Assignment: Education Analyzed Through Nonfiction and Fiction

Perhaps you come from a long line of women who had access to formal education, or perhaps you are the first in your family to attend a university. Education is more than learning fundamental skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. It is access to opportunity and choice that you may or may not take for granted. Although the value of formal education is inestimable, it does not replace or undermine what women have always had access to—their own knowledge, learned and shared with families and communities—gained through life experience.

In this week’s Assignment, you consider the styles of creative nonfiction and fiction to relay messages concerning women’s education experience.

To prepare for this Assignment:

• Review the brief biographies of Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Ntozak Shange in the Women’s Voices and Social Change timeline media piece.
• Review the Angelou and Walker readings from this week’s Learning Resources to uncover the authors’ perspectives on the value of education.
• Review the “Glossary of Terms and Techniques for Literature and Creative Writing” document for descriptions of creative nonfiction and fiction.
• How would you describe the difference between the two styles of writing? Do you have a preference? Why?
• Consider people in your life who may have a strong sense of mother wit—natural wit or intelligence or innate knowledge. What distinguishes people with this type of knowledge?

The Assignment:

Write a 2-page analysis of women’s educational experience as depicted in the works of Angelou and Walker. Include evidence of formal education and mother wit. How do these works support your understanding of formal education vs. mother wit?