Reference no: EM132307976
Assignment Instructions
Essay :
Pick any exercise from last week or this week's assigned chapters of Blurring the Boundaries (pages 247-250). Develop the exercise into an essay of 750 to 1,000 words.
Incorporate the elements of writing, such as scene, imagery, dialogue, characterization, and voice. Proofread well. Format in MLA. You may also propose your own topic, but only if you e-mail me at least 1 week in advance to clear the topic.
Preface your essay with a reflection letter that answers these questions:
- What inspired you to choose the topic you wrote about?
- What were your goals for this essay? Did you accomplish those goals?
- What were some difficulties you encountered while writing this essay? How did you work through them?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the essay?
- How might you further improving it for the final project (the writing portfolio)?
- What questions do you have for your instructor at this time?
This assignment will lead in part to demonstrating the competency of CO 2, 3, and 4.
Writing Exercises
Use this to complete assignment.
Marcia Aldrich's "The Structure of Trouble" Make a list of ten words (the number is arbitrary - it could be fourteen or twenty) that play a defining role in your life. Go through the list and pick the one that compels you the most, even if you don't understand entirely why. In fact, it would be better if there is some mystery as to why this word draws you.
(All the better to write about.) I chose a common word, a frequently used word, not a word used for its novelty, like defenestration (to throw something or someone out of a window). And it's a word whose meaning changes depending on who is using it and in what context.
Yet, generally speaking, we understand its import. This writing prompt might work best if you choose an equally common word whose abstract meaning is easily grasped but whose personal significance is yet to be discovered.
Some other examples might be: pain , satisfaction , belief , silence , trust , melancholy . Begin writing about what your associations are with the word, what stories or questions are attached to this word, what problems. Research the word - does it have a history? How do other people use the word?
Begin to think about creating your own narrative with the word using a "found" structure such as the diagram, the outline, the companion, the inventory.
The point of using a found structure, though you are invited to innovate upon that form, is twofold. You are emptying that form of its accustomed contents and filling it with something unfamiliar, thus creating a kind of friction between the familiar and the unfamiliar. So, too, such a disciplined form provides tension and contrast, perhaps resistance, to the overwhelmingly personal material.
Blurring the Boundaries : Explorations to the Fringes of Nonfiction, edited by B.J. Hollars, UNP - Nebraska Paperback, 2013.