REQUIRED TEXTS FOR ENTRY-LEVEL CREATIVE WRITING COURSES

English 291: Michelle Boisseau & Robert Wallace, Writing Poems (8th edition). Longman. ISBN: 0205176054

English 292: Alice LaPlante, Method and Madness, The Making of A Story.  Norton.  ISBN: 978-0-393-92817-4

English 293: Sondra Perl & Mimi Schwartz, Writing True: The  Craft and Art of Creative Nonfiction.  Cengage Learning.  ISBN: 0618370757

GUIDELINES FOR COURSE REQUIREMENTS

General Considerations

In order to avoid duplicating texts from one level to the next, the Best of series in each is to reserved for use in 300-level classes. In the 200-level classes, one designated textbook (all with sufficient examples for class discussion of craft) is required in each genre, but instructors may use other texts at their discretion.

The policy at the 200-level in particular is to keep standards high (perhaps increasingly high as the semester progresses), to assign as much work as possible so that students rise to expectations, and to make grading policies clear from the onset and to grade consistently.

For all genres:

1. Find an essay/book of poems/story to use from a visiting writer for that semester.

2. Require attendance at her or his reading as well as at another English-department sponsored reading.

3. Read work by local writers and ask them to talk to your classes.

4. Develop a class web page.

 

POETRY, Creative Writing: Poetry (English 291):

1. Students need to learn and use in critiques the terms of the disciplines (see the list of terms at the end of Writing Poems).

2. Students need to read as many poems as possible. Require a great deal of reading and relate the discussion to craft.

3. Students should produce about a poem each week, though not all these poems need to be polished.

4. Students should present their polished poems (8 - 10) in a portfolio at the end of the term in such a way as to show evidence of substantial revision.

5. Short in-class exercises work well to stimulate ideas.

4. Students should learn to use the terms of the discipline in both oral and written critiques.

5. Grading should be clear and consistent. A point system is useful but not imperative.

6. Since poems are shorter than prose, short, full-class workshops may work throughout the semester (perhaps at the last 15 minutes of class), but more extensive, smaller-group workshops should probably be saved for the last third of the course. Sometimes colleagues will volunteer to help, so that instructors may divide the class into smaller workshop groups and assign each group a leader.

 

PROSE, Creative Writing: Fiction (English 292):

1. Students need to learn and use in critiques the terms of the disciplines (see list of terms later in this document*).

2. Students need to read as much as possible. Require a great deal of reading and relate the discussion to craft.

3. Students should produce about 40 pp. of polished work, including a series of 1-2-page exercises and one to two stories of at least 8 pages in any combination.

4. As part of their polished work, students should also learn to write professional sounding critiques of each story workshopped.

5. Grading should be clear and consistent. A point system is useful but not imperative.

6. Workshops should probably be saved for the last third of the course. Sometimes colleagues will volunteer to help, so that instructors may divide the class into smaller workshop groups and assign each group a leader.

Here is a quote from Daniel Orozco, who teaches fiction writing at all levels: "I think 292 is about pumping out the exercises, with the higher level classes geared to more thoughtful writing."

 

PROSE, Creative Writing: Nonfiction (English 293):

Use the same guidelines as # 1, 2, 5, and 6 for fiction writing in addition to the following:

1. Use models from a variety of published essays. Have students identify techniques and write their own exercises or essays imitating the structure or style of another.

2. Use fiction techniques for scene development.

3. Write several exercises on various techniques (e.g., scene, narration, research, reflection) and three essays of varying length.

4. Use an exercise as a starting point for an essay.

5. Use e-reserve (see Jesse Thomas in the library) to represent additional major writers in nonfiction – e.g., E. B. White, Annie Dillard, Scott Russell Sanders, David James Duncan, Rebecca McClanahan.

 

TEXTS AND SKILLS AT THE UPPER-DIVISION LEVELS

POETRY

Notes from Ron McFarland

Number one on the list of skills [that students should have before they graduate to the upper division] would be the capacity to read poems thoughtfully, perceptively (whatever) and to articulate one's observations. Call it "the craft of reading poems." But maybe this implies two crafts: (1) reading perceptively and (2) commenting articulately. Somewhere, I think, Pound says a poem should be at least as well written as good prose. This entails concise and exact word choice, avoidance of be-verbs and throwaway diction, etc.--you know, the usual stuff. That sort of "cut to the chase" advice! May we dare hope that by trying to be perceptive in their grasp of what they read, the students will become more perceptive themselves? Even "insightful"?

