350-233
Introduction to Creative Writing
Susan Firer
Curtin 576

This course is set up as an introduction to writing fiction and poetry.We will look at the vocabulary, techniques, and some strategies in each discipline. We will experiment with various writing assignments suggested by the texts and look at/workshop the writings of both established authors and the students.

One of the many aims for this session is that the daily workshopping process will begin to be internalized by each student, and when the student is alone revising a piece of writing he or she will have the resources learned in daily workshopping to apply them independently.

The first half of the session is devoted to fiction. During this time, we workshop a story by each student. Also, responding to class needs, I assign a specific sort story each week along with a short assignment for each story, usually a short list of specific techniques we've been discussing. Although the students are responsible for reading the whole text, in class we discuss only the assigned stories.

The poetry half of the session runs the same way.

Throughout the session I bring in quotes and ideas from supplementary sources. In a workshop run class, much of the learning goes on in the classroom, hence attendance is required and figured in as part of the grade. Also, I occasionally assign in-class writings. Because so much of the class depends on responses to students' writings, it is impossible to chart an exact day-to-day syllabus.

The texts used in the course are: WRITING IN GENERAL AND THE SHORT STORY IN PARTICULAR by Rust Hills, SLEEPING ON THE WING by Koch and Farrell, and POINTS OF VIEW edited by Moffett and McElheny.

The grade for this course will be a contract "B." In order to meet the contract you will be responsible for:

• reading all the texts
• completing all the assignments
• giving one oral report on a contemporary writer
• keeping a writer's notebook
• completing a ten page manuscript
• showing commitment to the workshop by regular attendance and participation.

An "A" will be given to the student who goes beyond class expectations in at least three of the above mentioned categories.