Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Brian Doyle/Annie Dillard-Nature Writing

Brian Doyle/Annie Dillard-Nature Writing

AGENDA:

EQ: According to Brian Doyle’s essay, “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever, how should the ideal nature essay develop and affect the reader”? Do Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels” and Doyle’s “Fishering” measure up to the criteria Doyle presents? 

http://mikelennox.com/ArtworkWeb/Weasel.jpg

 Read aloud Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels” and discuss basic questions: 
1. Why does Annie Dillard use the account about the weasel fixed by the jaws to the eagle’s throat? What does this suggest about a weasel’s life and what is Dillard trying to suggest about our lives, including her own? 
2. Is it possible for humans to “live any way we want”? Can we live like the weasel? Or in what ways are we able to live like the weasel? 
3. Analyze the author’s use of figurative language to achieve her purpose. 
4. Any echoes of Thoreau’s “Where I Lived”? 
Link: http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG200-lad/dillard.htm 

Silently read Brian Doyle’s “Fishering” and annotate it. 
Link: http://www.hcn.org/issues/317/16163

  

PERIOD TWO (Rm. 238): In small groups, read Brian Doyle’s “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever.” 
Link: https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-greatest-nature-essay-ever/ 

As a group, determine the criteria/formula for successful nature writing according to Doyle’s essay and answer the following question, providing specific examples from the texts: 

Do you think that the organization of Dillard’s nature essay on weasels is similar to the organization of Doyle’s “Fishering”? Does it follow the formula from “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever”?

Please post a comment indicating some of the topics you could explore for a nature essay.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Me Talk Prettty---Characters

Homework:  For Tuesday, Read "Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist" and "Youth in Asia"
Prepare for a reading quiz on the essays so far.



Characters
Miss Chrissy Samson
Miss Samson is Sedaris's fifth-grade speech therapist. She is clever, often trying to trick
Sedaris into pronouncing words that will demonstrate his lisp. Her therapy sessions are
a nuisance and embarrassment to Sedaris so he works diligently at developing a new
vocabulary to avoid using S-words. In hindsight, these efforts may have contributed to
Sedaris's future as a writer.
Miss Samson waits until her last session with Sedaris to share some friendly banter.
She reveals that she has a fiancé who is in Vietnam, but is from Roanoke, Virginia. She
has a grandmother in Asheville who she will spend Christmas with while her fiancé is
overseas. She is also a college football fan, willing to make the drive from Asheville to
Jacksonville after the holidays to watch Florida play Tennessee in the Gator Bowl.
The cunning Miss Samson shares these personal tidbits because she takes her role as
a teacher seriously. It is all a ploy to trick Sedaris into saying that he is sorry, an S-word.
Once he says it, she delights in her accomplishment.
In hindsight, Sedaris presents Miss Samson as an important character in his
development as a writer.

Mr. Mancini
Mr. Mancini is the guitar teacher at the North Hills Mall in Raleigh where Sedaris
unwillingly takes guitar lessons as a child. Mr. Mancini is a very short man who is
obviously uncomfortable with himself. Thus, he presents himself in an overbearing
manner and often alludes to being a ladies' man.
Mr. Mancini's personality consistently makes Sedaris uncomfortable, especially since he
demands that Sedaris name his guitar after a woman. Mr. Mancini's macho image
crumbles one day when Sedaris witnesses him being made fun of for his size by a
group of teenagers.
Though Sedaris identifies with being an outcast and attempts to bridge the gap between
them, Mr. Mancini is clearly so self-conscious that he adamantly opposes this attempt.
Mr. Mancini is so insecure that he makes it explicit that he is a very masculine, straight
man, unlike Sedaris.

