Creative Writing: Reading Your Times Beal Creative Writing, 2015 Targets: Engage in various types of creative writing. Practice the fundamental techniques of writing prose and poetry.

We begin with the time in which we were born. Conduct research about the year, month, or day you were born. Try to find a mixture of political, social, pop-culture and international events of note from that time period. Use the resources on the following slides or any others you like.

1983: Top Grossing Film: Return of the Jedi Top Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbKKyafBmqM Style: Yikes Culture: Cold war Reagan’s “New World Order” Challenger Space Shuttle successful Sally Ride—first woman in space “Where’s the Beef?” Economy Booming

As you research, you may want to take notes that address: In what ways do you see yourself as a product of the times evoked by this read­ing? Is there one big historical event that’s somehow shaped your life or that res­onates with you? Has the apparent absence of such an event shaped your life in any way? What are you surprised you didn’t know about that year, month, or day— until you did the reading? Are there any events, historical figures, trends, fads, polit­ical crises, etc., that serve to comment uncannily or ironically on how your life has developed since Day One? In what ways do you feel distant or unaffected by the specific era into which you were born? How were your parents’ lives shaped by this era, in your opinion?

After you’ve researched, choose one of the following pieces to compose : Write a list poem that catalogues events that happened on your birthday or in your birth year; play with different organizational schemes. Write a fictionalized account—in short-story form—about your parents, or a couple like your parents, and what they were doing and thinking the day of your birth. Write a poem based on one especially potent photographic image you dis­cover in your research. Write a short autobiographical essay that explains why you do or do not (or both) feel particularly connected to the world evoked by your reading. Set a short play in the “era” in which you were born that evokes the details which you encountered and your attitudes and views toward it. This is a typed assignment—not one to complete in your journal. See the grading rubric for a breakdown of how you’ll be assessed for this piece.

Resources for research: As much as I hate it, Wikipedia has pretty decent accounts of individual dates in history. For decent run-through’s of what happened in particular years, try these: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/yearsanddecades.html http://www.infoplease.com/yearbyyear.html Also, if you want to find a specific piece of information, ask a question of your search engine “What was the number 1 song of 1998?” “What famous people were born in 1998?”