Progression A
Reading and Responding to Texts: Animal Narratives
You will write a narrative essay that asks you to consider a time in which you have had power over a nonhuman life. It must be a situation in which you interacted with a living creature; therefore, you may not write about eating an animal, unless you interacted with the animal before its death or took part in causing its death. The reason for this is because I would like you to consider the animal’s experience as an embodied creature. You will need to explain why this even was
significant and what insight you gained.
We will also read selections of texts, such as Jonathan Safron Foer’s Eating Animals and Hal Herzog’s Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat. Although you will not need to incorporate these texts into your essay, they will hopefully provide you with a new perspective on your interactions with animals. You may choose any interaction with an animal that you have had in which you possessed power over the animal. It does not matter what you chose to do with that power. For example, you could choose to write about killing bugs when you were a child, letting a spider free outside, putting your cat to sleep, rescuing a dog from the side of the road, catching a fish, etc. Even if some of these interactions seemed insignificant to us, they may have been profoundly meaningful for the animals.
Assignment 1A: Proposal
You must decide on what story you will tell. Remember that the story must be about an interaction that you had with a nonhuman being, one in which you had the power, whether you chose to use that power to help the animal live or not. Consider why you found this experience important or meaningful? Did you find it meaningful at the time of the incident, or was it something that you realized later? Did it change how you feel about the lives of animals? Did it change how you view your own power over animals?
Explain in 200 words, typed, MLA format.
0 comments