Campus Exile- Revenge

INTRODUCTION
Twice during the semester you have to turn in Formal Submissions—one in the genre of Creative Nonfiction and one in the genre of Fiction. This is your Creative Nonfiction Formal Submission assignment.
PROMPT
Write your own original piece of creative nonfiction. Unlike the Writing Exercises you’ve been doing, there is no specific prompt for this. What does that mean? Well, it means that for this assignment you have no restrictions whatsoever when it comes to subject, style, approach, or point of view. In fact, the only restriction for you to consider with this assignment is length: shoot for something between 1000 and 4000 words (approximately between 3 and 15 pages).
ADVICE
Don’t be afraid to take risks or try something new! Think about the wide variety of styles we read in this unit, and you can see that Creative Nonfiction is an enormous, unwieldy genre that contains essays as different as Annie Dillard’s “Total Eclipse” and David Shields’ “Life Story.” In past classes students have turned in amazing essays on trips they took abroad, or problems they’ve had with stage fright. One student wrote a piece that was composed entirely of the titles of #1 songs on the Billboard charts. Another student wrote a piece about dealing with the death of a family pet. Pretty much anything goes here. You could expand one of your Writing Exercises or write something completely new. Whatever. I just want you to be invested in what you’re writing about. Please don’t hesitate at all to run an idea by me if you have one you’re unsure about. I’m here to help. Last thing: please don’t forget to proofread before you turn it in!
FORMATTING
Font Typeface—use either Times New Roman or Garamond
Font Size—use 12-point
Spacing—please, please, please double-space!
Heading—Two things: 1) include your name at the top of page 1; 2) include a Word Count just below your name
Titles—please try to come up with one (I know this isn’t an easy thing to do; try to do it anyway.)
Page numbers—please include these
GRADING
When I’m grading your Formal Submissions, one the big things I’ll be looking for is effort—the degree to which I can see that you’re committed to working on becoming a strong writer. Another thing I’ll be looking for is completeness: have you seen your idea through to its end? Have you done more than just tossed it off the night before? Have you really spent time with it, really wrangled with your language?
When you submit this piece on Wednesday, February 23rd, I won’t give it a letter grade. Instead, I’ll read it very closely and give you my impressions. I’ll tell you what it seems to me the piece wants to do versus what it actually is doing. I’ll provide comments and suggestions, and just generally try to help improve the piece in any way I can. Then, at the end of the semester, you’ll submit it again in the Final Portfolio. This will give you the chance to revise the piece based on my comments and suggestions.