First Day Teaching

Today at 4pm I teach my first class. I am getting so nervous. I am excited too, but these last 24 hours have been sort of neurotic. I have found that when I am nervous I can't sleep and instead recite my class plan out-loud over and over and over. Then when I am awake I write and re-type my class plan over and over and over. This repetition allows me to memorize my plan so I don't have to be reading it off a piece of paper and it's a way to release my nerves.

So for the sake of being nervous...I retype my class plan or script once again....

Day One-

Write Name, class number, and email on the board
Write quote on board: “Creative Writing means imaginative writing, writing as an art” Wallace Stegner

Introduce self: Not long ago I was sitting in your place, an undergrad at ucd taking a creative writing class as an elective. One creative writing class turned into another and then another and now I am writing a book. I look at creative writing like an art. It’s like looking at photographs or paintings and putting the pieces together.

In this class you are all going to be artists even if this is just a one time elective or if it becomes a life-long passion.

This is a workshop class. A workshop class is where we learn from each other. As an undergrad and now a graduate student I have learned some of my most valuable skills from my peers. I am not saying professors are not important, I just think there is a lot of value in learning from each other. We all have different perspectives and there is no right or wrong answer. I will be here to guide you throughout the qrt. But you will share your insights and ideas with each other as a way to succeed as observers and writers.

As we begin this qrt. I want to emphasize your role as observers, not just in the classroom but at anytime of the day, anywhere. This last summer I received a grant to travel to Costa Rica and write a story about the culture and people. I visited the most untraveled parts of costa rica. I wanted the real experience where tourists don’t go. I figured if I was going to write about Costa Rica I needed to be experiencing life off the beaten path. I never have been to Costa Rica and I didn’t know any Spanish. In the first few days of my trip I struggled and chipped my front tooth. I thought that would be my story: the struggle of being in a country where you don’t know the language. Then my group experienced a robbery at gun point in the middle of the night in my cabina. Imaging the face of the robber, I realized story is everywhere…not just what happens to me as a person. After the robbery I looked at the country differently. Every face I saw and everyone I met had a story to tell me. I could walk down the dirt roads and look into every open door of a house: women sweeping dirt floors, teenagers taking naps in the door frame, girls writing secrets in notebooks…the stories were everywhere. When I came home I remembered the imagery of the robbers face and I wrote his story.

I’m telling you about this experience because I want to emphasize that story is everywhere: in strange faces, in a sunset, in mysterious houses. You are the storytellers and this quarter you will find the story and learn how to put it on paper.

Since we will be working closely with each other this qrt. I think it is good to learn a little about each one of you. Let’s do some introductions

INTRODUCTIONS

Pass out candy, get into partners, interview, and report back to the class

Hand out Syllabus, show text books, and go over

Now lets talk a little bit about story. What are the basic elements you look for in a story?
Character, conflict, setting, theme, plot, point of view, voice, setting.
With these basics in mind lets look at our first story

Hand out story-read in class

Discussion:
Alexie- Do Not Go Gentle

How does Alexie use emotions in the story?
Uses emotion as a character by giving it a title.

What does this do for you as a reader? How does this add to the story?

What other emotions does Alexie use in the story and what is the purpose as a writer?
He uses anger, pride, grief, shame, humor, love
Alexie uses every emotion as a way to deal with the conflict in the story. This is different than the other parents (seen in the bathroom with the other fathers). These father’s DON’T deal with their emotions by judging the surface of other people. As a writer Alexie puts these men in the story to add contrast. Contrasting characters, emotions, objects add detail to the plot and story. They help the reader understand what the narrator is experiencing without just stating it.
This scene in the bathroom foreshadows the ending/last page of the story: The men in the bathroom are simpleminded while the narrator and his wife take an object and give it multiple meanings and emotions as a way to heal and deal with their son’s illness.
I also really wanted to show you this story today because I think it is a metaphor for beginning writers. Everything in life has a story and multiple meanings. As writers you are the observers, the ones who find stories in objects and people and give them meaning by putting them on the page.

Give Homework