Mr. Sedaris
Mr. Sedaris (aka, Lou), is David Sedaris's father. In this entire compilation of essays, Mr.
Sedaris is clearly one of most significant people in Sedaris's life.
Mr. Sedaris is a computer engineer for IBM who has an enthusiasm for understanding
and explaining the inner workings of all things. He also has an infatuation with jazz
music and is often overly boisterous about it. Mr. Sedaris is not shy about showing the
passion he has for his interests, and this characteristic often embarrasses Sedaris
during his childhood.
Mr. Sedaris is obviously a man who cares a great deal about his children and is always
an enthusiastic supporter, and sometimes has unrealistic expectations. For instance,
when his children are young, he purchases instruments and accompanying lessons for
each in hopes of one day seeing them play together on stage.
Even when his children are grown he remains a supportive parent. Although at times he
is known to mock Sedaris, it is often in the best interest of his son who may need a
quick lesson in humility.
Mr. Sedaris is a bit of an eccentric and is extremely thrifty. He is known for hiding food in
unusual places for safe-keeping and will eat these hidden treasures well past their shelf
life. He is also the person in charge of tasks like grocery shopping, where he makes a
habit of retrieving out-of-date produce and meat to save the family money. Mr. Sedaris
is in fact so cheap that when he talks of eating an unidentifiable brown object found in
his suitcase, his children are not at all surprised when he admits that it was part of an
old hat.

Reggie
Reggie is a man with a seriously inflated self-image. He works alongside Sedaris on a
construction clean up crew when Sedaris is twenty-five years old, and is always
complaining about his job. Reggie's primary complaint is that he is a genius and is too
smart and talented to be cleaning up construction sites. Reggie and his enormous ego
are very much disliked by Sedaris.

Amy Sedaris
Amy is the sister of the author, David Sedaris. Like her brother, Amy is also a comedian.
Unlike her sisters, Amy never developed a self-conscious attitude, which Sedaris
attributes to her love of costumes. Even as a child she never spent enough time being
herself to become self-conscious.
Amy is obviously one of Sedaris's closer siblings, and shares a similar sense of humor.
As children, Amy often worked on impersonations of her teachers or parents' friends,
and at one time even had her own father convinced over the telephone she was a friend
of her mother's.
As adults, both Sedaris and his sister Amy live in New York City. While living in New
York, Amy is part of a special piece in a magazine about interesting women in New York.
Prior to the photo shoot, Amy does not become obsessed with her self-image or her
looks, like other women might. Rather, she enjoys her time in a "fatty suit", a costume
item meant to make her appear obese. She even convinces her father that she gained a
significant amount of weight. As the thinnest and most beautiful of the Sedaris children,
this comes as a great disappointment to Mr. Sedaris, but she seems entertained by his
response.
The day of the photo shoot, Amy remains a true impersonator. She does not ask the
make-up artist to emphasize her beauty, and instead asks to be made up to appear as if
she has just been beaten up.

Gretchen Sedaris
Gretchen is another one of David Sedaris's sisters. During their teenage years,
Gretchen is known for being the sibling with the ability to achieve the perfect tan through
her own method of body oils and suggestive positions.
Gretchen is also the inspiration, albeit unintentional, for Sedaris's choice to become an
artist. When they were children, Gretchen was praised for being a talented painter.
Envious of the attention his sister received, Sedaris launched into his path as an artist.

Paul Sedaris
Paul is the youngest of the Sedaris children and David Sedaris's only brother. Unlike his
older siblings, Paul acquired a thick North Carolina accent, uses terms like ma'am, and
prefers drinks like Mountain Dew. He uses an overwhelming amount of profanity, which
are generally the only distinguishable words in his drawling, rapidly spoken sentences.
Paul is best described as a bit of a hayseed. He gets into bar fights and has a relatively
juvenile attitude. Sedaris describes him as the black sheep of the family. However, Paul
is also the only Sedaris sibling that remaines in Raleigh, North Carolina near their
parents. Though he is brash, has a special connection with Mr. Sedaris and is there to
comfort him when Mrs. Sedaris passes on.

