Sept. 29

Class Plans:

Journal: Think about the Chapter we read for today on image as well as Karr’s Chapter on details. Think over your last few days, or even this monrning. Write about one moment that stands out to you using these specific and concrete details. You can write about yourself or make up a character that experienced the details you did. They may respond as you did to the environment or they may respond otherwise. Remember as you write to show with sensory details, avoiding the flat result that telling can have.

OR

Think about the chapter we read today about voice. As an exercise in trying on other voices, choose another writer you have read (in this class or on your own) and try to write like they do. Try to write a poem or prose that uses the same themes, music, and style as your selected writer. 

OR

Remember the discussion of your many voices in Chapter 3 and practice writing something in 2 voices. How would your diction change from the classroom to a bar? What about your parent’s house(s)? What about church? What about with a cashier, a professor, a stranger on the street? Write something where you reveal something, agree with someone, or disagree with someone in two of your voices. As an alternative, write in two of the voices of the character you created last class. 

(7 minutes)

I. Discuss Ch. 2 & 3, Lahiri (email)

II. Sandra Cisneros Author Presentation (for upcoming homework)

III. Putting it Together: A Story Using the Techniques in Burroway

  • Setting
  • Character
  • Story
  • (Where above can we work in voice and image?)

 

***

Homework: Read “The Youngest Doll,” by Rosario Ferre (handout) and “Little Miracles, Kept Promises,” by Sandra Cisneros and write a response about your favorite note/ letter in Cisneros’s piece. What interests you about this section? What details are you drawn to? Bring your copy of these stories to the class on Oct. 6 to cut up.

 

Advertisement