Zinsser, William. Writing About Your

¶ … Zinsser, William. Writing About Your Life. New York: Avalon Publishing Group Incorporated,

Marlowe and Company, 2005.

Informative

Claim: Literary nonfiction is not only about citing factual information, although the information should be factual. It is about crafting a story, just like fiction

Instructive

Important information in the title: Writing About Your Life suggests the book will instruct the reader about the art of writing memoir

Important info in the background material: The excerpt critically analyzes a seminal work of literary nonfiction; Tom Wolfe's the Right Stuff.

Sentence explaining author's claim and how he/she would respond to the prompt: Literary nonfiction is factual but also original in terms of the point-of-view adopted by the author.

Important parts of the text that specifically show claim/purpose/tone: specifically show claim/purpose/tone: When nonfiction is raised to an art, it's usually because the writer imposed on the facts an organizing shape or notion "an idea" that hadn't been attached to them before.

Source B

Frey, James. "A Note to the Reader." Statement dated January 2006 and inserted into copies of a Million Little Pieces by James Frey. New York: Anchor Books, 2005.

Tone: Defensive

Claim: Memory is imperfect, and memoirs are not histories.

Purpose: To defend his memoir despite the fact it was 'embellished.'

Important information in the title: This essay is an addendum to the original memoir.

Important info in the background material: Frey was accused of inventing events in his supposedly true account of his life in a drug rehabilitation clinic.

Sentence explaining author's claim and how he/she would respond to the prompt: Frey claims that memoir is a subjective account of the facts, with 'embellishments.'

Important parts of the text that specifically show claim/purpose/tone: I believe, and I understand others strongly disagree, that memoir allows the writer to work from memory instead of from a strict journalistic or historical standard.

Source C

Roberts, Rev. Dr. Mark D. "Oprah, James Frey, and the Question of Truth" markdroberts.com.

30 January 2006.

Tone: Moralistic

Claim: James Frey's book is fraudulent and should never have been published.

Purpose: To explain his outrage at Frey's misrepresentation and the publisher's lack of fact-checking.

Important information in the title: Frey's supposedly inspirational and gut-wrenching story was prominently featured on Oprah's book club and became a best seller.

Important info in the background material: The author was published by the same publishing house as Frey, under a different imprint. He states that Frey was treated very differently than he was in terms of the scrutiny to which Frey's story was subject.

Sentence explaining author's claim and how he/she would respond to the prompt: Some things are factual and facts must be honored.

Important parts of the text that specifically show claim/purpose/tone: specifically show claim/purpose/tone: I'm tempted to say that this can be explained, in part, by the Christian values of the WaterBrook staff. They do not think that truth is merely a matter of personal perception. Rather, they tend to think in more objective terms.