Welcome to Creative Writing
Welcome to the new Creative Writing course for the Spring 2010 semester.
There is a syllabus for the course available here (PDF). Here is the Revised Syllabus (PDF) with the new assessment system included:
The week-too-week course plan is subject to revision, but in general principles it will remain as it is.
I assigned some homework for our next class, as follows:
- Think about what you want to write — what form you’re currently interested in exploring, whether poetry or fiction or creative nonfiction.
- Think about what you want to write about — as in, what sort of a story or character or emotion or whatever that you think you’d like to explore. Political or social issues, too, fit into this question.
- Be ready to talk next time about one writer that has “spoken” to you in his or her written work, and why you think this was the case. (Remember my various examples and their explanations?)
- Write a short piece of creative writing (ie. one page, single-spaced) of any style you like, dealing with any subject you like. This is for me to get a sense of what level you’re at, and to track your progress.
- Since you should know something about me as a writer, since I’m teaching you this course, please check out my latest story at Clarkesworld.com. I’ll be asking you for your feedback on the story in class next week. (It’s only fair, since I’ll be critiquing your work all semester too!)
I also mentioned to students a subpage on this website, dealing with formatting of written work. That page can be viewed here. It’s a good idea to check it out and familiarize yourself with my formatting guidelines.
I look forward to spending the semester with you studying Creative Writing!