Open Creative Non-Fiction Writing

Dineh,

There is so much here! And I have so many questions, as you will see when you read my reactions in-line. I think the chronology confuses a bit; if you started with the concrete, I think you would have the reader along with you for the ride into the past. Begin, perhaps, with the bit about technology, frustrations with or lack thereof, where narrator is now, and what exactly makes her think of the past. Or perhaps begin with the opakapaka. The past is enticing–the most intriguing section, and the part where I think you might start from for next week, is the bit about “amazni a shu shu”. The cultural differences, as well as the misalignment in humors, are starkly apparent here, and tells the reader more about the couple and the narrator’s relationship to Vuyani more than any other part of the narrative. It’s all so rich right now, and I can’t wait to read more about the couple’s history–how they came to be a couple, and how they came to be at the point they are right now in time.

These are only my suggestions, of course, offered with the best of intentions. Attached are my responses in-line: Week1_Ntantiso_Assignment1 – JP comments. Looking forward to next week!

Cynthia,

My first reaction is also an apt reaction the title–to the “randomness” in the park. I think a story could take shape here, if you were to frequent this park often enough. A thread for a story could be one of the frequenters of the park, a particular dog that interacts with yours, or with a religious statue. A recurring woman in pantsuit–perhaps she reminds you of an extraordinary aunt, or someone else you once met. A story could unravel from there. Maybe the next time, the narrator ventures inside of Grace Cathedral and revisits the religion that seems to have dominated her young life. Why did she shy away from it? Or, why is it so constant in her thoughts? What past experiences, stories, does she have to tell of this place—the church and what it symbolizes, the park and how it serves as a possible backdrop or foil to the church? I suggest that in your next visit, you really run with one of these themes, so that it is no longer “randomness”.

Attached are my comments: Jimes P2P Course Assmt 1 – JP comments. All of my comments are only personal reactions and suggestions–please take them as you will, with a grain (or many) of salt. There are so many potential directions for this narrative to go, and I am looking forward to reading more.

Hi everyone,

There was a question regarding in-line edits and how extensive they have to be. They can be as extensive as you like! They are mainly to record your reactions to the author’s work: to correct typos, indicate places of confusion, where clarification or elaboration would be appreciated, to commend the author for a choice of words, etc. When it comes to critiquing creative writing, there are no set-in-stone rules. Rather, try to respond as a reader and a writer might, by placing yourself in their shoes. You certainly are not expected to comment on every line or even every paragraph. It is merely easier to comment in-line sometimes than to mention every detail in your summary critique.

The consensus seems to be that writing another four-six pages on top of critiquing and meeting in small groups is too much for one week. This was designed to pack in as much writing as we could into a six week course (a length we may change in future iterations). Would you all like another week to produce the four-six pages? So that it would be due Tuesday, the 29th, instead of this Tues? If so, then we can just be concerned with getting in our critiques of last week’s manuscripts and meeting in our small groups.

Feedback would be welcome! We are all learning as we go along how much we can expect in this virtual space with people who have full-time jobs and lives.

Currently, there is a technical issue with uploading documents to your blogs. I will update you all as soon as we have this resolved!

Update: You can now add documents!

“Use the little star icon after Add media; above the box where you are typing your post. Choose files to upload from your computer. Click “File Url” to make sure the text is linked to the location of the file, and choose insert into post. (See this screenshot http://skitch.com/mtdewvirus/7587/mdvtester-add-new-post-wordpress)...”

I sent out separate emails to each group (1, 2, and 3) so you should have your group’s emails now. Please coordinate meeting times via email, as that is probably easiest!

Hello everyone! Welcome to the second week of open creative nonfiction writing. If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You’ve managed to eek out six or so pages of writing that is from your unique point-of-view, the I. That is six pages of rich material, for you to keep in its entirety or filter, but to continue building on in your writing. This time you will distance that I by writing in the third person point-of-view. This initial material, the place you’ve chosen, and the photos you’ve taken of it should give enough momentum to launch you into this different perspective–where you objectify yourself as the character in your own story.

Note: I realize that some of you have jumped ahead and wrote your initial drafts in the third person. That’s fine, as it gives you a head start!

