Syllabus

To write, one must read. To write well, one must read well. Which means: to read widely, to read with enthusiasm, to read for pleasure, to read with an eye for another's craft. 
– Joyce Carol Oates

The writer studies literature, not the world. He lives in the world; he cannot miss it. 
– Annie Dillard

Here, I walk into class thinking, Really I have nothing to say to these people, the proper study of writing is reading, is well-managed awe, desire to make a thing, stamina for finishing, adoration of  language, and so on...
— Lia Purpura

  Week 1            Creating a Writing Practice / Researching Your Lives, Finding Subjects / What is Creative Nonfiction? 

Reading

Writing

  • Read Joan Didion’s essay, “Why I Write” and write a letter addressed to me in which you describe your relationship to writing. Here are some questions to guide you: What has been your experience as a writer? How have you come to writing? What writing experiences have shaped you, or what experiences in your life have influenced your writing (or your call to write)? What is important to you about writing? Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a “writer,” address the role of writing in your life to date. 1 page, single-spaced, typed (please print and bring a hardcopy to class)
  • Bring 1 object & 1 photograph to class
  • Bring a blank notebook to class, exclusively for this class. Within it, list 5 writing goals for the semester.

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Week 2            NONFICTION — Place, Home, & Family / Writing Landscape

Reading

Writing

  • Reading Response (Tuesday, January 30)
  • Write a letter to your childhood self. (Thursday, February 1)
  • Travelogue: Write a flash essay about a moment of travel, assembling a collage of the experience with as much sensory detail as possible. (Thursday, February 1)

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Week 3            NONFICTION — Writing Culture (Food/Art/Politics)

Reading

Writing

  • Reading Response (Tuesday, February 6)
  • *ESSAY—Produce 1 essay that you will continue to revise during this unit. It must be a piece you care about and will remain invested in. It can be flash or long, memoir or journalistic, a meditation on a subject of interest, a story from memory — you have total freedom. You may revise writing exercises into longer pieces, or create something new. Use readings as models. (Tuesday, February 6)
  • Write a flash essay on 1 topic of interest (art, food, politics, etc.) or a review (of artwork, film, meal, etc.) (Thursday, February 8)

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Week 4            NONFICTION — Experimental Prose

Reading

Writing

  • Write your own series of “short talks” (à la Anne Carson) (Tuesday, February 13)
  • Take a piece of prose you’ve written this unit and scramble its style/structure into an alternative new form (Thursday, February 15)
  • Reading Response—CANCELLED

  WORKSHOPS & Peer Review Letter  

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Week 5            NONFICTION

Reading

  • podcast “Kiese Laymon on Revision as Love, and Love as Revision”

Writing

  • Write down the most favorite line that you have written so far and bring to class (Tues, 2/20)
  • 2-in-1 Exercise: Take 2 specific, disparate scenes from anything you’ve written this unit and link them within a single cohesive storyline. (Thurs, 2/22)
  • [Optional: Revision Exercises]

  WORKSHOPS & Peer Review Letter  

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Nonfiction Portfolio Due  

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Week 6            FICTION — the Real vs. the Fantastical / Microfictions

Reading

Writing

  • Reading Response (Tues, 2/27)
  • Conversion Exercises: 1) Take any brief clip you wrote for the NF unit and make it as fantastical as possible to convert it into a fictional story.; 2) Write a brief scene from memory (one already written in the NF unit or totally new) narrated in 3rd person POV (Tues, 2/27)

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Week 7             FICTION — Characters / Voice / POV / Dialogue

Reading

Writing

  • Reading Response (Tues, 3/5)
  • Interview: Write a list of 100 short fragments about 1 character you’re working on (or could imagine inventing) in your Story this unit; the sentences don’t need to connect or follow in a logical way; the idea is for you to outrun your own ideas of this character; don’t be monotonous; ask everything you can of this character, everything you must know…not just physical attributes, but also what they typically eat for breakfast, what they dream about, what they keep in their pockets or under their bed, who they love or have loved, the rituals, habits, and nuances of their personality and lifestyle, the events that have shaped their lives so far, the futures they imagine, etc. Remember, these 100 characteristics will not all make it into your story, but you as the author need to know what they are in order to write the character as realistically and consistently as possible. (Tues, 3/5)
  • *STORY—Produce 1 story that you will continue to revise during this unit. It must be a piece you care about and will remain invested in. It can be any style or form—you have total freedom. You may revise writing exercises into longer pieces, or create something new. Use readings as models. BRING HARDCOPIES (Thur, 3/7)
  • [Optional: Dialogue Exercise: Write a dialogue in which each of the two characters has a secret. Do not reveal the secret but make the reader intuit it. ;  Accident Exercise: Write the accounts of an accident from the perspectives of 5 people who are witness to it, all 1st POV. Use as many varied characters as possible.   OR     1 Event 5 Ways: Take a simple event and describe it using the same characters and elements of setting in 5 radically different ways (change style, tone, sentence structure, voice, psychic distance, POV, form, etc.).]

