Appendix 3: Heuristics for WRT114 Creative Nonfiction

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Heuristic #1: Limiting Word Count

When publishing work, writers usually have to adhere to a strict word count limit.  Word count limitations force an awareness of diction and syntax that might not otherwise be obvious.  Weak language must be trimmed away and sentences rewritten, sometimes leaving room for additional details, images, and points of clarification.  Often, the result is a much stronger piece of writing that conveys a more detailed sense of the story in fewer words.

• Take a scene you’ve already written and limit it to exactly 101 words. Notice in the example below how the author manages to introduce setting, characters, and a sense of conflict and resolution, all in just 101 words.  The strategic placement of short sentences and active verbs makes a lot happen very quickly.  Perhaps the hardest part of writing a 101 word scene is that you’re forced to make choices about which words and ideas comprise your most vital content. As you attempt this process, think about not only getting your point across, but also about which ideas matter most and why, and how to get the most out of your word choice.  Bring the rewritten 101-word scene to the class for revision workshop.
• He was sleeping on his side, one hand resting on the cat’s back and one lying free. Early inklings of pink-orange light filtered in from the alley.  I sat on the bed to paint my toenails; he didn’t stir. Brushing on the plum-colored polish, I was struck with the most devilish idea: it was that hand!  Giggling to myself as I worked, I imagined the confused look on his face, the adorable crinkled brow and puckered lips, when he’d wake, and, adjusting his eyes, discover one hand’s nails glistening purple.  I’d be gone by then, but he’d laugh in my absence. (PRETTY IN PURPLE)

 

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Heuristic #2: Proving Feedback during Peer Review

• What is this essay really about, or what could it be about? Try answering this question in 3 different ways.
• Who are the main characters so far, and what do you know about them? Pinpoint places in the essay where the writer is providing strong character development, and other places where you want/need to know more the characters.
• What are you curious to know more about? Draft 3 questions for the writer.
• What additional scenes could the writer include in this essay to help illustrate some of the questions you raised in part c (above)?
• Where in the essay would you like to see the writer delve deeper and provide more “vertical” movement or reflection on difficult/complicated parts of the story?

 

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Heuristic#3 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)

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Heuristic #4 Strategies for Productive Workshopping

 

As Sondra Perl and Mimi Schwartz say in their book Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction, “There is no formula or sure-fire way to respond to [others’] writing.  So much depends on the author’s intentions and needs, the dynamics of the writing group, the amount of time available, and the experience of participants” (93).  However, Perl and Schwartz provide a number of useful tips and strategies for productive workshopping.  Here are some suggestions…

 

• Appoint a time-keeper and make sure that everyone gets the SAME amount of time.

 

• Give the writer 30-60 seconds to introduce their piece and ask for any special feedback. If the writer wishes to use more time than that at the beginning of the workshop, it is their time to use, but the clock is ticking.

 

• Readers: do your best to actively imagine the experiences, characterizations, descriptions, and meanings at the heart of the essay, and reflect your experience of the piece back to the writer.

 

• Rather than bring your own aesthetic sensibilities to the workshop (“I like” or “I don’t like”), try to mirror back what you observe. Use key phrases like these:
  • I notice that…
  • I get the sense that…
  • What I took away from this passage was…
  • Here’s how I’m reading/understanding you when you say…
  • In writing X, it seems like you’re trying to…

 

• Be attentive to the writer’s strengths and purposes, and seek to nurture them. But don’t be afraid to challenge things the writer says, particularly if you think there’s an ideological bias in play.  You could say something like, “I think it might be important to challenge X.”

 

• Stay focused: be aware of where the conversation is going and what little time you have.
  • Don’t waste time line-editing (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.).
  • Avoid debates.
  • Avoid long explanations or defenses of your creative choices.
  • Avoid telling your own personal story that is like someone else’s.

 

• The writer may ask or respond to questions, but writers should mostly be in listening mode while their pieces are being discussed. Again, the clock is ticking.

 

• Give the writer 1-2 minutes at the end of the conversation to articulate their major take-aways.

 

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Heuristic #5 Craft Questions

The following questions might be useful to raise with students about their writing.  A general question to keep in mind is: What moves is the writer making, and to what effect?

