Advanced Creative Writing – Nonfiction

Course Number:

WR 248

Transcript Title:

Advanced Creative Writing – Nonfiction

Created:

Aug 17, 2022

Updated:

Jul 18, 2023

Total Credits:

4

Lecture Hours:

40

Lecture / Lab Hours:

0

Lab Hours:

0

Satisfies Cultural Literacy requirement:

No

Satisfies General Education requirement:

Yes

Grading Options

A-F, P/NP, Audit

Default Grading Options

A-F

Repeats available for credit:

0

Alignment with Institutional Learning Outcomes

Major

1. Communicate effectively using appropriate reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. (Communication)

Major

2. Creatively solve problems by using relevant methods of research, personal reflection, reasoning, and evaluation of information. (Critical thinking and Problem-Solving)

Not Addressed

3. Extract, interpret, evaluate, communicate, and apply quantitative information and methods to solve problems, evaluate claims, and support decisions in their academic, professional and private lives. (Quantitative Literacy)

Minor

4. Use an understanding of cultural differences to constructively address issues that arise in the workplace and community. (Cultural Awareness)

Major

5. Recognize the consequences of human activity upon our social and natural world. (Community and Environmental Responsibility)

To establish an intentional learning environment, Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs) require a clear definition of instructional strategies, evidence of recurrent instruction, and employment of several assessment modes.

Major Designation

1. The outcome is addressed recurrently in the curriculum, regularly enough to establish a thorough understanding.
2. Students can demonstrate and are assessed on a thorough understanding of the outcome.
   • The course includes at least one assignment that can be assessed by applying the appropriate CLO rubric.

Minor Designation

1. The outcome is addressed adequately in the curriculum, establishing fundamental understanding.
2. Students can demonstrate and are assessed on a fundamental understanding of the outcome.
   • The course includes at least one assignment that can be assessed by applying the appropriate CLO rubric.

Suggested Outcome Assessment Strategies

Assessment may include in-class and out-of-class writing, appraisal of the student writing, revision efforts, and participation in the workshop process, including contribution to discussion and the quality of written comments on the work of others. Students may be asked to demonstrate their understanding of reading assignments, technique and craft through written and verbal responses, journals, quizzes, exams, portfolios close reading exercises using support/evidence, writing exercises which include evaluation of various interpretations of a text and their relative validity. Both instructor and peer evaluation will be incorporated in the assessment process. Regular attendance and meeting deadlines for assignments are essential to the workshop process and may figure into the final grade. Attendance policies vary with instructors: students missing a week’s worth of class may not expect an A; those missing two weeks’ worth may not pass the course.

Course Activities and Design

The determination of teaching strategies used in the delivery of outcomes is generally left to the discretion of the instructor. Here are some strategies that you might consider when designing your course: lecture, small group/forum discussion, flipped classroom, dyads, oral presentation, role play, simulation scenarios, group projects, service learning projects, hands-on lab, peer review/workshops, cooperative learning (jigsaw, fishbowl), inquiry based instruction, differentiated instruction (learning centers), graphic organizers, etc.

Course Content

Outcome #1:  Read a diverse range of established creative nonfiction authors in order to identify and reproduce demonstrated writing techniques, reflect on cultural content, and lead class discussion of literature.

• Close reading and analysis of a diverse range of creative nonfiction such as a combination of:
  • Works by women
  • Works by people of color
  • Works that contribute to current cultural and social conversations
  • Works that explore relationships between cultures
  • Recent publications
  • Older publications
• Implied thesis
• Genres
• Author intent
• Consideration for impact of writer’s cultural experience on self-expression
• Consideration of own cultural experience and bias in response to reading
• Leadership in classroom/peer mentoring

Outcome #2: Employ advanced creative writing techniques drawn from fiction, poetry, and scriptwriting to write original nonfiction.

• Use advanced craft terms to write effective responses to assigned reading and to peer work.
• Use knowledge of advanced craft terms and techniques to define and revise problems in own writing.
• Elements which create voice:  metaphors, images, choice of dialogue to quote, quality of reflection, humor, irony, allusion, symbol
• Methods of handling time:  flashbacks, frames, juxtaposition and interweaving, straight and reverse chronology
• Study of other craft terms and techniques such as; narrative voice and distance, scene vs. summary, point of view: first, second, third person, structure: segmented or associative, conflict, tone/language, text/subtext, figurative language, pacing, theme, characterization, setting, descriptive detail, concreteness, dialogue, tone, formality and informality, alternate narrative, cadence, antithesis, mosaic, rhythm, persona, and twinning.

Outcome #3: Write and revise original creative nonfiction that effectively uses self-reflection, research, and advanced elements of craft.

