Literary-Artistic Family Tree

You will be sharing these in class.

This exercise gives you a chance to think about and articulate the artistic-literary traditions in which you situate your writing . The finished diagram should reflect your artistic ancestors, rather than your actual ones, unless of course those categories overlap—for example, your uncle is a fabulous story teller and you think your writing has been influenced by his style or the content of his stories.

The chart of delights and influences we made in class on October 3 should be very helpful as you develop this family tree. Please refer to it as you work on this.

Use any of the diagrams below or make up your own, drawing on paper or using Microsoft Word or another online tool to create your diagram. If you do the latter, please remember to print out your diagram and bring it to class. As we will be passing these around and perhaps writing on them, keep a "clean" copy if you like.

• Blank-Family-Tree.doc Download Blank-Family-Tree.doc
  family bubbles.pdf Download family bubbles.pdf
  family-tree-chart-us.docx Download family-tree-chart-us.docx
  GenealogyFanChart.docx Download GenealogyFanChart.docx
• Choose a diagram shape that reflects the particulars of your “tree.” For example, do your ancestors feed into each other (the way great-grandparents lead to grandparents lead to parents lead to you) or do they all feed into you separately (come from different branches)?
• If you use one of the provided diagrams, do not feel you need to fill every slot or use only the slots provided.
• Include at least 10 influential ancestors. They may be writers but they could also be artists from other fields.
• Write their names on the diagram
• Include a key that briefly explains why you see them as an influence, explain why you chose that type of diagram, and provide some context.
• See my diagram Download my diagram as an example.