 

• What is this essay really about? Where does the writer touch on crucial aspects of experience that seem like important points for further development?  Is there something deeper at stake on that the writer is only mentioning in a superficial way?
• How does the writer set up and conclude the essay? Should the writer start or end somewhere else in order to cue readers to real central concerns at stake in this essay?  If the beginning seems a little dull or general or off-the-track, challenge the writer to begin in media res, or in the middle of the story, where the action is.
• Does the movement of the essay feel rushed or laborious?  Could the writer replace less important scenes or details with exposition to speed things up?
• What’s the balance between scene and reflection? What other scenes do you wish the writer would compose?  What questions do you want the writer to reflect on?
• Does the dialogue seem to mirror people’s actual speech patterns, or is it a bit stiff? Does the writer use taglines appropriately (see TIS) and avoid “information dumping”?  Does the pacing of the dialogue seem consistent with the overall tone of the essay?
• How specific are the writer’s characterizations? What kinds of descriptive or other literary moves would enhance the reader’s sense of the characters?
• What point of view and verb tense has the writer chosen, and what’s the impact of those choices?
• Do experiments in form and/or style compliment or resist the content of the essay?
• How well does the writer cultivate voice and narrative persona? Where in the essay is this narrative voice strongest?  Where are the parts where the narrative voice feels less considered than you’d wish?
• How strong is the writer’s “pact with the reader”? What moves is the writer making to establish that pact?  What, if anything, is obstructing that pact? (i.e., obvious omissions, distortions, ideological biases, stereotypes, objectification of characters, etc.)
• Is the writer falling into any of the common pitfalls Miller & Paola discuss in Chapter 12, such as “revenge prose” or “therapist’s couch” writing? If so, are there places where you could advise the writer to replace exposition with scene in order to make the writing feel a little more objective?
• Are there extra adjectives or specific points in language that reveal that the writer needs to do more work on the core issues involved in telling this story?
• Is the writer trying to talk around the real story without sharing the most sensitive details? What language can you use to encourage the writer to dig deeper while still making him/her feel safe in doing so?

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Heuristic #5A Craft Questions about Place and Culture

• 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?

 

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Heuristics #7 -Writing a critical reflection for the essay of place and culture

• How to write a critical reflection that will help you understand the process you have been through, what you learned and struggled and demonstrate your growth as a writer? You may use the following questions to get started but it does not mean you cannot expand your own thinking-
• How did you decide on a topic for this essay? What other topics did you consider, and what made you settle on your final selection?
• Discuss a moment in the composition or revision process when your thinking took a sharp turn.
• Describe your most significant discovery or intellectual breakthrough in composing/shaping this essay.
• What aspects of this essay are you most proud of?
• What “mountain” did you have to climb to write this essay?
• What are you still struggling with?
• Discuss some quotes or key passages from the readings for this unit that influenced your thinking about the content of your essay, about how to frame your essay, how to represent your characters and yourself as a speaking self, and how to arrange your material into the final draft.
• Which published essays we read and discussed together helped /inspired you the most with your own writing?

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Heuristic #8: Writing an Effective Ending

According to DeSilva-

• The ending is your final chance to nail the point of the story to the readers’ memory.
• Your ending must 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.
• Ways to reach an effective ending-
  • A vividly drawn scene
  • A memorable anecdote that clarifies the main point of the story
  • A telling detail that symbolizes something larger than itself or suggests how the story might more forward into the future
  • A compelling crafted conclusion in which t writer address the reader directly and says,” This is my point.”
  • Use symmetry ( end with an idea that echoes the beginning)
  • End with a quote
  • In narrative, the resolution of the problem is your ending. Once you arrive at it, find the nearest exit.
  • When you story is a narrative, write the ending first. Remember the ending is your destination.

 

Work in pairs to analyze and evaluate each example of the ending. How effective is it and does the ending move the meaning of the story to a universal level? Share with each other the ending you have written for your profile.

