Nonfiction Portfolio

1. Revision of ESSAY
2. Draft of ESSAY w/my comments
3. 3 Peer Response Forms/Letters that most helped your revision process
4. Writer’s Memo: Share a reflection of your journey through nonfiction – discuss your progress, process, questions you have of your own writing, goals that have arisen out of this experience, discoveries about what you prefer as a reader (what is the essay or who is the nonfiction writer that most influenced your writing), insights about what has inspired writing from you, what you’ve realized about your writing habits, if/how your idea(s) for what makes a good essay changed over the course of this unit, the most important thing you’ve discovered about NF in general and in your writing, how you see yourself making the transition into the fiction unit, etc. (1-2 pages); at the end of this, offer a Grade Proposal, considering what you have done to address issues of your first draft; ways that you’ve addressed workshop comments or my feedback; how the essay is improved (and, if you wish, what might still need work), etc.
5. Optional: Include up to 3 nonfiction pieces written anytime during this unit that you’d like me to see.

Note: Please include in your email subject: the assignment name (ie. Nonfiction Portfolio). Please attach your Revision and Memo as google doc or .docx (no pdfs accepted). Each attached document file name must include your first & last name and assignment name (ie. Stacie Cassarino, Essay, Revision). Hard copies will also be accepted in class, otherwise email the portfolio by March 1 @ Noon. *You must also post your ESSAY revision to our blog as a way of sharing your work with the class — I’ll create a space entitled ESSAY for this.

NO LATE PORTFOLIOS ACCEPTED WITHOUT APPROVED EXTENSION

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Optional: Nonfiction Revision Exercises

Note: these revision exercises will not be formally turned in, but my hope is that you will test the possibilities of your Poem in unexpected ways, and perhaps discover new revisionary paths, or more clarity/confirmation about what does work in your first draft. Trying some of these out can lead to breakthroughs or deepened understandings.  The energy of revision is the energy of creation and change, which is also the energy of destruction. —Maggie Anderson

• Rewrite the opening in a dramatically different way.
• Change the POV of your essay.
• Use a highlighter to mark every moment of tension in your essay. What do you notice / where does tension come?
• Reduce your essay by half without compromising meaning or impact.
• Reorder the paragraphs. What happens? (If possible, put scissors to hardcopy.)
• Write the essay backwards.
• Hidden Titles: Find the 10 most commonly used words in your writing this unit and use these words as “hidden” titles for individual flash stories. (Let the words instigate writing without being known, then eliminate them altogether in the end.)