American Literature: Modern Non-Fiction
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Modern nonfiction. It's hot. It's dope. It's... whatever word is being used to describe something that's hip and trendy these days. But really, it's just memoirs, autobiographies, personal essays... anything written quasi-recently (last few hundred years) that ain't about wizards and leprechauns.
American Literature | All American Literature |
Courses | American Literature |
Language | English Language |
Literature | American Literature |
Transcript
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...