Mrs. Sedaris
Mrs. Sedaris is often considered a miracle worker by her children. Her love of animals is
shared by her children as are a number of other characteristics. She is a bit more
frivolous than her husband and concerns herself with more superficial things, like a
good tan.

Hugh
Hugh is Sedaris's boyfriend. Hugh and Sedaris met in New York City through a friend.
Hugh is evidently financially well off, and enjoys peaceful nights cooking at home
opposed to jumping into the wild New York social scene. He has a home in Normandy,
France that he and Sedaris visit in the summer, during the first seven years of their
relationship. Thereafter, he moves to Paris with Sedaris.
Hugh is a bit more sophisticated than Sedaris and has a taste for finer things, like fancy
SoHo restaurants. He grew up in Africa because his father had a job with the US
government and was stationed there. Having grown up in Africa, Hugh witnessed a
number of disturbing things as a child that Sedaris was protected from. It is implied in
the text that Hugh's childhood experiences contribute to his mannerisms, taste, and
more sophisticated demeanor.

Valencia
Valencia is a Columbian woman who purchases a townhouse that Sedaris admires, and
paints it an obnoxious hot pink with tangerine trim. She is an independently wealthy
woman who wants to live life like a starving artist. Valencia always acts as if she cannot
afford a thing and chooses to furnish her apartment in used dumpster fare and the latest
piece made by one of her deadbeat artist friends.
Sedaris works as Valencia's assistant where she has him doing menial tasks, such as
paying her bills. Her working relationship with Sedaris eventually fizzles when one day
she requests that Sedaris degrade himself by calling out "Cheeky" to a pigeon.

Patrick
Patrick owns a moving company in New York City where Sedaris takes a job as a mover
after working for Valencia. Patrick is very much a blue collar guy with distaste for the
wealthy and a soft spot for those in need of a little help.

Alisha
Alisha is a good friend of Sedaris's. She visits him once a year and always makes
herself comfortable in a way that alleviates him from having to constantly entertain her.
To Sedaris she is the perfect house guest, but she is also prone to being a bad judge of
character and one year brings a new friend, Bonnie, with her to visit Sedaris in New
York.

Bonnie
Bonnie is the new friend of Alisha who is invited on Alisha's annual trip to New York City
to visit Sedaris. Before her trip to New York, Bonnie had not been outside a fifty mile
radius of her home town in Greensborough, North Carolina. She is unsure of herself in a
big city like New York and is at first overly suspicious of every person she meets. Unlike
Alisha, Bonnie arrives with a detailed itinerary of her plans, expecting Sedaris to play
tour guide.
When Bonnie does not get her way she pouts until Sedaris and Alisha can't take it.
Once Bonnie gets her way she is in heaven. She makes a point to see every tourist
attraction in the city and soon discover that she fits right in among the tourists, not the
New Yorkers.

Sedaris Topics for discussion

AGENDA:

CONTINUE TO WORK ON YOUR MEMOIRS

Sedariis
Topics for Discussion:

Discuss the use of language. Why do you think Sedaris chooses to focus on language
as a theme in this book? Why do you think that Sedaris implies that less than perfect
linguist skills are a sign of ignorance?
Discuss the role of Lou Sedaris. What similarities do Sedaris and his father share? How
are they different? Why are these similarities and differences important?
Sedaris has a number of obvious biases. Identify at least two of them and explain why
this bias may exist for him.
Sedaris uses humor to touch on several sensitive topics, homosexuality for instance.
Does this comic tone take away from these issues? Does the fact that he makes light of
these issues make them easier to discuss?
Several essays begin with a flashback to an earlier time in Sedaris's life, which
generally sets up the topic for the essay. Discuss how Sedaris uses this mechanism to
continue the themes of growth/self-improvement and self versus society through the
book.
A number of significant places are discussed in this book, but France is particularly
important. Discuss how Sedaris's perception of American life has changed after moving
to France.
Sedaris writes of his encounters with several different people, and how these people
altered his perception of the world and/or himself. Identify at least two of these important

