Uncovering the Story in a World You Inhabit
ksjaw11
instruction1.docx2
UWP 101: Fall 2016
Professor Liz Constable
Assignment # 1: Uncovering the Story in a World You Inhabit
[Don’t be confused by my inclusion of a Henri Matisse painting. Blank black and white pages seem dreary to me without art, so here is a visual “situation”: Aicha and Laurette, Matisse, 1917)
LENGTH: Approx. 1500 – 2000 words
** means that I will provide feedback on the writing
DUE DATES:
Wednesday Sep 28, 6 pm. Upload your1-page Description of your Proposed Topic to SS by 6 p.m. **
Monday Oct 10th First Draft of Assignment #1 (Bring 3 hard copies to class; upload your draft to SS BEFORE class on that day
Wednesday Oct 12th Upload your revised draft of Assignment #1 to SS by 11: 59 p.m. **
Wednesday Oct 19th Upload your final draft of Assignment #1 to SS by 11:59 p.m.
TOPIC:
This assignment asks you to explore a situation you’ve experienced in one of the many worlds you inhabit. Some of the most dynamic writing will emerge if you select a situation that perhaps puzzles you; or marked you deeply, yet you’re not sure why; or that you feel you’ve experienced again and again without quite understanding it. In other words, choose a situation that prompts you to ask yourself a question either about its meaning for you, and/or about what it might mean to others. If you start with a problem to work through, or a conflicted view that you want to explore, you’ll generate lively writing and some fresh perspectives!
In your writing, you will narrate the situation---that is, find the story in the situation as Gornick puts it---and then analyze the meaning of your story in relation to larger social contexts: class, culture, family, race, gender, immigration, education, politics, art, the environment, music, and/or any of the many concerns embedded in each of these large areas.
EXAMPLES: You might, for example, start from a very simple observation from your everyday life that has needled you, or prompted you to ask questions. E.g., I have a male friend who bemoans the limited range of colors for men’s clothing compared to the wide range of colors in women’s clothing. He’s always asking himself: “How does this make me feel? Why is it this way? Does it have to be this way? Can it be changed? What does this say about gender norms? Do other people feel the same way as I do about this?” Or, if you’ve lived a significant part of your life outside of the US, you may look with the eye of an incisive observer and ask yourself about a behavior that seems completely normalized here: e.g., eating while driving. “How does this make you feel? Why is it this way? Does it have to be this way? What social factors bear on this habit? What are the consequences of this? What does it mean?”
With the first example, you may need to ask other people questions, interview somebody who is knowledgeable about the fashion industry and/or gender studies. And with the second example, you also would want to think about people to talk to, an interview to conduct to broaden and deepen your understanding of your question.
PREPARING TO WRITE:
Remember as you start the process of free-writing and drafting that you want to keep in mind the RHETORICAL SITUATION and use the elements of the rhetorical situation to shape your choices and decisions as you write:
Who do you see as your intended AUDIENCE? (Your parents’ generation? Your peers? College Students? Etc.,)
Be sure to work out what your PURPOSE is in writing? Can you feel and articulate what your main points are going to be?
Related to your purpose, how do you see your ROLE as a writer for this piece? Think about Gornick’s emphasis on the need for creative non-fiction writers to engage in self-examination. She writes that they need to define themselves and to think about the persona they adopt in the process of writing non-fiction. Do you want to use humor to prompt people to think differently about a serious topic? Do you see yourself as an advocate for an activity or the use of a particular object?
And finally, you come back to your starting point (the SITUATION or CONTEXT) that led you to want to write about your topic.
The Essay Itself:
The essay needs to include both a narrative---a story---contextualizing your topic, and one that enables readers to understand the significance for you of the situation you’re writing about and also to see why it’s worth their time to ponder its meaning along with you.
And you will also analyze what you think it means, for you, for others. So, you’re working with two basic strategies in this essay: narration and interpretation (analysis). How does your perspective on the situation you’ve chosen help us understand larger social/cultural contexts? What does the story reveal about you that perhaps you didn’t understand so well before writing?
Remember that the noun “essay” comes from the French verb “essayer” [to try] and Michel de Montaigne, the Renaissance essayist, wrote to try to understand both himself, his relationship to the world, and the world he lived in. Your essay is also such an exploration and attempt at self-knowledge and interpretation of a situation in the world(s) you inhabit.
Reflection: Being a Creative Non-Fiction Writer
At the end of the essay, in a separate section, write a reflection of approximately 500 words, in which you explain the process of writing this essay and what you learned from it. How did you discover your topic? Did your find that the topic changed in the process of writing about it? How so? Did you learn anything that you didn’t know before? What decisions did you have to make about how to present the story?
How to Get Started? And a Proposal for Breaking the Task Down into Manageable Steps
1. First, read the assignment prompt at least 2 – 3 times and if anything is unclear, do please ask me a question ;-)
3. Start with your everyday lives.
4. E.g., you might think about a part-time job you held or still hold. Close your eyes, and think about a typical day at the job. Then, before you lose the memory, write down what you see, hear, smell, feel, say and think. Read through what you’ve noted, and do you find something in your observations that surprised you, or confused you. E.g., the honesty of employees when they had the opportunity to cheat others? Or the dishonesty of employees? When you figure out what point you want to make about
your job, go back, and re-write the scene, adding details that make your point, including dialogue, and adding descriptions.
5. You can use this approach to finding a topic in all kinds of ways. E.g., you might think about a time when you felt both angry and perplexed. Close your eyes. Focus on that situation. OR, you might think about an object in your everyday life that you have strong opinions about (hair extensions; wearable technology; mountain bikes; Blue Apron home deliveries of meals to make at home) Repeat the exercise. OR, you might think about an event that you experienced, and can’t get out of your mind because you need to understand it better. Repeat the exercise.
