Narrative Essay Workshop

Yesterday I had a conversation with my colleague, Laura Patterson, who said she had a breakthrough while trying to explain to a student how literary authors will write about one thing, while they are really making a point about something else.

As I try to encourage my freshman writing students to avoid coming right out and stating the emotions they want to express, it occurred to me that Dr. Patterson's solution might work.

She asked her students to think of a literary work as a piece of subliminal advertising, and the act of interpreting a work of literature is like trying to find the messages that were placed there deliberately by the authors, but not on the surface, in an obvious position.

For a recent "My Passion" paragraph, instead of writing something direct like "My passion is.." or "I am so obsessed about X that I can't think of anything else," I want students to SHOW that obsession through actions.

A sign on the "Country Time Fruit Stand" advertises apples that are "unbelievably sweat." them's fighting words. I don't want any fruit, but I find myself slowing down enogh to notice that the "a" in sweat is pencilled in as an afterthought. That's the last straw. In a heartbeat, I've unholstered my pen, and I'm blazing a trail of marked-up signs for "hole potatoes" and "fresh cabigge," neither of which are even fruits, so what the hell are they doing at the "Country Time Fruit Stand?"

I didn't come right out and say "I can hardly think about anything but proper English."  Instead, I wrote a passage that SHOWS the depth of that obsession. I don't say "I'm like a sherrif from the Old West, and my pen is like my gun, spraying ink on lawless, no-good signs."  But I carefully choose words and incidents in order to convey that impression.

So... what is the subliminal message that you want to get across? How can you arrange the sequence of words and actions in order to convey that message without simply announcing it?