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Final Work Due May 9 by 5 p.m.

Here, again, is the information for your final papers and portfolios.

Due date: These are due by 5 p.m. May 9.Late work will be docked 10 percent for each day it is late and no work will be taken after Wednesday, May 11.

Delivery: You may submit your final work by email, but please make sure portfolio elements are clearly labeled. You may submit hard copy as well. I will have a box set up outside my office, BEN 219.

Portfolio Requirements:

• rough draft and revision of your memoir

• rough draft and revision of your personal reported essay

• rough draft and revision of your lyric essay

• One page of writing that discusses the revisions you made to your pieces and how it incorporated the feedback you received in critique and your own understanding of the elements of creative nonfiction.

Final Paper:

• 800-1,000 words

•  MLA style

You have two options for your paper:

Option No. 1 Craft Analysis of Creative Nonfiction Techniques

Analyze Malcolm’s use of two elements of creative nonfiction, with cited examples from the text as well as use of our critical readings as secondary sources to bolster your examples of the types of creative nonfiction and their importance in the text.

Option No. 2: Critical Analysis of the Issues of Nonfiction

Discuss, with a thesis, the issues and concerns raised in The Journalist and the Murderer as it relates to the reporting and writing of nonfiction, using secondary sources to bolster your argument.

Here are some secondary sources that may be helpful for Option #2:

Joe McGinniss website (includes a response to Janet MacDonald)

Jeffrey MacDonald CNN piece

Legal Roundtable on the Jeffrey MacDonald case

Pro-MacDonald website with legal history

Paris Review interview with Janet Malcolm

May 2: Last Class

Lyric Essay Workshop: Please bring copies of your critiques for each member of your group, as well as one for Julia, as these are part of your final grade.

You can download the critique sheet here: lyricessay2016critique

We will have an in-class seminar on The Journalist and the Murderer in advance of your final paper. Please bring questions and observations for this discussion. I will also be sharing and providing additional materials in class that may be helpful for your final paper.

Your final paper and portfolios are due, again, no later than 5 p.m., Monday, May 9. You can review the specifics here. 

Assignments for April 25

Special note: Final paper and portfolio details were reviewed in class April 18. You can review these here. Don’t hesitate to be in touch with questions!

For class, April 25:

Due no later than the beginning of class: Your final SITE piece is due by email to Julia. I must have these in digital form so I can deliver them to SITE for publication. No late work will be accepted due to that deadline.

All work must be:

• error free

• in a Word Doc (no PDFs)

• titled

 

Due in class: Five copies of your rough draft of a lyric essay. You will be reading these in groups in class and offering feedback.

Options for the lyric essay:

• You can use the rough draft begun as a collage essay in class

• You can review last week’s presentation on the Lyric Essay on the class presentation page.

• You can use any of the lyric essay exercises from Tell It Slant from pages 123-126 to generate a draft of a piece.

• All drafts must be typed

Reading for class: 

Read Ben Marcus essay on The Lyric Essay

Read this excerpt from Jenny Boully’s “The Body”

Please read “On the Form of the Video Essay,” by Marilyn Freeman (TriQuarterly)

“On the Origin of the Video Essay,” by John Bresland (Blackbird)

We will watch some video essays in class and discuss them.

In-class assignment

You will also have an in-class graded critical writing assignment on the lyric essay, so be sure to have thoroughly read and reviewed all the reading assignments.

Preparing for our final class:

Our final class will be on Monday, May 2. We will spend the class having a seminar discussion on Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer, which include a presentation by me on some of the elements of this book. Remember that your participation in class discussions is key to your success in this class.

Final paper and portfolio requirements:

Your final paper and portfolio are due no later than 5 p.m. Monday, May 9. Late work will be docked 10 percent for each day it is late and no work will be taken after Wednesday, May 11.

Portfolio Requirements:

• rough draft and revision of your memoir

• rough draft and revision of your personal reported essay

• rough draft and revision of your lyric essay

• One page of writing that discusses the revisions you made to your pieces and how it incorporated the feedback you received in critique and your own understanding of the elements of creative nonfiction.

Final Paper:

• 800-1,000 words

• follows MLA style

You have two options for your paper:

Option No. 1 Craft Analysis of Creative Nonfiction Techniques

Analyze Malcolm’s use of two elements of creative nonfiction, with cited examples from the text as well as use of our critical readings to bolster your examples of the types of creative nonfiction and their importance in the text.

Option No. 2: Critical Analysis of the Issues of Nonfiction

Discuss, with a thesis, the issues and concerns raised in The Journalist and the Murderer as it relates to the reporting and writing of nonfiction, using secondary sources to bolster your argument.

Assignments April 18

For class: SITE Santa Fe workshop and Lyric Essay Reading and Exercises

SITE Santa Fe rough drafts due in class

Bring TWO hard copies for in-class peer review. Email one digital copy in a Word Doc to Julia, as these will be edited for grammar/other issues and sent back to you for your final draft.

You will have peer-on-peer review of your pieces in class:

Length: 500 words (please contact me individually if you want to write a longer piece)
Parameters: A review, criticism or interview of one of the pieces from the show that makes use of the four elements of arts writing as discussed.
Final Drafts: Final drafts are due by email to me no later than the start of class on April 25. These should be error-free and will be published as part of our class gallery guide for SITE Santa Fe.

LYRIC ESSAY READING ASSIGNMENTS

Read for class:

ReadTell it SlantRead chapter 10:  “Playing with Form”

Read online: Seneca Review, On the Lyric Essay

Read (download) “Michael Martone’s Leftover Water” by Patrick Madden (Normal School)

Read: “The Pain Scale” by Eula Biss (Touchstone Anthology, page 28)

Read: “Son of Mr. Green Jeans” by Dinty Moore (Touchstone Anthology, page 389)

Review: “Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge,” a Google Maps essay, by Dinty Moore (also available at the bottom of this post)

Please remember, as we approach the end of the term, that our final class and final paper is on Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer. If you haven’t already, start reading!

April 11 Class

FIELD TRIP!

We will be meeting in the classroom at 2 p.m. sharp and leaving for SITE Santa Fe from there.

Be sure to bring:

• writing material
• writing utensils
• anything else you might want to document your visit (camera phones etc)

The museum is closed on Mondays, but we will be receiving a private tour from one of the docents. Afterward, you should have time to take notes and write on site. Your goal is to find a piece (or pieces) about which you’d like to write an arts piece for the Gallery Guide we’ll produce.

Your rough drafts will be due in class on April 18.

Bring TWO hard copies for in-class peer review. Email one digital copy in a Word Doc to Julia, as these will be edited for grammar/other issues and sent back to you for your final draft.

Length: 500 words (please contact me individually if you want to write a longer piece)
Parameters: A review, criticism or interview of one of the pieces from the show that makes use of the four elements of arts writing as discussed.
Final Drafts: Final drafts are due by email to me no later than the start of class on April 25. These should be error-free and will be published as part of our class gallery guide for SITE Santa Fe.

There will also be assigned readings on the Lyric Essay for the April 25 class, so be sure to check this website after our field trip for additional reading information.

Check out a previous Gallery Guide from the Fall 2015 Techniques Classes:

Although we’ll be caravanning to SITE, if you are a driver, please review the map below so you have a general idea where we’ll be going. We’ll park behind SITE; I’ll bring change for the parking meters.

Assignments for April 4

In-class Guest Speaker:

Joanne LeFrak, director of education and community outreach for the museum SITE Santa Fe, will be visiting the class to preview our April 11 field trip to SITE and our next arts writing assignment.

To prepare for Joanne’s visit, please review both SITE’s website and the materials on the SITE Santa Fe Digital Study Guide Materials page. These materials will be helpful for when you decide which piece you want to write about for our gallery guide. For now, review them and prepare one question in writing for Joanne based on these materials. You will be expected to ask Joanne this question during her visit, and to turn in the question to me for classroom participation credit.

SITE Santa Fe Digital Study Guide Materials

Personal Essay Workshop

We will also have workshop in class for your personal essays. Please use the Personal Essay Critique Form for each member of your workshop group. Bring one copy for the writer and one for Julia as part of your workshop grade. You can download the critique form from the link, or copy the elements below.

