CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Friday, March 28, 2008

Creative Nonfiction

There are many ways to define Creative Nonfiction. So what is Creative Nonfiction? It is a genre that is thought of as another way of writing fiction, because of the way writing about a subject inevitably changes the way we know a subject. Creative nonfiction writing can embody both personal and public history. It is a form that utilizes memory, experience, observation, opinion, and all kinds of research. It is defined as “literary journalism” or the “literature of fact,” creative nonfiction is that branch of writing which employs literary techniques and artistic vision usually associated with fiction or poetry to report on actual persons and events.
According to Melissa Hart, the genre of creative nonfiction is “not just memoir; nor is it simply a research-driven article. Rather, it's an exciting hybrid that allows writers to explore their lives and the lives of others through investigation and revelation.” Lee Gutkind, a creative nonfiction author and the founder/editor of the journal Creative Nonfiction says that, “the most important quality that a creative nonfiction writer can have is passion: “A passion for the written word; a passion for the search and discovery of knowledge; and a passion for ... understanding intimately how things in this world work.” “There is a line between fiction and non-fiction. We all have our different ideas about where that line will be,” says Lee Gutkind.
In Herbert Asbury’s All Around the Town he demonstrates the style of creative nonfiction. In “The Sawing off of Manhattan Island”, Lozier and Mayor Allen had reached a conclusion that Manhattan Island was too heavy on the Battery end because of the buildings. They worried that it might become too heavy, break off, and sink into the sea. They decided that the island must be sawed off at Kingsbridge, at the northern end, and turned around, so that the Kingsbridge end would be where the Battery end had been. The weaker end of the island would be anchored to the mainland so that it won’t fall in. The information is given in a vivid and dramatic way keeping the readers interested but at the same time telling an important “hoax” of the time. Also, in John McPhee’s The Curve of Binding Energy, we can see that it is a perfect example of creative nonfiction. He writes with fictional techniques but provides non fictional information. McPhee writes about dangers of the availability of raw nuclear material but, he does not simply state the facts. He puts his own style of writing in it to make it more appealing to the reader.
In the future I want to be a teacher and in order to get kids to read, teachers need to grab their interest right away and keep them turning pages. Susan Taylor Brown says that “If you want to teach young readers about the Irish potato famine, the rain forest, or even math, tell them a story. Tell an interesting tale about interesting people doing interesting things and readers come back for more, sometimes not even realizing they are reading about something that really happened. This is creative nonfiction.” I knew that creative nonfiction was available to the adult market but I never realized how much of an impact it could have on children. “Good creative nonfiction helps kids learn to think by engaging their curiosity,” says Shannon Barefield, Senior Editor at Lerner Publishing Group. "It makes readers ask, ‘Then what happened? Why?’ and so on. An engaged reader retains information and often goes on to seek more. Creative nonfiction is of great use with reluctant and challenged readers, making the work of reading more rewarding than usual. Finally, storytelling techniques can bring to life a subject’s significance in a way that just-the-facts writing can't always do. It’s crucial for kids to learn the nuts-and-bolts facts of the Holocaust, for example, but to learn the human side of those events is critically important as well. Creative nonfiction evokes the humanity within our history.”
Carolyn Yoder explains that “The difference between straight nonfiction and creative nonfiction has to do with structure. Straight nonfiction relies solely on the parts, the facts for the most part, and not on the whole. Creative nonfiction is all about the whole and how the parts make it up. Creative non-fiction, like fiction, is all about story or theme. Creative nonfiction tends to have strong characters, strong sense of place, rich details, obvious themes, conflicts, arcs-everything.”
In my personal opinion Creative nonfiction is a great tool to incorporate in writing and in the classroom. It is a creative blend of nonfiction and the author’s own personal style. It is definitely a useful method that I will be looking to incorporate it in some of my writing, reading, and my future lessons. Creative Nonfiction brings nonfiction literature to life instead of just presenting factual information.

0 comments: