Instructor’s Manual
for “Tell it Slant”: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction
by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola
A Note to the Professor
A course in writing creative nonfiction can be both exhilarating and terrifying. For those of you who have never taught this subject before, simply figuring out what, exactly, creative nonfiction is can take up the bulk of your class preparation time. For those of you who have taught creative nonfiction, it can be difficult to figure out what kind of nonfiction writing is appropriate for your particular course, and how best to implement your approach. We hope that Tell it Slant will provide a comprehensive resource to assist you in all aspects of your course planning. To that end, we provide this instructor’s manual as a navigation tool to the territory covered in the text.
Here are a few preliminary notes that will help you get started and alert you to some key issues to keep in mind as you teach a course in creative nonfiction writing.
The First Day
No matter how many times you’ve taught creative nonfiction, your students will arrive to class with varying degrees of knowledge about the genre. And you, too, may find your views or interests in creative nonfiction in constant flux. Therefore, we often start our creative nonfiction classes with this simple exercise:
Write the terms “Creative” and “Nonfiction” (separately) on the board.
Ask your students to write down these terms (separately) on a piece of paper, then brainstorm (in writing) what comes to mind when they think about each of these terms. Ask them to list the associations in columns under each word.
At the end of five minutes or so, ask the students what they come up with for “Creative” and write down some of the associations on the board under this heading. Do the same with “Nonfiction.”
Take some time to discuss what you see in these columns. Start making some connections between the “creative” side and the “nonfiction” side. Ask your students which aspects of these terms seem mutually exclusive. Ask them which terms seem in harmony.
At the end of this discussion, ask each student to write out what they see as a preliminary definition of “Creative Nonfiction.”
Have students gather in small groups to share their definitions and/or ask for volunteers to give their definitions aloud in class. Write some of these on the board. Tell them to keep these definitions in mind as they proceed through the course and see if these definitions change for them in any way.
NOTE: Write these down for yourself, and perhaps plan a day at the end of the course when you pull out these definitions and re-evaluate them together as a class.
This exercise can help students see their preconceptions about the genre and also get a sense of what the possibilities for this kind of writing might be. Unlike courses in fiction and poetry, where the genre definitions have been fairly well established, creative nonfiction can shift with the interests of the students and the instructor. Rather than have this be a source of anxiety, you can play with this flexibility and help your students see themselves as both potential scholars and writers in this evolving genre.
Some Issues to Consider
Creative nonfiction courses can bring with them some issues you might not encounter in other classes. Here are a few to keep in mind:
1. Students often say variations of the following theme: “I’m not old enough to write about my life. Nothing I’ve experienced is important enough to write about in nonfiction.” One way you can deal with this issue is by emphasizing the fact that each individual, no matter how young, has a distinct viewpoint on life and experience. At the same time, we all are looking for someone to articulate for us, in a new way, universal emotions and experiences. Creative nonfiction is becoming so popular not because we necessarily care about someone else’s viewpoint, memories, experiences, or research interests, but because good creative nonfiction is able to articulate these things in ways we’ve never heard before.
You can also turn to Chapter Six: Gathering the Threads of History, which gives you several exercises that help students see themselves as part of a larger historical picture. They have experienced things in their generation that are unique to their age group. We need to hear these stories because no one else can do it quite like they can, as eyewitnesses to history.
2. Students often feel they need to deal with the “big” traumas in their life, some of which are happening even as they write. Try to emphasize throughout the course that sometimes it takes months, often years, of distance before a writer can handle emotionally-charged material effectively. Encourage them to keep journals where raw emotion can be expressed and processed, but continually try to help them see what small aspect of the experience they might be able to handle in an essay. Or you might try to direct them to other material that shifts the focus from the self to the outer world. Writing about the arts (Chapter Seven) for example, can help students approach difficult material in a “peripheral” way, so that it doesn’t become too overwhelming, for both writer and reader.
3. Students often feel “exposed” in creative nonfiction classes and for good reason: they do not necessarily have the strong “veils” that are present in fiction and poetry to keep them separate from the work itself. You need to emphasize throughout the course that what we create in creative nonfiction is just as much an artifact as a short story or a poem: it is not simply experience transferred to the page. At the same time, you need to find ways to create an atmosphere of safety so that students do not censor themselves in advance.
