Creative Writing I II Ms Alissa Mears mearsa fccps

Creative Writing I & II Ms. Alissa Mears (mearsa@fccps.org) Room A116 George Mason High School 2007-2008 Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there's no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done. - Rudolph Flesch Course Overview This two semester course (CW I and CW II) is devoted to the art of creative writing, in all its various genres—poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction. Part I focuses more on the generation and sharing of original material, alongside the study of classics and contemporaries, while part II turns more towards the workshopping, revision, and performance/publication of our work. This class is for people who want to make a new kind of sense of the world through the written and performed word. It’s for people who approach their individual lives, and the larger one all around us, with humor, intelligence, sensitivity, and a thirst for language. It’s for people who want to share something of their minds and hearts through solitary writing, collaborative revision and study, and communal publication and performance. It’s for writers, and for people who want to be writers. Some of the writing activities in which we’ll be involved include a poetry reading at a local coffee shop; writing, selecting, and producing GMHS’s literary and arts magazine 9 Muses; a one-act play competition; workshops with local writers and artists; and individual submissions to credible publications. Objectives 1. To study the four major genres of creative writing: poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction 2. To practice all four major genres of creative writing 3. To gain intensive practice in one genre, chosen by the student 4. To research and present findings on influential authors, chosen by the student 5. To publish their work in local, national, and/or global venues 6. To read their work in public 7. To respond thoughtfully and comfortably to questions about their own work 8. To expand and sharpen vocabulary 9. To tighten grammar and mechanics 10. To learn from classmates and fellow writers through feedback and revision processes Course Content Students will read often and write constantly. They will workshop, revise, and edit often. They’ll look to ancient and contemporary writers as models to build a working understanding of why we write, how we write, and what we write. Students can also expect to discuss, through presentations and papers, the various connections they have to other serious writers. Readings Students will study various primary sources of creative writing, which will be chosen by individual students, the class as a whole, as well as the teacher. Students will also consider some secondary sources on the craft of writing, and they will also work from handbooks and anthologies. Excerpted or in their entirety, these include: • Rainier Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet • Ron Padgett’s A Handbook of Poetic Forms • Ursula K. Le Guin’s Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for Creative Writing Syllabus: Mears 1 • • • • • • • • the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew Illuminations: Great Writers on Writing, by Christina Davis and Christopher Edgar The Writer’s Market, 2006 Jack Heffron’s The Writer’s Idea Book Tom Romano’s Blending Genre, Altering Style and Crafting Authentic Voice William Zinsser's On Writing Well Janet Burroway's Imaginative Writing Ken Macrorie’s Telling Writing An array of literary journals, “zines”, newspapers, and magazines Policies (please don’t be surprised if, in response to a question, I simply refer you to this section) Respect and Conduct We’ve got to respect each other all the time, especially in a class that requires so much feedback for success. We’ve got to listen to each other, consider alternate points of view, and take each other seriously. We should also try to approach things with honesty and a sense of humor, but that cannot become mere rudeness or disruption. This is perhaps the only way we can really be able to speak, write, and think freely, and the most balanced way we can express ourselves and share ideas in our speaking and writing. The mind stays open. Materials -A notebook which is to be used solely for your individual work. The type of notebook doesn't matter to me; pick something that is practical and “you”. And it should fit into a binder where you can keep the pieces you’re revising, etc. We'll do some in-class freewriting and other exercises, plus I might occasionally assign us to do a sort of "sketching" for homework, and I hope you're each habitually jotting and scribbling things. I don't intend to read these notebooks, but I will check on/in them at times. -A binder to keep all of the work you have turned in for a grade, revision work, etc. -A disc or something to save your work on that we do in the lab. Here’s what you need to bring to class every day: • something to write with • your notebook (in the binder) • class literary text • a book of your own choosing, as the first 15-20 minutes of virtually every class is turned over to SSR, your individual study of a given author—I advise you to use this time to read for your poetry and fiction response papers Passes Use the restroom, water fountains, and lockers between classes. If you need to use the pencil sharpener during class, please wait for a “natural pause” in the action. Class participation It’s very simple: I love to hear people talk seriously and enthusiastically, and I’ll do my best to set up circumstances—writing and reading assignments, listenings, viewings, comments I make, stories I tell, and questions I ask—within which such conversations can happen. You should do the same. Honor Code As you should already know, academic integrity and violations thereof are taken very seriously. Pledge all your major work, "On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment" followed by your signature. Creative Writing Syllabus: Mears 2 Missed Classes, Late & Make-Up Work • Everything is due at the beginning of class (unless I direct otherwise, which will occasionally