 

Example 1: ending of “What Price the News” by Ian Stewart-

Miles, David and I were naïve to hope r reporting could make people care about a little war in Africa. In fact, Freetown might never have made your daily newspaper had it not been for the death of one Western journalist when I am well enough? Yes. And most likely I’ll go back overseas. Will I risk my life for a story again? No, not even if the world cares the next time.

 

Example 2: ending of “A Town is Born” by Ted Anthony-

For now, they’re simply crafting their own community: negotiating workday squabbles, liking and disliking each other, dealing with constituents, hop scotching forward, and doing it themselves. Everything is theirs, even the mistakes. Big ideas on a small canvas, laws in action. People deciding together how they want life to be. The glorious mess that is American democracy. Alive and kicking, just off Interstate 40 on a plateau under the vast New Mexico sky.

 

Example 3: ending of “Mysterious Killer” by Matt Crenson and Joseph Verrengia

In the New York City neighborhood where it call began, barbecues and kiddies pools have been put away for the season, and many of the old tires have been carted away. But here and there, tires missed during the cleanup, or discarded since, lay in the grass, ready to become mosquito nurseries with the first spring rain.

 

Example 4: “In Case We Die” by Tim Sullivan and Raf Casert-

Now the boys’ letter rests inside dossier number 4593.123506/99 of the Belgian State Judiciary. And on anther continent in a public cemetery, two graves ten feet apart mark the end of the journey for two boy who had a message for the world. The small mounds of dirt in the Conakry graveyard are edged with rocks and rotting chunks of palm trees. Staked to each grave is a small metal marker. Both are blank.

 

Example 5: “ God and Country” by Richard Ostling and Julia Lieblich-

( Beginning) Long after the high school football game ended, Lisa Herdahl and Pat Mounce sat on wet bleachers talking intently under a shares umbrella. The two 36-year-old mother were discussing something they cared deeply about: the prayers broadcast over the intercom of their children’s school in the Pontotoc School District. Herdahl opposed the prayers and was taking the country’s school district to court. Mounce had organized the town to fight back.

(Ending) Americans disagree, and perhaps always will, over matters of church and state. But the debate is never over the fundamental right to religious freedom embodied in these 16 words from two centuries ago. What American argue about is how best to practice it. Unlike so many people throughout the world even today, Americans do not settle their religious differences with blood. They debate them in legislative chambers and mannered courtrooms, or even while sharing an umbrella.

 

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Heuristic #9:  Revision Guidelines

 

Use the following guidelines to revise your essay-

• Efforts to provide a focused, complex, and nuanced treatment of the issue.
• Aggressive, thorough, and innovative research; strong interviewing practices.
• Use of research and the tools of CNF in crafting a coherent, interesting, and detailed narrative replete with description, characterization, quotes, and backstory.
• Strong pact with the reader, as established through precise choice of language and tone, use of context to ground the reader, ethical treatment of subject matter, ethical representation of subjects, and a mature, in-depth, well-researched approach to the topic.
• Thoughtful decisions about framing the essay, and strategic arrangement of material.
• Efforts to raise important questions about one’s subject and to forge discoveries through moments of reflection and analysis.
• Thorough proof-reading that demonstrates the writer’s complete control over sentence structure, word choice, use of verb tenses, point of view, and use of punctuation to make the reader “hear it” the way the writer imagines the essay sounding.
• Thoughtfulness and care in composing critical reflection; explicit connections to course readings.

Students will work in groups of three for peer review and revision.

 

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Heuristic #10   Writing Critical Reflection for Literary Journalism Essay

Use the following prompts to guide your reflection-

• How did you choose your subject for this essay?
• Discuss your experience as an interviewer. How did you come to the right questions?  Were there moments of frustration and/or breakthrough in trying to get your subject to open up to you in the ways you wanted?  Are there things you would do differently next time?
• What kinds of additional background research did you do, and how did you come to realize what kinds of research would be necessary for this essay?
• Discuss a few examples of moments when you found yourself inhabiting the role of reporter. What happened, and how did you inhabit this role?  What would you do differently next time?
• Discuss a moment in the process of researching and writing this essay when your thinking took a sharp turn.
• Describe your most significant discovery or intellectual breakthrough in researching/composing this essay.
• What aspects of this project are you most proud of?
• What are you still struggling with?
• Discuss some quotes or key passages from our readings during Unit 4 that influenced your thinking about how to craft your profile piece, how to represent yourself as a speaking self in the essay, and how to arrange your material into the final draft

