Creative Nonfiction

Creative writing, as taught by universities, is becoming less focused on poetry and fiction and more on "creative nonfiction." The problem is that nobody (professors and publishers alike) can define just what the term creative nonfiction means.

Picking apart and discussing aspects of Lynn Z. Bloom's "Living to Tell the Tale: The Complicated Ethics of Creative Nonfiction."

Picking apart and discussing aspects of D.W. Moore's "Building Blocks of Creative Nonfiction: Detail and Description"

Picking apart and discussing aspects of Christopher Buckley's "Creative Nonfiction."

This lesson plan offers students a differentiated way of approaching understanding of the memoir form, a subgenre of the creative nonfiction genre.

Creative Nonfiction is a complex, interesting genre that is gaining popularity while schools begin to add it to their Language Arts curriculum. This lesson plan, geared for upper level high school students, is a great way to introduce creative nonfiction in your classroom.

Picking apart and discussing aspects of Jonathan Safran Foer's "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease"

Picking apart and discussing aspects of Bronwyn T. Williams's "Never Let the Truth Stand in the Way of a Good Story: A Work for Three Voices"

Picking apart and discussing aspects of "Full House" by David Sedaris

Picking apart and discussing aspects of J.T. Leroy's "Stuff"

Picking apart and discussing aspects of May Sarton's "Journal of Solitude"

Picking apart and discussing aspects of Simone Poirier-Bures's "That Shining Place" and "Afterword: Writing 'The Greece Piece'"

Picking apart and discussing aspects of K. Kvashay-Boyle's "Saint Chola"

A list of words and definitions relating to creative nonfiction and fiction writing

Picking apart and discussing aspects of Melissa Hart's "The Fragility of Memory"

Picking apart and discussing aspects of Mimi Schwartz's "Memoir? Fiction? Where's the Line?"