Life Writing - Writing Life: A Workshop

Storytelling is as old as human civilization itself and fulfills a basic human need. Until recently, memoir was largely absent from the language classroom and often seen as the step-child of literary studies. As a result of the internet, blogging, and the growing interest in the daily lives of people in general, narratives in the form of nonfiction writing are booming. Language classrooms (B1 and higher) should reflect this development and can add a creative spice of life to the routine of school and university life.

In this workshop, I will briefly describe course goals and my ten-step student-centered approach to life writing, which includes workshopping (a chance for students to read their non-fictional narratives aloud to their peers and receive constructive feedback) and producing a class audiobook with the opensource audio software Audacity. Since students create their own meaningful non-fictional stories, they are intrinsically motivated to do their best work.
Workshop participants will be introduced to some useful teaching materials in English as well as take part in activities dealing with close reading, topic selection, ethics, and constructive feedback.