Novel Experience & Expression » Schedule / Update

Resonance Assemblage

Gary Hink — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:15:51 +0000

M 07-Dec Due: Final Project — “Resonance Assemblage” (checkpoint)

Workshop / “Studio” class

“Stage 1″ Checkpoint instructions here.

W 09-Dec (no class)

Due: Final Project — (9pm finalized / online)

Overall guidelines here

[See post to watch Flash video]

“Stage 1″ Project Checkpoint due M 07-Dec (class time) — required

Note: must be online, “in progress,” by class time to avoid penalty
(late / point deduction from final project).

Content: 6-8 entries (”posts”) minimum (of 16-20 total).
— reminder: entries are fragments (100-200 words); see below for more.

“Research” is complete; definite/revised topic/issue; sources and “materials” selected.

List sources on “Materials” page:

Literary: 2 from Part II novels; (4 req’d total)*
Scholarly: 1 min. from research; (2 required total)
Culture: 2 min. (distinct from “Literary” sources; 4 min. total)
Multimedia: 2 min. (10 total, including 1 non-image e.g. video, audio, animation, etc.)

— * Note: any material from a novel is sufficient: quote, phrase, description, figure/image, character, setting, references/allusions, style/”voice” (?), narration technique (?)….

— Prospective materials: list any sources not used yet but anticipate including in entries; also might list any items seeking but not found thus far.

——–

Layout : Blog reformatted (see instructions below — click here).

Static home page created.

“Entries” page created.

Required Pages created (see below; content incomplete)

New title (creative / applicable, re: “critical expressionism” of your project)

New “theme” (blog template)

Categories and Tags (create, relative to topic)

All old entries categorized (and tagged? optional);
e.g. “research,” “response,” “reading journal”

Widgets: “Categories” and “Tag Cloud” (minimum / req’d)

——–

Required Pages:

Home
About
Entries (or “Posts”)
Materials
Poetics
Reflection

——–

Multimedia

— Be sure to embed at least one image and/or audio/video clip (even if you change/delete them later).
— Use from Web or your own (upload to Wordpress)

Instructions:
Embedding Images
Video Instructions (for YouTube; cf. Google, Vimeo, etc. on page)
Adding Audio Instructions
Google Maps

Note: We’ll want to troubleshoot practical issues about this during Monday’s workshop; please attend/arrive with specific technical questions/issues.

——–

Content

6-8 entries (”posts”) minimum.

— reminder: entries are fragments (100-200 words).

Flexible / hybrid poetics: might be single topic/vignette (for emphasis); or, juxtaposition of diverse elements, e.g. text and image from different paradigm levels.

Note: strongly discourage using images for “representation” (illustration, depiction, etc), as this is not expressive (but logical). Instead, use expressive images guided by intuition (associative and affective logic), without “obvious” (explicit, rational) connection…

Paradigm (one example from each dimension, for Monday):

Personal
Disciplinary (historical / scientific)
Cultural
Original Narrative

Interface: one example (from any of three paradigm dimensions)

Expressive Figure: one example (from any of three paradigm dimensions)

Manipulated image : one example

“Ready-made” or “Bricolage” Method of using images: “re-fashion” / “re-purpose” visually, by using any image program like Photoshop; including free software online:

Pixlr
Phoenix
Picnik
Wordle (?)

——–

Blog Format / Layout Instructions

Creating Pages

1) Dashboard -> Pages -> Add New
2) “Add New Page” -> Title / compose -> Publish

*3) Create a new page that will become your home/front page.
*4) Create a new page titled “Entries” or “Posts”

A) Convert blog to static home page.

1) Dashboard -> Settings -> Reading.
2) Front page displays -> choose “A static page.”
3) Select Front page (from drop-down menu).
4) Select Posts page (from drop-down menu).

B) New Theme & Title

Change Theme to one expressive of experience/affect.

