Yesterday in class, in addition to studying my sample literacy narrative “A Bridge to Words,” we examined the opening paragraphs of Tom Junod‘s essay “The Falling Man, published in Esquire magazine two years after 9-11. When you wrote in your journal about the first two paragraphs of Junod’s essay, I asked you to consider these questions:
- The long first paragraph of Junod’s essay could be two or more paragraphs. If you were Junod, where might you have divided the paragraph? Why do think he chose not to divide it?
- Where does Junod employ similes?
- Though “The Falling Man” is not a literacy narrative, it is an excellent example of creative nonfiction. As you continue to revise your literacy narrative, what in Junod’s essay might prove useful to you as a model?
Junod might have started a second paragraph with the words “[i]n all the other pictures,” because there he shifts the focus from the Falling Man to the photographs of other people who jumped from the Twin Towers. An opportunity for a third paragraph comes with the words “[t]he man in the picture, by contrast” where Junod turns his attention back to the Falling Man. And he might have begun a fourth paragraph with “[s]ome people who look at the picture,” because there he shifts to viewers’ perceptions of the Falling Man.
The first paragraph is over four-hundred words long, longer than some of your literacy narratives will be. I advise you to avoid writing paragraphs of that length. Generally, one-hundred to one-hundred-and-fifty words is a suitable length. As a rule, you should begin a new paragraph when you present a new idea or point. If you have an extended idea that spans multiple paragraphs, each new point within that idea should have its own paragraph. But the first paragraph of “The Falling Man” is an exception. For Junod, choosing not to divide the first paragraph creates an unbroken movement that parallels the unbroken downward flight of his subject, the Falling Man. Outside of the photograph, “he drops and keeps dropping until he disappears.” With “disappears,” the last word of the paragraph,” the Falling Man disappears from the page, and Tom Junod turns to the photographer, whom we learn later in the essay is Richard Drew.
Junod’s use of figurative include these lines:
- “he departs from this earth like an arrow”
- “the towers . . .loom like colosssi”
- “they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain”
- “as though he were a missile, a spear”
Unless you subscribe to Esquire, the magazine’s paywall will deny you access to the full text of “The Falling Man”; but if you’re interested in reading it in full, you can access it through the HPU Library site by following these steps:
- Go to the HPU Library site.
- Under the heading “Search HPU Libraries . . . ,” click on the “Articles” tab.
- Under the “Articles” tab, type Tom Junod “Falling Man” Esquire in the search box and click “search.”
- On the next screen, you will see a brief summary of the article. Click “Access Online” to view the full article.
Next Up
Wednesday in class you will compose a short essay that reflects on the process of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. In addition to revisiting your own final narrative and the writing that led up to it, you will address one or more of the essays that you examined as models.
Jane Lucas 