be necessary), so please observe and obey due dates. • Unexcused late work is 50% if turned in the next class. After this, it is a zero. Late papers and portfolios are 10% off per calendar day. After a week, they are a zero. • Remember that you are the one responsible for arranging make-up work, and that some work cannot necessarily be made up—peer reviews, oral presentations, workshops, etc. • In the event of late opening, cancellation, or other disruptions to our schedule, keep up with scheduled assignments, be they reading or writing, and be prepared to submit anything that may have fallen due during our absence. • Should you be unable to attend school on a day when an essay falls due, be certain to send your paper to school with a friend, or send it to mearsa@fccps.org as BOTH an attachment AND cut-and-pasted into the body-text. • If I am not in my classroom, you may always go to the office and ask someone to put your assignment in my mailbox. Writing Lab It's in A130, Monday through Friday (except Tuesday) from 3-4pm, where Ms. Tooze can help you with any type of assignment at any point during the writing process. You are free to take advantage of the Writing Lab on your own, but I might also send you there for extra writing work after school sometime; if I do so, that becomes homework. Word Processing/Typing All final & rough drafts of reading responses, un/guided exercises, or portfolio work must be typed (11-12 point, standard font like Times New Roman), double-spaced, & stapled. Poetry is one exception, which should be single (or 1 ½) spaced. At the upper left corner of each piece of work, please include these four lines: name; due date; CW: Mears; name of assignment. When I return these to you, I expect you to put them directly in your binder so you can access them whenever. Guided, Unguided Writings, & Other Experiments This is an intensive workshop in writing, and part of that structure is a piece of writing due at almost every single class meeting. Typically, these alternate between what I'm calling guided and unguided writings. Essentially, the unguided writings are for you to do whatever you want with, as long as it's appropriate, honest, and consistent work; guided writings usually have you work with a particular form or style of writing. Length: guided and unguided writings should be no more than a page (prose exercises should be as close to one page as possible). Feel free to turn in a few excerpts of the same longer piece for unguided writings. Topic: always for unguided and almost always for guided writings, you should write about whatever you want. We will be consistently forming and reforming lists of ideas for poems, stories, plays, and essays. Form: unguided writings should be in any genre you care to work in—poetry, fiction, drama, speeches, commercial scripts, comics, strange two-paragraph descriptions of mud, monologues, dialogues, letters, or just about anything else we can think of. Creative Writing Syllabus: Mears 3 Guided writings ask you to push your style, your form, use new tools—to write in different points of view; to write without certain parts of speech; to write only in dialogue; to simply "sound gorgeous"; to write from wordlists; to write with certain types of sentences; to write haiku, triolets, villanelles, in blank verse; to focus on image, voice, character, setting story, revision; to imitate another author; to exploit a famous passage; etc. Again, I hope we can come up with challenging exercises to assign one another. A Tentative Overview of the Year First Quarter: Poetry & fiction, with reading responses & presentations for each, plus guided and unguided exercises from Padgett & Le Guin. Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Portfolio. Second Quarter: Non-fiction & drama, with reading responses & presentations to each, plus guided & unguided exercises. Workshopping. Portfolio. Third Quarter: Submission and publishing process. Influence Projects. Guided & unguided exercises. Workshopping. Feedback portfolio. Portfolio. Fourth Quarter: Submission, publishing, performance. Guided & unguided exercises. You lead writing exercises. Workshopping. Final portfolio. Assessment Each assignment is given a different point value based on its magnitude and depth. Each quarter there are roughly 1000 points. While these percentages might vary slightly, each quarter guided and unguided writings are worth 15%, reading responses 30% total, classwork, participation, and feedback are worth 15% and portfolio 40%. Sharing Work Approach each others' work with vigor, generosity, honesty, respect, and attention. In order to develop as a writer we must share feedback—both written and verbal feedback. Here are some means to doing so: • Overheads: with names cut off (though you may always claim yours!), and the 3 headed discussion approach of "praise, propose, and polish". Most effective for shorter writing experiments • Whole-group workshopping: most vigorous/"serious" form; we all take copies of your work home, read it, write 100-300 words in response, come back and discuss it in front of you while you remain silent; more details on another handout • Readarounds: simply go around the room/take turns at the podium, reading work aloud; may be accompanied by each of us writing a brief comment on an index card • Silent readarounds: everyone brings in a piece of writing, places it on a desk, and we take 15-20 minutes to walk around, sit in each others' desks and read work; might comment in margins or on a single piece of loose-leaf next to story/poem • Board-scatter: everyone writes a phrase/sentence on the board; openly discuss/react • Email exchange: we email one another our work and come to class with written and oral responses to the pieces emailed. A typical day goes something like this: • SSR [15-20 minutes] • Write [10-20 minutes] • Share: overhead, readaloud, board-scatter; workshop [30 minutes] • Study: discussion of reading, groupwork, etc. • Variables: group presentations, individual presentations, individual writing exercises that you lead us through, visiting writers Creative Writing Syllabus: Mears 4