When crafting a nonfiction lesson for a high school creative class for whom I guest-lectured virtually this fall, I was indebted to a framework of generative thinking that helped me in college: this was the indigenous concept of a vessel and its contents, as briefly described in the introduction to the 2019 essay collection Shapes of Native Nonfiction, edited by Theresa Warburton and Elissa Washuta. I built this framework and my lesson by explaining the following:
- Every piece of writing concerns a vessel and its contents. The vessel or container is itself as important as the thing it holds. For nonfiction writers, the vessel is our craft and the thing it holds is our truth.
- Craft constitutes all the things that give structure to writing such as sentence variation, choice of language, tone, detail, setting, etc. The truth is the message you want the reader to understand about your experience when they’re finished reading your piece.
- Don’t limit yourself to assuming that your truth has to be a tidy lesson, maxim, or cliché. Rather, think of it as something that helps the reader simply know you better.
- Likewise, your craft can utilize whatever you think it needs in order to reach that truth. Experiment with words and sentences. Think of your craft as a vessel, or boat, that supports your truth. What is the shape of that boat? What’s it doing?
From these points, two prompts can follow:
- What’s something that holds a truth about you? This can be anything—your favorite media, an experience with travelling, a family recipe, your sport or hobby, etc. Use things outside the classroom to inspire you. Write about it. What have you learned from it? How does it make you who you are? This is meant to encourage students’ thinking on diverse ways to reach and convey a truth about themselves.
- Think about a non-academic format of writing that you use often. This can be emails, group chats, streaming channels, social media posts, etc. Write in that format to tell a story or explain something. This is meant to stir students’ imaginativeness with their craft.
Teaching with this figurative language may encourage young writers who are intimidated by the idea of nonfiction. High school students can find nonfiction writing uncomfortable or scary because of its experientially-based prompts. By using the imagery of a boat that holds something, the lesson shows students that nonfiction doesn’t have to expose their most traumatic or sensational experience (the things they might typically associate with mainstream memoir). Rather, it can be anything that helps their truth, or a piece of themselves, float.
Pedagogically, this approach to nonfiction is meant to democratize access to the formation of meaning. Creative writing lessons need to support diversity in student interest, learning style, and cultural upbringing. Encouraging kids to draw on the non-academic texts of their lives shows them that their stories are important and part of the classroom too. Pushing these stories forward can facilitate more organic, passionate nonfiction writing from young people.
Works Cited
Warburton, Theresa and Washuta, Elissa, editors. “Introduction: Exquisite Vessels.” Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers. University of Washington Press. 2019.
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Jacey de la Torre (she/her/hers) recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. She is currently living and working at a school in the East Bay and will begin graduate school in summer 2021 to become a credentialed teacher. In addition to writing, her passions include running, reading, and cooking unnecessarily elaborate Mexican meals for her family.