Creative Non-Fiction Essay
“The words “creative” and “non-fiction” describe the form” of a popular genre. “Creative refers to the use of literary craft, the techniques fiction writers, playwrights, and poets employ to present nonfiction - factually accurate prose about real people and events - in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner.”
Lee Gutkind, “What is Creative Nonfiction”
Length: Three pages maximum
Format: TNR, 12 pt. font, 1” margins. Your Essay must have a creative title.
Prerequisite Reading:
Brian Doyle, “Joyas Voldadoras” and “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever”
John Updike, “Introduction” to the Best American Essays.
Stephen Jay Gould, “The Panda’s Thumb”
Part I: The Essay
You must begin, like Doyle, by writing about nature. Given our discussions concerning the many valid interpretations of the word “nature,” you can assume a great many things qualify as suitable subjects. I recommend you write about an animal, plant, landscape, natural process, natural phenomenon, or atmospheric event that interests you. You should be writing creatively, but accurately. Your ideas and subject must have a basis in fact. Doyle begins with hummingbirds and blue whales. He may not be an ornithologist or marine biologist, but he’s done his homework, and so should you.
Then, make a turn. See Section IV on the following rubric. Doyle’s turn is abrupt and dramatic. Yours might be more subtle and less jarring or emotional, but it should be clear to the reader, at some point, that your subject of analysis or interest has been a “way in” or a “path” to something larger, more universal, and thought-provoking. Though Gould’s “The Panda’s Thumb” is a very different than Doyle’s “Joyas,” Gould’s “turn” is still profound, even magisterial, I would say - Gould moves form the specific and extremely well-informed discussion of the Panda’s thumb (as an evolutionary biologist he is extremely well-informed about his subject) to a general lesson about evolutionary theory (evolution as a tinkerer not a grand designer).
In completing the Bioregional quiz, you may have stumbled across a natural fact that you want to better understand, research, and write about. The quiz might, at least, prove a good place to start.
I encourage you to allude to and integrate short, discreet analyses or reflections of passages from the work of writers we’ve read if reflecting on the literary material is relevant. Reflecting on a line from Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, or Snyder may help you construct or design your “turn,” for example.
You must write your essay in the google doc that I placed in your Assignment Folders on Google Drive. Next, I will add your individual essays as class texts on Poetry Genius so that you begin working on Part II of the assignment (see below).
Part II: Annotate your Creative Non-fiction Essay
Using the Poetry Genius Annotation tools add a minimum of ten annotations to your essay. Remember to make full use of Poetry Genius as a multimedia presentation tool. Add images, video, sound files, create hyperlinks, and compose textual annotations to enliven your essay.
Part III: Interact!
Add suggestions to at least six of your fellow students' annotations. Interact with their annotations to deepen our interest and consideration of these class texts. Rather than analyzing and studying a work of literature, you will be close reading and further developing your peers's creative work!
Creative Non-Fiction Essay Rubric
I. Storytelling: Setting, object, Plot
1. Description of place
2. Description of “odd-object” (animal, plant, natural or scientific process, event, animal behavior, etc.
3. Plot arc—beginning, middle, end and overall narrative development
II. “Showing not telling”
1. “Thick” description—extensive, detailed account of place and “odd object.”
A. Details, imagery
B. Speciesifics—naming plant and animals referenced
2. Figurative Language
A. Use of similes, analogy
B. Extended metaphor
III. Rich diction
1. “Deep” vocabulary—words that meaningful and layered in the meaning
2. Surprising word choice—avoiding clichés and embracing “weirdness”
3. Place names, species names—specifics of the context
IV. Reflection
1. “Soft” lessons—lessons not heavy-handed in their delivery
2. Grounded philosophy—thoughts that come from experience
3. Informed (researched) connections—relevant literary, historical allusions
4. The turn: as in Doyle’s turn from the hearts of hummingbirds and whales to the human heart. From the specific observation/explanation to the universal
V. Narrative voice
1. Sense of a unique “I,” or unique narrative perspective (don’t sound like an encyclopedia).
2. Sense of development in narrator; reflection on growth. See part IV above.