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

How to Write Like David Sedaris


David Sedaris videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExcpcPZKWpU&list=PLA86A504AA10A73C9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5apZmwR9UI&list=PLA86A504AA10A73C9 


How to write like David Sedaris:

http://www.voxmagazine.com/arts/books/how-to-write-like-david-sedaris/article_4dbf9f48-9eca-11e6-9c0e-b719b8a0a942.html

http://remainingawriter.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-write-like-david.html 

http://ydrstorytelling.blogspot.com/2012/04/david-sedaris-on-writing-write-everyday.html

http://thecopybot.com/2011/08/sedaris-first-sentence/ 

http://www.missourireview.com/archives/bbarticle/a-conversation-with-david-sedaris/ 
https://www.missourireview.com/more-than-talking-pretty/

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1812072,00.html 

David Sedaris/Memoir

AGENDA:

Please work on Sokol/Gannon entries.

Finish any missing work for your portfolios.

Go to library for David Sedaris.

Next book: David Sedaris Me Talk Pretty One Day

David Sedaris

Me Talk Pretty One Day
David Sedaris, 2000
Little, Brown & Company
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316776967


Summary 
Me Talk Pretty One Day contains far more than just the funniest collection of autobiographical essays—it quite well registers as a manifesto about language itself. Wherever there's a straight line, you can be sure that Sedaris lurks beneath the text, making it jagged with laughter; and just where the fault lines fall, he sits mischievously perched at the epicenter of it all.
No medium available to mankind is spared his cultural vision; no family member (even the dynasties of family pets) is forgotten in these pages of sardonic memories of Sedaris's numerous incarnations in North Carolina, Chicago, New York, and France.
One essay, punctuated by a conspicuous absence of s's and plurals, introduces the lisping young fifth-grader David "Thedarith," who arms himself with a thesaurus, learns every nonsibilant word in the lexicon, eludes his wily speech therapy teacher, and amazes his countrified North Carolina teachers with his out-of-nowhere and man-size vocabulary.
By an ironic twist of fate, readers find present-day Sedaris in France, where only now, after all these years, he must cling safely to just plural nouns so as to avoid assigning the wrong genders to French objects. (Never mind that ordering items from the grocer becomes rather expensive.) Even the strictest of grammarians won't be able to look at the parts of speech in the same way after exposing themselves to the linguistic phenomena of Sedarisian humor. Just why is a sandwich masculine, and yet, say, a belt is feminine in the French language? As he stealthily tries to decode French, like a cross between a housewife and a shrewddetective, he earns the contempt of his sadistic French teacher and soon even resorts to listening to American books on tape for secret relief.
What David Sedaris has to say about language classes, his brother's gangsta-rap slang, typewriters, computers, audiobooks, movies, and even restaurant menus is sure to unleash upon the world a mad rash of pocket-dictionary-toting nouveau grammarians who bow their heads to a new, inverted word order. (From the publisher.)

Author BioBirth—December 26, 1956
Where—Johnson City, New York, USA
Education—B.F.A., Art Institute of Chicago
Awards—Thurber Prize; Time Humorist of the Year;
  Advocate Lambda Award.
Currently—lives in London, England, UK

