2. What is your research question? How are you approaching your inquiry into this subject? What will your paper do?
3. What do you predict to find? What are some preliminary conclusions?
Why this? Why now? --First-year composition instructors are often faced with the difficult challenge of creating meaningful lessons that engage developmental and beginning writers in creative non-fiction. Creative non-fiction is an especially tricky genre to teach; most instructors don't have a lot of experience writing in this genre, and students are reluctant to share stories that are personal, stories that define who they are and what they do. Further, the academy's assumption is that narrative is easy to both teach and write; this is simply not supported by the evidence collected from student and teacher experience. The reasons for this difficulty lies in the project of writing course--creating globally-engaged, self-reflecting critical thinkers--while overcoming the personal baggage that keeps students from mastering these skills. We need to develop an approach to teaching creative non-fiction in college classrooms, one that encourages global interaction--to help students think about the ways they are actively engaged with the world--while encouraging insightful, fresh and authentic creative non-fiction essays.
Research Question: What kind of pedagogy will fill this void?
Conclusions: Teaching creative non-fiction through travel-writing will help students gather meaningful experiences and actively seek interaction with those in their communities, classrooms, and the nation/world as a whole. This paper/blog will argue this premise, as well as provide access to materials
Why this? Why now? --First-year composition instructors are often faced with the difficult challenge of creating meaningful lessons that engage developmental and beginning writers in creative non-fiction. Creative non-fiction is an especially tricky genre to teach; most instructors don't have a lot of experience writing in this genre, and students are reluctant to share stories that are personal, stories that define who they are and what they do. Further, the academy's assumption is that narrative is easy to both teach and write; this is simply not supported by the evidence collected from student and teacher experience. The reasons for this difficulty lies in the project of writing course--creating globally-engaged, self-reflecting critical thinkers--while overcoming the personal baggage that keeps students from mastering these skills. We need to develop an approach to teaching creative non-fiction in college classrooms, one that encourages global interaction--to help students think about the ways they are actively engaged with the world--while encouraging insightful, fresh and authentic creative non-fiction essays.
Research Question: What kind of pedagogy will fill this void?
Conclusions: Teaching creative non-fiction through travel-writing will help students gather meaningful experiences and actively seek interaction with those in their communities, classrooms, and the nation/world as a whole. This paper/blog will argue this premise, as well as provide access to materials