Group 1

Todd, David, Chelsea, Willow

Group 2

Allison, Jack, Jess, Kelsey, Nuna

Group 3

Lucciano, Jessica, Lauryn, Ariel

Personal Reported Essay Critique Form Criteria:

Please provide detailed critique using this form. Bring one copy for the writer and one copy for Julia. These critiques are part of your grade, so please be thorough and clean in your writing.

Essay Title and Author:

Reviewer:

 

  1. Please discuss the relationship between the personal and reported elements of this essay, including any areas that require more development or information.

 

  1. Which element of creative nonfiction technique is the most developed in this piece? Please provide at least two examples. For example: sensory detail, characterization, structure, theme etc.

 

 

  1. Which element of creative nonfiction technique is the least developed? Please provide at least two suggestions for how this element could be further developed.

 

 

  1. What would you say is the theme of this essay and how might the theme be further developed?

 

 

  1. Please include any other observations or suggestions you have for this essay.

Assignments for March 28

Bring: Five copies of your revised personal reported essay; this draft should have begun to incorporate research and reporting. We will distribute these into groups for workshop on April 4.

We will also begin our next unit on arts writing. To prepare:

Read in Tell It Slant: “Chapter 5, Writing the Arts”

Read: “Orange is the new face of women’s television” (Pulitzer winner for arts criticism Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times)

Review: “Falling in Love While Taking Antidepressants” (New York Times)

Criticism and Review: “Selfies and Trans Culture” (first place, AAN awards, Liz Cook)

Interview: “Portraying David Bowie” (NY Times)

We will also have an in-class arts writing assignment.

Assignments for March 21

March 14: Spring Break; no class

March 21:

Bring two copies of your personal essay to class. You will do one-on-one critiques and discussion in class with one another. You will also give me a copy.

This should be a completed first draft that relies on your free-write from the class exercise. Your next step will be expanding your draft to include reportage and research. You should be thinking and planning what information/content you need for your piece.

By complete draft, I mean that you should have written everything you can based on your own internal knowledge, and the piece should have a sense of a beginning, middle and end. This may be only one or two pages at this point, but should be a complete draft in the sense that you’ve written everything you have to say at this point prior to doing research. Again, the next step will be one-on-one peer review to gather ideas for expanding the draft with research.

Types of reportage and research:

• interviews

• immersive experience

• reading/research from books and articles

You can review the class exercise and our discussion of the Personal Reported Essay here.

Read for class: “Autopsy Report” by Lia Purpura (Touchstone Anthology, p. 405) and “Watching the Animals” by Richard Rhodes, (Touchstone, page 411).

Please read these essays thoroughly with an eye toward:

• structure

• content/reportage

• theme

• voice

Assignments for March 7

Read “The Devil’s Bait” by Leslie Jamison for class. Take notes on its: reportage, personal narrative, structure and theme

Read: “Picturing the Personal Essay” by Tim Bascom. Consider which shape Jamison’s essay employs (hint: it might not be one discussed in Bascom’s essay).

Your mid-term paper are due electronically by the start of class. Review criteria here.  No late papers will be accepted. Each of you will be asked to speak briefly about your mid-term: which essay you discussed and your analysis.

I will respond to your email when I receive your mid-term. If I do not respond, I did not receive your paper.

We will discuss your upcoming personal reported essay and have an in-class assignment. First drafts of the personal reported essay are due in class on March 21. Rather than bring multiple copies, bring two copies: one for Julia and one for one-on-one critiques that will happen in class.

I will be meeting briefly with each of you for individual meetings for part of next week’s class to discuss any questions you have about your memoir revision as well as your work thus far this semester.

Please remember you can review class presentations here.

Feb. 29 Class

We will have our memoir workshop in class on Feb. 29. Please be sure to have all your critique sheets ready.

Please read for class:

  • Tell It Slant: Chapter 14: “The Writing Process and Revision
  • Touchstone Anthology, David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster,” page 525.

• Tell it Slant: Read Part 1, Chapters 6, “Gathering the Threads of History,” Chapter 7, “Writing the Larger World,” Chapter 8, “Using Research to Expand Your Perspective”

“Fourth State of Matter” by Joann Beard (Touchstone Anthology, page 1)

We will have significant class discussion on these essays and possibly a reading quiz. Be sure to come to class with observations and questions about both.

We will also review the criteria for the upcoming mid-term paper, which is due March 7. You can look at the information for the midterm here.