1) Dashboard –> Appearance –> Themes

Change title: re-name your blog with an apt title for your project.

1) Dashboard -> Settings -> Blog Title & Tagline

C) Enable “Tag cloud” & “Categories” widget

1) Dashboard –> Appearance–> Widgets

* To tag and categorize entries

1) Dashboard -> Posts -> Edit Posts
2) Select post to Edit -> Add/type tags (right column) -> Click “Add” Button.
3) “Categories” -> Choose/create (right column)
*4) Click “Update” (right column) to save (not updated, otherwise).

Simple Solution, Impossible Problem

Gary Hink — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:11:17 +0000

“Truth depends on an encounter with something
that forces us to think and to seek the truth.” (14)

“if the resonance has both objective and subjective conditions,
what it produces is of an altogether different nature:
the Essence, the spiritual Equivalent….that breaks with the subjective chain.” (154)

— Deleuze, Proust and Signs (1972)

M 30-Nov     Foer: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (through p. 173)
                       (Laura Hampson & Tahara Franklin)

W 02-Dec     Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (pp. 174-259)
                       (Krystal Sardinas & Paige Miller)

Due: Project Proposal Update (revised/finalized; 7pm, on blog)
(counts as blog entry; add Foer to your “poetics inventory”)

→ Notes from class discussion (plus reminders and clarifications)

F 04-Dec Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (pp. 267-326) (Sarah Zimmerman)

plus: (required): “Mystory” excerpts by Ulmer (PDF)

M 07-Dec Due: Final Project — “Resonance Assemblage” (checkpoint / partial)

Preterition

Gary Hink — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:17:15 +0000

M 23-Nov Due: Response 6 — Part I (1:55pm) Creative Prompt

— Part II: Analysis of Classmate’s Entry (due 11:59pm). Prompt

Extra Credit (optional) Analytic Response — Prompt

Response 6 Extra Credit Prompt: 500-600 words, 10 points; due M 23-Nov (11:59pm)
Review assignment criteria here

Crying of Lot 49 Narrative & Knowledge Analysis

As an “anti-detective” novel, there is less certainty at the conclusion — inductive logic does not produce “resolution,” through the proliferation of “clues.” Simultaneously, “revelation” or “discovery” of the truth does not occur, even with the narrative of “reduction” of possibilities — as dramatized in the progressive elimination of characters from Oedipa’s “social network.”

Oedipa’s failure through her reduction to binary logic and the novel’s overall absence of closure suggest another mode of thought is necessary, other than truth as aletheia (disclosure): Pynchon presents a network (or “assemblage“) of narratives, figures, possibilities, histories, logics, and….and….

Prompt

First, discuss the consequence of Pynchon’s redirecting our focus off of “what happens” at the “conclusion” onto the multiple narratives; how can we interpret the novel other than “meaningless” or incomplete (reductive/exclusionary logic)?
As illustration (support), briefly describe how some of the narratives relate or operate, with specific references (summarize concisely). Besides the “paranoid conspiracy,” consider a simple example from Abbott: the way that seemingly “supplementary” developments become “constituent” information or events for Oedipa. (This is just one Cambridge example; use any/all topics from our study of narrative this term.)

Next, and most importantly, discuss how two (or more) disparate elements or narratives resonate, through Pynchon’s poetics. What is the effect? the consequence?

Finally, (as conclusion)

describe any new insights or overall understanding of
expression, knowledge (”Truth”), modes of thought besides binary;
and/or “interface metaphor” (with?), as well as narratives functioning as interface (with?).

From this, what is one lesson or technique you’ve learned from Pynchon, for our project?

W.A.S.T.E.

Gary Hink — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:11:01 +0000

“The next story I wrote was The Crying of Lot 49,
which was marketed as a ‘novel,’ and in which I seem
to have forgotten most of what I thought I’d learned up until then.”

– Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner, 1984.

