Group items tagged

"McPhee has now published more than thirty books, work that first appeared in the pages of The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1963. He's written about Alaska (Coming into the Country), the Swiss Army (La Place de la Concorde Suisse), and an island in Scotland's Inner Hebrides (The Crofter and the Laird). His subjects have included the atomic bomb, the environmental movement, the U.S. Merchant Marine, Russian art, and fishing. Four books on geology. Three on transport. Two on sports. One book entirely about oranges. He has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World, his comprehensive survey of North American geology. His work has inspired generations of nonfiction writers, and he has distinguished himself especially as a teacher of literary journalism." This is an interview with him about writing and teaching.

Tips for teaching and studying non-fiction. Genre study

"Carrie is a professor at a university. She had asked me how to turn an area of her expertise, secondary school education, into writing that the general public would find rewarding and enjoyable. That's when I began talking about scenes, using her accident as an example of how to approach her work. Almost all creative nonfiction, essays or books, are, fundamentally, collections of small stories - or scenes - that together make one big story."

"The magazine story behind Sebastian Junger's celebrated nonfiction book A Perfect Storm ran in Outside magazine in October 1994. "The Storm" (4,765 words) told the story of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat out of Gloucester, Mass., that sank amid horrific weather, killing everyone aboard. It's a harrowing narrative, and particularly remarkable for being - by virtue of nature and fate - a write-around. Storyboard's questions and comments for Junger are in red; Junger's answers - which he kindly offered by phone - are in blue."

reading non-fiction as inquiry - plug in author for scientists in the chart to add an inquiry angle to the text.

Op-Docs is The New York Times editorial department's forum for short, opinionated documentaries, produced with wide creative latitude and a range of artistic styles, covering current affairs, contemporary life and historical subjects.   Op-Docs videos are produced by both renowned and emerging filmmakers who express their views in the first person, through their subjects or more subtly through an artistic approach to a topic. Each is accompanied by a director's statement. In December 2012, we started a new Op-Docs feature: Scenes. This is a platform for very short work - snippets of street life, brief observations and interviews, clips from experimental and artistic nonfiction videos - that follow less traditional documentary narrative conventions.

"Have high schools replace novels with nonfiction, and other dubious prescriptions for creating a nation of readers"

"The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf's picks for must-read nonfiction from 2013."

""They're all great readers," she said, noting that nearly 90 percent are reading at grade level. "But I have a hard time getting them to engage with the text, read for understanding and deeper meaning. I have a hard time getting them to read and think and write critically about fiction and nonfiction alike.""

"Teacher-consultant Rus VanWestervelt describes how he founded a journal designed and edited by high school students and devoted entirely to publishing creative nonfiction written by teens throughout Maryland."

"a list to help your students more easily connect the literature they're reading to the world around them - and to help teachers find great works of nonfiction that can echo common literary themes."

Nonfiction - essays and narratives from 2,500 to 7,00 words.

"Like so many of the people he writes about, McPhee is a consummate craftsman. There are many aspects of his craft that a fellow writer can envy, from his keen, loving ear for the quirks and rhythms of American speech, to his arsenal of tools - including shifts of tense you only notice on the second reading - for nimbly hopping about in time."

"Like many people I consider myself a lifelong learner, but more and more I have to work hard to stay open minded. But the need for learning never ends, so your desire to do so should always outweigh your desire to be right. The world is changing and new ideas pop up everyday; incorporating them into your life will keep you engaged and relevant. The following are the methods I use to stay open and impressionable. They'll work for you too. No matter how old you get."

"Welcome to Storyboard's first annual year-end roundup of top storytelling: 34 of our favorite pieces in audio, magazines, newspapers and online, "

If you're a regular Times reader, you've no doubt enjoyed, and maybe even taught with, some of the 1,000-plus personal essays from the Magazine's Lives column, which has run weekly for decades. But did you know that NYTimes.com also regularly features personal writing on everything from love and family to life on campus, how we relate to animals, living with disabilities and navigating anxiety? In this post we suggest several ways to inspire your students' own personal writing, using Times models as "mentor texts," and advice from our writers on everything from avoiding "zombie nouns" to writing "dangerous" college essays."

"Jessica Contrera's "The End of the Waffle House" begins on the morning when a big change comes to a small square of Bloomington, Ind. "Tap, tap, tap. Bud Powell's aluminum cane led the way as he circled the floor of Bloomington's Waffle House. His Waffle House. That Wednesday in September, the owner didn't know what to do with himself. The smell of frying oil, the same greasy perfume that had greeted customers for 46 years, wafted into his nose as he wandered past the vinyl booths. He sat down, then stood up again." Contrera had never been to the old restaurant surrounded by new student apartments before, but when the senior from Akron, Ohio, started her semester at Indiana University, she saw the sign reading "We will close Sept. 4." And she wanted to tell the story. Contrera visited the Waffle House a week before it closed, when she met her three major characters, as well as the day it closed and the day it was torn down. She also spoke with about a dozen other customers and staff who didn't make it into the story, but did help her understand what the business meant to the community. In her reporting, Contrera's professor of practice, Pulitzer-prize winner and Poynter writing fellow Tom French, pushed her to find details. Fifteen drafts later, those details include many small things that help readers feel what the closing of the old restaurant meant to its regulars, the owner and the community."

"In a small Southern town during the Jim Crow era, a black man is accused of raping a white woman. During his stormy trial there are threats of lynching, as well as intimations that the white woman had been the sexual aggressor. That tale summarizes the plot of Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," a staple of high school English courses. But it also describes part of the more complicated and less morally uplifting real-life story told in "Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair," a half-hour documentary to be broadcast Friday on NPR stations as part of the "Radio Diaries" series (www.radiodiaries.org)."

Room for Debate - Five short articles answer the question: Does "Catcher in the Rye" resonate with teenagers today? Does the Holden Caulfield version of alienation speak to a generation connected on Facebook?

"In this lesson, we explore ethical dilemmas that face normal people around the world, in all walks of life. Some of their cases are familiar, while others are obscure. But they hold one thing in common: They feature individuals who followed the guidance of their own moral code, often risking personal injury or community censure to do so. We'll ask students to examine the underlying characteristics of such episodes, and consider whether some acts are more deserving of support than others."