This writing assignment, like the others, is a short and focused exercise in close reading. Only 250 words are required; however, this is enough room for you to work on a short story in Woman Hollering Creek and in detail. Select one short story from the collection and concentrate on a passage that you deem interesting. Place the passage at the top of the page as an epigraphic quotation. Then, examine it and analyze it as you have done with previous close reading assignments.
My advice: Stay focused with the epigraphic quotation. I am asking that you craft one paragraph as a body paragraph that you might insert into a longer essay. (If for your final essay you select Cisneros, there is one paragraph). The objective is to develop a sustained textual analysis with a scene/moment.
Spend one-day drafting (an hour +), the second day rewriting (an hour +) and possibly a third day polishing (an hour). Your writing is improving! And it is exciting to watch that improvement and read your work.
Writing Ideas & Challenging Themes
- The title Woman Hollering Creek in relation to a story
- My Lucy and Friendship
- Eleven and Coming of Age
- Salvador and his body
- Culture and Mexican telenovelas
- Barbie-Q and her body
- “Mericans” and Identity
- Reimagining the Borderland Space
- Defining Chicana Identity
- Old Myths & Haunted by La Llorona Legend
- Straddling Two Cultures
- Desire for National Belonging
- Psychological, linguistic, and spiritual border crossings
- Language Play (Spanglish)
