Assignment #5 Heads Up

I forgot to tell y'all something in class on Friday. It has to do with our fifth assignment which has little or no restrictions whatsoever. The only restriction is that YOU DISCUSS WITH ME WHAT YOU WANT TO DO--that means either meeting with me to discuss it or COMMUNICATING in some other way (email, phone, smoke signals, carrier pigeons, gang gesticulations, etc) your ideas for the assignment. Furthermore, I must OK what you want to do. I'll help you generate ideas and help focus whatever you want to do.

I urge you to consider writing a creative work, as in a short story, a non-fiction personal narrative, several poems, even a short film screenplay (FYI, screenwriters is my forte)--something like that. At least consider it.

And if those "creative" options don't appeal to you, you could do an additional stuffy boring research paper, compare-contrast, critique, food/restaurant review--whatever "academic" pursuit you'd like. Depending on what you want to do, we'll formulate an assignment sheet together. We'll agree on how many pages, sources, etc. and more or less "sign" the assignment sheet like a contract.

I guess the difference is, a "creative" work won't necessarily have source support whereas another "academic" work would. That doesn't necessarily mean a creative work is easier just because you don't need sources. We'd treat it like we would in a creative writing class. I'd critique it and you'd revise according to the critique--or argue with me for your reasons for not. If you have an idea that would somehow merge creative work with academic (gasp! synthesize the two?), I'm all ears! For instance, perhaps you could write a personal narrative/research paper about, say, tattoos--I'm lookin' at you, Youks. You would tell your story related to tattoos as well as do some research about it (thus making it source-supported). That's just an example. You can do whatever you want.

The point is: talk to me about it.

I'm giving you a heads up on Assignment Five now so that you have lots and lots of time to think about it. I want to stress that I'd love to read some creative work since you're all creative people. You might think it'd be scary, but you can writing creatively. I'm here to help.

I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas! Meet with/email/call/pigeon me with your ideas as soon as you get them. Like, even now if you know what you want to do.

Have a great weekend!

Mace...out