According to Time Out New York, "David Sedaris may be the funniest man alive." He's the sort of writer critics tend to describe not in terms of literary influences and trends, but in terms of what they choked on while reading his latest book. "I spewed a mouthful of pastrami across my desk," admitted Craig Seligman in his New York Times review of Naked.
Sedaris first drew national attention in 1992 with a stint on National Public Radio, on which he recounted his experiences as a Christmas elf at Macy's. He discussed "the code names for various posts, such as 'The Vomit Corner,' a mirrored wall near the Magic Tree" and confided that his response to "I'm going to have you fired" was the desire to lean over and say, "I'm going to have you killed." The radio pieces were such a hit that Sedaris, then working as a house cleaner, started getting offers to write movies, soap operas and Seinfeld episodes.
In subsequent appearances on NPR, Sedaris proved he wasn't just a velvet-clad flash in the pan; he's also wickedly funny on the subjects of smoking, speed, shoplifting and nervous tics. His work began appearing in magazines like Harper's and Mirabella, and his first book Barrel Fever, which included "SantaLand Diaries," was a bestseller. "These hilarious, lively and breathtakingly irreverent stories...made me laugh out loud more than anything I've read in years," wrote Francine Prose in the Washington Post Book World.
Since then, each successive Sedaris volume has zoomed to the top of the bestseller lists. In Naked, he recounts odd jobs like volunteering at a mental hospital, picking apples as a seasonal laborer and stripping woodwork for a Nazi sympathizer. The stocking stuffer-sized Holidays on Ice collects Sedaris' Christmas-themed work, including a fictional holiday newsletter from the homicidal stepmother of a 22-year-old Vietnamese immigrant ("She arrived in this house six weeks ago speaking only the words 'Daddy,' 'Shiny' and 'Five dollar now'. Quite a vocabulary!!!!!").
But Sedaris' best pieces often revolve around his childhood in North Carolina and his family of six siblings, including the brother who talks like a redneck gangsta rapper and the sister who, in a hilarious passage far too dirty to quote here, introduces him to the joys of the Internet. Sedaris' recent book Me Talk Pretty One Day describes, among other things, his efforts to learn French while helping his boyfriend fix up a Normandy farmhouse; he progresses "from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window."
Sedaris has been compared to American humorists such as Mark Twain, James Thurber and Dorothy Parker; Publisher's Weekly called him "Garrison Keillor's evil twin." Pretty heady stuff for a man who claims there are cats that weigh more than his IQ score. But as This American Life producer Ira Glass once pointed out, it would be wrong to think of Sedaris as "just a working Joe who happens to put out these perfectly constructed pieces of prose." Measured by his ability to turn his experiences into a sharply satirical, sidesplittingly funny form of art, David Sedaris is no less than a genius.
Extras
• Sedaris got his start in radio after This American Life producer Ira Glass saw him perform at Club Lower Links in Chicago. In addition to his NPR commentaries, Sedaris now writes regularly for Esquire.
• Sedaris's younger sister Amy is also a writer and performer; the two have collaborated on plays under the moniker "The Talent Family." Amy Sedaris has appeared onstage as a member of the Second City improv troupe and on Comedy Central in the series Strangers with Candy.
• If I weren't a writer, I'd be a taxidermist," Sedaris said in a chat on Barnes and Noble.com. According to the Boston Phoenix, his collection of stuffed dead animals includes a squirrel, two fruit bats, four Boston terriers and a baby ostrich.
When asked what book most influenced his career as a writer, he's what he said:

I guess it would be Cathedral by Raymond Carver. His sentences are very simple and straightforward, and he made writing seem deceptively easy—the kind of thing anyone could do if they put their mind to it. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Writing Creative Nonfiction/Memoir

AGENDA:

Welcome back!  Happy new year 2018!

READING:

Writing Memoir:

https://thewritepractice.com/19-tips-on-writing-memoir-from-the-memoir-project-by-marion-roach-smith/

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-memoir-1691376

http://www.barbaradoyen.com/writing-nonfiction/what-is-a-memoir-what-makes-a-memoir-different-from-an-autobiography-or-biography

http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/write-good-memoir-advice-finding-voice
http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-genre/memoir-by-writing-genre

https://thewritelife.com/the-beginners-guide-to-planning-and-writing-a-memoir/

https://blog.udemy.com/how-to-write-a-memoir/

Memoir writing techniques
A memoir is written in first person from the author’s point of view.
It is narrative nonfiction written in story form like fiction. Dialogue can be included, but since few people can remember precisely every word spoken, the dialogue is not literally true; instead the author attempts to recreate it as accurately as possible. For this reason, some memoirs, like Wild Swans, tell the story without dialogue.
The memoir author should “think small” and make a series of “reducing decisions,” says William Zinsser, author of the perennially popular book, On Writing Well, which includes a new chapter about writing memoirs in the latest edition.








