Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing
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Stresses mastery of essential vocabulary and primary grammatical structures through a situational approach. Students perceive that language is "living" and they discover by the third week of the semester that they can already communicate in French. Class time is devoted to interactive practice. Conversational skills, pronunciation, and understanding are verified through regular oral exams.Continuation of LF 101, this course also incorporates reading skills and exposes students to a wider range of cultural materials.Instructor: Pierre HurelGives students intensive practice in literary analysis, critical writing, and related research. In discussing primary texts, considerable attention is given to elements of the different genres (e.g., narrative point of view, narrative structure, metrical and free verse), as well as to issues relevant across literary genres (e.g., form and content, voice, contexts, tone). Readings are chosen from the following genres: poetry, drama, narrative modes, and also include selected literary criticism.Surveys foundational works of Western literature in poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and drama in order to familiarize students with literary history as well as the history of our ideas of love, duty, the afterlife, virtue, and vice. Authors studied may include Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Boccaccio, the Beowulf poet, and Chaucer.Instructors: Brian Cronin, Robert DulgarianIntroduces representative works of American literature in several genres from the colonial period to the modern by writers such as Bradstreet, Franklin, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Douglass, Melville, Dickinson, Whitman, Chopin, Twain, Crane, Hurston, Faulkner, Williams, and Moore.Instructors: James Byrne, Michelle GrahamHistorical overview of several genres of British literature from the Renaissance to the 20th century, focusing on writers such as More, Spenser, Milton, Defoe, Bronte, Eliot, Joyce, and Beckett.Courses focus on specific themes or topics, such as literature of the city, artists in literature, or coming of age. All topics include literature in at least three genres (selected from poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama).Introduces poetry, fiction, and other genres produced in the multicultural U.S.A. Explores ways writers from disparate communities use various literary forms to articulate resistance, community, and citizenship. Literary texts are situated in their historical contexts and examine the writing strategies of each author. Also includes essays, journalism, and films to learn how diverse cultural texts work to represent America.Instructors: Michelle Graham, Christopher Hennessy, Daniela KukrechtovaCourses focus on literature produced by historically oppressed peoples in the United States and on specific themes or topics, such as slavery and freedom, American Indian multi-genre life-stories, or border identities. All topics include the study of literature in at least three genres (selected from poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama). May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructors: Kimberly McLarin, Erika WilliamsExamines fiction, poetry, and other genres by 19th- and 20th-century American women such as Jacobs, Dickinson, Chopin, Kingston, Welty, Rich, and Morrison.Courses focus on literature produced outside the United States in locations affected by imperial expansion. Specific themes or topics might include Literatures of the Asian Diaspora, Latin American Literature and Cinema, or Literature of Europe's Borders. All topics include literature in at least three genres (selected from poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama). May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructors: Flora Gonzalez, Jacqueline HallExamines a broad range of literary nonfiction works, present and past, paying particular attention to the craft within the nonfiction work but identifying relationships and similarities that literary nonfiction has with the novel and short story. Includes readings from such diverse forms as historical narrative, adventure travel and survival, memoir and the creative nonfiction essay, and other forms of factual writing artfully constructed.Instructor: Anthony D'AriesExplores modern and postmodern traditions of poetry in the works of such 20th-century poets as Eliot, Stevens, Auden, Moore, Lowell, Bishop, Plath, Larkin, Rich, Ashbery, and, in translation, Neruda, Rilke, Herbert, Kazuk, and Tsvetaeva.Instructor: Christine CassonExplores seminal works in the European literary tradition, with a particular focus on close reading, textual and rhetorical analysis, and aesthetic criticism. The course may include works by Montaigne, Rousseau, Flaubert, Holderlin, Novalis, Heine, Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Proust, Rilke, Kafka, Borges, Bachmann, and Bernhard. Students write short responses to each work and discuss their ideas in class.Instructor: Yu-jin ChangThrough reading and discussion of poems from different historical periods, students learn the technical aspects of poetry (such as meter, rhyme, and structure) and how poets use these techniques to create meanings and effects, giving students a critical vocabulary for reading and practicing poetry. For students who want to enhance their ability to discuss and write about poetry by learning the essentials of the poet's art.Explores a broad range of short stories and novels by American and international authors. Teaches students to look at fiction from the perspective of the writer's craft, and emphasizes such elements as structure, narrative, characterization, dialogue, and the differences