They need to know the difference between imagery and metaphor. It's not that I expect them to be able to turn out either one with any great mastery, but they do need to know the differences. Sure, it's good to know the difference between metaphor & simile, too, but I don't much care about other technical terms (metonymy, synecdoche, etc.). Maybe that's just me. I'd like them to be keen for exciting, edgy language, too, but again, it's something I want them to be able to respond to (at this level, coming into a 300+ level course) rather than to master. If they can't see what's fine about Stevens's "squiggling like saxophones" or Wrigley's "circus of slithers," then I rather tend toward despair. So yes, something about the ear, too, about assonance and slant-rhyme, etc.

I'd like them to know about rhythm--the pulse of the line, the nature of stress. And meter is "nice," too, but not essential. In short, I hope they can learn something of how poems work when they succeed.

* * *

Notes from Joy Passanante

For 391:

I always use the most recent (usually) version of The Best American Poetry in addition to 100 Best Loved Poems (ed. Philip Smith).

The last couple semesters I’ve used Kyrie by Ellen Bryant Voigt because it is a book by a single poet and it also demonstrates how research can inform poems. I also use a book by the visiting poet of the year or semester and have the students choose 5-6 books of poems from a list of modern and contemporary poets, including one book by the current U.S. poet laureate, to read and respond to outside of class.

Students polish about six assigned poems in various forms, revise them (at least four drafts each) for a portfolio, and occasionally compose a chapbook of eight-ten poems.

For 491:

Students choose their own 10 books – all by U.S. poet laureates—from which to bring poems to class for discussion and analysis and on which to write responses. They also choose one poem from one poet laureate to teach to the class.

Students should have had practice in a variety of forms and should be fluent in the language of poetic techniques. I have them write 12 poems and submit 6 for revision at least three times.

* * *

FICTION

Notes from Daniel Orozco

For 392:

TEXTS -

Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern (for exercises and such); and Best American Short Stories 2003, 2004, etc. (for discussion of master works by contemporary writers).


For 492:

Reading of story collections by masters; thus, 5 collections for presentations and discussion.  For example, The Question of Bruno by Hemon, Jesus' Son by Johnson, The Love of a Good Woman by Munro, Open

Secrets by Munro, The Night in Question by Wolff, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs by Wolff, Birds of America by Moore, My Lord Bag of Rice by Bly.  These collections change so I don't get bored.

Notes from Joy Passanante

For 492:

I use books by Munro, an anthology, and Charles Baxter’s wonderful book of essays about fiction, Burning Down the House. I also have the students who want to be candidates for an "A" read a book of stories by an approved contemporary fiction writer and review it.

* * *

* List of terms FOR English 292 teachers

what your students should know by the end of the course

 

Characterization

Cliché & Stereotype

Closure

Conflict - Crisis - Resolution

Connotation & Denotation

Consistent Inconsistency

Description & Exposition; Showing v. Telling

Details: Concrete v. Abstract

Diction

Direct Discourse - Indirect Discourse - Free Indirect Discourse

Epiphany

Flashback & Flashforward

Foreshadowing v. Telegraphing

Imagery and Metaphor

"Insignificant" Detail

Modes of characterization:

Direct (character appearance, speech, action, thought)

Indirect (authorial interpretation)

Plot

Point of View:

First Person

Interior Monolog

Dramatic Monolog

Diary/Journal Narration

Epistolary Narration

Subjective Narration

Memoir Narration

Observer Narration

Third Person

Limited Omniscient

(Editorial/Unlimited) Omniscient

Objective Narration

Second Person ("you")

Setting & Mood

Story

Story & Profluence (Cf John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction)

Summary & Scene

Tension (in plot, in character, in language)

Unreliable Narrator

Voice & Tone

* * *

NONFICTION

Notes from Kim Barnes

I seldom use a text, but here are a few texts I have on the shelves

--Best American Essays
--Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction (Miller and Paola)
--Shadow Boxing: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction (Kristen Iversen)
--Writing Life Stories:  How to Make Memories into Memoirs... (Bill Roorbach)
--Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction (Root and Steinberg)
--Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: I and Eye (Nguyen and Shreve)
--River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative

--Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (ed. William Zinsser)
--Fourth Genre (the journal)
--Creative Nonfiction (the journal)