2nd Class

It was an awesome teaching experience! I was not nervous at all; perhaps Gina was there to help me out. I really appreciated her help, since I couldn’t write on the whiteboard. We co-taught a little. Honesty it was very fun to co-teach. We both took turns to explain to the class some of the questions they had about the letter of intent:

• What is the through-line of the story
• What are the style elements and how do you preserve them
• Is this story accompanied by other stories or chapters that provide plot and character information outside of it

Yes, Elmaz, I “stole” these questions from your syllabus. Although they said it was stressful to write a 2-3 page paper (along with a letter of intent) about American Dream, they appreciated what I offered them: a taste of what it is like being at a graduate workshop level.

My student Cyndi asked me: Is Oakland Word going to offer a second memoir writing class soon? I said I don’t know, and told her to comment on her online evaluation after finishing our five-week session. I guess she really wants to learn more about creative writing. She has some knowledge about creative writing. She wrote a piece Most American, which is about immigrant experience. Here’s a copy of my feedback letter to her:

***
Cyndi,

You did a very good job of presenting the American dream through the games played by the characters. You deployed an interesting way to develop your topic by juxtaposing “dream” and “game”: a goal one hopes and attempts to achieve, often with sincerity, is parallelized with insincere and playful games, which creates an ironic effect. And the tragic ending of your story enhances the ironic effect.
You’ve done a good job in presenting your topic. There are some imperfections I would like to point out:

Irony is an effective means to enamor your readers, yet the voice of your narrator does not carry an equally ironic tone. One way of achieving the ironic effect is to present your characters’ thoughts or actions through the narrator’s speech such as dialogue or monologue. It would be helpful to look at Jane Austen’s works: her technique of free indirect speech proves successful in creating ironic effects. You could learn from her by just reading a chapter of Pride and Prejudice to see how an ironic effect is achieved through the speech of her narrator.

Also, detailed descriptions of scenes as well as your characters’ actions and thoughts will make your story more interesting. Think about a specific object/clothes/posture that will convey your characters’ “Americanness” or their obsessions with it and work on portraying the specific object/clothes/posture.

You should also have the plots of your story in mind when writing a story. How does it relate to your topic? The first game played by the characters doesn’t seem quite relevant to the American dream. One would question how this part of the story relates to the rest and what institutes it to be “American”?

Another imperfection in your story is the lack of transition between paragraphs. For instance, the opening sentence in the third paragraph seems to be an abrupt introduction of the second game, failing to smoothly bridge the ideas between the two paragraphs.

Good job! Thanks for sharing! Keep pushing! Look forward to reading more of your work.

Jian
**

I gave the class a writing prompt: “Food? What do you like to cook for dinner? Write down a list of recipes before doing this exercise.” The discussion went smoothly. I was glad. The purpose of this writing exercise was to make their writing easier, without wandering around on the page. My approach was that listing the recipes would make them focus and stick to the food topic. It worked, all of them said, it was much organized this way.

We went over Amada Davis’ “Circling the Rain.” I chose this piece because I wanted to show them how nonlinear structure represents the human working mind on the page. In fact one student “stole” the nonlinear structure technique from this piece. She imitated it well in her first assignment. She has some training in creative writing. I advocate for those who love to “steal” other authors’ techniques/styles/structure, etc.

We also went over some basic rules about writing a story, which three participants didn’t understand, and which I told them needs a beginning, middle, and ending. But a story always starts in the middle, I told them, of something that has already been going on. They were not clear of what I meant, so I used an analogy. When we are born, we are in the middle of an event or one of many wars. See. They got it.

Think small when doing you next assignment, I told the class. I said this because two of my students introduced many themes in their first paper, without narrowing down to a memorable moment of their past. One wrote a piece that reads like a summary-essay, though she has a rich family history. She is in her late fifties or early sixties and graduated from college but has no former training in creative writing. Choose the most memorable moment, I said, of your childhood or adulthood. They were much clearer after I used a writing sample, of which we each read a paragraph. I did not tell them the sample was mine. I don’t like to show off what I know. As always, be humble, right?

Before we started workshopping, I said: “It's easier to give (and hear feedback) when using literary terms like, the author, the narrator, and the character, rather than "you.” Does this sound familiar? Again, I “stole” this statement from Faith Adiele. ;-) What I have learned is what I am going to teach. And the class digested it slowly. I was happy about it.

Yes, Elmaz, I also “stole” some of your teaching tricks from our workshop (hahaha!): Appreciation, attention, and action.

I wrote feedback letters to the five participants and we workshopped 1.5 piece. Again we went over a half hour more: 2 hours. I think they all look forward to their next workshop.

More to come!