Peggy Shumaker

July 20, 2010

Peggy’s prompt for today was to combine a specific time, a specific place, something important to the narrator personally, and some wider concern. We could use prose or poetry.

Peggy’s homework assignment was to focus on one detail of what we had written and expand on it.

David Crouse

David had us practice recognizing scene, reading the starts of stories to us and having us indicate when a scene started. He pointed out that scene involved a specific time and place. Examples he used were from Richard Ford’s “Time and Place,”, Rachel Ingales “Times Like These,” and Sherman Alex’s “The toughest Indian in the world.” He had us close our eyes and then describe the ceiling of the room. None of us noticed the computer projector overhead. Things on the periphery of a scene help give realism to the scene. The then gave us an in-class exercise: write a quiet scene–a conversation, perhaps–with a peripheral event or series of evens that become an annoyance.

David’s homework assignment was to revise what we had written in class.

Jeanne Clark

Jeanne introduced broadsides and then a poetic form called an Aubade. It’s not a verse form, but a content form, and very old. The content involves illicit lovers parting when a watchman (not necessarily a person) warns of dawn. The guidelines she gave us were:

Night is the positive time; daylight is unwelcome.

The parting at daybreak is central.

Another creature beside the lovers must be included. The other creature is often, but not always, a bird.

Our work must include images or sensory details of both night and dawn. Prose or poetry, the form was not important here.

Homework: revise

Our afternoon segment was to visit the UAF Museum and let the exhibits inspire a piece of writing.