between shorter and longer forms. Students gain an appreciation of the fiction writer's craft and an enhanced sense of the drama inherent in effective storytelling.Studies the adaptation of novels into films, and the narrative conventions that govern each medium. Texts include the works of such writers as Kesey, Burgess, Kundera, Walker, Nabokov, and Puig; films include the work of directors such as Kubrick, Forman, Spielberg, and Babenco.Acquaints students with the changing thematic and stylistic concerns of the American short story and develops students' critical writing and reading skills. May include authors such as Chopin, Poe, Parker, Hemingway, Faulkner, Stafford, Bambara, Paley, Ford, Oates, and Updike.Engages in social and cultural analysis of the "rise" of the novel in England with representative works from the Restoration (1660) through the end of the 19th century. May include authors such as Behn, Defoe, Sterne, Richardson, Austen, Bronte, Shelley, Dickens, Eliot, and Hardy.Studies representative works of 20th-century British fiction. May cover Modernist authors from the first half of the century such as Forster, Joyce, Ford, Lawrence, Woolf, Waugh, O'Brien, Durrell, Greene, Beckett, Lessing, Murdoch, Golding, and Fowles as well as more contemporary writers from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland such as McEwan, Barnes, Amis, Crace, Kelman, and Carter.Instructor: William DonoghueStudies works in several genres, including consideration of how traditional myth, story, and ritual contribute to contemporary fiction and poetry, and how the literature reflects and responds to historical and contemporary conditions. May include such authors as Silko, Momaday, Ortiz, Harjo, and Erdrich.Instructor: Robin FastCarefully examines selected tragedies from Romeo and Juliet to Antony and Cleopatra, emphasizing the development of the tragic form.Detailed study of selected comedies from A Midsummer Night's Dream to The Winter's Tale, emphasizing Shakespeare's development of the comic form.Instructor: DeWitt HenrySurveys contemporary world literature written in English by writers from such places as India, Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.Surveys African American literature (prose, poetry, and drama) from Olaudah Equiano through Toni Morrison and examines African American literature as part of the field of Diaspora studies. Also explores connections between African American and Caribbean American literatures conceived as literatures of the African Diaspora.Explores the development of American drama in the 20th century from O'Neill, Williams, and Miller to contemporary writers such as Shepard, Mamet, Rabe, and Henley.Studies representative American novels written before the 20th century, including works by such authors as Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, Twain, Chopin, Wharton, and JamesStudies representative works of 20th-century American fiction. May cover authors from the first half of the century such as Anderson, Cather, Faulkner, James, Hemingway, Dreiser, Wright, Ellison, and Bellow as well as more contemporary writers such as Roth, Coover, Nabokov, Morrison, DeLillo, Burroughs, Momaday, and Silko.Instructor: William DonoghueExplores works by contemporary international women writers within their social and political contexts. Readings include work by such writers as Nadine Gordimer, Jamaica Kincaid, Michelle Cliff, Mawal El Saadawi, Bessie Head, Luisa Valenzuela, and others.Instructor: Maria KoundouraSpecial offerings in the study of prominent and emerging poets and schools of poetry. Emphasis on exploring the intersection between individual technique and aesthetic traditions, from the formal to the avant-garde to culturally and politically conscious expressions of the art. The course is principally concerned with poets writing in the English language, though important figures from other language traditions may be read in translation. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructor: Peter ShippyIntroduces one of the most significant and revolutionary periods in British literature. Writers such as William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Blake dominated the literary landscape, and their poetry and prose captured this remarkable period of history. This course considers such writers as these in their historical and aesthetic context, and pays particular attention to the ways in which the legacies of the Romantics survive and inform even contemporary modes of literature.Special offerings in European Literature may include such topics as the Romantic Age, Russian Short Fiction, Absurd and Avant-Garde Theater, and the 19th century-European Novel, or topics related to special interests and expertise of the faculty. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructor: Yu-jin ChangStudents study forms of poetry as used by historical and contemporary poets, and then write original poems in those forms (such as the sonnet, villanelle, haiku, sestina, syllabic, and renga), and genre forms (such as Surrealist, Expressionist, Anti-poem, Open Field, and Language poetry).Special offerings in American Literature that concentrate on the study of particular authors, genres, or themes, or on topics related to the special interests and expertise of the faculty. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Special offerings in Global Literature that include such topics as Latin American Short Fiction, Postcolonial Literature, and the Hispanic Caribbean, or on topics related to the special interests and expertise of the faculty.Instructors: Flora Gonzalez, Roy KamadaSurveys the dominant theoretical approaches to the study of culture. The course traces their main arguments and helps students develop a sense of what it means to be a producer and a consumer of culture today.Studies traditions of African American literature, such as the Harlem Renaissance, Depression Poets and Novelists, or Neo-slave Narratives. Courses may focus on Political Plays of the Sixties, The Blues as Poetry, Spirituals and Jazz as Literature, and include such authors as Wright, Petry, Baraka, Himes, Naylor, and Smith. