Questions you can (but don’t have to) consider: What is Biss’s real subject, or subjects? What, if anything, would you say her thesis is? Why do you think she structured this essay the way she did? How else might she have accomplished the same goals, and what would be changed if she’d written it as a “normal” argument?

Check out Eula Biss’s creative nonfiction essay, “Time and Distance Overcome.” in 600 words(not including citations), write a response to it. I’ve got a few leading questions below, but feel free to respond to this cool, disturbing, strange text anyway you prefer. It demonstrates some of the very different things writers can do with the essay genre. Hope you enjoy it.

Questions you can (but don’t have to) consider: What is Biss’s real subject, or subjects? What, if anything, would you say her thesis is? Why do you think she structured this essay the way she did? How else might she have accomplished the same goals, and what would be changed if she’d written it as a “normal” argument? Did this essay make you think differently about something you’d likely seen every day of your life? What else could you, or another writer, write about the way Biss writes about telephone poles?