M 16-Nov Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49 (through Chapter 3) Pynchon Wiki: Annotations (Laura Navia & Audrey Bannon)

W 18-Nov Crying of Lot 49 (Chp. 4-5) (Anna Bernstein)

F 20-Nov Crying of Lot 49 (Chapter 6) *plus* Lot 49 Short Film (Maria Tamayo)

M 23-Nov Due: Response 6

Resp 6: Narrative Interface and Crying of Lot 49

Part I: Creative Writing Entry; 400-500 words; due M 23-Nov ( 1:55pm)

Part II: Analysis of Classmate’s Entry; ~200 words; due M 23-Nov ( 11:59pm)

Review assignment criteria below; — also remember extra credit opportunity…
note: read prompt closely — three main instructions.

Part I Prompt

Creative writing entry; structural role: put yourself in Oedipa’s position, “detective” seeking “the Truth” of…(?) (Note: can be composed in first- or third-person perspective).

Key task: express one specific affect of this experience, indirectly through vignettes with original narratives and Pynchon’s figures.

e.g. uncertainty, disorientation, “groundless,” lack of reference, hopelessness, disinheritance, disposession, lack of agency, “undocumented person,” persona non grata, in vino veritas…

* not “paranoia,” “schizophrenic,” etc. (psychiatric diagnoses)

Composition method (all required):

Compose several (3 min.) vignettes (brief narrative fragments), with each of the following three components, in the style of Pynchon — “faithful” (accurate) to each type of discourse.
(Clarification notes below / here.)

In your entry, use:

1) original narrative (fragment/s)
within Oedipa’s 1960s social network (diegetic characters, settings, “rules,” etc);
you are Oedipa, (inter-)acting within her situation in “seeking” but not “finding” truth — of?
(Choose one “target/goal,” as motivated by a question: “what is ___?”) Describe how you would proceed, as if you were Oedipa, but withhold “reaching goal” — remember, narrative has constituent and supplementary events (review notes/Abbott).

Notes below (click here)

2) historical reference (factual details, event, etc.) — specific, from Pynchon (essential to research)

Notes below (click here)

3) an “interface,” from:

myth/belief
science/reason (including history)
or your disciplinary knowledge, set within novel’s context
(N.B. Pynchon was first an engineering major at Cornell)

Exceptions:
muted post-horn; circuit-board; “Bordando el Manto Terrestre” (painting)

More notes below (click here)

Note: none of these three are “allegories” or “symbolic” of the others, and one does not “explain” other(s); rather, expression through resonance between them.
– we’re composing an “assemblage” or network of narratives and figures; result is not a homogeneous composite product…

Composition mode = Indirection:

Remember, Experience of Lethe = “secret” (Blanchot), concealed; never appears, unlike truth as “illuminated” or “unconcealed” (Aletheia).

“The philosophical genealogy of divination begins with Heraclitus declaring that the oracle at Delphi does not reveal or conceal, but intimates.” — Ulmer

Part II: Analysis of Classmate’s Entry; ~200 words; due M 23-Nov ( 11:59pm)

Choose one classmate’s entry to analyze;
ASAP, post a comment on their blog, for equal distribution (i.e. everyone’s should be read, without duplicate readings) — even if to let them know you’ll post your analysis later.

On your blog (required, so I can include as part of Response 6):

in a paragraph (~200 words), describe the affect that you intuit from your reading, and how the author expresses it; on the latter, discuss their poetics, specifically techniques and unconventional (”novel”?) discourse.
Feel free also to describe the extent to which the entry demonstrates the aesthetic apparatus of expression (or either mode of judgment, for that matter: belief/myth or reason/science; review chart).

Novel Experience(s) Week

Gary Hink — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:15:54 +0000

M 09-Nov read:

Gregory Ulmer, “The Learning Screen.” 4 pages. Networked. 2009.
and Franz Kafka’s parable, “Before the Law”

Orson Welles’ version: Watch/Listen (2:50)

W 11-Nov No classes—Veterans Day
Due: Response 5 — Prompt (deadline 11:59pm)

F 13-Nov EGO Conference: see schedule below.
Due: Blog Entry, “Inventory” about lessons thus far; see more below.

