Brian McElwain
Short Writing Assignment for Students

2003 Workshop on Improving Student Writing
Center for Writing Excellence
Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching

Strength through Cultural Diversity
IDS 159
Brian McElwain

Bio-Poem

Using the book that you’ve selected for your Empathic Book Response Paper (see note below), write a “bio-poem” about the author/protagonist of the book using the formula laid out below.  You will be sharing these poems with your classmates and getting feedback from them that will help you to write your Empathic Book Response Paper.  When you read your poem to your classmates, they will have questions for you and want to know more about your choices in writing your poem.  Those questions will then help you to write your formal paper with a better sense of the kinds of questions, interests, etc., that your readers will have.

Line 1: First name

Line 2: Four traits that describe author/protagonist

Line 3: Relative of (sister of, brother of, mother of, father of, cousin of, friend of, etc.)

Line 4: Lover of______ (list three things or people)

Line 5: Who feels______ (list three)

Line 6: Who needs_______ (list three)

Line 7: Who fears_______ (list three)

Line 8: Who gives_______ (list three)

Line 9: Who would like to______ (list three)

Line 10: Resident of______

Line 11: Last name

Note:  Books for Empathic Book Response Papers are chosen by students from a list of first-person narratives (mostly memoirs, but a few fictional pieces are on the list) provided by the instructor.  Each student must choose a book written by (or from the perspective of) someone whose position in terms of at least one major aspect of cultural diversity is different from that of the student.  For example, a Black student might choose a book focused on the experience of a Native American, a straight female student that of a bisexual man or woman, a Christian student that of a practitioner of Buddhism, Judaism, or Islam, etc.  The options that I provide to the students in terms of book choices are biased in the direction of forcing them to understand and articulate the perspectives of marginalized people to whom they’ve likely had limited—if any—exposure.