Course Schedule - Introduction to Creative Writing

Please Note: This is the Preliminary Schedule with Readings by Topic.  Stay tuned for the Final Schedule.

English 227, Section 004

Introduction to Creative Writing - Fall 2012

Instructor: Ryan Edel

Office Hours: Tuesday 1-3pm and Wednesday 11am-1pm

Course Website: Eng227.12Writing.com

Introduction: The Mechanics of Writing

For August 23:

• Rosellen Brown - “Introduction” (Williford and - Martone xiii-xv)

• Daniel Halpern - “Preface” (Halpern xi-xiii)
• Lex Williford - “Acknowledgments” and “Forward” (Williford v-xii)
• William Roetzheim - “Introduction” (Roetzheim xxvi-xxxii) - The “Level Four Poetry Manifesto.”

August 25: Post 50-100 words to Facebook (Assignment 1A)

August 27: Post 300 words to ReggieNet (Assignment 1B)

For August 28:

• Phillip Lopate - “Introduction” (Lopate xxiiv-liv) (30pp) - The flexibility of the personal essay.  This is a rather “academic” reading - the language is very different from what you’d see in fiction or poetry or even memoir, but I’d like you to see how an experienced memoirist approaches the scholarly discussion of a genre.

Setting and Detail: Specificity

For August 30:

• E.B. White - “Once More to the Lake” (Lopate 532-538)
• Eugene Field - “Little Boy Blue” (Roetzheim 238-239)
• Carl Sandburg - “Last Answers” (Roetzheim 338)

August 31: Post 600 words to ReggieNet (Assignment 2)

9/4/2012: On Seeing

Pick 2 or 3:

• Virginia Woolf - “Street Haunting” (Lopate 256-265)

• Richard Ford - “Communist” (Willford 214-227)

• Mary Morris - “The Lifeguard” (Halpern 424-431)

• Jorge Luis Borges - “Blindness” (Lopate 377-386)
• Annie Dillard - “Seeing” (Lopate 693-706)

September 3: ReggieNet Discussion (Discussion Forums) - What does setting do?

Character: Personal Detail

9/6/2012

• Richard Rodriguez - “Late Victorians” (Lopate 756-770)
• Jamaica Kincaid - “Girl” (Williford 319-320)
• Elizabeth Bishop - “One Art” (Roetzheim 387)
• Margaret Atwood - “Miss July Grows Older” (Roetzheim 473-475)

September 7: Post 800 words to ReggieNet (Assignment 3) - Create a Character

9/11/2012

Pick 2 Stories:

• Gayle Pemberton - “Do He Have Your Number, Mr. Jeffrey?” (Lopate 746-754)
• Jhumpa Lahiri - “A Temporary Matter” - (Williford 321-334)
• ZZ Packer - “Brownies” (Williford 503-519)

Read All 3 Poems:

• William Cullen Bryant - “The Murdered Traveler” (Roetzheim 77-78)
• Shakespeare - “All the World’s a Stage” (Roetzheim 12-13)
• Etheridge Knight - “The Idea of Ancestry” (Roetzheim 443)

September 10: ReggieNet Discussion (Discussion Forums) - What differentiates Setting details from Character details?  Why is this distinction important?

Character and Conflict: Making It Personal

9/13/2012

Choose between Rich or Mukherjee.  Read Lee and Bishop:

• Adrienne Rich: “Split at the Root” (Lopate 640-655)
• Bharati Mukherjee - “The Management of Grief” (Williford 417-430)
• Li-Young Lee - “Persimmons” (Roetzheim 592)
• Elizabeth Bishop - “In the Waiting Room” (Roetzheim 385)

Optional:

• Anthony Doerr - “The Caretaker” (Williford 152-180)
• Robert Frost - “Death of the Hired Man” (Roetzheim 283-288) and “Home Burial” (291-294)

September 14: Post 1,000 words to ReggieNet - Conflict and the Conflicted

September 17: ReggieNet Discussion - What you’d like to write for workshop.

Voice: Active, Passive, Colloquial

9/18/2012

• Ivan Turgenev - “The Execution of Tropmann” (Lopate 305-324)
• Amy Tan - “Two Kinds” - (Williford 599-608)
• Peter Ho Davies - “Relief” (Williford 120-128)
• T.C. Boyle - “Caviar” (Williford 80-92)

9/20/2012

Postponed - September 21: Weekly “Free” Write - Drafting a Sonnet (14 lines)