M 09-Nov *read: Ulmer, “The Learning Screen.” Networked*. 2009.

T 10-Nov ~~(guest lecture, optional)~~ Rescheduled Noah Wardrip-Fruin (Asst Professor, UC-Santa Cruz). “Process-Oriented Fictions: Narrative in the Age of Media Machines.” ~~5pm, 285 Reitz~~. More Info

W 11-Nov No classes—Veterans Day Due: Response 5	Blog Entry due Friday

R 12-Nov English Graduate Organization	9th Annual Conference
F 13-Nov Class meets in 150 Pugh Hall; choose 2pm or 3:30 session (attendance required; normal policy applies) EGO Conference Schedule Keynote Speaker: Dominick LaCapra (Cornell University). “Sebald, Coetzee, and the Narrative of Trauma” Ustler Atrium, 13-Nov 7pm
additional UF events:
F 13-Nov Good Bye DDR: Memory and Material Culture Dauer Hall (10am-5pm). Schedule –see especially: “Memory and Visual Culture” Facebook

F 13-Nov UF School of Art + Art History “ArtBash” 2009 6-9pm, Fine Arts Complex (Fine Arts Buildings A/B/C/D) Website

13-14 Nov 2009 Florida Writers Festival. Schedule

Intuiting Affect

Gary Hink — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:16:20 +0000

“Spinoza’s ethics has nothing to do with a morality; he conceives it as an ethology, that is, as a composition of fast and slow speeds, of capacities for affecting and being affected on this plane of [Nature]” (125).

–”you do not know beforehand what good or bad you are capable of…what a body or a mind can do, in a given encounter, a given arrangement, a given combination (125).

–Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy

M 02-Nov Ceremony (through p.186 ) (Jessica Brousseau & Phil Cafaro)

W 04-Nov Ceremony (through end) (Eric Roe & Jake Jacob)

F 06-Nov No class (away at conference)
Due: Blog entry (Friday this week)

Resp 5: Myth and Experiential Narrative in Ceremony
500 words min., 10 points; due W 11-Nov (deadline TBA)
Review assignment criteria here — also remember extra credit opportunity…

note: read instructions closely — three main tasks/objectives.

“Languages are more or less thick; certain amongst them, the most social, the most mythical, present an unshakeable homogeneity..: woven with habits and repetitions, with stereotypes, obligatory final clauses and keywords, each constitutes an idiolect or more exactly a sociolect.”

— “the antidote of myth would be the extreme pole or rather the region—airy, light, spaced, open, uncentred, noble and free—where writing spreads itself against the idiolect, at its limit and fighting it” (168).

Roland Barthes, “Change the Object Itself: Mythology Today” (1971). Image-Music-Text

Prompt:
Choose one Laguna “story” (myth) that Silko includes—

e.g. “Thought Woman,” Ceremony (frame); drought/rain; “Spider Woman” and “Gambler”; Fly & Hummingbird; Gallup Ceremonials; “Shush” / Bear; Coyote (Ck’o'yo magician) and Big Fly; Descheeny and captive girl; Witchery; Mountain Lion & T’seh; Sunrise offering.

— use this story to understand an historically specific experience in the novel’s diegesis/plot, not in mode of belief but expression (life). review: Apparatus

First, briefly discuss affect that you intuit (third mode) from reading the aesthetic figures and the myth together (novel expression); describe the objective experience/situation in particular and concrete terms, avoiding generalization and abstraction. What is this experience? (focus should be specific, within Tayo’s overall narrative/s)

Tip: review your last Reading Response; likely need to describe experience in affective terms to greater extent (embodied exp., subjective, feeling but not “sentimental” or cliché emotion).