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructor: Wendy W. WaltersSpecial offerings in the novel, novella, and other modes of short fiction from various periods. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Instructor: Kevin MillerSpecial offerings in autobiography, biography, travel writing, nature writing, and other belletristic work from various periods. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Special offerings in Literature. Offered in Summers only.Los Angeles has inspired writers and communicators like few other cities. This course will explore a variety of narrative representations of Los Angeles across different media and genres and will offer students a chance to create and workshop their own L.A. stories - be it in fiction, the essay, literary journalism, or their video equivalents. By reading or viewing and then discussing the works of Nathaniel West, Joan Didion, Roman Polanski, and many others, students will develop not only a deeper knowledge of the city in which they now find themselves, but will also learn about the creative processes and the themes and theses through which L.A. has come to be most widely understood. Offered by the Los Angeles Program only.Intensive study of poetry, which may focus on an individual poet, a small group of poets, or a school of poetry, and/or may be defined by a single form, theme, region, or period. Topics have included Bishop and Lowell, American Narrative Poetry, Dickinson and Whitman, modern and contemporary Eastern European Poets, and Visionary Poetry.Instructors: , Peter ShippySpecial offerings in topics that range over two or more genres, and/or focus on combining generic forms. Topics have included The Harlem Renaissance, Native American Literature, Writing on War in the 20th Century, Literature and Violence, The Writer in the Archive, and Hybrid Forms in Literature.Instructors: Roy Kamada, Pablo MedinaVarious offerings in drama including such areas as Contemporary European Theatre, Contemporary British Drama, Contemporary American Drama, World Drama, Women's Drama, The Absurd and the Avant-Garde, and Drama Criticism.Historical survey that looks at influential writings by poets on the art of poetry. Course considers how their ideas and arguments have helped shape key aesthetic movements in English and American poetry. Additional writings by important critics and philosophers may supplement the course texts.Course focusing on fictional narrative. Depending on the instructor, the class may examine texts defined by geography, chronology, culture, and genre. Possible topics of discussion include such issues as craft, theory, mechanics, form, aesthetics, literary movements, and themes. Topics have included Latin American Short Fiction, Diaspora Novelists Between History and Memory, Alienation and the Modern European Novel, Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, and Novel into Film.Instructor: Steve YarbroughSurvey of the dominant theoretical and critical approaches to the study of literature. Working with the genealogical model, the course traces the main arguments found in these approaches and develops a sense of what it means to consume and produce literature today.Instructor: Maria KoundouraCourse explores the problem of aesthetic judgment and the relation between aesthetics, ethics, and politics. Through a series of readings across periods (from the 18th century to today) and across disciplines (from philosophy to film, to fiction, to poetry, to art), the course examines what it means to be a member of an aesthetic community, as well as how such communities shape aesthetic values and impact political responsibilities. Course will look at how taste constructs us as we construct it.Study of the novel from a theoretical and philosophical perspective. Course might look at a particular aspect of the art of the novel, a subgenre (romance, gothic, etc.), historical period (ancient, Modernist, etc.), national tradition, or at the relationship of the novel at a particular time to movements like existentialism, postmodernism, or changes in contemporary language philosophy. Course examines primary works of literature together with theoretical texts on narrative art.Course examines particular narrative strategies in storytelling. Students examine such practices as multiple points of view, chronology, indirect discourse, focalization, etc., as well as historical and cultural contexts. Reading might include works by Nabokov, Proust, Woolf, Faulkner, Sterne, Bernhard, Bowles, among others.Analytical and critical study of a variety of poets and/or schools of poetry, modern and contemporary, that explores their approaches to craft, form, and theme, as well as their aesthetic, cultural, and historical assumptions for and about the art.Analytical and critical study of a variety of recent American short stories, mostly modern and contemporary, exploring their approaches to form, theme, and technique.Course focusing on the nonfiction narrative, including memoir, personal essay, biography, travel writing, nature writing, and other nonfiction writing from various periods, with particular attention paid to issues of craft and structure, as well as historical and cultural contexts.Special offerings in autobiography, biography, travel writing, nature writing, hybrid forms, and other nonfiction writing from various periods. Recent topics include the Twentieth Century in the First Person, Latin American Women's Autobiography, and