Often students will come to our offices with rough drafts of material they don’t want to have in the workshop because it is too sensitive. As long as they are also working on essays that will see the light of day in class, we see this as a good thing. Part of their development as writers is to know when they can begin to deal with difficult material in their writing process, and what essays they are ready to offer in a public setting. There is nothing wrong with keeping certain essays private for a long time.
4. In the workshop setting in creative nonfiction, it is sometimes difficult to separate writer from essay. We often create elaborate guidelines for workshop that help to keep the class on a professional level (see website: The Writing Group). Though these guidelines will not anticipate all conflicts that may arise in any kind of workshop setting, they will help you to remind your students that they have a certain job to perform in workshop, and they need to perform this job with respect and professional aplomb.
Naturally, you will find many more issues that arise for your classes as you teach creative nonfiction. We encourage you to keep reflective notes on your courses that will help you be prepared for these issues as they come up.
AT A GLANCE:
An Annotated Table of Contents for
Tell it Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction
How to Use This Book
An overview of the book’s structure, with a rationale for how we’ve organized the placement of the chapters and suggestions for individual adaptation of that structure.
Here is how each chapter is internally organized:
A personal narrative by one of the authors that illustrates the aspect of creative nonfiction under discussion in that chapter.
Pedagogical discussions of that chapter’s topic, using readings from the anthology as examples.
“Try Its”: writing prompts designed to either start new writing or shape existing work
Suggested Readings: The essays from our anthology section that are mentioned in the chapter, as well as suggested outside reading from other sources.
Where to Begin?
An introduction to the field of creative nonfiction, offering an overview of the different types of creative nonfiction, some essential aspects of creative nonfiction, various definitions of creative nonfiction, and the common types of material one can draw upon in creating new work.
We highly recommend you assign this prologue to your students, especially if you are teaching an introductory class. It will give them a grounding in the genre and its possibilities.
Part I: The Foundations of Creative Nonfiction
Chapter One: The Basics of Good Writing in Any Form
A summary of strong writing techniques, including concrete language, scene, imagery, metaphor (and metaphorical significance), dialogue, strong verbs, characterization, original detail, etc.
Bullet Points
· Scene Versus Exposition
· Specificity and Detail
· What You Don't Know You Know
· Developing Character
· Dialogue
· Point of View
· Image and Metaphor
· The Rhythm of Your Sentences
· Try It
Readings
Bausch, Richard, “So Long Ago”
Beard, Jo Ann, “The Fourth State of Matter”
Dubus, Andre, “Love in The Morning” (website)
Goldbarth, Albert, “After Yitzl”
Guess, Carol, “Red” (website)
Kitchen, Judith, “Things of This Life” (website)
Miller, Brenda, "Basha Leah"
Selzer, Richard, “The Knife”
Woolf, Virginia, “The Death of the Moth”
Chapter Two: The Particular Challenges of Creative Nonfiction
In this chapter, we discuss the basic craft and ethical issues at work in creative nonfiction: the question of experience vs. artifice, “truth” vs. “fiction”, the use of imagination with memory, exaggeration, hyperbole, “the pact with the reader,” persona, voice, and the ethics of telling other people’s stories.
Bullet Points
· The “I” and the Eye: Framing Experience
· The Autobiographical Act
· The Persona of the First-Person Narrator
· The Pact with the Reader: Creating Trust
· The Permutations of “Truth”: Fact versus Fiction
· Cueing the Reader
· Some Pitfalls to Avoid: “Revenge Prose”
and “The Therapist’s Couch.”