September 24: First Workshop Pieces Due to ReggieNet Discussion

9/25 (due 9/22) - Chuck, Emilio, Shelly, Bree, Patrick, Melissa

9/27 - Megan, Katie, Cameron, Chris, Katrina, Gabby, Rachel

10/02 - Taylor, Jamie, Razel, Jordie, Sarah, Will

10/4/2012

Voice and Meter/Symbolism

• Roetzheim - “Appendix A: Notes on Meter” (Roetzheim 603-606)
• Robert Burns - “To a Louse” (Roetzheim 33-35) - Notice how casual the language feels, and how different the eighteenth-century language is from contemporary English.
• Thomas More - “An Argument” (Roetzheim 66)
• Etheridge Knight - “The Warden Said to Me the Other Day” (Roetzheim 444)

Symbolism: The Enduring Meaning

• Keith Douglas - “Vergissmeinnicht” (Roetzheim 401)
• Anne Sexton - “With Mercy for the Greedy” (Roetzheim 437-438)

October 5: Drafting the Sonnet due to ReggieNet

10/9/2012

Poems about Writing:

• Joyce Kilmer - “Trees” - (Roetzheim 362)
• Marianne Moore - “Poetry” - (Roetzheim 364)
• Ernest Hemingway - from Wanderings: “Chapter Heading” (Roetzheim 377)
• Robert Lowell - “Reading Myself” (Roetzheim 400)
• Gary Snyder - “Axe Handles” (Roetzheim 440-441)
• Paul Zimmer - “Zimmer’s Head Thudding Against the Blackboard” (Roetzheim 461)
• Ted Kooser - “Selecting a Reader” (Roetzheim 480)
• Billy Collins - “Introduction to Poetry” (Roetzheim 501-502)

October 8: Online Preparation for Poetry Workshop due to GoogleDocs. - Cancelled

October 15: 500 Words of Poetry - Completed

Poetry Workshops

Scheduling for October 18, 23, 25, and 30

18 October: Everyone bring 2 paper copies of a poem to class

23 October: Due to ReggieNet by 11:59pm on 10/20 (Saturday)

Six: Taylor, Rachel, Bree, Chris, Jamie, Melissa

25 October: Due to ReggieNet by 11:59pm on 10/22 (Monday)

Seven: Patrick, Chuck, Cameron, Will, Megan, Katrina, Shelly

30 October: Due to ReggieNet by 11:59pm on 10/27 (Saturday)

Six: Sarah, Razel, Katie, Emilio, Jordie, Gabby,

Fiction Workshops

Novel Project

Starts Thursday, November 1st.

Workshops over six class periods, 3 workshops per class.  You’ll each be in one of three groups (A, B, or C), and each group will be workshopping one story from among its members on these days.  Workshopping will be 30-40 minutes total, and the balance of class will focus on discussing craft.

R 8-Nov

T 13-Nov - 3

R 15-Nov - 3

T 27-Nov - 3

R 29-Nov - 3

T 4-Dec - 6

Last Day of Class

6-Dec: Read a 3 minute piece that you haven’t previously shared with the class.

Tense: Past, Present, Perfect

• Natalia Ginzburg - “He and I” (Lopate 422-430)
• Phillip Lopate - “Against Joie de Vivre” (Lopate 716-731)
• Carolyn Kizer - “The Ashes” (Roetzheim 422-423)
• Jackleen Holton - “American History” (Roetzheim 599-600)

Metaphor: The Eerie Similarities

• Edwidge Danticat - “Night Women” (Halpern 196-198)
• Donald Barthelme - “The School” (Williford 19-21)
• David Means - “The Secret Goldfish” (Williford 397-404)
• Thomas Hood - “The Poet’s Fate” (Roetzheim 105)
• Marianne Moore - “To a Steam Roller” (Roetzheim 364)
• Edna St. Vincent Millay - “First Fig” (Roetzheim 374)
• Langston Hughes - “Dream Deferred: Harlem” (Roetzheim 379)
• May Swenson - “A Couple” (Roetzheim 392)
• Alden Nowlan - “It’s Good to Be Here” (Roetzheim 449-450)
• Ruth L. Schwartz - “The Swan at Edgewater Park” (Roetzheim 596-597)

Tone: Setting Your Voice

• Sara Suleri - “Meatless Days” (Lopate 458-475)
• Scott Russell Sanders - “Under the Influence” (Lopate 733-744)
• Salman Rushdie - “The Free Radio” (Halpern 513-518)
• Shakespeare - “Sonnet XVII” (Roetzheim 13)

Story and Plot: The Order of Things

• Tim O'Brien - “The Things They Carried” (Williford 469-483)
• Dave Smith - “Pulling a Pig’s Tail” (Roetzheim 529)
• Kate Clanchy - “War Poetry” (Roetzheim 597-598)

The Tough Ones: Irreverence Gone Wrong?

• Junot Diaz - “Nilda” (Williford 144-151)
• Joyce Carol Oates - “Mark of Satan” (466-476)