Students deserve an opportunity to explore the memoirs, diaries, biographies, speeches, and interviews. Real people with real experiences, written out and waiting to be shared with us. Nonfiction is something we can relate to because it happened. We can work through nonfiction as well to fathom some of history's less believable aspects, such as the Holocaust, the Civil War, or Vietnam. While today it seems ridiculous that so much life was lost, reading diaries or memoirs written during those times makes what students are reading in their history books real.
In addition to the benefits of reading nonfiction, students studying the techniques can write nonfiction on their own. Nonfiction is an entire genre to delve into if poetry, short stories, or fiction don't work out. Nonfiction gives students one more way to find their niche and even be creative in the process.
I think it's rather ironic that most of students writing assignments constitute essays, but that they rarely read them for class. It's been an interesting week of reading for me with are assignments. I agree that personal histories are so much more "alive" than what history books can relate.
ReplyDeleteSorry just reread this, and apparently I forgot my pronouns--"It's been an interesting week of reading for me with OUR assignments." OOPS!
DeleteThere is one genre that many students will care deeply about writing before exiting high school: the creative non-fiction essay or the "personal essay," better known as The College Admission Essay. I've cut and pasted the prompts from the 2012 Common Application --just try to imagine writing something unique and memorable on one of these topics!
ReplyDelete1. Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
2. Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.
3. Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.
4. Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.
5. A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.
Students need to see models of compelling personal essays before attempting this kind of writing task; this isn't the Five Paragraph Theme! :)
I could not agree more with you when you said, "Students deserve an opportunity to explore the memoirs, diaries, biographies, speeches, and interviews." I did not think about about memoirs and speeches a lot until this class. I remember listening to and examining speeches in Argument and Research. It was a very valuable experience, and I would not be the communicator I am today without some exposure to nonfiction.
ReplyDeleteEven we as a class had trouble with picking out non-fiction and did not realize how abundant it is. There is a great emotional connection that happens with non-fiction because the stories can be quite powerful and they are also real. This kind of emotional connection could turn a non-reader into a reader.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think back to my high school days, a lot of the readings that stayed with me all these years are nonfiction. One text that stayed with me was "The Diary of Anne Frank". This is such a powerful piece to use in the classroom. Not only are students learning about the Holocaust, but they are experiencing it through the eyes of someone close to their age who actually lived through the tragedy. That's powerful stuff!
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