Hello English 107: Introduction to Creative Writing students!
I've decided to bypass Moodle and use this blog as a virtual space for us to convene. This is where you will come for weekly assignments and virtual discussions, though we will rely on email for exchanging writing.
Speaking of which, every Tuesday I will post writing prompts, writing assignments, and discussion questions based on the reading for that week here on the blog. Write responses to the discussion questions in a WORD document, aka your weekly journal, to be submitted as part of your midterm and then as part of your final portfolio.
Assignments will be due to your workshop group (and to me) via email Tuesday at noon, one week after the assignment is posted (groups to be created by me via email tomorrow). Comments are to be made directly on each group member's piece of writing via track changes and emailed back to the writer by Thursday at 6 pm. This will not perfectly replicate an in-person workshop experience; however, it will provide each writer the gift of hearing from his/her/their readers, which is something we don't generally receive once we're published writers.
Workshop Guidelines
A significant part of this course focuses on writing workshops. Their purpose is to help you improve your writing through balanced feedback and criticism from your peers, but perhaps more importantly, to help you become a fair critic, learning how to give specific, constructive criticism of others’ work in a way that is appropriate and helpful. The workshops will also gently help you go “public” with your work but within small groups of six.
The ultimate goal of the workshops is to provide a helpful arena, a safe space in which to strike a balance between encouragement and guidance. Even though workshops should help you become better writers as much as they help improve the specific pieces of writing, workshops are always about the writing, not about the writers per se. It must be about the work, not the person. With this in mind, please be careful only to present material and subject matter with which you are willing to go public; while in creative nonfiction material that is close to the bone is often the richest, make sure you’re ready to have your material and its subject matter critiqued.
1. Everyone’s work deserves and receives equal time and equal respect. Each member of the class is an artist in training; each text will be looked at as potential literature. At the same time, everyone’s writing can be improved.
2. Everyone participates.
3. It helps to begin with specific positive comments, with things that are compelling and working especially well in the piece. We can all more easily accept constructive criticism after a little praise!
4. However, a good workshop is one in which the writer leaves with a clear sense of what needs work, so also include comments that reflect questions, things you would have liked to see more of or less of, and any parts of the writing that were confusing to you.
5. Do substantiate your comments—it is not enough to say, “I didn’t like this part,” or “This didn’t work for me.” You must go beyond your initial reaction to formulate a reason behind it as well as a potential solution or alternative—remember the workshops are meant to be a helpful arena; frame your comments accordingly.
6. The more you give the more you get.
7. The writer has the final say in how the piece will be revised.
8. After the workshop, the writer thanks his/her/their peers and may address the group via email with questions and points of clarification only; this is not a defense. If your readers aren’t interpreting the work as you intended, then it’s something that needs to be worked out in the writing, not verbally within the group. Make sense?
In addition to this blog and email, I will hold an optional virtual hour of discuss each week on Thursdays at 2 p.m. EST. I'll send an invite via email and you can show up there or not, and I will engage with whomever shows up on any aspect of class that week. Again, you absolutely are not required to join via Zoom, so if your access to technology is limited at that time, don't sweat it. You can always email me with pressing questions
Learning will happen, y'all, and if we look at all of this as a great adventure through which to create imaginative space, flex our creativity, and explore the possibilities of poetry and prose (both fiction and nonfiction), it will undoubtedly be a successful endeavor. Most of all, take care of yourselves during this time. Our way forward is kindness, compassion, flexibility, and adaptability. We shall write our way through uncertainty, and express ourselves uniquely, as humans have done since the beginning of our time on earth.
