Mary Rosalez
AL 885/Hart-Davison
Research Precis
As an undergrad, I became interested in creative nonfiction and decided to continue in this area in a Masters program. When I applied to CentralMichiganUniversity, they placed me in the literature and creative writing program as a creative nonfiction writer. After being in the program for over a semester, a professor asked what I was doing in literature and creative writing if I was a nonfiction writer. Nonfiction, he said, wasn’t literature or creative writing, at least not in the academy. But I didn’t write simply nonfiction but rather creative nonfiction. I found myself with no home and nowhere to go.
They eventually had me reapply and moved me into the Composition and Communication MA. There my research from my coursework was in two main areas: creative nonfiction and composition pedagogy. In respect to creative nonfiction, I researched the tendency toward the spiritual in creative nonfiction and the dissatisfaction of creative nonfiction writers with simple facts, the place of creative nonfiction in the academy, and the benefits of teaching creative nonfiction in composition courses. In the area of composition pedagogy, some of my research involved the problems inherent in assigning expressivist writing to first year composition students, a way of approaching peer editing and conferencing I call “group conferencing,” and assigning collaborative writing projects to first year composition students as well as the teaching practices of Brian Cambourne, the idea of teaching composition as discovery, and the difficulties in helping first year writers find their way into academic discourse. Additionally, I worked on a project transcribing the diary entries Hulda Hollands, a woman writer from the late 1800’s and researched her past and the problems of women writers in this era.
My master’s thesis research focused on body image, specifically obesity, and the history, social/cultural perceptions, medical perspectives, and media portrayal of body image in regards to females and obesity. From this research, I wrote a book-length collection of creative nonfiction essays titled “Fat Chance: Living in an Unacceptable Body.” “Fat Chance” is a collection of creative non-fiction writings, in various alternative genres, relating to body size, specifically obesity, and the social and emotional implications that result from living in a fat body. The first section, “Fed,” through narrative, responses to film and literature, and reflection on human perception, explores how a fat person is “fed” the ideals of beauty and the notion that fat is socially and morally unacceptable. The second section, “Full,” considers the limits of human capacity, both emotionally and physically, in essays, poetry, and an alternative genre. In narratives and essays, the third and last section, “Fed Up,” brings the reader to an understanding of how the author and other women deal with circumstances beyond their control.
After completion of my master’s degree, I applied to the Rhetoric and Writing PhD. Program at MichiganStateUniversity. Uncertain of whether or not I wanted to continue my work in creative nonfiction, I began my coursework with core courses required for the PhD. My research thus far has been limited and has included the problems in composition that stem from axiological diversity in our approaches to teaching composition and the differences in approaches when teaching creative nonfiction in a composition course versus a creative writing course.
Since beginning my PhD. coursework, I have decided that I would like to continue my work in creative nonfiction with an emphasis on teaching nonfiction and enriching the English major requirements at small four-year liberal arts institutions with more diverse writing courses beyond the usual required first-year composition course. I envision my research involving learning what program goals exist in these colleges, how they implement these program goals, finding out whether or not they believe that their students are getting enough writing experience from an emphasis in literature courses, what their graduates are doing with their English degrees, and whether or not their bachelor’s degree in English gave them the writing experience they needed. My desire is that eventually this research will lead to a shiftin emphasis in English degrees away from literature as the only avenue to pursue at a small college, away from the privileged position of literature and toward an understanding of writing and rhetoric as a field in its own right with incredibly valuable content for those students pursuing a degree in English who want to go on and do something with their degree besides teaching literature. The goal is lofty but something I believe needs to happen at these institutions that are years behind the larger colleges which offer a wide variety of writing courses and emphases for English majors.
I see the connection between my work in creative nonfiction and my future research goals as existing in the same place that I found myself only a few years ago, with no place to call home because the work I was doing was relatively new despite the ancient history of nonfiction writing. The low status of writing and rhetoric within the academy has buried it within the framework of a service course, perpetuating the idea that we teach writing solely to prepare students to write for their other courses, an approach to our field that devalues writing as something we do only in lieu of other fields. Creative nonfiction—indeed all forms of nonfiction writing—I believe can serve as a catalyst for change, earning writing and rhetoric the respect they deserve as a field because it is a genre that includes both a creative element and a research and academic element that, when combined, allows it to stand on its own.