the Literary Essay.Instructor: Megan MarshallStresses mastery of the essential vocabulary and primary grammatical structures through a situational approach. Students perceive that language is "living" and they discover by the third week of the semester that they can already communicate in Spanish. Class time is devoted to interactive practice. Conversational skills, pronunciation, and understanding are verified through regular oral exams.Continuation of LS 101, this course also incorporates reading skills and exposes students to a wider range of cultural materials.Instructor: Michelle AbadiaIntroduces writing for commercial markets. Students develop, research, and write nonfiction articles and learn where to market them. May be repeated once for credit and may be substituted for one 200-level WR (writing) workshop.Practical course about the process of editing and preparing manuscripts for publication. Together with hands-on assignments, the course considers the relation of editor to author, the nature of copyediting in various publishing environments, and other topics.Instructors: Carol Parikh, Daniel WeaverRequires students to research and write an article or magazine feature. Students learn terms, concepts, and techniques to improve both writing and critical thinking. May be repeated once for credit and may be substituted for one 300-level WR (writing) workshop.Instructor: Delia CabeProvides an understanding of the magazine field from the perspective of writers and editors. Looks at the similarities and differences between general interest magazines and more focused magazines, and how magazines compete with each other and with other media for audiences and revenues. Topics include how magazines carve out niches, the relationship between the business and editorial departments, and the editorial operations of magazines. The course also looks at the history of the magazine industry.Instructors: William Beuttler, Gian LombardoExamines the acquisition and editing of a manuscript, its progress into design and production, and the final strategies of promotion and distribution of a finished book.Instructors: Gian Lombardo, Daniel WeaverStudents master the page layout and image creation software used in the publishing industry. Students also learn related computer-based skills, such as type and image sourcing, image acquisition, including scanning, and copyright issues. Although some design issues are addressed, the primary focus is on software skills. Course assumes students have basic Macintosh skills.Instructors: Joseph Durand, Rebecca SaracenoThis magazine publishing course covers the process of researching, writing, and revising magazine columns with an understanding of the importance of audience. Draws on both the published writing of seasoned columnists from a variety of genres as well as weekly columns written by students. May be substituted for one 400-level WR (writing) workshop.Book editing, or substantive editing, is a highly subjective, visceral skill informed by flexibility, judgment, life experience, grammatical grace, signposts, caution lights, road maps, respect for the author, and subtle diplomacy in the author/editor relationship, all directed toward helping the writer to the intended creative goal. In other words, book editing is an art, not a science. However, an exploration of the foundations of constructive shaping, development, organization, and line-editing may release the inner shepherd/wrangler in you.Explores various methods of digital publishing including e-books and web site creation. The course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of the planning, development and management of digital content.Instructor: Ken GagnéCovers book and book jacket design fundamentals: design, typography, image research and assignment, and prepress and manufacturing. This is not a software instruction course.Instructor: Rebecca SaracenoCourse covers magazine design fundamentals: typography, image research and assignment, prepress and manufacturing, and traditional and computer-based tools and equipment. Each student produces a sample magazine through a workshop process of presentations and revisions. This is not a software instruction course.Special offerings in book, magazine, and electronic publishing. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Magazine publishing course gives students experience in developing magazine feature stories. Students brainstorm, report, and write their own magazine-style stories, with emphasis on the shaping and editing stage. They also read and discuss published work by professionals. Class is conducted as a writing workshop in a style that mimics a magazine atmosphere. This course may count for one workshop credit for nonfiction students.Course about the ethical decisions editors and writers face in magazine publishing today. Course draws on current issues in magazine publishing and focuses on these as well as historical readings and class discussions as a means of understanding the ethics behind the decisions and actions that take place in magazine publishing.Course about the magazine editing process. Covers topics ranging from focus, direction, topicality, structure, sense of audience, and voice, and explores the practical application of editing skills as well as historic examples of editors and their magazines.Instructor: William BeuttlerCourse examines the magazine writing and editing process, and covers topics ranging from idea generation and story selection to the mechanics of editing and how the editorial process works.Course examines the magazine field from the perspective of writers and editors, and covers the editorial and business operations of magazines, the editorial mix, and magazine geography.Instructors: Johannah Haney, Gian LombardoTopics may include a study of