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Week 1
1/17: Intros: Syllabus: What is "Creative Non-fiction." Read Bailey White's "Buzzard" (p.374), and Kathleen Norris's "Rain" (370). Two writing exercises: the memory chain and clustering (pp. 38-39)
1/19: Read Chapter One. Try writing at least three of the exercises under "Writing Your Name," "Writing About Place," or "Definition," at the end of the chapter.
Week 2
1/24: Read Chapter Two, "The Power of the Notebook." Try writing at least three of the exercises under "Eight Ideas for Getting Started." Also read pages 80-105 on Workshopping
1/26: Read Susan Allen Toth's "Going to the Movies" (280) and David Sedaris's "Let It Snow" (208). Practice writing workshop--try turning one of your writing exercises into a short essay. Come to class with four copies of your piece and some specific questions about it. We'll practice workshopping our writing in groups, paying close attention to what kinds of workshop procedures are most effective.
Week 3
1/31: Draft workshop on observation essay 1.
2/2: Observation Essay 1 due
Week 4
Monday, and Tudsday, February 6 and 7: Humanities Symposium on "Forgiveness." Especially Monday night, Gerda Klein's "Perspectives on the Holocaust."
2/7: No Class: attend Humanities Symposium event.
2/9: Read: Chapter 3, and Lisa Chavez's "Independence Day, Manley Hot Springs, Alaska," (183) and Gerald N. Callahan, "Chimera" (219). In-class: take a writing walk through the Fine Arts Center. Stop in various places to record your impressions and practice different idea-generating techniques from chapter 3.
Week 5
2/14: Read: Chapter 4. Proposals due for formal essay 1
2/16: Read: Chapter 5 and Li-Young Lee, "from The Winged Seed" (264) and Gretchen Legler, "Moments of Being: An Antarctic Quintet" (289)
In-class writing: 1) choose a passage from one of the essays that is remarkable, in your opinion, for the clarity of the setting it creates. Copy that passage into your notebook. Then explain why it works so well--look at verb choices and descriptive words, and also think about the selection of important details. Then, 2) take some time to write vividly about one of the settings that will appear in your essay. Try to imagine far more details of the place than you could possibly use in your piece.
Week 6
2/21: Read: Chapter 7 and Nora Ephron, "A Few Words about Breasts" (200) and Anne Fadiman, "Do Doctors Eat Brains" (304)
2/23: Draft workshop for formal essay 1
Week 7
2/28: Reading from Danielle Trussoni's Falling Through the Earth (photocopies if books aren't in).
3/2: Formal essay 1 due
SPRING BREAK
Week 8
MONDAY, 3/13, NOON: Danielle Trussoni visits for reading, q&a, & book signing. Fine Arts Center, Rm. 219
3/14: No class
3/16: Observation essay 2 due Discuss Falling Through the Earth and look at reviews of the book
Week 9
3/21: Daily work assignment: write a short review--300-500 words--of Falling Through the Earth. Your review should do the following things, though not necessarily in this order: 1) describe the book in a relatively unbiased way--showing what the book is trying to be, even if, in your estimation, it is not succeeding; 2) evaluate the book from your perspective--in other words, don't try to be an objective rater of the book, but, rather, show who you are as a reader and what you think of the book; 3) be specific about how the book succeeds and doesn't succeed (in other words, it may be good at some things but not at others); 4) you may refer to other reviews of the book, but you don't need to.
3/23: Proposal due for formal essay 2 / Students hand-out selected readings
Week 10
3/28: Student-selected readings
3/30:
Week 11
4/4:
4/6: Draft workshop for formal essay 2 Revisions for essay 1 due
Week 12
4/11: Formal essay 2 due
4/13: Easter break
Week 13
4/18: Photocopied readings: Brian Lennon's "Sleep" and Jenny Boully's "The Body."
Daily work assignment: these essays experiment with the form, the very definition of, "the essay." For 25 daily work points, write the following assignment. First, for each essay, say what you think the essay is, i.e., what does it accomplish, what sense do you have of its intention, how does it seem to be asking you to respond, or what ideas seem to be central in it? Second, for each essay, respond, from the perspective of a young essay writer (which you are), to the experience of reading it, i.e., did you appreciate the effects created by this experimental writing, could you imagine working with a form like this yourself? Third, try a short passage of your own (a paragraph to a page) that imitates in some way the experimental nature of these writings.
4/20: Guest in class: former Viterbo English major Sven Rosckowff, author of Whispered Worlds Proposal due for formal essay 3
Week 14
4/25: observation presentations (see instructions in syllabus) Ashley, Megan, Aaron, Mayche
4/27: observation presentations (see instructions in syllabus) Tharren, Eric, Kim
Week 15
5/2: Draft workshop for formal essay 3
5/4: course evals
Finals week
Formal essay 3 due at scheduled final exam time, Thursday May 11th, by 9:40 AM |