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Week 8            FICTION — Experimental Forms

Reading

Writing

    • Reading Response 
    • Write a 1-sentence story (in. 250 words). Revisit Machado. (You may convert something you’ve written for an exercise in this unit into a 1-sentence story, if it makes sense for that story.) (Tues, 3/12)
    • Following Hemingway’s 6-word story (which we’ll review in class), convert the major story you wrote for this unit into a 6-word story. Then explain why you need all those pages to tell your story. (Thurs, 3/14)
    • [Optional: 1) Write a 10-minute story told backwards from the end to the beginning; 2) Write a brief passage on some stock subject (a journey, landscape, sexual encounter) in the rhythm of a long novel, then in the rhythm of a short story.]

  WORKSHOPS & Peer Review Letter

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Week 9            SPRING BREAK  

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Week 10          FICTION

Writing

  WORKSHOPS & Peer Review Letter  

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Fiction Portfolio Due Friday, April 5th by 5pm  

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Week 11          POETRY —Prose Poems / Narrative Poems / Lyric Poems

Reading

Writing

  • Reading Response (select 1 poem) — TUES, 4/2
  • Take 1 prose piece you’ve written and recast it with line-breaks two ways — as a 1) narrative poem (a poem that tells a story) AND 2) lyric poem (a poem that uses language to evoke). You are not required to adhere to any metrical or formal elements or structures — both poems should be free verse. — TUES, 4/2
  • Found Poem— Between-the-Lines Poem: Choose your favorite poem from the readings. Type out the poem, leaving triple-space between lines. Then, between the lines, fill in a new line of your own which is sparked by the original line. Eliminate all original poem lines at the end. The poem that remains is your own. Tinker with it and make it cohere. — THURS, 4/4

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Week 12          POETRY — Forms

Reading

Writing

  • Reading Response —TUES, 4/9
  • Form Poem: Write 1 form poem of your choice. Research the guidelines of that form if you aren’t familiar with it, and read other poems in that form. —TUES, 4/9
  • Write a series of 3-5 HAIKUS around a single theme. —THURS, 4/11
  • *POEM  (hardcopy)—Produce 1 poem that you will continue to revise during this unit. It must be a piece you care about and will remain invested in. It can be any style or form—you have total freedom. You may revise writing exercises, or create something new. Use readings as models. —THURS, 4/11
  • [Optional: 1) Write an ode or list poem or persona poem or epistle or ekphrastic poem; 2) Conversion Poem: Transform your form poem into free verse. This may mean minimally or drastically changing the poem.]

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Week 13          POETRY — Experimental Lyrics & Soundscapes

Reading

Writing

  • Reading Response — CANCELLED
  • Conversion Poem (Free—>Experimental): Transform 1 free verse poem you’ve written this unit into an experimental structure of your choice. Here you have full range and freedom to play with the idea of the poem. Remember, this should not entail a copy & paste with a few spacing adjustments, but should involve a reinterpretation of your original poem into a new format. —TUES, 4/16
  • Translation Poem: Translate a poem from a language you neither speak nor read. Do not consult with any translation sources. Your translation should come from the visual and musical quality and form in all of its unfamiliarity. Include original poem with your translation, and be prepared to discuss the choices you made with language. —THURS, 4/18 (No Requirement to Post)
  • [Optional: 1) Write a serial or sequence poem. 2) Music Poem: Listen to various types of music (jazz, classical, blues, techno, etc.) and free-write to each. Consider how the rhythms of your writing respond to and mirror musical textures. 3) Pacing Exercise: Take one of your poems and rewrite it in two styles: as a fast poem, and as a slow poem.]

  WORKSHOPS & Peer Review Letter  

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Week 14          POETRY

Writing

  • Bring a clean copy of your favorite poem — one that YOU have written this unit — to class (for a writing exercise) —TUES
  • Final Poem: Take 1 failed poem of yours from this unit and extract 1 line from it that you like. Use this line as the 1st line of a new poem. —THURS (Include in Poetry Portfolio or bring hardcopy to class)
  • Memorize 1 poem of your choice (to be presented orally) —THURS
  • [Optional: Revision Exercises ; Share the name of a poem/poet you love discovered outside of class //  [Marianne Moore’s “Poetry”]

  WORKSHOPS & Peer Review Letter  

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Poetry Portfolio Due  Friday, May 3rd

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Week 15          Final Project Presentations