Today for a warm up, we spent five minutes writing a piece of dialogue (between you and someone else, between two characters, between a group of people, between inanimate objects, etc.) and some people shared theirs. We then discussed the question "Why do we write?" and listed your suggestions on the board. We concluded that people write to cope with thier lives and issues, they write to tell a story, to communicate, to inform, to entertain, and to express themselves, among other various reasons. We also discussed the importance of a "so what?" in your writing and writing with purpose, and how anything can be writable as long as you have a purpose, message, or idea that you want to convey to your reader. As an example of this, we read the short essay "Big Boy" by David Sedaris, one of my favorite writers. We discussed the purpose of this piece and tried to figure out what his theme and message to the reader was. We had a lot of giggles over this one. Click the link below to read this essay if you were absent, and see if you can pick out the theme or the "so what?" of this piece. I also want all of you to begin thinking about some ideas you'd like to write about for your writing portfolios! Also, I wanted to extend an offer for extra credit. I believe that it is an extremely valuable learning experience to go and watch a writer speak about his or her work. There are frequent opportunities to see author appearances, especially at various bookstores, at CU, etc. (including David Sedaris on Oct. 29th!!) If you are ever interested in going to see a writer, let me know and we can arrange some extra credit.
No comments:
Post a Comment