Aug 24/INTRODUCTIONS and INFORMATION

26/ Discuss Sample Character Sketch--Pemberton “Bird” (online); using it as a model, draft a character sketch of yourself and bring to class.

31/ Discuss Blew “The Art of Memoir” (online);

  Ginzburg “He and I” (423 Lopate). Read Reflection/Vertical Movement (online).

Sep 2 / Sanders “Under the Influence” (733 Lopate).  Prepare notes to discuss the elements of craft: the variety of ways Sanders delivers information and makes us think and feel. Note the specific kinds of vertical movement. he uses. Revised character sketch due.

7/ Blew “The Sow in the River”; Thurber “The Secret Life of James Thurber” (514 Lopate). Didion “Goodbye to All That” (681 Lopate)

9/ Style assignment due. Characterization studies.

Hemingway “Hills Like White Elephants” (online). Schrand “Wrestling Gene Simmons…” (online).

14/ Barnes “The Ashes of August” (online); Seltzer “The Knife” (708 Lopate).  Scene plus vertical movement/reflection due for peer review.

16/ White “Once More to the Lake” (532 Lopate). Revised scene plus vertical movement/reflection due.

21/ Foster Wallace “Consider the Lobster” (online).

23/ Bring draft of Essay #1 to class for an editing workshop.

28/ Essay #1 due. This is no excuse to miss class. Assignment of Essay #2.

30/ Blew “January 1922, “Reading Abraham.”

Oct 5/ Jones “Children of Cain” (online); Passanante “Annabel Before the War” (online). Bring research notes to class. REQUIRED: Bridget Pasulka Reading, WEDNESDAY, Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m.

7/ Conferences

12/ Conferences? Blew “Dirt Roads”; “Leaving Montana.”

14/ “Getting Married.”Bring to class your research notes and one fully narrated scene.

19/ Rich “Split at the Root” (640 Lopate). Baldwin, “Notes of a Native Son” (286 Lopate).

Edward Hirsch Reading, WEDNESDAY, Oct. 20, 7:30 p.m.

21/ TBA

26 Dillard “Seeing,” (693 Lopate); Borges “Blindness,” (377 Lopate). 

28/ Bring complete draft of Essay #2 to class for an editing workshop.

Nov 2/ Essay #2 due. Assignment of Essay #3.

4/ Orwell, “Such, Such Were the Days” (269 Lopate).

9/ Blew “The Unwanted Child,” “All But the Waltz.”

Ben Fountain Reading, WEDNESDAY, Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m.

11/The Threshold and the Jolt of Pain” (662 Lopate).

16/ Bring preliminary drafts for in-class work.

18/ Editing and other draft-work.

30/ Conferences

Dec2/ Conferences

7/Draft of #3 due in class for critique.

9 / Editing workshop in class. Final Essay due, Friday, Dec. 10, BY 5 P.M.