Course Project

To contact the instructor, email Phil Druker.

The basic goal of this course is to have students spend the semester writing about an environmental issue that interests them through using creative nonfiction techniques. 

Early in the semester, you need to decide on a topic for the creative non-fiction project you will complete for this class.  The topic you select must involve you personally during this semester and/or work you have done in the very recent past (during the last couple months). 

The end product of this project should be a 15 to 20 page (3500 - 5000 words) creative non-fiction article on the research you complete this semester. In other words, you'll write something like a full-size magazine article. That might sound like a lot now, but we'll spend all semester working on the project in increments.  So, each assignment you do for the class, will become part of your final magazine article.

The topic you pick needs to meet these criteria:
1) You need to have current, personal experience with the topic.
2)  The topic needs to deal with the environment, nature, work outdoors.
3)  The topic should allow you to complete appropriately sophisticated that includes (a) information gathered through direct personal experience, interviews, or other "hands-on" work (primary research) and (b) information collected from other people's work, library research (secondary research). This secondary research involves collecting information from professional journals, government reports, or other sophisticated sources. To complete this secondary research, you will not want to rely solely on popular magazines or newspapers.

The project needs to be directed at a specific audience and meet that audience's interests. Further, your final article should not merely summarize the information you collect; rather, you will want to interpret and analyze the information you present to meet your audience's needs and to make it interesting to your audience. Part of your job will be deciding who your audience is for your article and writing it so you meet your readers' needs and interests.

By the second or third week you should have decided on a subject area. Then you can focus on a specific topic, do research, refine the topic and find a specific focus, research background information, and develop a research plan. The proposal is due during the fourth week. All the other assignments for the class will form chapters in your final article. The next assignment will involve interviewing an expert. After that, you will write a chapter that involves relating personal experience to the experience of other experts. Finally, we'll work on one or two more chapters and work on tying this all together.

At the end of the semester, each student will present an oral report on his or her project. Also, you'll write a short summary of your article.

Also note that students will be responsible for presenting text and ideas to the whole class, so each of you get input from various readers on your drafts. Thus, photocopying a page or two of your text for each class member will be required. Furthermore, you may be required to lead a class discussion on your project or a topic related to creative non-fiction.

See a list of past project topics.