WRITING:\

 Select a topic to explore: 







Behold! These memoir prompts have consistently ranked as the most viewed post on Word Bank Writing & Editing, and I wanted to bring feature them again for those who may have missed out the first time around. I’m currently booked with editing projects through the end of the year, so contact me now if you need to reserve a spot for 2016. Most importantly, know thyself. All good writers should follow that advice. Based on my creative nonfiction post, Confessions of a Motley Crue Fool, I hope it’s now apparent just how seriously I take my own suggestions. 

The following questions function as memoir prompts that can serve many purposes, such as an idea for a last minute blog post. They will take you through a year’s worth of memoir writing if you do one a week. Or perhaps you would rather pick and choose the ones you find most appealing. At the very least, they can be used to fight writer’s block. Remember that writing about something is better than staring blankly and writing about nothing at all.

Image of red question marks.


Make each one as long or as short as you see fit. However, limiting yourself to 300-500 words would be a great exercise in conciseness. Focus on appealing to all five senses. As always, aim to show rather than tell.


#1: Was there anything unusual or unique about your birth?

#2: What is your earliest memory?

#3: What is your first memory about your siblings, parents, pets, toys, or house?

#4: What is your happiest childhood memory? Your saddest?

#5: How have childhood favorites impacted you? (toys, cartoons, books, etc.)

#6: Were your parents good parents?

#7: What event in your childhood had the most impact on your life as an adult?

#8: What is your first memory about school?

#9: Was learning to read and write a struggle for you?

#10: Who was your favorite teacher?

#11: What was your favorite subject in school?

#12: Did you participate in any extra-curricular activities?

#13: What clique did you belong to?

#14: What do you wish you would have learned more about in school?

#15: What schoolmate had the most impact on your life? In what way?

#16: Who was your first best friend? How did they influence your life?

#17: What did you learn about yourself in high school?

#18: What was the first moment you felt truly grown up or independent?

#19: How old were you when you began to drive?

#20: Who gave you your first kiss?

#21: Who was your first love?

#22: What is your best memory as a teenager with your friends?

#23: What was the best party you went to when you were a teenager?

#24: What was your first job?

#25: How much was your first paycheck and what did you do with it?

#26: What moment in your life have you felt most loved?

#27: Which one of your parents are you most like?

#28: Was graduating from high school a big event?

#29: Has education played an important role in your life?

#30: What have you done that you never thought you would do?

#31: What was the greatest challenge of your life so far?

#32: What do you wish you had done differently in your life?

#33: Who do you wish you could see again?

#34: Who was the lost love of your life?

#35: What word would you most like people to associate with you?

#36: Who was the biggest influence (positive or negative) on your life?

#37: How were your belief systems formed? (religion, politics, family, etc.)

#38: What is great about your life right now?

#39: What could be better about your life?

#40: To what degree has technology shaped your life in the past 10 years?

#41: When is the last time you learned to do something new?

#42: Does your career make you happy?

#43: How is your family unique?

#44: Is your significant other your best friend?

#45: What do your pet peeves reveal about you?

#46: What do your tastes reveal about you? (food, music, clothes, books, etc.)

#47: How many life goals have you attained?

#48: What regrets do you have?

#49: What do you think the future holds for you?

#50: Do you spend more time planning for the future or living in the moment?

#51: What will your retirement be like?

#52: What will your obituary say about you?

Other prompts will come to you as you draft, so why not write them down in your writer’s notebook? You never know when it might come in handy.

What do you like and dislike about reading and/or writing memoirs? What memoir prompts would you add to the list?