Regime Change
This is the writing exercise I did with my electronic writing students at our Tuesday class meeting. The Dallas half is from a workshop I took with Chris Spain.
A. Write “Dallas” or “Baghdad” at the top of your paper.
B. If you wrote Dallas, write the JFK assassination from Jackie’s first-person point of view. If you wrote Baghdad, write the “shock and awe” bombing of the city from the perspective of a civilian in the city. Time: five minutes.
C. Next, if you wrote Dallas, write the JFK assassination from JFK’s second-person point of view. If you wrote Baghdad, write the bombing from President Hussein’s second-person point of view. Five min.
D. Finally, if you wrote Dallas, write the assassination from Oswald’s third-person point of view. If you wrote Baghdad, write the bombing from the third-person POV of a soldier on a US aircraft carrier.
Of course, I hadn’t expected to wake up this morning to read “War erupted Wednesday night as the United States launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and aimed 2000-pound bombs at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other ‘leadership targets’ in Baghdad.” They’re spinning the war as assassination. One of the few methods that’s worked for starting up a world war.
Now, over the next two weeks, the results of the writing exercises are being interconnected and edited on our class wiki. Who knows what those weeks will bring.