Week 3

Later in the semester you will begin to see writers employ literary techniques that take the essays out of the realm of mere description and into the realm of what is often called creative non-fiction. In creative non-fiction, writers begin to use the outside world (landscape, wilderness, real events) as an object that illuminates an inner world so that the writer becomes the subject of the writing rather than a simple narrator.

Kristijana Gunnars, in her book Strangers at the Door: Writers and the Act of Writing claims that “the peacefulness that comes with the assurance of control…is also a prerequisite for writing. It is a state in which the writier can ‘settle’ the world. Here the metaphor of settling land and its connection to writing is made explicit. It is why settlers write. Home is a place, but it is also a state of mind, as is wilderness.”

Do you see this trend emerging in any of the earlier pieces you’ve been reading? Are the authors trying to “settle” their connection to home by writing about wilderness?

Reading Assignment

In The Last New Land read pp. 135-187

Discussion 3:

Go to our Google+ Community and do the following:

1. Try to answer one or more of these questions by either responding to my G+ Community post (it’s been tagged with the category “3: Alaskan Identity”) or creating your own shared post with a link to examples, photos, videos, or any other media you find on the web.

2. Respond to one or more of your classmates who have posted in Discussion Category  3: Alaskan Identity (categories are located on the left hand side of the Google+ Community) in a thoughtful way.