Today I attended an event title Digital Nonfiction: Composing Identities In and Beyond the Classroom. Londie Martin, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, held a 70-minute interactive workshop and taught us how to mold our ideas for a nonfiction narrative. She taught us concepts from creative nonfiction that digital nonfiction uses such as a present author, self-reflection, research, and a flexible form. We discovered sensory expression, representation, non/linearity, and interactivity with objects that meant a lot to us.
Professor Martin gave us prompts to round out our stories and I chose the one where I reconsidered the authority of someone central to my life. I chose the gold necklace my father gave me that made me finally feel included along with my brothers. My brothers had theirs for years before I got my own. It seemed as though it were a prize of medal for being the best sons. Then I realized, I don’t need his approval or recognition considering everything he believes in and the way he disciplined me growing up was abuse, verbal and physical.
Professor Martin also showed us ways in which students formed their digital nonfiction narratives through an interactive desktop on a platform. One student created a narrative through objects depicted in a room that meant a lot to her. We clicked on a home icon and it revealed a text where she displayed her feelings of being an adopted child and resenting her family’s history that “wasn’t hers.” I look forward to discovering new ways to publish my own narratives online.
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