American Literature: Modern Non-Fiction

nonfiction out there one of the most common is the memoir a book that

documents a writer's life popular memoirs includes the diving bell and the [The Diving Bell and the Butterfly book appears]

butterfly by Jean Dominique Bauby which follows the author's life after a

debilitating stroke there's also running with scissors by

Augusten Burroughs which had nothing to do with running with actual scissors and [Hand swipes away scissors]

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert which documents Gilbert's spiritual

pilgrimage to India well that last one is known as a travel memoir by the way

in travel memoirs is you might have guessed about a journey taken by a

writer they do get out of the house every once in a while so how's a memoir

different from an autobiography well some people use the terms [Modern nonfiction folder appears]

interchangeably but the real difference is that an autobiography covers a

person's entire life while a memoir documents only a portion of it some

popular autobiographies are the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin which

covers the entire life of the founding father up from slavery by Booker T [Up from slavery book appears]

Washington which follows Washington's journey from enslavement to national

notoriety and the story of my experiments with truth by Gandhi himself

which documents his life story and spiritual outlook, well, personal essays on

the other hand are mini versions of memoirs the taco to their burrito if [Taco and burrito appears]

you're looking for some legit personal essays, then you could check out notes of

a native son by James Baldwin which concerns Baldwin's relationship to his

father- Shooting an elephant by George Orwell which uses

an elephant stampede to make a statement about British imperialism and consider

the lobster by David Foster Wallace the most mind-bending essay about [Lobster sitting on a rock]

crustaceans you'll ever encounter personal essays typically follow some

common forms we call them text structures fancy talk for the way that

information is organized think of a text structure as the cone holding a scoop of

delicious information we'll look at a simple one first basically you get [Text structure points appear on clipboard]

yourself a nice idea like say that shmoop is the greatest website of all

time which it is and then come up with supporting details that make your tape [Man accepting award on stage]

like the browsing shmoop daily gives you a 300% higher chance of meeting the

hottie of your dreams, hey big brains are sexy another simple structure is the

classic chronological order which is a narrative that occurs from past to

future in a straight line which means that no time travelers are allowed so

you could tell a beat by beat account of your most terrifying birthday party [Clown appears at young boys birthday party]

depict how you changed over the course of high school or just spit out your

entire life story as long as everything's in the order in which it

happened we call it chronological next up meet cause and effect cause and

effect is when you start off with a meaningful event and then you see the

consequences of that event both good and bad something usually bad so we could [Car drives off a cliff]

see how a brush with a particularly touchy Chihuahua affected someone's

feelings for dogs or how a tragic visit to the theatre led to the birth of one

of the most famous superheroes of all time

shmoop man what were you expecting someone else will follow up with another [Shmoop man appears from the dark]

big text structure compare and contrast with this structure an author tells two

stories they complement each other in some way these two narratives don't have

to be best friends though no bromance required here a big part of compare and

contrast is juxtaposition when you put two things next to each other to [Juxtaposition definition appears]

highlight their differences like hiring Bigfoot to model your new shoe

collection one example of compare and contrast would be to compare your

reaction in a friend's reaction to the outcome of the Super Bowl but you don't [Men watching Super Bowl]

have to keep it personal you could also compare your experience

with watching the Super Bowl with what it was like for the star QB to

play in it the final text structure will look at is known as problem and solution

in this structure you start with a problem and then you solve it, no

shockers there this problem can be personal like how to convince your [Boy playing Zelda on videogame]

little brother to give you a turn with the new Zelda game or it can be broader

like what changes that the economy would have ensured that you had two copies of

the game well here's one big thing to remember about text structures before we

move on they're not an either-or kind of deal most personal essays use several

different text structures as we're about to see let's start with in search of our

mother's gardens the creativity of black women in the south by Alice Walker in

search of our mother's gardens is an ode to african-american women their [African-American woman appears]

creativity their resilience and their secret superpowers were only a half

joking about that last one Walker's main idea is that

african-american women are capable of doing great things but society worked [African-American woman painting]

his butt off to keep them from doing so like Virginia Woolf and her famous

feminist essay a Room of One's Own Walker argues that women can't reach

their creative potential without having independence which is an even bigger

deal here because you know african-american women were enslaved for

a good chunk of American history prevented from being artists these

African American women focused their creative energy elsewhere like towards

their family into mega elaborate quilt designs or in Walker's mom's case into [Woman carrying basket of vegetables]

her garden I'd stick with Minecraft but maybe that's just me so in Walker's

estimation of things she's not the only artist in her family she's just the only

one who realizes it Walker uses every text structure Under the Sun to convey

this message she introduces the piece with the main idea that african-american [Sentence highlighted in Chapter 1]

women are deeply creative and follows it up with supporting details that

establish her claim later in the essay she compares and contrasts various

female artists like Virginia Woolf, Phyllis Wheatley and Zora Neale Hurston

She also throws in some structures we can't even define like these weird

poetry breaks the old school equivalent of the artsy spoken word pieces on a [Beyonce performing on stage]

