Creative Writing

1. Creative Writing Choose two of the five beginnings below and answer the following for each: 1. How does this sentence work as a beginning? 2. What questions does it raise? • “Nothing happens by accident. I learned this the hard way, long before I knew that the hard way was the only path to true, certain knowledge.” • “The vibrating clangour from the four great piston engines set teeth on edge and made an intolerable assault on cringing eardrums.” • “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” • “The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three o’clock.” • “My high school friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life.”

2. Prompt—First Draft As a means of understanding your attitudes in both writing and reading, you are to compose a memoir involving your experiences as a writer. In your memoir, reflect upon and describe in detail five distinct experiences that shaped you as a reader, a writer, and a scholar. It’s okay if you don’t remember every single thing about an event. What matters is that you are able to capture the significance of the event as clearly as possible.

3. Writing Strong Beginnings • You don’t have to write the beginning first! • It doesn’t matter if the beginning of the rough draft sucks. • Drop your reader into the middle of the action. • Give them a reason to keep reading.

4. A note regarding your literacy narratives... • These are narratives, not essays. Write them accordingly.

5. Moving Along • If you’ve not completed your first drafts, do that first. • If you have completed your first draft, go back over your draft and revise your beginning. • If you’ve done all of these things, spend the rest of the period revising your first draft. • Your drafts are due at the end of the period.