From this, address key question: how does this relation of myth and experience “negotiate” or “mediate” 1) {the past, culture, tradition} and 2) {historical situation or event, individual’s circumstances and identity}?
In contemporary terms, perhaps helpful to think of myth as “interface” for understanding subject’s (Tayo’s) “situation.”

Tip: review notes on “loss,” beyond single individual; on nature (esp. “the land”) and Nature; on “good/bad” (ethics) over “Good and Evil” (morality); on memory/forgetting, presence/absence, and reconfiguring these binaries.
Also see additional quotes from Barthes, below.

Finally, consider in relation with other “storytelling”:

either a form of narration within the novels
(e.g. Nick Carraway, metafictional Kurt Vonnegut, anonymous Jazz narrator)

or a story with which you are familiar, in “mode of belief” (from personal experience/knowledge):
e.g. parables/fables, religious/spiritual narratives, Greek mythology

Beyond compare/contrast (which is fine to limited extent), discuss the relation of narrative and experience, from this perspective — particularly what you’ve learned from Silko, in terms of expressing affect through aesthetic figures and “stories” (myths).
Speculate how we might apply your insight(s) in our experiment–not in the mode of belief (avoiding judgment), but concerning experience (Life).

After all, we are not passive receivers inheriting myths (and values) but active producers of culture and knowledge.

Poetics

Gary Hink — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:36:32 +0000

I am interested in the intersection between poetry and history. How does history make its path in a poetic work?
We rarely see history in a literary text since it is so hard to deal with. Perhaps poetry does not know how to say or utter history. …History simply smothers and squashes.
Yet some books show that one can remain poetic in the very midst of history. (110)

–Hélène Cixous, “Poetry, Passion, and History” (1985)

M 26-Oct Jazz (Chp. 6-10, pp.137-229) (Tahara Franklin)

W 28-Oct Silko: Ceremony (Intro + through p.37) (Laura Hampson)

F 30-Oct Ceremony (pp.38-85) (Maria Tamayo)

Due: Response 4 (deadline: 11:59pm)

Resp 4: Imagining Experience through Jazz
500 words, 10 points; due F 30-Oct (deadline TBA)
Review assignment criteria here.

“To have only the value of knowledge is not to have the value of life, or love.” (64)

–Hélène Cixous, “Grace and Innocence” (1982)

Choose an historically specific experience from the novel
(for example, from general categories of “loss,” “desire,” “freedom,” “alienation/isolation,” parentage/progeny relation — but do not generalize, stereotype, re-situate in present day, etc.)

Option 1

First, briefly define (”explain”) the experience either in the mode of belief or of reason (rational mode/knowledge).
Present one textual illustration that aptly supports your definition.

Next, discuss the same experience, but in terms of what you intuit from your reading (from the novel’s expression); describe this in more detail than the first definition, showing an attempt at working with the aesthetic mode. As always, provide the key figures from the novel that enable your understanding, and discuss figures in form+content terms (considering both dimensions).

Major tip/reminder

remember to consider “affect” and “lived” or “embodied” experience…

To conclude, speculate about your new understanding — either in terms of the novel (function/effects? significance?); or of consequence (”what changes?” new perspective?). In any case, explicitly describe the qualities (”benefits”?) or implications of this mode for working with the novel, as you’ve experienced thus far.

Option 2

Having selected a specific experience, examine this in both Jazz and Ceremony together — focusing upon a respective character from each, with this perspective on experience.

Discuss an understanding of this experience through an intuitive reading of the novels’ expression. Not necessary to simply compare/contrast the characters; rather, describe the unique aspects of your respective examples toward an illustration of the aesthetic mode, providing specific figures (support).

To conclude, consider your new intuitive description of this experience against one (or both) of the modes of judgment (belief/morality, reason/knowledge)–with which you might contrast, if you’d like. Overall, address the key difference(s) and the implications/value of attempting this mode for working with literature and understanding experience.