editorial positioning, marketing and business strategies, idea generation and development, and the development of a prospectus for a viable new magazine, among others.Course covers magazine design fundamentals: design, typography, image research and assignment, and prepress and manufacturing. Students produce sample magazines through a workshop process of presentations and revisions. Course assumes students have necessary computer skills.Introduction to the book publishing industry, including a detailed examination of the editorial, marketing, and design and production stages of the book publishing process. Course also looks at important developments and issues within the field, such as online publishing, and at various jobs in book publishing.Instructors: David Emblidge, Daniel WeaverTopics may include examination of book marketing and sales, literary publishing, specific publishing genres, among others.Course considers book editing skills, tasks, and responsibilities from initial review and acquisition of a book manuscript through project development. Course emphasizes trade book editing, but also considers editorial work at scholarly and professional presses.Instructor: David EmblidgeCourse covers book and book jacket design fundamentals: design, typography, image research and assignment, and prepress and manufacturing. Students design a book through a workshop process of presentations and revisions. Course assumes students have necessary computer skills.Magazine publishing course explores the process of researching, writing, and revising magazine columns, and examines the importance of audience. This course may count for one workshop requirement for nonfiction students.Instructor: Delia CabePractical course covers the process of editing and preparing manuscripts for publication. Together with hands-on assignments, the course considers the relation of editor to author, the nature of copyediting in various publishing environments, and other topics.Instructors: Karen English, Carol ParikhBook publishing course familiarizes students with trade book promotion to the media. Course begins with an overview of book publicity and then covers the publicity process, the type of freelance help available, crafting press material, the author/publicist dynamic, how to secure and promote bookstore events, the art of the interview, and the art of the pitch. All assignments and classroom activities are based on real-world publishing tasks so that students leave the class thoroughly prepared to promote their book or someone else's.Instructor: Lissa WarrenIn this course, students master the page layout and image creation software used in the publishing industry. Students also learn related computer-based skills, such as type and image sourcing; image acquisition, including scanning; and copyright issues. Although some design issues will be addressed, the primary focus is on software skills. Course assumes student has basic Macintosh skills.Instructor: Melissa GruntkoskyIntroduction to electronic and new media publishing formats, including but not limited to the web, online publishing, CD-ROM, and DVD. Course assumes the student has basic computer skills.Instructors: Benjamin Florin, John RodzvillaTopics may include offerings in genre nonfiction writing, review and criticism, literary editing, alternative publishing, online editing and writing, business and legal issues, among others. Some topics may require a prerequisite or permission of instructor.Instructors: Johannah Haney, John RodzvillaIntroduces college writing, focusing on cultural analysis that appears in academic work and in the public intellectual sphere. Emphasizes how writers work with texts (including images, film, music, and other media) to develop writing projects. Through four main writing projects that concentrate on drafting, peer review, and revision, students learn to be constructive readers of each other's writing and to understand the rhetoric of intellectual inquiry.Research-based writing course that explores how rhetorical situations call on writers to do research and how writers draw on various types of writing to present the results of their research. Through four main writing projects, students develop an understanding of the purposes and methods of research and a rhetorical awareness of how research-based writing tasks ask them to consider their relation to the issues they are researching and to their audiences.Instructors: Clelia Castro-Malaspina, Anne Champion, Susannah Clark, Richard Davis, Pamela DeGregorio, Sarah Ehrich, Amy Fant, John Fantin, Colleen Fullin, Steve Himmer, Jonathan Irwin, Kristina Kopic, Victoria Large, Amy Lester, Benjamin Lobpries, Tamera Marko, Eric Marshall, Maire McGillicuddy, Elizabeth Milarcik, Edward Moss, Emily Neeves, Elizabeth Parfitt, Miranda Roberson, Angie Sarhan, Jeffrey Schwartz, Erica Schweitzer, Eric Sepenoski, Sebastian Stockman, Lauren Sypniewski, Laura Tetreault, Paige Towers, Abby Travis, Donald VincentThis course focuses on the basic vocabulary, techniques, and traditions in Fiction and includes the discussion of published work. Students practice their writing craft through exercises and other assignments, many of which will be shared with the class in an introductory workshop setting. This course may be repeated once for credit.Instructors: Debka Colson, Indira Ganesan, Lise Haines, Michael Heppner, Philip Holland, Risa Miller, Jon PapernickThis course focuses on the basic vocabulary, techniques, and traditions in Poetry and includes the discussion of published work. Students practice their writing craft through exercises and other assignments, many of which will be shared with the class in an introductory workshop setting. This course may be repeated once for credit.Instructors: Wendy Mnookin, Peter ShippyThis course focuses