Week ONE

Your notes for the week will offer you more information about this initial and short writing assignment, in many ways your introduction to Creative Non Fiction.

Each week you will have an opportunity to post work on one of the Discussion Threads, usually the third. So share what you create and share your thoughts on what others create.

You will respond at least THREE times to each of the first two Discussion Threads. I will create a third where you can share you work for each week. So you have a minimum--for a minimum grade--of six prompts, three for each of the first two discussion threads.

This week, you will write some prose related in one form or another to the first two chapters of the book, this week's required reading.

As the notes and your text suggest, all true writing finds its source in an individual's experience. And we are all very complex creatures. In addition, we all differ, which adds to the wonder of good writing, which rests on shared understanding of experience and the ability to create in such a way that the reader appreciates the truth of the content.

Due by Sunday Night, 28 August, using the assignment link on Blackboard in the Week One Assignment folder:

The assignment is described in part on pages 30-31 of your text, "Writing for Ideas and Practice 2-7."

Complete Part One, writing freely in response to one of the numerous prompts.

Aim for around two double-spaced pages of draft, which you might send to the discussion thread along with the revised work (or early in the week for the revised work if you to share what you altered), so that everyone can see how each writer moves from simple free writing about, say, Anxiety, to a more focused essay of Creative Non-Fiction, a memoir of sorts.

So you will accomplish both parts One and Two. But send to me on the assignment link only the polished version of your creation jump started by one of the prompts and connected to your personal experience--you will write a bit of a memoir to get the term started.

The final product will be approximately one-and-a-half to two, double-spaced pages in length.

Again, in addition to posting for your fellow students to read, send me (in a Word Document) your polished essay, using the link provided in the Assignment Link for Week One.

From your rough draft, focus the writing into something better organized, well presented, and more specific. Aim for emphasis by using vivid language and senses other than sight. Again as your text suggests, attack the senses other than sight.

Here you write, in effect, a work of Creative Non-Fiction.

For good prose, you want to avoid the passive voice and the very common overuse of "to be" in its multiple forms; I will make many comments to help you make the prose more effective, for sophisticated creative writing demands excellent writing skills.

So have fun with this first assignment, but give your best effort here to get good traction on the rest of the term.

You will be surprised where "grass" or "dogs" can take you.