Wednesday, October 29

In class today we did some brainstorming/catch up with your writing journal for Essay 3/4. You talked about the writing you did for Blog 11 where you looked into a closer, into a drawer, etc; you made a list of objects with dates to see if the series of objects you were connected to worked together to make a story, and you write a detailed, representational description of a photograph. These exercises were both to help you get started on descriptive writing about objects - and to give you practice seeing stories/ideas in things (as opposed to in your experiences).

The essays you have been reading - Stanton, Kincaid, Cofer + Lott use "things" to provide a ground for the ideas they develop. This is the heart of your second set of essays => to develop an exploration of a concept through writing about an object, place or person (yes, I realize it says place, object & person on your calendar - I don't know what I was thinking).

For Blog 13: describe the character of someone you know in terms of clothing. Write into the details. Only describe what you can see and use your description to tell as much as you can about who this person is. We will read these descriptions in class and wee how much your description lets us know about vocation, age, gender, interests, and so on.

To read for Monday: Review Cofer and Lott, read Nye. We will talk over the structure of these essays and think about how the "things" in the essay shaped the structure and content.

Do some more thinking about what you might write about for Essay 3. Good class today - and see you on Monday.