Creative Writing II Schedule, Spring 2008
Installment #1
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. Purposes of, audiences for, kinds of "creative writing." Important!
Week 2, Jan. 15/16 —By class time, post a self-profile in our Blackboard Discussion Board ("Student Profiles.") Take a look at Skittish Libations, and art links. Print out and bring Fiction Project #1. Check your email and/or the Blackboard Discussion Board "Workshop" Forum for anything your classmates may have submitted for discussion this week. (Be sure to read that material carefully before class.)
(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).
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 — (Possibly read and discuss Calvino and experimental fiction. Dollar bill exercise? Workshop.)
Week 10, March 18/19—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.)
Week 11, March 25/26—Poetry list-and-sound exercise (sound should determine what goes in list, any kind). After playing with sound, look at a piece of really musical, serious writing.