Until recently, narrative nonfiction writing was often seen as the stepchild of literary studies. As a result of the internet, blogging, Twitter, and the growing interest in the daily lives of people in general, narrative nonfiction writing is booming. Increasingly, more attention has been given to groups whose voices have not been elevated much. In this project-oriented class, students will be introduced to life writing and techniques writers of non-fiction use to tell their own stories. Moreover, students will explore the genre by closely reading a variety of nonfictional texts and stories. In particular, students will choose between Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America (2003) by Firoozeh DuMas and Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (2012) by Deborah Feldman as the main text of the seminar.
In the second part of the course, students will be mentored on an individual basis and write about their own lives. They will be involved in peer editing and expected to revise their own writing as well as present/read their life writing piece to the class. Students will produce lively read audio versions of their stories that will be compiled into a class audiobook
Everyone has a story to tell. What is yours?
- Teacher: Sabrina Völz