Creative Writing II Schedule, Spring 2008
Installment #1
Last Updated July 29, 2008
Poetry: add list-and-sound exercise. make nutty list of anything. Sound should determine what goes in list. After playing with sound, look at a piece of really musical, serious writing.
Following each date below are reading or other assignments due for that day. In parentheses are tentative activities and topics for the class period. If you miss a meeting, you should 1) get full notes and updates from several classmates; and 2) check with me again if you have specific, informed questions. Because this schedule is very flexible and subject to change, and because it's a workshop course, it's vital that you attend regularly and keep up with current announcements. Be sure as well to check this online schedule regularly.
Week 1, Jan. 8/9 —(Introduction to course. Email procedures. Exchange phone numbers. CW and Art in Culture: The Rhetorical Dimension. Preliminary discussion about the arts and "Art Views." Pecker, 1 hr. 26 min. [on home DVD]) Purposes of, audiences for, kinds of "creative writing." Get this clearly established.
[Show The Player in 423, Pecker in 323?]
Week 2, Jan. 15/16 —By class time, post a self-profile in our Blackboard Discussion Board. Take a look at Skittish Libations, and art links. Also: print out and bring Fiction Project #1.
(Weekly snack assignment? Continue discussion of arts, creative process, and Pecker. Adjourn to EML 377 to examine and discuss paintings on the Web, then move to FLC 415A to look at paintings on overhead. Discuss Fiction Project #1. Workshop procedures. Workshop Jeff L.?)
Week 3, Jan. 22/23—Attend Seminar. No regular class.
Week 4, Jan. 29/30 —Print out and read "Cathedral" and "How to Tell a True War Story," Also print out Workshop Guidelines and 10 Most Common Workshop Bloopers. To complete the EXTRA CREDIT POETRY SURVEY, Click here. (If you have done this survey in a previous class, do not repeat it. I'll give you an alternative form of extra credit.)
(Moore and Baldwin distributed. Continue discussion of the arts, creative process. Snow snack? Begin work with fiction and apply form fundamentals to Pecker and readings. Workshop.)
Week 5, Feb.5/6 —Read handouts: Moore, "How to Talk with Your Mother" and Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues." Take a look at 2 documents to help you develop characters in your stories: Character Tips and Characterization (U. of Berkeley).
(Discuss Baldwin. Continue work with form fundamentals. Workshop.)
Week 6, Feb. 12/13—Print out Fiction Project #2 assignment and flash fiction samples (you only need to print out the authors with a * by their names—but feel free to read the rest).
No regular class meeting. Instructions:
1) Look over Fiction Project #2 and begin work on this.
2) Read Flash Fiction. This stuff is fun.
3) Write written workshop feedback to CeCe, Dennis, and Krista in Blackboard.
Look under "Workshop Material" and find their names in the queue. Reply to their entries and type in your comments. You should provide a good page of feedback for each. Comment on: a) your immediate reactions; b) what specifically is working well--most moving, imaginative, smart, well-crafted; c) what could use improvement; d) form: characterization, theme, setting, exposition, dialogue, point of view, plot (pacing; scenes; structure; narrative tension); e) any place where you just get lost or confused; f) questions you have about the piece itself and/or the writer's process and purpose.
Be specific, balance your remarks, and put some work and thought into your feedback. There is ALWAYS much to say about any piece of writing. For help, you might actually look back at some of your notes for the semester and draw on class info.
Week 7, Feb. 19/20 —Print out Prose Style Samples. (Look at O'Brien story assigned on Jan. 31st and Moore story assigned Feb. 7th. Nonlinear plots. Genre and mode; style. Discuss Fiction Project #2 as needed. Flash fiction. Workshop.)
Week 8, Feb. 26/27 — Print out "Questions about Márquez Stories." Read: Márquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" and "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World." (Discuss readings. Continue work the Fiction Project #2. Workshop.) Click here for additional Márquez stories.
March 4/5—SPRING BREAK
Week 9, March 11/12 — (Discuss Calvino and experimental fiction. Dollar bill exercise? Workshop.)
Week 10, March 18/19—Read Calvino, selections from Invisible Cities.Print out and read poems by Roethke, Bishop (1), Neruda, Simic, and Ponge. Print out Poetry Project #1. Take a look at Surrealist games in WIKIPEDIA.
(Discuss Poetry Project #1. "The Thing Itself" exercise and first set of readings. "The Luminous Object" exercise and second set of readings. Mode and genre in poetry. Kinds of poets and competing traditions. Workshop.)