Creative Writing II Schedule, Summer Online, 2010

Below are reading and exercise assignments due for each week. Because this schedule is flexible and subject to change, and because it's a workshop course, it's vital that you check for updates regularly and keep up with current announcements. Be sure as well to check your email frequently.

• Introduction to course. Read our Homepage and browse around our Blackboard to thoroughly familiarize yourself with its contents.
• Browse around Skittish Libations. Find a quotation which you think is best, or truest, or most interesting.
• Read your first Weekly Exercise Assignment in Blackboard.
• Read the instructions for y ou Post a self-introduction to Blackboard, in the Virtual Workshop and Weekly Exercise Drop-Box area. Include a brief discussion of your favorite quotation from Skittish Libations. Why did you choose that particular quote?
• Complete your first Weekly Exercise. Instructions are located in the Power Point Shows area of our Blackboard, and is titled, Warm-Up Exercise: Finding Stories.
• Post your completed exercise in the Virtual Workshop and Exercise Drop-Box area of our Blackboard. Try to have this done by Monday the 21st.

Week 2, June 21-27

• Read Carver's, "Cathedral."
• Read O'Brien's, "How to Tell a True War Story."
• Read through Style to get a sense of how different writer prose styles can be.
• Possibly view Power Point titled, Fiction.
• Get a start on fiction exercise sheet, if you like. (See Week 3.)
• Check your email and/or our Blackboard Virtual Workshop for anything your classmates may have submitted for discussion this week. Using the workshop form, offer some feedback on their work and post it to the Blackboard Virtual Workshop. And feel free to submit something yourself!!!!!! You should always be working on your own independent stuff.

Week 4, July 5-11

• Read, in Story Matters, pp. 2-60. Skim material which isn't particularly useful to you, and read carefully any material which is.
• Visit Writer's Link, then complete Writer's Link exercise, located in Blackboard Weekly Exercises.
• Post completed Writer's Link exercise to our Blackboard "Completed Exercise Drop-Box."
• An ADDITIONAL exercise is due this week--it's basically a back-and-forth discussion. As always, go into our Blackboard Weekly Exercises, find "IT'S ABOUT TIME WE TALKED, " and follow the instructions.
• Be sure too that you check the Blackboard Virtual Workshop for submissions by your peers, and be working on your own stories, poetry, and/or creative nonfiction.

Week 6, July 19-25

• View SEVERAL new Power Point presentations in Blackboard: Form in Poetry, Surrealism, The Visual Tradition, The Oral Tradition, and Your Chapbooks and Portfolios.
• Contribute to class discussion: post at least 2 entries to our Blackboard Discussion Board "Class Discussion" forum.
• Complete any new exercise assignments, located in our Blackboard Discussion Board "Weekly Exercises" forum.
• Read all of your Pinsky text.
• As always, check the Blackboard Virtual Workshop for submissions by your peers.
• Friday, July 30 : DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING AT LEAST TWO ITEMS FOR YOUR WORKSHOP CREDIT.

• View any new Power Point presentations in Blackboard.
• Read short-short poems online: Click here.
• Read online: Kooser.
• Contribute to class discussion: post at least 2 entries to our Blackboard Discussion Board "Class Discussion" forum.
• Complete any new exercise assignments, located in our Blackboard Discussion Board "Weekly Exercises" forum.
• As always, check the Blackboard Virtual Workshop for submissions by your peers.
• Remember that you need to submit AT LEAST 2 Workshop pieces before the semester is finished.
• Work on portfolios and chapbooks.
• All exercises from throughout the term must be completed no later than midnight, Aug. 6th.

Aug. 13

• Chapbook due by midnight, instructions TBA.
• Portfolio due by midnight, instructions TBA.
• Exceptions to these due-dates are possible only with documented evidence of serious hardship or illness.