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Heuristic#11 Description & Rubric of the Final Portfolio Assignment

 

Your final project for WRT 114, due 1/22/2016, should contain 20-25 pp. of your best/revised writing for this course, including at least one global revision piece, and an introduction.  Please arrange the contents of your portfolio as follows:

• Title page
• Table of contents
• Introduction
• Polished work in the order of your choice (please mark revision piece accordingly)
• Previous version of revision piece with my comments

 

Your final portfolio is worth 15% of your overall grade for the course.  However, if I note a substantial improvement in the total quality of your work across the body of the portfolio, I will credit your overall course grade accordingly.

 

If you received an A on a previous essay, I strongly encourage you to include it in the final portfolio, but I still expect you to revise the writing as needed, even in subtle ways, to develop the piece to its fullest potential.  There are no length restrictions on individual essays in this final portfolio.  If you wish, you may include a new essay, but I do not expect you to do so.

 

Global Revision

Your portfolio should include at least 1 substantially revised essay, which we’ll workshop in class during the last two weeks of the course.  I’d like you to provide both the original with my comments, and the revised version (the original does not count as part of your 20 pp).  I want to emphasize that a “substantial revision” means substantial.  I don’t just want to see minor “tweaks” at the sentence level, although I am interested in sentence-level revision work.  But don’t stop there!  Select key passages that need to be reworked.  Consider how you can reshape your essay to make it stronger.  Figure out which parts need to be clipped, added, and rearranged.  Add in new writing and concrete details where needed.  Work to fill in the gaps and draw out important meanings and narrative strands.  Write new scenes.  Figure out how to begin the essay and how to end it.  Consider your purpose in writing this essay and locate ways of strengthening your pact with the reader.  Make your sentences pretty, poetic, and concise.  Eliminate unnecessary words, and replace words that aren’t very interesting or precise with words that have more power and precision.  Your final revision piece may be any length you wish.

 

Introduction

It’ll be up to you to decide how long your introduction needs to be.  You may use the tools of creative nonfiction—or be as creative as you wish—in beginning.  I would like your introduction to include a serious analytical reflection on the work you’ve done so far in this course, discuss the progress you’ve made as a CNF writer, what you’ve discovered about your interests as a writer, what you find yourself focusing on as you compile the final portfolio, the ethical standards you’ve sought to establish and uphold in this collection of writing, and any other relevant connections or insights (thematic, imagistic, etc.).  Your introduction should also engage with at least one craft or content reading assigned this semester.  Discuss how this reading sheds light on your creative work.

 

Cover page, title, and table of contents

Although not required, feel free to design a cover for your portfolio.  Be as creative as you wish!  I would like you to include a table of contents, and order your work as you wish.  Try giving your portfolio a title that reflects or introduces the work in some way.  Titles are challenging.  You might consider searching your essays for language that could be excerpted to serve as the title, or consider images or ideas that weave their way through your portfolio.  Alternatively, you could use one of your essay titles as the portfolio title.

Homework: Review “The Writing Process and Revision,” (Tell It Slant, Ch. 14181-192 )

 

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Rubric #11A Rubric for the Final Portfolio

• Aggressive approach to the revision process, including a fearless willingness to reframe the focus of the essay, cut out portions of prior versions that weren’t doing as much work and rewrite other portions as needed.
• Thoughtful approach to the final reflective essay, including explicit references to course readings, as stipulated.
• Mature and dexterous use of the tools of CNF in crafting coherent, interesting, detailed, lyrical essays.
• Strong development of the writer’s speaking voice and pact with the reader, as established through precise choice of language and tone, use of context to ground the reader, ethical treatment of subject matter, ethical representation of subjects, and a mature, in-depth, well-researched, carefully composed approach to CNF.
• Efforts to raise important questions about one’s subjects and to forge discoveries through moments of reflection and analysis.
• Thorough proof-reading that demonstrates the writer’s complete control over sentence structure, word choice, use of verb tenses, point of view, and use of punctuation to make the reader “hear it” the way the writer imagines the essay sounding.