Note: contact me (soon/Mon.) with questions; subsequently I will add/elaborate the prompts if necessary.

Imagined Experience (Part II)

Gary Hink — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:14:37 +0000

M 19-Oct Experiment–Part II

from 07-Oct ( Greek etymologies)

“catastrophe” = katastrephein
{kata “to overturn” + strephein “turn”; or strophe “a turning”}

= “reversal of what is expected” (originally in drama)

Q. in what does a “turn” occur? (hint: EXP)

W 21-Oct Morrison: Jazz (through Chp 3, pp.4-87) (Erin Gallagher)

F 23-Oct Jazz (Chp. 4-5, pp.89-135) (Hillary Silvestri)

Narrative Experience

Gary Hink — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:52:24 +0000

M 12-Oct Essay Workshop

W 14-Oct Essay Workshop * Note Schedule Revision (14-Oct)

F 16-Oct No classes—Homecoming

~~Due: Analytic Essay~~ Analytic Essay Due Sun 18-Oct

M 12-Oct Essay Workshop

Read for class: (essential / required)

Writing About Fiction

Essay Assignment
plus, primary text for essay (review/notes); relevant chapters from Abbott (review);

* Note Schedule Revision (14-Oct)

W 14-Oct Essay Workshop

For class: prepare (bring) tentative/initial analytic thesis and support topics.
–also, post Qs for workshop (in comment below)

Read: (review) Using Source Material

(hint: plagiarism quiz today) — consult MLA resource/s below.

Analysis and composition notes — here.

Weekly Blog Entry: optional — for extra credit (participation/blogging)

N.B. UF Reading & Writing Center

F 16-Oct No classes—Homecoming

~~Due: Analytic Essay~~

Analytic Essay Due Sun 18-Oct

Formal Essay: Literary Analysis

Due: 16-Oct
1600-1800 words; 25 points
File uploaded to e-learning.

View assignment description here

– (note: literary selections/exclusions listed within)

Notes for analysis here.

Notes on composition here.

Document format example: Hink Essay 1.rtf

Practical resources

Purdue OWL

Writing About Fiction

“Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing”

“Outline” (Writing Process section)

Revision (Grammar and Mechanics section)

Grammar and Mechanics section (overall)

Appropriate Language (Academic Writing section)

Diana Hacker.com

see also: A Writer’s Reference (5th or 6th Edition)

Janet Gardner. – Writing About Literature 2nd Edition. (Bedford, 2009):

“Active Reading” (4-10)
“The Writing Process” (16-27; 31-3) – esp. re: Thesis, Organization, Revision; Intro/Concl.
* “Writing About Literature” & “Quotations” (34-41)
“Explication” (44)
* Chp 4. “Writing about Stories” (57-60; examples follow)
** Using material: quoting, citing, MLA format (116-28)

Lester Faigley. The Brief Penguin Handbook 3rd edition (Pearson, 2009)

“Documenting” (237-44)
MLA style (245-81)
Chp 21 Plagiarism (218-24) & Integrating Sources (213-7 & 228-33)
Chp 3. Organization (21-37)
Chp 27. Write with Power (359-64); Chp 28. Writing Concisely (365-71); Chp. 29 Emphasis (371-8)

So It Goes

Gary Hink — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:18:15 +0000

M 05-Oct Slaughterhouse Five     (through Chp 5; Caroline & Erin)

W 07-Oct Slaughterhouse Five     (Chp. 6-8; Laura Navia)

F 09-Oct Slaughterhouse Five    (Chp. 9-10; Audrey)

F 09-Oct Due: Response 3 — Prompt

Extra Credit for Resp 3. (due 12-Oct)

extra credit — part of Resp. 3
200 words (separate entry/post); due M 12-Oct

Read and respond to a classmate’s entry.
Describe the affect expressed (that you intuit from the fragments).
Evaluate the effect of (or the extent to which) the entry’s expressing experience through “unconventional discourse.”
From this, (important) discuss “lessons” to take from Vonnegut, for understanding experience and expression—particularly for expressing experience.
(note: feel free to email me with questions or for further instructions about this reading-reply)