on the basic vocabulary, techniques, and traditions in Nonfiction and includes the discussion of published work. Students practice their writing craft through exercises and other assignments, many of which will be shared with the class in an introductory workshop setting. This course may be repeated once for credit.Original Fiction is written and presented in class for criticism and discussion. Students will also read and discuss published work in the genre. This course may be repeated once for credit.Original Poetry is written and presented in class for criticism and discussion. Students will also read and discuss published work in the genre. This course may be repeated once for credit.Instructors: Christine Casson, Julia StoryOriginal Drama is written and presented in class for criticism and discussion. Students will also read and discuss published work in the genre. This course may be repeated once for credit.Instructor: William OremOriginal Comedy is written and presented in class for criticism and discussion. Students will also read and discuss published work in the genre. This course may be repeated once for credit.Instructor: Michael BentOriginal Nonfiction is written and presented in class for criticism and discussion. Students will also read and discuss published work in the genre. This course may be repeated once for credit.Advanced writing workshop in poetry with in-class discussion of original poems by students already seriously engaged in writing poetry. The course pays special attention to getting published and students are encouraged to submit their work to magazines. May be repeated once for credit.Instructor: Christine CassonExtensive fiction writing of short stories and/or novels coupled with in-class reading for criticism and the craft of fiction. May be repeated once for credit.Advanced writing workshop in various nonfiction forms, such as memoir, travel writing, literary journalism, or other narrative nonfiction writing. Students will already have completed at least one nonfiction workshop, have a project in development, and be capable of discussing such techniques as characterization, point of view, and narrative structure as they appear in literary nonfiction forms.Instructor: Ewa YarbroughSpecial offerings in various genres of writing like Comedy Writing, Travel Writing, Experimental Fiction, among others. May be repeated for credit if topics differ.Advanced workshop in feature film writing in which students learn how to work with characters, dialogue, and dramatic structure through story development, mini treatments, and scene breakdown. Students beginning new scripts produce at least half of a screenplay and a solid, outlined second half. Students continuing a work-in-progress script revise and polish. Course also includes study and discussion of successfully produced film/TV scripts. May be repeated once for credit.Instructor: Christopher KeaneVarious topics, approaches, and styles of life studies--the art of portraying fact and the art of portraying self--are explored in reading, practiced in writing, and addressed in group discussions and private conferences. Each student will produce a 30 page portfolio of nonfiction. Offered in Summers only.Introduction to composition history, theory, and pedagogy that prepares students to teach college writing courses. Examines debates and practices in college composition and their conceptual foundations and introduces rhetoric as a productive art and means of analysis. In preparation to teach writing, students learn how to design writing assignments, to run writing workshops, to respond to and evaluate student writing, and to produce a syllabus for a first-year composition course.Instructors: Elizabeth Parfitt, John TrimburIn-class discussions of original poems aim to help students learn strategies for generating and revising work. The workshop asks students to consider their work in light of the essential issues of the poet's craft, and to articulate their individual sensibilities as poets.Instructors: Reginald Betts, John SkoylesUses student manuscripts as its main texts, supplemented by published stories, to illustrate the fundamental aspects of fiction, mainly in the short story form. Explores the complexities of narration, characterization, scene, dialogue, style, tone, plot, etc. Emphasis is on the generation of fictional works and on their revision.This course continues to examine the art and craft of short fiction by focusing on special topics such as revision, microfiction and linked stories.Explores how poems are shaped by attention to metrical lineation and rhythm, stanza structure, and the forms of poetry, such as the sonnet, sestina, villanelle, renga, ballade, ghazal, etc. Students are expected to write original poems in forms as well as develop their practical knowledge of prosody.Stresses the writing of many forms of nonfiction, such as informal essays, autobiography, profiles, travel writing, or literary journalism, coupled with reading assignments of relevant texts.Provides a detailed exploration of the playwright's craft for the medium of the stage. Each student writes a major dramatic work and submits a draft for critique and discussion.For students with screenplays-in-progress and for writers wishing to start new scriptsWorkshop in structuring and writing the opening chapters of a novel. Course explores story premise, stylistic approach, point-of-view, and other structural parameters, as well as revision.Instructor: Mako YoshikawaWorkshop on the extended narrative, with discussions of organizing the research, developing an outline and devising a structure, carrying out the plan, and writing the book proposal. Students submit their own work and also examine various approaches of nonfiction books.
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