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Heuristic #12: Guidelines for a Critical Reflection on the Portfolio Assignment

• How did the portfolio come together for you?
• Describe the choices you made in reworking the essay you substantially revised.
• Discuss your choice to title the portfolio as you did, and describe any themes or interests you see emerging in your writing throughout the portfolio. How does this portfolio speak to your overarching concerns as a writer?
• What ethical dilemmas did you face throughout the composition and revision process, and how did you consciously work to create a strong ethos in your writing?
• What have you learned about the craft of creative nonfiction writing?
• Please draw on quotes or key passages from 2-3 course readings to help support and enrich your thinking about your work.
• Describe any important discoveries or intellectual breakthroughs that you’ve had during this final unit of the course.
• What aspects of the final portfolio are you most proud of?
• What are you still struggling with?

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Heuristic #13 Finding Your Material

(Brainstorming exercise)

Part 1:  “20 topics in 20 minutes” (20 mins.)

Make a list of 20 topics you might like to write about.  For each topic, specify a few key details.  Aim for 20 topics, even though it will be very hard to come up with 20 in 20 minutes.   Don’t worry if you can’t come up with 20.  This is just a starting point.

 

            For homework:  Finish your list.   

 

Part 2:  Finding your “top topics” (10 mins. x 3)

Refer to your list of 20 possible topics, and star your favorite three.  Working in pairs, talk to your partner about your top 3 essay ideas.  Describe these topics to your partner, and exchange feedback in the following way:

 

(3 mins.)  Partner A shares top three topics

(2 mins.)  Partner B provides feedback.

(3 mins.)  Partner B shares top three topics

(2 mins.)  Partner A provides feedback.

 

Use these questions to guide your response to your partner:

1. What stands out to you as important language, key ideas, or the most interesting aspects of the topic?
2. What are you curious to know more about?

 

***Repeat this exercise on 2 or 3 times with different partner configurations.  It’s up to each student whether to change his/her selection of “top topics” when repeating the exercise with a different partner.***

 

Part 3:  Freewrite (15 mins.)

Begin writing about one of your topics.  However, rather than telling the story in writing the same way you did verbally (heavy on exposition), begin by trying to craft a particular scene that you think would be central to this essay.  Remember, a scene attempts to recreate experience for the reader.  Scenes show rather than tell.  You’ll need to focus on the setting, description, and movement of the scene.  Where were you?  What was this place like?  What time of day?  When?  Who was there, what did they look like, smell like, and say?  Let the action unfold and see where it takes you.

 

Heuristic#14 Revising a Lyrical Essay

 

• How did you forge discovery of your subject through moments of reflection, analysis, and insight into one’s own experience and into the larger relevant culture or subculture?
• How did you provide a focused, complex, and nuanced treatment of a cultural issue?
• Did you move your essay through both horizontal and vertical movements?
• What helped you with making the decisions about framing your topic?
• What images did you use to help arrange the material strategically?
• When you describe the physical landscape of a place, did you consider using a unique imagery to establish your unique perception of the place?
• Does the way you describe the place seem to be cliché? Anyone could have seen it anywhere? Is there a personal stamp you put on the place?
• Is your word choice innovative or again just cliché?
• Do you often write short sentences or complete sentences? How about considering using fragments, short and long sentence to create a rhythm?
• Is it possible to use a form more suitable to your essay content?

Heuristic #15

After reading “Consider the Lobster” (PDF) by David Foster Wallace, “Yaeger” (PDF) by Tom Wolfe and “Invisible Man” (PDF) by Lawrence Otis Graham, share your observations about each essay respectively by considering-

 

• How does the author draw the reader in by establishing a sense of urgency or importance to the topic or create a sense of immediacy and interest for the reader?
• How does the author use scene, exposition, description, dialogue, imagery, metaphor, lyricism to serve a specific purpose?
• How does the author’s subjectivity and positionality come into play in writing this piece, if at all?
• Is the author the central focus or a peripheral presence in the story? How do you know?
• How does the author reveal his or her voice, shed a certain light on the subject and reveal something about his/her own character and ethos?