Beyonce album... so why does Walker pack so much into

such a short essay well check out this little nugget Walker says that the essay

is a personal account that is shared by us all us being african-american women

of course and not Doctor Who fan girls as was my first interpretation [Fan girl taking selfie of Doctor Who phone box]

well because Walker is connecting her own experiences with those of other

african-american women it makes sense that she'd include their story too

instead of hogging all the spotlight for herself next up we're going to look at [Alice Walker under spotlight on stage]

mother tongue by Amy Tan... Tan is a first-generation American born to two

Chinese parents and the essay revolves around her struggles with her Chinese

American identity and specifically how it relates to language, see Tan realizes

that she speaks more than one brand of English she speaks this super precise

language of academia she speaks the simplified grammatically incorrect brand [Tan driving a car]

of English spoken by her mother and presumably she swears like a sailor

whenever she owns noobs in online shooters these different dialects mapped [Tan playing shooting video game]

two distinct sides of Tans identity first there's Amy the writer who makes her

living from words and takes them super seriously second there's Amy the

first-generation citizen who still feels different from other Americans in

addition Tan points out that her mom's limitations with speaking don't apply to

understanding mama Tan reads Forbes analyzes stock reports and probably [Stock report graphs appear]

loves 50 shades of gray on the down low unfortunately Mama Tan also faces

prejudice for the way she talks and people often don't take her seriously

until Amy shows up and speaks perfect English... Tan plays the linguistic mix up

for laughs at first like when an adolescent mama tan forces Amy to

impersonate her on calls with her stockbroker but we see its dark side [Amy answers mobile phone]

when her mom is ignored by doctors after getting a brain scan until Amy arrives

so language becomes a pretty important symbol in the essay language represents

both Tans identity as a chinese-american and the prejudice her mother faces in

America just look at the title it twists the definition of mother tongue the

first language a person can speak to refer to Tans mother's heavily accented

form of English which is then twisted into a symbol of Tans multi-dimensional

identity as a Chinese-American so what about the text

structures in this sucker well we start off with a main idea that Tan speaks [Book opens]

multiple forms of English and then drop the supporting detail in the form of a

story about a book reading where she became aware of this distinction

we also see some compare and contrast going down in the middle of the essay

when Tan compares her Mothers broken English to her own refined speaking

style our grand finale is straw into gold the metamorphosis of the everyday

by Sandra Cisneros which is not a guidebook on alchemy sorry [Person puts item into a bowl and explosion occurs]

Hogwarts helpful.... well the essay starts with an anecdote about how Cisneros was

asked by friends to make tortillas because she's mexican-american even [Sandra in a kitchen and man asking for tortillas]

though she knows less about tortilla making than Justin Bieber does about the

quantum physics somehow, Cisneros manages to make some passable tortillas

the most delicious miracle since Jesus turned water into wine...To Cisneros [Man pours glass of red wine]

this miracle shows her ability to achieve the impossible which is

something she's done throughout her life like when she revolted against her

father's expectations of her as his only daughter earned her master's degree and

became a successful writer and somehow watched the season finale of The [Cisneros watching the bachelor on TV]

Bachelor without shedding a tear the title references this overachievement

after all it's impossible to spin straw into gold no matter what late-night

infomercials might tell you but if you put your mind to it Cisneros argues

you can achieve anything....now wait just a second

just put my mind to making an eligible young swimsuit magazine appear

and fall in love with me but nothing, hopes dashed back in the essay, Cisneros

personal stories are filtered through the lens of her Mexican heritage

her father born in Mexico City took an epic journey to America during his young [Cisneros father travelling from Mexico City to America]

adulthood while her mom was born in a Mexican American place in Chicago

Cisneros has a bit of both rents inside her she's got her pops flair for

adventure and her mom's streetwise spunk Cisneros attributes her current

success to both of these qualities even if she still has complaints about her [Cisneros giving speech on stage]

parents preferential treatment of her brothers as usual we can identify some

tasty tech structures here although the essay jumps back and forth in time the

middle section of Cisneros childhood is written in chronological order

there's also some cause and effect going down when Cisneros explains how she

bucked her dad's gendered expectations and then shows us how the inner family

feminist revolution affected their relationship as she got older making her

feel like an outsider straining her relationship to her dear old dad and

even pushing her away from her brothers well if you're in the middle of writing [Cisneros book paragraphs highlighted]

your memoir you can officially end the chapter on your modern nonfiction

education because this lesson is done and what did we learn well we learned

that modern nonfiction is a broad category of writing one that includes

memoirs autobiographies and personal essays these works of nonfiction use a [Text structure points appear on screen]

variety of text structures to convey information mastering them will help us

understand personal essays a whole lot better finally we can look at in our

mother's gardens, mother tongue and straw into gold as elite examples of personal

essays which we can use to learn about the medium as a whole

alright well take care I'm going to keep searching for that swimsuit magazine of [Sports Illustrated magazine appears]

my dreams and what can I say I'm a you know hopeless romantic...