DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

 

Micro Prose from the English Language Academy

 

 

English Language Academy students in Mary Ann Gottlieb's Intermediate Writing class and Cynthia Comstock's High Intermediate Writing class wrote postcards to friends, family members, and their past or future selves, created hand identity charts, and penned six-word memoirs in micro prose workshops. 

 

The workshop kicked off with a presentation of an identity box, which displays how the outside world perceives you on the outside of the box and how you perceive yourself on the inside of the box. With a three-dimensional identity box, you have the luxury of taping pictures to the box or filling the box with personally meaningful objects. We then transitioned into the hand identity charts activity. Participants traced an outline of their hands on construction paper in assorted colors. Inside the outline, they illustrated (using pens, colored pencils, and markers) how they saw themselves and their identities; outside the tracing of their hands, they put down how others might see them. 

 

A few volunteers shared their hand identity charts before we moved on to the next activity: the postcards. Participants could describe what they saw on the postcard, inventing a story or using their five senses to recreate the scene. They also had the option of jotting down a note unrelated to the postcard image to loved ones or themselves; if desired, they could take the postcard home and send it to someone.

 

Last but not least, we geared up to write our own six-word memoirs. First, we discussed "For sale: baby shoes, never worn," the classic six-word story popularly attributed to Ernest Hemingway, analyzing the story's possible meanings and why the story worked on multiple levels. We talked through examples from Next Avenue's six-word memoir challenge as well as online storytelling publication Smith Magazine's Six-Word Memoir project. Then participants wrote their six-word memoirs. A few participants shared their mini memoirs with the class.

 

Mary Ann Gottlieb's Intermediate Writing Section 3 Students

 

Daham 
Nasser 
Jose 
Adrian 
Ahmad 
Wejdan

 

Cynthia Comstock's High Intermediate Writing Students

 

Abullateef 

Muhannad

Talal

Danah

Mohammed

Ali

Adriana

Iulia

Prawpond (Ami) 

Fatma (Nilufer)

Ya-Han

Hashim

Tomasz

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.