ABOUT

Creative Writing

An English Elective Course   

Syllabus 2012-2013

Dr Forman

OVERVIEW

The English Dept. is pleased to once again be offering the Creative Writing elective. Both words in the title of this course will have a place: Creative and Writing. Creativity is a right-brain skill that can sometimes be neglected in a rigorous college prep program. As a student in this course

Genres of Writing:

·         Exercises: We will begin the year and most class periods with short writing exercises to help us warm up and get the writing flowing. These will also help with brainstorming ideas, the craft of writing, sentence writing, playing with words, making a nice turn of phrase, character development, and plot development. Also, we will explore the different genres through exercises in writing poetry, drama, dialogue, short screenplays, short stories, and creative memoir.

·         Poetry: The mother genre; we will try our hand at humorous poems, images that evoke emotions, eulogies, etc. Imitation of favorite poems is a way to learn the craft.

·         Short Stories: this short genre is a great one to practice craft, character development, providing a beginning, middle and an end, and plotting.

·         Drama and Short Plays: scenes can be written and put on their feet in class to see how the page translates to the stage. Lots of practice and immediate feedback help students improve and understand drama as a playwright.

·         Screenplays: We are in Hollywood, after all. We can collaborate on writing two-minute scenes and then shoot the movie in rough cut with imovie: from idea to page to screen!

·         PSA (public service announcement) writing and shooting.

·         National Novel Writing Month is November (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Novel_Writing_Month ) For those of you who are interested, why not try to write a whole novel in the month of November? Even some faculty may want to try their hand at it.

·         Short Short: Six-Word Memoir, Twitter, Haiku: these short forms are fast but can be stunning or funny or pithy.

·         College Admissions Essays: Essentially short autobiographical scenes, these essays are high stakes but can be powerful and enjoyable as well.

·         Creative Nonfiction and Memoir: This genre has become more popular with writers and can be a way to capture a moment in time with rich language and images that also shows perspective.

·         After some weeks of working together on all these genres, students will begin to have more choice and can pursue their interests and aptitudes by concentrating on their favorite kinds of writing over extended periods. Eventually, students will end up with a body of work that they can self-publish and be proud of.

Class Time and Homework

We will treat our class as a creative writing workshop. This means you will be getting hands on practice and experience in much of the time in class. You will also be expected to write at home for homework about 25 minutes per class period four times a week. Every day we will write and share our writing with others. We will also read excerpts of student and professional samples in class for we can’t know the genres unless we read them as well. In critiques, students will be expected to participate and be constructive and respectful as all new creations feel a little vulnerable to the creator.

About the Instructor

I’m Dr Forman and I have been a writer in many forms over the years. At thirteen I read all the novels about dogs in the South Pasadena Public Library and began to write my own at a pace of a page a day (later to be abandoned). Long a diarist, I began to keep formal diaries in college. After college for two years in the Peace Corps I kept lengthy and extensive diaries and began to write poetry, short stories, and a semi-autobiographical novel about my experiences living in Nepal. My first publication was a series of translations of Nepali folksongs. Afterwards, I bought a typewriter and moved to Mexico where I composed many short stories and submitted them for publication; I collected and still have hundreds of rejection slips from small literary magazines and larger publications such as The New Yorker. (In some writing circles, these documents are seen as evidence of paying one’s dues and a sort of badge of courage.) I moved to Santa Barbara and wrote two novels (unpublished) and finally applied to graduate schools to pursue my dream of becoming a writer. USC accepted me into its Masters of Professional Writing Program http://dornsife.usc.edu/mpw/ where I studied for two years with great teachers: John Rechy (City of Night  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rechy) and Jerome Lawrence (The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, Auntie Mame, Inherit the Wind  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Lawrence ). I wrote plays (one was directed and produced), screenplays, and novels. For my master’s thesis, I completed and revised a 300-page novel (unpublished), Hanuman’s Children. After that, I entered USC’s phD program and wrote and defended to a committee a 300-page dissertation, Softcover Manhood, about the rise of the mass paperback and its implications for gender. The manuscript was accepted for completion of the doctorate and considered for publication by Duke University Press and University of California Press. Since then I have been a teacher of writing and continue to write short stories and, more recently, creative nonfiction or memoir, studying recently at a Pacific Hills weekend workshop for creative writing.

Assessment and Expectations:

Assessing Creative Writing is different than assessing expository essays, though we still will use rubrics so that there are no surprises and I will be objective in reading your work. This is a course you have elected to take and to some extent you will be able to set your own goals. What is required of you chiefly is engagement, to take yourself seriously as a developing writer and to take the course seriously. We meet like other academic courses four days a week for an academic year. This in itself proclaims a seriousness of purpose. Many say you must first write a million words before you can learn the craft of writing, so daily practice will be expected. We will use part of every class period as a writing workshop, so you will be expected to come prepared to work and to practice your craft without being nudged or reminded. So engagement in the course counts a lot. But also because the craft of writing is important working at revising your work and practicing the craft of sentence level writing, the use of language, and structure of pieces will also be imperative. Some of your work will be assessed on the ideas your brainstorm and get out on paper and some on the polish of the final work.

Requirements:

Daily writing in class and at home. Sustained attention to your writing and perseverance. Respect for others’ writing. Collaborative spirit. Pursuing a body of work that is polished and that you can be proud of. Revision, revision, revision. Follow through. An open mind. Willingness to take chances, even to flop. A spirit of creativity. Ability to go another way when you face writer’s block. Attention to words and language. A willingness to read different kinds of writing and understand how it’s put together. A sense of humor.