What Would Joan Do?

Course Description

Our post-pandemic reality is defined in part by an obsession with understanding and analyzing trauma. An increase in trauma memoir sales beginning in 2020 points to a collective desire to explore the nuances of trauma experience and recovery. Since the 1980s, psychological studies have attested to the value of written expression as a tool for trauma recovery. The current societal desire to engage with trauma narratives begs the question: what purpose can this writing serve beyond acting as a resource for individual recovery? Joan Didion, who published two of the most impactful trauma narratives to date, can act as a case study for us to understand the impact of trauma writing, specifically within the writing classroom. Through her lack of sentimentality, Joan Didion highlights how trauma-focused writing is more than simply a means for individualized therapy. Using Didion’s memoirs, this 8-week course asks students to explore the various relations between writing and trauma. Examining Didion’s style, storytelling, and self-presentation complicates the traditional notion of trauma narratives and their role in the writing classroom. 

 

Course goals:

 

By the end of this course, you will:

 

• Discuss the successes of Didion’s writing in portraying and analyzing traumatic moments and grief;
• Understand the relationship between writing and trauma as not exclusively therapeutic, realizing the ways it can be read as methodical and rhetorically strategic;
• Evaluate the rhetorical strategies within Didion’s writing through the act of emulation and articulate your findings in written reflection;
• Strengthen your abilities to write and read about trauma effectively, informed both by personal and communal understandings of contemporary trauma and trauma response;
• Write publicly to enter into discourse communities centered on contemporary issues. 

Assignments: The assignments outlined for this course are as follows. This course is broken up into 4, 2-week modules. Each week, students are encouraged to reflect in writing on the assigned readings. Additionally, one module-specific writing assignment is introduced every other week. All assignments are intended to be posted on the communal forum on the WWJD website. These assignments are deliberately designed to be short, in an effort to encourage students to write in a style similar to Didion (concise and to-the-point). Should students feel inspired to write a longer piece based on a given assignment, they might visit the “Additional Publication Opportunities” tab to consider sharing their writing with a larger audience. The benefits of writing for large public audiences are detailed further in the teaching manifesto.

Weekly Reading Reflection – 

Each week, you will have an assortment of reading, whether it be Didion-centered, writing-centered, or trauma-centered. Pick an excerpt from this reading – a paragraph, a page, a single line – and reflect. Why did you choose this expert? What does it add to your understanding of writing or thinking about writing? How does this excerpt complicate your understanding of Didion’s work? Of course, there is no need to answer all of these questions, but what is required is careful thought about how reading can inform the way that we understand writing and the writing process.

Introducing Trauma (Week 2) – 

Both of Didion’s memoirs open with an introduction to the trauma she has experienced. These introductions do not bring us to the beginning or the end of her trauma experience but rather asks the reader to join her in the abstract thinking that brought comfort to a distressing situation. In 2 to 3 paragraphs, write your introduction to an experience you would like to share. This experience need not be traumatic. Instead, I ask you to focus on how one – like Didion – can succinctly ask their readers to engage in abstract thought as a means of opening a story with depth. In an additional paragraph entitled “Author’s Note,” reflect on the effectiveness of this practice and, specifically, reflect on the effectiveness of these introductions as it relates to exploring the implications of traumatic experience. 

A Life in Short Stories (Week 4) –

Both of Didion’s memoirs are collections of different memories, pasted together in a seemingly non-sensical order to tell two stories – one of a life that was and one of her new reality. In 2 to 3 paragraphs, write across your own past and present storyline. Choose the information you wish to share, the stories you want to tell, and how they all fit together. In an additional paragraph entitled “Author’s Note,” reflect on how writing in this way impacted both your perception of your own story and how you were able to convey it to others. 

Writing Capable of Mental Invasion (Week 6) – 

During week 5, you learned about Didion’s understanding of writing as “an aggressive, even a hostile act.” Moreover, scholars like Zadie Smith point to Didion’s capability for “mental invasion” as a key to analyzing what makes this writing so powerful. Look to Didion’s work in The Year of Magical Thinking or Blue Nights. Identify a moment where Didion’s words invade and write 2 to 3 paragraphs in response to or in conversation with her. If you are responding to her, analyze why her words feel the way they do. What does this accomplish? If you are writing in conversation with her, how can your words perform a mental invasion?

Making Didion’s Magic Trick Your Own (Week 8) –

For your final writing assignment of this course, look to moments of nostalgia in Didion’s work. Write 2 paragraphs telling a story that emulates her style – try your best to bring to life the notion that one can simultaneously be a creature of the past and present. In an additional paragraph entitled “Author’s Note,” reflect on the techniques you used to emulate Didion’s style. What is the significance of writing this way when considering trauma and grief?