Course Structure

"Becoming ill is a call for stories in at least two senses: the phone rings and people want to know what happened. Stories have to be told to doctors, health bureaucrats, family, and friends. But stories also have to repair the damage that the illness has done to a person's sense of where they are in life, and where she may be going. Stories are a way of redrawing the maps and finding new destinations..."

Arthur W. Frank, The Wounded Storyteller

Class Descriptions

Chronically-ill patients are the bearers of incredibly rich but also incredibly complex and complicated stories about their condition, how this experience has changed their bodies, their sense of what is possible, and what their future will look like. This isn't a story that patients get much practice telling. Doctors, by and large, don't have the time to listen to it. Family members listen (well, we hope they do) but their own narrative may compete with the patient's version. Often, the patients themselves carry around "broken stories," ones that have clear beginnings (illness or diagnosis) and then a vast ocean of middle without an ending.

We've created this program as a way to give patients an opportunity to think about narrative and storytelling as a pathway of healing, that the better we are able to make sense of our past, the more power we have over our present and our future. For 10 weeks, for one hour a week, we examine some traditional qualities of writing and storytelling, and we also look at aspects specific to the experience of being a patient.

A typical class includes simple writing exercises, visualization exercises, and informal discussion about different forms of writing, such as nonfiction/memoir, journaling, fiction, and poetry.

10-Week Class Overview

First Class: Noticing
Second Class: Description
Third Class: Structure
Fourth Class: Character
Fifth Class: Setting, Scene
Sixth Class: Theme (Message)
Seventh Class: Point of View, Tone
Eighth Class: Dialogue
Ninth Class: Draft
Tenth Class: Revision

Here are excerpts from writing produced by participants in the Patient Voice Project.

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