Creative Writing

Nonfiction
Course Description
While this courseEnglish Whatever-this-isis a workshop course, it is not entirely workshop
based, nor will it run completely off a traditional model. Many times, in workshop courses,
classmates only learn of what other members are writing when they emerge, rather mystically,
with a written text whose production and reasons for production we as a class know little about.
This will not be so in this course. We will focus as much on the process of creating nonfiction as
we will on finished creative nonfiction.
The aims of this course are to make writers awareaware of themselves as writers, sure, but
aware of the process of writing, of the market and audiences for writing, of the writing available
at a fingertips touch online.
A Variation on the Writers Workshop
In the writers two workshops, s/he will not only bring an original text, but s/he will include a
cover letter as to why s/he chose the format s/he chose (personal, narrative, travel, technical,
etc.), why s/he chose the specific topic, what s/he believes are the current strengths and
weaknesses of the piece, and how/why s/he constructed her piece of writing. Thus, those reading
and commenting on the piece will have to wrestle not only with the piece itself but with the
authors creative process and where s/he ultimately hopes to place the work. Yes, it is true that a
piece of writing released to the world becomes open to the interpretation of the audience, but
these pieces are being released to a room of students, with the author sitting among us, and we
will not pretend otherwise. Instead of dealing solely with surface critiques (simply critiquing the
essay), students may challenge the authors reasons for her choices (based in the cover letter). In
this way, the reader/writer will go deeper into how and why of creating nonfiction.
Workshop Schedule
As mentioned in the description, if youve taken previous workshop courses, you will more than
likely bump into elements of this workshop that are different than what youve experienced. I
hope this will be a good thing, but, either way, it will be a thing, so embrace it early. Workshops
will take place eight weeks this semester, which is half the work/time allocated for this course.
These workshops will take place on weeks 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10, 11, 12, 13. In the first 3 weeks, each
student will join a group of 4. These groups will be a place for each writer to discuss what s/he is
preparing for workshop. Therefore, at least 3 people will always know what you are working on
writing-wise. This, along with the cover letter, will require both author and reader to think about
the writing process. Workshop is a rare time for writers to have an immediate audience and it
serves little purpose to keep knowledge of this at a minimum and have the audience play
guessing games with the writers work. Our work and our working process, for the next 16
weeks, is openly collaborative and exploratory.

Welcome to Open Workshop.

On Not-Workshop Weeks
As may be deduced from the Workshop schedule, there remains 8 weekshalf the semester
that will not be workshop weeks. On these weeks we will read texts; we will talk about what
nonfiction is/isnt; we will explore what is going on in the field and what is being published; we
will compose our journals for our final project; we will get into our groups and talk about what
we are preparing for workshop, how we are preparing it, and why.
One-on-One Conferences
Week 14 will be one-on-one conferences where we will discuss your completed workshop pieces
and transition to the final piece. None of these are weeks off, and we will accomplish as much
out of workshop as we do in workshop. In fact, one might argue the success of the workshop
weeks will be equivalent to the work put in on not-workshop weeks.
Journal
Beyond the two required workshop pieceseach student will choose a person or topic from
current news or events (political, social, sports, etc.) to follow throughout the semester. How is
the person or topic covered? How much of the writing on the subject matter is fact? How much is
opinion? What are the various styles? What are the comments on the articles? Which sites that
cover the subject matter and which do not? This, and the writing project that will accompany it
(either an article on the topic choice or an article about how the topic has been covered) will
allow each student to remember audiences other than the workshop class, to look out and be
aware, and to begin to understand the various obstacles and opportunities in publishing online.
This is an opportunity to research and write something to potentially be sent out at the end of
semester.
Class/Workshop Participation and Attendance

Required Texts
The Truth about Stories (Thomas King)
Articles
Shame and the Personal Essay (Amy E. Robillard)
The Things They Carried (Tim OBrien)
Love
(Tim OBrien)
The Lives of the Dead (Tim OBrien)
Flattening Effects (Alexander and Rhodes)

Grade Breakdown
Assignment

% of Course
Grade

Workshop I and Cover Letter

20%

Workshop II and Cover Letter

20%

Journal

15%

Class/Workshop Participation
And Attendance
Final
(Online-Based Article)

20%

25%