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ADVANCED WRITING WORKSHOP--Spring 2003 (Thursdays 5-7:45 CH 120)
Instructor: Dr. Dale Rigby Office: 110 A Cherry Hall Office Phone: 745-5781 Home Phone: 393-2017 Emails:dale.rigby@wku.edu wku-eng406@lists.wku.edu Office Hours: 12-2 MWF and by appointment
Welcome to 406, an “Advanced Writing Workshop.” An amorphous triumvirate of keywords, don’t you think?
“Advanced”: Refers to a pertinent requirement, namely that you have previously taken at least two upper-level creative writing courses. In other words, this course assumes that you have already committed yourself process of refining your skills as literary writers and collaborative critics. To steal from the words of my wise colleague, Nancy Roberts, “your success in this course will depend greatly on your willingness to work independently at a steady pace and to participate wholeheartedly and courteously in workshop collaborations.”
“Writing”: I’m wary of the word “creative” (since all communication meets that definition), but, for our purposes, “creative” might be usefully opposed to more conventionally methodical genres like technical or business writing or the thesis-and-support scaffolding of traditional academic prose. So “writing” here suggests more “literary” genres: a novel, memoir, novella, screenplay, collection of short stories or essays, poetry of all ilks, literary journalism or creative nonfiction…not to mention hybrids of all and any…[NOTE: we on the creative writing faculty feel that the spirit of the 406 workshop is not particularly amenable with the production of popular genres like bodice-rippers, fantasy, horror, self-help, sit-com, or science fiction, however valuable such genres may be in their rightful place. Why? As Heather Sellers says, “Because just doing literary [genres] is so HARD.”
“Workshop”: Following from the Philip Lopate poem I’ll give you tonight “…Since our Thursday Nights have brought us to a community of purpose rare in itself…”--we can assume a couple goals: one, “with you as the natural center,” to forge ourselves into a community of writers. We will breaking up into various “genre” groups that will work, for at least half of most classes, independently of other groups; two, to form student-centered workshop where a community of advanced writers can continue the process towards becoming more sincere, hardworking, and challenging collaborative critics for each other.
It follows then that regular class attendance is MANDATORY. One or more unexcused absences or frequent tardiness may result in alowered grade. Any more means you’ve failed the course.
INITIAL REQUIRED TEXTS: (available at the University Bookstore)
--Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird --Stephen King, On Writing
WHAT WILL BE IN YOUR FINAL PORTFOLIO? [due at 6 p.m. May 9]
1. 40 pages of [ORIGINAL, FRESH, WRITTEN FOR THIS CLASS] doubled-spaced polished prose or 20 pages of single-spaced polished poetry.
2. your 3-page-or-so drafts/revisions of your semester writing goals.
3. a semester-long “daybook” of Inklings, Second Sights, Chance Encounters:
Think of the daybook as a way to create a daily regimen wherein you get down 150 or so words relevant to “chance encounters” with the “sidelong, overheard, and allusive” puzzles of your reading and writing and thinking lives. NOTE: you may, of course, if such is your want, compose these entries initially on the back of cereal boxes; but I’d like you to take the time to eventually type them and arrange them chronically for your final portfolio.
4. weekly “occasional writings” (500 words or so) due during our semester, taking the shape of everything from reading responses, process comments, creative exercises, and reports of research/es relevant to the world of publishing and creative writing. Some determined by me, others by your genre group.
5. evidence (cover letter, etc), beyond that of Zephyrus, that you have submitted work to at least two other different venues for potential publication this semester.
6. a 3-page typed PROCESS COMMENT where you go back through the work you did for 406 and reflect about how you met, adapted, exceeded, teased, and/or fell short of the specific/goals concerns you had set for yourself by the end of five weeks.
7. and whatever else we come up with…
GRADES IN 406 will be based on the following criteria:
35%: Overall performance as a member of the class, which includes: attendance, meeting the weekly quota of bringing 5 pages of new work to class, being an energetic and helpful and collegial workshopper, meeting various group activities, attending required WKU Creative Writing functions, etc. 65% the quality of all the completed work in your final portfolio.
NOTE: I need to keep these portfolios for a year for departmental assessment purposes, so PLEASE KEEP A COPY FOR YOURSELF! Dale…
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