Response 3: Creative Writing Assignment (Responding to Slaughterhouse Five)
500-600 words; 10 points
Due: Fri 09-Oct (11:59pm)

Vonnegut provides the impetus for this imaginative assignment in several ways: the full title(s) of the novel; Billy Pilgrim’s profession (optometry); the Tralfamadorians’ perception (“four dimensional”); the formal (textual) breaks in the narrative, which compel us to “fill in the blanks.”

Tip: Review notes on writing of the disaster and “concealed” or “hidden” (secret) truth of experience: Wed 07-Oct.

Option 1

Task: Express a particular affect {subjective dimension of “experience”: feeling, mood, disposition, attitude, stance} that Vonnegut conveys through Slaughterhouse Five. Use the aesthetic logic of expression, rather than explicitly stating or describing this affect (in “rational” discourse).

So, first step: decide upon a specific affect that you have intuited from the novel. This can be about Dresden or Vietnam, but likely more general, involving a feeling/stance toward both — I have presented Dresden as Vonnegut’s vehicle for addressing Vietnam, after all.

Option 2

Similar task, but complementary perspective: use the novel’s elements—characters, settings, (respective) narratives, etc.—to express (an) experience of your choice/invention. This need not be inherently “related,” but probably “parallel” with Vonnegut’s topics. As we do not seek to “reveal” or “unveil” the “truth” of this experience (scientific / rational mode), your composition should not “tell the testimony” of the situation but present an expressive figure that conveys the affect of experience.

Composition Method
(parameters, expectations, suggestions)

1) Form/composition: Non-linear vignettes; fragments of narrative moments at respective times and places. (Suggested: 3-4 vignettes, minimum.) So, this can not be a linear narrative within one setting!

2) Using Vonnegut’s characters, compose brief scenes that occur “within the gaps” of the novel’s narratives. In other words, invent by imagining likely anecdotes or events, based upon the information and characterization that Vonnegut provides. These will be original scenes, within the parameters of both history and the novel. tip: “multiple worlds” (cf. Abbott Chp. 12)

3) Hybrid discourse: creative or inventive (e.g. science fiction) and historical (accounts/facts). Permissible but not required to include “metafictional elements” (e.g. the authorial voice of Vonnegut or Burroughs writing the novel).

4) Style: concrete and vivid imagery, using figures, (i.e. not abstract/general); descriptive language and dialogue (explicit, realistic, evocative, “expressive”). i.e. “write like Vonnegut” in terms of diction and tone, to express your implied affect (of experience). Use this formal approach to convey not “what it is like” but what it is to undergo this experience…

5) Use “minor characters” (particular individuals) from the novel.

– rationale: to whom is Slaughterhouse Five dedicated, after all? (Consider effect)
– rationale: following Vonnegut, we are not writing in the “autobiographical” mode.

Examples:

Bernhard and Mary O’Hare
Valencia Merble
Lionel Merble
Barbara Pilgrim
Robert Pilgrim
Roland Weary
Edgar Derby
Werner Gluck
“The Blue Fairy Godmother”
Howard W. Campbell, Jr.
Bertram Rumfoord
Eliot Rosewater
Kilgore Trout
Montana Wildhack

Overall, feel free to use any/all of the unconventional techniques that Burroughs and Vonnegut employ, especially to present non-linear narratives. In any case, your composition should necessarily reflect an effort to try at least one experimental method of writing, as learned from reading Naked Lunch and Slaughterhouse Five.

For example, consult and/or try the Cut-up machine or a similar writing prompt / exercise, in addition to the parameters above (note “proceed with caution”…? Remember, still a few parameters for this assignment, to experiment within.)