Winter Compositions: Week 5

Baja, Mexico

Week 5! Time is on the wing. Next week, that is week 6, we will have a short essay to do in class that will serve as the midterm exam. You will compose and finish the piece within class time, and you'll have a least one hour and a half to do so. Your midterm grade will appear in your online account a week or so later; the grade is only an indicator of current progress and serves to let you know where you stand as of midterm. I calculate this grade on the basis of work completed and the class essay done week 6. I expect you all to be there and to have submitted all outstanding work by that day.

Today's class will start with a freewriting aimed, ultimately, at generating material for an essay that is structured along the lines of what is called process analysis. How do bees find their way to the hive, how does photosynthesis work, how does one change a tire on a steeply ascending road, make a cheesecake or keep houseplants alive and happy? We all, to some degree, understand how things proceed, or the procedures by which things get done or made. We have followed directions and read instructions from a young age and we have learned how to do a thing or two ourselves; in fact, there are some skills we could actually teach: how to saddle a horse, how to sweep a floor, sew a hem, design an advertisement; and too there are certain experiences we could coach others through, having gone through them ourselves and learned a thing or two about healing, happiness, getting along, starting over–whatever the experience it always involves process. A few examples follow here:

Anyone can climb Kids playing in trees or on monkey bars know that climbing is a natural activity, but older people often have to relearn to trust their instincts. This isn't too hard, though. The ability to maintain self-control in difficult situations is the most important trait for a beginning climber to have. Panic is almost automatic when you run out of handholds 100 feet off the ground. The typical reaction is to freeze solid until you fall off. But with a little discipline,, rational thinking, and/or distraction tactics such as babbling to yourself, humming, or even screaming, fear can change to elation as you climb out of a tough spot.

from "Let's Get Vertical," by Beth Wald

One holds the knife as one holds the bow of a cello or a tulip– by the stem. Not palmed nor gripped nor grasped, but lightly, with the tips of the fingers. The knife is not for pressing. It is for drawing across the field of skin. Like a slender fish, it waits, at the ready, then, go! It darts, followed by a fine wake of red. The flesh parts, falling away to yellow globules of fat. Even now, after so many times, I still marvel at its power–cold, gleaming, silent. More, I am still struck with a kind of dread that it is I in whose hand the blade travels, that my hand is its vehicle, that yet again this terrible steel-bellied thing and I have conspired for a most unnatural purpose, the laying open of the body of a human being.

from "The Knife," by Richard Seltzer

When a farmer calls in a cheetah capture, it is CCF's job to retrieve the animal from a field trap, gather biological information, and then relocate or release it. Normally the work is done in the field and not in a farmer's kitchen. Until last night, there had not been a call in a month–proof that that farmers are learning to co-exist with cheetahs rather than to shoot first and ask questions later.

from "Blur: Cheetahs. Ranchers. Hope.," by Susan Zimmerman

For centuries, it was assumed that honey bees simply visited flowers and collected the honey ready-made, bringing it back to the hive and storing it there. The truth of the matter is that honey making is an elaborate and complicated process. The first step is the collection of floral nectar from the gullets of colorful and fragrant blossoms. Floral nectar starts out as sugar water enriched with a few amino acids, proteins, lipids, phenolics, and other chemicals. While it sits in floral ponds, waiting to be sampled by pollinators, the nectar takes on the aroma of the flowers that produced it. Though the scent of the nectar itself is faint, the aromas are intensified once it is concentrated into honey. Excess water is driven off and the complex volatile oils and other chemicals from the flower are magnified, becoming part of the honey and adding to its appeal. Single-source honeys reveal their characteristic aromas best at room temperature, especially when drizzled across a warm piece of toast.

from Secrets of the Bee

Wear loose and comfortable clothing when working out. Because a warmed muscle is believed to be more flexible and pliant, you will often see people wearing sweat suits and woolen socks. You should also be sure to position yourself as comfortably as possible to reduce the tension and make the stretching more enjoyable.–from The Science of Stretching, by Michael Alter
Freewrite: Make a list of all the things you can do.
Free associate. Imagine the times and places and people these things you do have involved.
Choose one or two as a possible subject of description in process mode.
Assignment #5: In a step-by-step or stage-by stage description show the means by which some thing or another happens or gets done, made, or developed. Write 350 words, using an introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs. Title the essay. Double space the lines.