Week 2: Writing in the third person (and diving into critiques)

This week, you will revisit your chosen place and continue writing. Please see Week 2 on the wiki for explanation, resources, and further instructions. You will also begin your small groups this week.

Specific Assignments (due midnight Tues 9/22):

1. Watch the video, “How I became a writer of creative nonfiction,” on the wiki. (It is embedded via YouTube on the Week 2 page.)
2. Based on revisiting the same place, write and submit four-six more pages, this time written from the third person point-of-view. These pages are a continuation of the narrative you wrote last week. Please upload and link them on the assignments page as you did last week, next to your name under Week 2.
3. You will critique your small group’s narratives, with both in-line comments (using track changes) and a response on your own blog. Post both to your blog before you meet with your small group. (For in-line comments, you can edit the original doc and upload it to your blog. Please title your blog post appropriately, ie. Critique of Lee’s ___.)
4. Meet in your small groups to go over each other’s critiques and the discussion questions.
5. Not required, but suggested: Post reflections on what you discussed to your blog. Feel free to muse on anything else as well (such as this week’s video).

Small Group Logistics

Small groups for this week are:

Group 1: Cynthia, Dominique, Dineh

Group 2: Nicola, Lee, John

Group 3: Robert, Susan, Aileen

• You are responsible for reading the manuscripts of your small group and critiquing them. You will find all of them under Week 1 on the assignments page.
• You are also responsible for coordinating a date and time that works for the three of you to meet in real-time, either via Skype conference call (which is free to sign up and use) or some other method that your group agrees on. Aim chat groups are acceptable, as I understand we have busy lives. I will connect each group separately via email, so that you can coordinate your meeting. I suggest using a scheduler like Doodle to help you.
  
• During your small group, you will give each other oral feedback on your manuscripts. This will give you a chance to ask questions about critiques that puzzled you, and to explain your own critiques. It will also help each other to get to the meat of each other’s narratives–what is the compelling thread that should be pursued in future weeks? Where is the story? Also, touch upon the discussion questions.
  

Both your continuing narrative (4-6 pages) and your written critiques are due by midnight Tuesday of next week. You should already have met with your small group by then and have given oral feedback.

I will also be reading and responding to narratives on this blog throughout the week.

Some reminders:

• Please see my Terms of Use post to see how to preface your creative works.
• If you can, I suggest using an Open Office format so that others with different word processors can easily edit and comment directly on your manuscript. Future critiques will require a one page response to the work and in-line edits, so we want to make it easy as possible for different word processor formats to interact with each other. However, I understand preferences for different processors, so as long as we can communicate with each other, use the word processor, style, and font that you think aids your creative process best.
  
• Please name your files according to the appropriate week and course; for example “OCN – Week 2 – Title – Author”. This will lessen confusion among your peers.

Please read this announcement carefully. Unless linked here, please ignore all other information dated before this post.

First things first,

Logistics

Assignments
Please see the Course Assignments wiki page for an overview. Basically, you will have one due date for all assignments each week: End of the day Tuesday (midnight in your timezone). Generally, creative exercises and work will be submitted on the wiki; critiques and reflections will be posted to your individual blogs.

Small Groups
Each week, you will also be expected to critique two peers’ work, and they yours. This will be your small group for the week (groups are listed on the course assignments page and consist of three people). After you submit your creative work on Tues, you will have the next week to critique and comment on your small group’s work at the same time you are continuing to write your own work. Each small group is responsible before the end of the week (end of the day Tues) for meeting in real time either via chat, Skype, or conference call, at a time that works for all three persons. We are all in the pacific, central, or eastern time zones.

Small groups will discuss each other’s feedback and discussion questions/topics for the week.

Logic of course structure
I understand that some of you might think it a bit silly to have this course blog in addition to the course wiki pages. I think the logic behind a blog for each of us is this: Since we do not meet physically in person, the blogs are our personas online. I am asserting myself via this blog, just as I would assert myself in a physical learning space. This blog is my identity online; please consider your own blogs in the same way. In future iterations of this course, we hope to have a more sophisticated and stream-lined way of accomplishing things, so we are open to any and all ideas for improvement!

