Craft Discussion-Group Responses (four per week) should be substantive (if you want credit) and thoughtful, but they need not be formal. They should be in standard written English, though, not text-speak. You are welcome to comment “I totally agree with you, Jane” or “Great point, Bill” but these will not be considered substantive enough for credit. Responses should expand on a point, disagree with a point, compare or contrast to another passage or text, or explore a new way to look at the craft point. Make sure you read all the responses before yours, and please refer to others who have responded before you by name when appropriate (e.g., “Although I agree with what Susie said about Wallace’s repetition, I think what he was really after was a sense of . . . .” ). Do not simply repeat a response that has been submitted before yours. This would be plagiarism.

Each of your four responses for the week may be to a different prompt, or you may double-up or triple-up or quadruple-up your responses by engaging in a discussion with other students on one prompt. In other words, if you and Johnny get into a heated debate about a particular prompt, you may go back and forth four times and get all four of your responses that week completed on just that one prompt.

The earlier you start responding to the prompts in a given week, the more likely that the discussion group will foster lively back-and-forth discussions among students instead of perfunctory answers to four different prompts just before the deadline.

1-In the book of Dinty Moore, the Rose Metal Press Field Guild to Writing Flash Nonfiction, Rigoberto Gonzalez says, “the labor in writing flash nonfiction will not be taxing if the writer has three necessary ingredients; a memory charged by an emotional experience, an image…that bounds to that memory, and editor’s chisel to chip away at all excess details…”

The first critical elements in writing nonfiction flash cannot be difficult if the writer has a memory that is charged by emotional experience. Gonzalez says that the emotion should be of value to a person in a way that it enables a person to ask critical questions like who, why, when, how, and what without investigating them which is critical in helping in the accomplishment of the second process of developing images that relate to the memory. That way, a person get a better understanding of a certain memory, the emotions evolving them, and reasons behind the emotional response. With all these details, it helps a person determine the most useful information that will capture or precisely explain it while leaving the unnecessary information out. The three elements show a strategy that a person can utilize it to make sure they capture the memories reflecting a significant outcome in their lives while writing flash nonfiction.

One thing that a person has to ask themselves in development of the three stages is; how does one determine the information to omit or include in a memory that will efficiently express the intended message in the nonfiction flash?

2-In the Rose metal press Field to guide to writing flash nonfiction, “literally writing is an art form and no one can successfully manage to pin down artistic production.” Art is in the form of an imperative that not only leads to writing flash nonfiction but also that explains the writers’ creation in the expression of their essays through artistic representation (Moore, 2012). Ideally, writers need to express their creative side in a nonfiction flash. For more engaging and concise prose, the element of art is a recipe to match the prose’s context and quest to build a nonfiction production. Essentially, there is a lot to be done, but the application of art is the core of a nonfiction flash. How is art manifested in Lia Purpura’s essay? How best can authors apply creativity in their piece? What other elements are essential apart from artistic impressions in productions?

3-Dinty Moore (2012), writes, “Most short shorts are not written in a flash. If we are essayists, our first instinct may be to keep adding more, making more connections, applying yet another angle on metaphor.” Moore ads that it is imperative for writers and essayists to find more and create a story that tells more than one account. He adds it is an important aspect that makes essays rich and engaging. This understanding is vital as it helps the essayists to write uniquely and evaluate more than one perspective. How many connections, perspectives, and angles are deemed enough? To what extent should the writer go to ensure the essay is rich enough?

4-In River Teeth, Anne panning writes, “My father dreamed of wearing a white suit on his last day of work at Medallion Kitchen cabinet factory.” She continues to write her father’s exact words, “so if you ever see one at a thrift store, Annie,” he said, “Buy it for me, okay?” I think this quote is used as a stylistic device of flash forward. The author uses it as a tool for creating suspense in her essay. I think the quote works well to ensure that a reader is eager to know why the author’s father needs a white suit. As a result, the author uses the quote skilfully at the beginning of the short essay.

Regarding her style, I think the short essay will satisfy the reader’s curiosity without necessarily having to read a lot of information. In my opinion, her strategy of using the words is valid and it works the imagination of a reader. If she had failed to use the words, a reader would have been left with questions about the meaning of the essay. What would have happened if the author ignored to follow up on the quote? What if the writer had ignored the opening sentence?