• Draft essays that interweave research on issue(s) facing society with personal experience
• Illustrate understanding of complicated subjects and consideration for varying points of view
• Demonstrate consideration of audience/reader
• Demonstrate ability to interrogate own bias, assumptions, and cultural influences
• Reflect on writer’s own impact/contribution to issue
• Writer considers consequences of proposed solutions and interrogates own position
• Credible sources inform work
  • Local research
  • Global research
• Revision
• Apply knowledge of elements which create voice:  metaphors, images, choice of dialogue to quote, quality of reflection, humor, irony, allusion, symbol
• Apply knowledge of methods of handling time:  flashbacks, frames, juxtaposition and interweaving, straight and reverse chronology

Outcome #4: Use critical thinking, problem solving, and knowledge of craft to critique peer writing and lead discussion in workshop community.

• Close reading and analysis
• Lead workshop
• Communicate suggestions about strengths and weaknesses of drafts in workshop community
• Sentence level revision: diction, sentence length, punctuation, unnecessary words, invisible modifiers, overuse of adverbs and adjectives, sentence structure, use of “to be” verbs.
• Passive and active voice
• Global revision: tense issues, balance between scene and summary, imagery, structure, voice, point of view, specific detail, tension
• Writing as a process
• Constructive feedback
• Leadership in classroom/peer mentoring

Outcome #5: Engage with socially important issues and/or people impacted by them throughout the writing process and further develop body of work centering on issues important to writer.

• Directly participating in the action being written about
• Interviews or research in community
• Designing an experience that will be the basis of an essay
• Writing to confront issues of significance to culture at large
• Writing that demonstrates careful consideration of opposing viewpoints
• Writing that interrogates writer’s own perspective
• Research to build a knowledge base writer uses to articulate issues and solutions while effectively engaging reader
• Sources of material:  personal experience, interview, research using resources online, in print and in person (interviews), walking the ground, meditation and reflection
• Documentation
• Paraphrasing and quoting
• Evaluating sources
• Multiple interpretations
• Audience, Purpose, and Occasion
• Satire
• Plagiarism
• Blending memoir/personal story with researched topics
• Writing as activism
• Writing to change minds

Outcome #6: Participate in broader writing community outside of classroom setting by submitting writing for publication, participating in a public reading, or engaging with other literary events.

• Become familiar with creative writing websites, awards, readings, workshops, and publication opportunities
• Public Reading etiquette
• Revision for live reading
• Submission preparation
• Writing query letters
• Contributing to literary community

Suggested Texts and Materials

The following items are intended as descriptions of instructors’ choices of texts in the past as an aid to choosing texts in the future.  This is not intended as a prescribed or recommended list of texts.

1. Many instructors use “how to write” texts designed for college level creative writing courses, such as:
   • Lynn Z. Bloom, Fact and Artifact:  Writing Nonfiction
   • Theodore A. Rees Cheney.  Writing Creative Nonfiction:  How to Use Fiction Techniques to Make Your Nonfiction More Interesting, Dramatic and Vivid
   • Lydia Fakundiny.  The Art of the Essay
   • Carolyn Forche and Philip Gerard (ed),Writing Creative Nonfiction
   • Philip Gerard.  Creative Nonfiction:  Researching and Crafting Stories of Real Life
   • Vivian Gornick, The Situation and the Story
   • Lee Gutkind.  The Art of Creative Nonfiction:  Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality
   • Iversen, Kristen.  Shadow Boxing:  Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction
   • Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir
   • Patsy Sims, Literary Nonfiction
   • William Zinsser.  On Writing Well:  An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
2. Along with a textbook and sometimes as the only text, instructors often use anthologies of creative nonfiction, such as:
   • [Current Editor] BestAmerican Essays [particular year]
   • Mark Kramer and Norman Sims, eds. Literary Journalism:  A New Collection of the Best American Nonfiction
   • Phillip Lopate, ed.  The Art of the Personal Essay:  An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present
   • Robert L. Root and Michael Steinberg, eds.  The Fourth Genre:  Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction
3. Instructors also sometimes choose books by individual writers, the choice depending upon the instructor’s tastes, inclinations, and intentions for the class.
   • Eula Biss, Notes from No Man’s Land
   • Lacy M Johnson, The Reckonings
   • William Kittredge.  Owning It All
   • Roxanne Gay, Bad Feminist
   • Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams
   • Claudia Rankine, Citizen
   • Terry Tempest Williams.  Refuge:  An Unnatural History of Family & Place
   • Ryan Van Meter, If You Knew Then What I Know Now
   • Mary Clearman Blew:  Bone Deep in Landscape:  Writing, Reading and Place

Instructors new to the course should contact the chair for further information.