· Try It
Readings
Atwood, Margaret, “Nine Beginnings”
Beard, Jo Ann, “The Fourth State of Matter”
Cooper, Bernard, “The Fine Art of Sighing”
Didion, Joan, “Goodbye to All That”
Dillard, Annie, “Total Eclipse”
Duncan, David James, “The Mickey Mantle Koan”
Hampl, Patricia, “The Need to Say It” (website)
Rodriguez, Richard, “Mr. Secrets” (website)
Sedaris, David, “The Drama Bug”
White, E.B., “Afternoon of an American Boy”
Part II: Unearthing Your Material
Chapter Three: The Body of Memory
This chapter discusses memory and its function in autobiographical writing. We divide the chapter into five sub-sections based on sight, taste, sound, smell and touch, providing an opportunity for the reader to gain access to vivid sensory memories and to practice concrete writing using the five senses.
Bullet Points
· The Earliest Memory
· Metaphorical Memory
· “Muscle Memory”
· The Five Senses of Memory
· Try It
Readings
Bausch, Richard, “So Long Ago"
Cooper, Bernard, “The Fine Art of Sighing"
Didion, Joan, “Goodbye to All That"
Fisher, M.F.K., “The Measure of My Powers,” and “A Thing Shared"
Guess, Carol, “Red" (website)
Hampl, Patricia, “The Need To Say It" (website)
Hemley, Robin, “Reading History to My Mother"
Kitchen, Judith, “Things of This Life" (website)
Sanders, Scott Russell, “Buckeye"
White, E.B., “Afternoon of An American Boy"
Chapter Four: Writing the Family
In this chapter, we discuss how essayists and memoirists often look to family and community relationships for material. We also discuss the obstacles inherent in dealing with this material.
Bullet Points
· Situating Yourself in Relationship to Family
· The Biographer
· The Obstacle Course
· Permission to Speak
· The Use of Form
· Bearing Witness
· Try It
Readings
Baker, Will, “My Children Explain the Big Issues”
Baldwin, James, “Notes of a Native Son”
Cooper, Bernard, “The Fine Art of Sighing"
Duncan, David James, “The Mickey Mantle Koan”
Fisher, M.F.K., “The Measure of My Powers”
Hemley, Robin, "Reading History to My Mother"
Kingston, Maxine Hong, “No Name Woman”
Rekdal, Paisley, “The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee”
Sedaris, David, “The Drama Bug”
Staples, Brent, “The Coroner’s Photographs”
Williams, Terry Tempest, “The Clan of One-Breasted Women”
Chapter Five: “Taking Place”: Writing the Physical World
This chapter discusses how essayists and memoirists often pay close attention to place, and how their work goes beyond specific environments to comment on the importance of nature, environments, neighborhoods, etc. This chapter will also include a discussion of how travel functions in this kind of writing.
Bullet Points
· Start Looking
· Setting Scenes: Place As Character
· Writing About Home
· Writing About Nature
· Writing About the Environment
· Witnesses to Our World
· Travel Writing
· Try It
Readings
Berry, Wendell, “An Entrance to the Woods”
Didion, Joan, "Goodbye To All That"
Iyer, Pico, “Where Worlds Collide”
Miller, Brenda, "Basha Leah" (website)
Mukerjee, Bharati, "A Four-Hundred-Year-Old Woman"
Paola, Suzanne, "The Human Road" (website)
Sanders, Scott Russell, “Buckeye”
Sutin, Lawrence, "Fairchild Tropical Garden" from A Postcard Memoir
Chapter Six: Gathering the Threads of History
This chapter broadens the context of autobiographical material from the self to history, discussing how writers have used historical moments as a way of both deepening their work and universalizing their experience.
· Our Historical, Universal Selves
· The Ontological Layer
· You Are A Privileged Observer
· The Moose At The Window
· The "When" in Addition to the "What"
· Try It
Readings
Baldwin, James, “Notes of a Native Son”
Didion, Joan, “Goodbye to All That”
Williams, Terry Tempest, “The Clan of One-Breasted Women”
Chapter Seven: Writing the Arts
This chapter discusses how writers turn their attention to the arts in a way that interprets particular artworks, makes cultural commentary, and reveals private obsessions.
Bullet Points
· The Visual Arts
· The Moving Image Arts
· Music
· Literature: The “Reading Narrative”
· Try It
Readings
Gordon, Mary, “Still Life: Notes on Pierre Bonnard and My Mother’s Ninetieth Birthday”