Artist's Walk: Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, and Auburn

For our final field trip, you are going to go on an Artist's Walk, reminiscent of Virginia Woolf's "A Street Haunting" (https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/chapter5.html)
and Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path" (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/ew_path.html)

Please read Woolf's essay on her walk through London on a winter evening, in search of a pen.

Some things to note and model:

• Note how the "walk" begins with a particular purpose, in the same way that our short stories begin "in the middle of the action."
• Pay attention to how characters are introduced (it's not all setting)
• And note how those characters are revealed through action
• Look at how she builds towards her conclusion--how the desire for a pen was about more than just a pen, it was about escape.

Then, read Welty's "A Worn Path," which is a short story.

• Note how Welty establishes tension in the story, and how that tension grows as the story progresses
• Again, note how character is created via action

Now that you've read and noted these things in Woolf's and Welty's work, TAKE A WALK.

I mean that kindly. Take a walk in Auburn. Many of you are coming close to the end of your time in this place. Why not stop and appreciate it a bit, while at the same time, produce what may be your favorite piece of writing this semester? Take a good, long walk, preferably somewhere where you're likely to see at least a few people. You might go out to the arboretum, or the museum, the mall, downtown, even campus. But unlike other times when you've walked around town, PAY ATTENTION. Let it all be fodder for your imagination.

Then, write a 3-4 page series of scenes in which a character you've created takes a walk in Auburn for a set purpose, and learns something about him or herself, or someone else, along the way. Try to model some of the techniques used by Woolf and Welty.

As usual, you're doing this field trip in lieu of class on April 23rd. Please bring in your Artist's Walk on Tuesday, April 28th.