Fall 2010: R 2-4:30 pm, Jackson Hall 113
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This class determines to make you better writers of fiction and poetry because writing is not only a talent but also (and perhaps more importantly) a learned craft or skill. Good writing requires steady discipline, attention to detail, love for the craft. A good writer, like a good musician, must perform skillfully but not mechanically, responding to challenges with strategy and perseverance. Therefore, this class focuses not on stardom but skill, not virtuoso concertos but steady etudes.
Toward these ends, we will read and respond to prose and poems (published bits as well as your own) so that we can discuss what makes a piece good. Each word, each line, each sentence and paragraph combine to make a whole, and we will strive to apprehend this through study and practice. This class should afford you some tools for manipulating language so that you can make words do grander things than you have made them do before.
In addition to some sort of journal, secure the following texts (available at the college bookstore):
Recommended texts include the following:
In order to receive full credit, turn in all assignments on time. Individual pieces always receive comments reflecting craft and a grade reflecting timeliness (assignments lose 1 point out of 10 for every day they are late). Guard the initial commented-on drafts, for they along with final editions comprise the final portfolio whose letter grade reflects quality of revision. By 11 pm each Thursday when pieces are due, post your assignment on the appropriate Blackboard discussion board; by midnight Sunday, I will post a list of the pieces we will workshop the next Thursday.
For workshop, print those listed pieces and write significant comments (strengths and weaknesses with concrete recommendations) on them; if time and desire strikes you, provide comments to others as well. If your piece is workshopped, concretely address the experience in your journal, especially noting concrete comments you will use should you revise that piece later.
All assignments will relate to our reading and generally aim to stretch you. Some rules about the assignments:
Choose a short story or poem from our required texts and explicate it, observing and interpreting word choice, context, formal elements or other craft conventions, only accepting minimal advice (if any) from critical works. If you choose a piece we discuss in class, you must go much beyond our class discussion in your explication. Type 3-5 full double-spaced pages with 1-inch margins on all four sides, using something like Times New Roman size-12 or Arial size-10 font. Your grade will reflect ingenuity, evidence, argument, and timeliness (late papers receive 1/2 grade less than their worth for every day they are late).
Regularly handwrite or type a journal of literarily significant comments and submit this every Thursday afteryou are workshopped. Your grade reflects the quality and amount of material you produce: generally, 250 literarily useful words yield 10 points, and you want 200 points total. Suggested journal prompts (these could help you concoct ideas for the assignments as well):
For your final hurrah, compile copies of all assignment first drafts (the one I wrote comments on) with significant revisions of at least five. Collect them in a flat folder, placing originals behind each revision. Treat this as a collection of your work for which you provide an order, a title, and a short introduction (one page or so) that discusses why and how you revised the pieces you did.
Choose a rhymed and metered poem (or excerpt) of at least 14 lines to memorize, introduce, and recite to the class. Your introduction should identify some poem particulars: title, author, date of publication, form, why you chose it. Then recite the poem clearly, at an appropriate pace, and with some sense of feeling and the poetic form.
As we finish the fiction and poetry sections of our course, you will take exams that cover formal and technical conventions of the writing craft, requiring you to both identify and define various terms and passages. After all, the different kinds of footwork have names, and different people exemplified them, so you should know them.
You must talk in this class and thereby provide your commentary on pieces we discuss. This course requires you to balance extreme respect for others while being vocal; neither silence nor harassment of any sort are acceptable. In order to maximize your participation grade, come to class: come awake, on time, and prepared. We may have unannounced quizzes on the reading and I will occasionally check your written comments on the workshopped pieces for the benefit of your peers.
Missing class is serious: department policy states that if you miss more than three times you automatically fail the course. Frequent tardiness will seriously affect your participation grade, and if you miss all or part of a quiz because you are late, you may not make up the quiz. I will excuse absences for required participation in college-sponsored events with appropriate documentation, but deadlines do not change.
Unless otherwise indicated, all work must be individual. Evidence of collusion (working with another student or tutor) or plagiarism (use of another's ideas, data, and statements without proper acknowledgment) violates the honor code and results in serious penalty. Additionally, all work you produce for this class must be original, produced by you for this class only; multiple submissions will not be tolerated.
Write the Honor Code on all papers and exams, and uphold it fiercely, expecting me and your classmates to do the same.
Your final grade (A = 100-90, B = 89-80, C = 79-70, D = 69-60, E = 59-0) will refect the following:
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