect the change may bring. Are all scenes about the protagonist? Can you add some paragraph profiles about other people in the subject’s life? Did the events reveal how the character feels instead of your own feelings? Is there a clear trajectory where your story is going? What is it like? How can you connect the structure of the story with the universal theme of the story? (Consider the story structure in Tom Wolf’s “Yaeger”)

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #14

Review the profile you have written so far. Can you identify passages of summary narrative as well as dramatic narrative? If not, identify two dramatic scenes in your profile and create a summary narrative to link the two scenes. If you notice you have written too much of summary narrative, create a dramatic scene so you can justify the summary narrative you have written- the abstract ideas illustrated or supported by concrete details.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #15

Write a page or two describing the “ idea plot” of you profile writing. Do the arguments move forward in sync with the narrative plot? Are there any “marriage moments” in your narrative? If you believe the “marriage moments’ are necessary to bringing your story to a resolution, add the moment to your essay.

 

Writing Prompt: Unit 4 #16

DeSilva suggest that a good ending should do four things,

  • Signal to the reader the piece is over
  • Reinforce your central point
  • Resonate in your reader’s mind
  • Arrive on time (They offer a twist that readers don’t see coming but they nevertheless strikes them as exactly right).

Does your ending serve all four purposes? If the answer no, revise the ending accordingly. You may also model after one of the five examples proved in the lesson.

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