All blogs are automatically aggregated via OCN the Wire, so you can read your peers’ posts in one place. If you have not created a blog and posted your introduction yet, please comment on this post with your P2PU blog address and I will have you added to the wire.

In that light, the course wiki pages function just like a course syllabus and outline would for physically present courses. I will refer to them, but will post here about changes and updates, as nothing on the Internet (or physically present courses either, for that matter) is ever set in stone!

Now, for week one’s announcements and assignments!

Week 1: Laying the Groundwork for your “Take Away” Narrative

Welcome to day one and week one of Open Creative Nonfiction! Course announcements will always be made on Wednesday! giving you the week and the weekend to write. Things you should already have done:

You should have already been invited to create a course blog. Please do not create your own blog, but wait for the invite from the site administrator so that your blog address is something like http://blogs.p2pu.org/NAME. Once you have a blog, you should have posted a short introduction about yourself, what you do, where you’re from, why you’re taking this course, a picture of your pet goldfish, etc. Then you should have commented on my first blog post with a url to your blog. All blog posts aggregated at OCN THE WIRE, linked at the right of this blog under “Links”. You should also have subscribed to the course blog to receive any announcements the instant they are posted.

This week, you will be laying the groundwork for your “Take Away” Narrative. Please see Week 1 on the wiki for explanation, resources, and further instructions.

Specific Assignments (due midnight Tues 9/15):
1. Watch the three introductory videos on the wiki. (They are embedded via YouTube on the Week 1 page.) Write a response on your blog.
2. Write and submit your six page narrative (double-spaced) to the assignments page, where indicated. Don’t forget to include your photo of the place you chose inside the document. You can get as creative as you want!

• Please see my Terms of Use post to see how to preface your creative works.
• If you can, I suggest using an Open Office format so that others with different word processors can easily edit and comment directly on your manuscript. Future critiques will require a one page response to the work and in-line edits, so we want to make it easy as possible for different word processor formats to interact with each other. However, I understand prefaces for different processors, so as long as we can communicate with each other, use the word processor, style, and font that you think aids your creative process best.

3. Read the discussion questions. This week, there are no small groups, but you are free to muse at will on your blog and comment on others.

That’s all for this week. Remember, choose the place you will visit this week well, as you will have to revisit it for the next six weeks! Please comment on this post with any questions you have.

Please remember that the default license for all course content is CC BY, Creative Commons attribution only. This includes all content on blogs and assignments, sans the creative work.

The terms of use for P2PU are here: http://p2pu.org/TermsOfUse.

So when posting things to your blog, do not upload content that is not yours.

For creative works, as I mentioned in the original course description, you may choose whether or not you license it CC BY or another CC license. If you choose to license it otherwise, you must clearly label that work with its copyright status. IE: I would note next to the document link that this work is CC BY-NC-SA by Jane, or “all rights reserved” copyright by Jane. I would also add this line in the document itself, at the start.

However, all other assignments, reflections, blog posts, etc. will be defaulted CC BY, as per the original course Terms in the course outline:

“Except for your creative nonfiction works, all other content you produce in this course will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Only (CC BY) license. This includes critiques of your peers’ work, responses to interviews and other works, discussions, and writing exercises. In addition, although you will not be required to license your creative nonfiction works openly, you will be expected to post them on the wiki so that they are, at the very least, freely accessible for the duration of the course. After the course, you may choose to take them down, or license one or all of them under one of the Creative Commons licenses. We highly encourage all of you to consider licensing one or more of your creative nonfiction drafts under one of the Creative Commons licenses, so that others around the world may see how you incorporated your peers’ critiques into your work, or otherwise altered/improved your work. Those that do license their work openly may opt out of the final assignment in the last week, which requires a detailed reflection on the six weeks of writing and instruction.”

Update: I have sent your emails to the site administrator who will give you all access to the P2PU workspace by start of the course tomorrow.

I will post the first course announcement tomorrow when the course officially starts, but here is an update regarding requesting access to the P2PU wiki:

Once you have created a pbworks.com account, please request to be added to our workspace (www.p2pu.org).

If you go to www.p2pu.org (and you are not logged in) you will see two
links at the top right:

* Link -> Create an account (do this first)
* Link -> Log-in (this will take you to the log-in page where you can
request access to the p2pu.org workspace)