Book Craft Class – Narrative Letters

In this book craft class, we used Rick Bragg’s essay, “Dear Santa (Again)” in Where I Come From, to study narrative letters as a device to write our life stories.

We first examined the characteristics of narrative letters and looked for those features in Bragg’s essay.

Then, we tried our hand at writing our own narrative letters.

In this video:

00:00:41 - Christmas letters and the narrative letter form

00:01:13 - Instructions for an letter-writing exercise

00:01:53 - What is a narrative letter and how I've seen it used

00:05:26 - Characteristic of a narrative letter--personal in nature

00:05:56 - Characteristic of a narrative letter--casual tone

00:06:38 - Characteristic of a narrative letter--beginning, middle, and end

00:07:30 - Characteristic of a narrative letter--characters

00:08:04 - Characteristic of a narrative letter--central issue or subject

00:08:47 - Characteristic of a narrative letter--a clear purpose

00:09:22 - Characteristic of a narrative letter--specific language

00:10:03 - Characteristic of a narrative letter--tangential

00:11:09 - Reading of "Dear Santa (Again)"

00:15:43 - Bragg's use of parentheses, similar to quotations

00:17:40 - Review of narrative letter essay characteristics in Bragg's "Dear Santa (Again)"

00:31:02 - Benefits of using the narrative letter form

00:35:51 - Therapeutic use of letter writing

00:37:43 - Narrative letter writing exercise (5 minutes)

00:44:20 - Members read their exercises

Life Writers

Book Craft Class – Narrative Letters

Lessons in this Course:

Downloads for this course