Abstract

In the final week of the sequence, Assignment #12, Telling Lives, returns us to the reflective essay and our everyday encounters with interpreting and composing. They are to compose a biographical narrative about a close friend or a relative. In a sense, they are to compose a life, but as they are now quick to observe, they cannot report, or even know, an entire life anymore than Hersey could know or tell the of Hiroshima. As had Hersey, they will have to sort through the received stories, personal and historical facts, the firsthand observations. This telling will be neither whole truth nor fiction. What matters, finally, is that their compositions are responsible and useful, both to the writer and to the reader.