Creative Nonfiction

• School-Year Curriculum in 7-Units - each unit focuses on a different genre of non-fiction writing that you can find in The Times and other publications

  • Unit 2 - Reviews: Analyzing Arts, Criticizing Culture: Writing Reviews With The New York Times - this unit invites students to write about food and fashion, movies and music, books and buildings for a global audience. It features writing prompts, mentor-text lesson plans and a culminating contest

• Mentor Text Lessons - each entry in the Mentor Text Column spotlights a Times text, then offers guided practice to help students identify effective “writer’s moves” and emulate them in their own work

• Example mentor text lessons:

  • Annotated by the Author: "Speechless" - Maria Fernanda Benavides, a winner of the NYT 2019 Personal Narrative Contest, explains how she hooks readers by dropping them into a scene

  • How to Teach With the Art and Artifacts in the NYT Book, ‘Coming of Age in 2020’ - Work by teenagers—photos, comics, diary entries, charts, texts, recipes and rants—tells the story of an unforgettable year.

  • How to Write a 100-Word Narrative: A Guide for the NYT Tiny Memoir Contest- Step-by-step directions for telling a meaningful, interesting and short true story from your life—with 25 mentor texts to help.

  • Annotated by the Author: Writing Reader Responses - Judy Wang and Nina Nzekwe, winners of the NYT 2020 Summer Reading Contest, discuss how to respond to texts both personally and critically

Resources and information for conducting interviews.

10 Interviewing Tips for Journalists by Alison Hill from Writer's Digest

Interviewing: The Art of Gathering Information by Charles Minshew

Interviewing Principles from Columbia University

The Art of the Interview: A New Media Storytelling Lab

Interviewing: The Art of Asking Questions from lesson plan from PBS

Katie Couric on how to conduct a good interview

22 Questions that ‘Complicate the Narrative’ - Conversation techniques, interview questions, and stellar story examples born from a conflict mediation training

Amanda Ripley: Complicating the Narrative - 3 minute video

Based on Brittny Ray Crowell's lesson inspired by Basho's The Narrow Road to the Deep North

A project that explores tone, theme and context. Inspired by Javier Martinez and an innovative New York Times Magazine article, with personal music reviews

Choose a song or album that makes you think of a particular theme or emotion. 

Research the song or album to find out what has been written about it.

Draft a music review that explores:

• Personal context

• Historical, cultural, geographical, social, or literary context

• A theme and/or tone

Create a slide that includes:

• The title of the review

• Your name

• A link to the song or album

• A link to the song lyrics

• A photo, image or video related to the song or album

• The full-text of your review

Example Personal Music Reviews:

• Ms. Ntoso’s example: Pandemic Lessons: Finding an Antidote to Despair

• New York Times Magazine article with personal music reviews → this is the article that inspired the assignment

Turn in your completed music review slide on Canvas by 11:59pm on Thursday September 23