At School Work for this week (w/e 12-5)

This week we begin creative nonfiction. We'll start by talking about what it IS ("true" writing, as opposed to "fake" writing in fiction) and how it isn't a 5-paragraph essay.

Creative nonfiction is really recording things in your life that you find meaningful, and by writing about them, you're really working with exploring an even deeper meaning for yourself and the reader. In so doing, you can use poetry and even prose to help your essay out, so long as the reader can easily distinguish the truth from fiction.

We'll start by doing some writing outside (provided the weather isn't too bad) with one of my favorite exercises: find something new and record it as truthfully as you can. Use the five senses! We'll paste this to a group collaborative board, and I'll try to condense all the ideas to a major theme, or lesson. This is the way nonfiction typically starts: something that strikes you as unique of beautiful, and then a powerful lesson emerges that helps you talk about your life and other extensions to the essay!

In that regard, we'll start with a humorous essay, "The Kingfish" found in the module below (with all the stories and essays). It's at the bottom, since it's nonfiction (and marked as such. I'll begin it in class and you'll finish it for homework. As we go through it, you'll notice several things that simply could not be nonfiction (for instance, the author gets into the mind of another character, and many years ago, and many impossible things happen in addition). I want you to both try to make sense of it and also think about how it's showing us a unique look at culture, and also how the essay concludes; unlike in fiction, essays do not need to resolve internal and external conflict. When finished, add to the discussion board on the essay.

You have another official homework assignment, as well. This is taken from an assignment I was required to do as a senior in high school, but for me, it had to become a much longer (10-page) essay. For it, I was required to ask a relative about their life and to record many hours of our conversation. I have lost a lot of this, but the unique bond it helped solidify with my grandmother lasted the rest of her life, and will continue through my own, and the reasoning is a sad one: we all have stories, and we're dying to let others know about them, but sometimes we really need someone to just ask us to, "tell me a story."

Your assignment over the next week is to ask a relative (why NOT call a grandparent during the pandemic? They'd love to hear from you!) to tell you a story, preferably one they've never told anyone before. Make sure they understand it's for a school assignment, and in case they tell you something potentially incriminating (always a danger in nonfiction), protect the identities of those you love. You do not have to record it except on paper, and try to think of it as a short story: about a page, this time. As you listen and write this, be as faithful and honest as you can to the original story. That means, if you weren't there, you cannot "be" that person, and you probably cannot know what they were thinking, so don't make up facts or plot elements. This assignment will be due next week (the week-ending 12-11).

As always, if you've not finished your fiction story for this term (the 2nd fiction story for the semester), get that in ASAP because it's late, and we have officially moved away from fiction, but we still want to workshop your stories!