INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING				Ken Weisner
EWRT 30-01 (#00492), Summer 2010					Phone: 864-5797
M-T-W-Th	12:30-2:15 in L-73						Office: Forum 2C 

E-mail:  weisnerken@fhda.edu  +  gyre@cruzio.com
Office hrs: before and after class, as arranged
***COURSE WEBSITE: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DeAnzaCreativeSummer2010
Course Site E-Mail: DeAnzaCreativeSummer2010@yahoogroups.com
Ken's faculty page:  http://www.deanza.fhda.edu/faculty/weisner
Creative Writing Website: http://www.deanza.edu/english-writing/creative/index.html

				Green Sheet
Course Goals:  
•	write something every day; keep a notebook just for your creative writing
•	read and appreciate a variety of fiction and poetry
•	expand awareness and confront your assumptions about creative writing
•	participate in a community of working creative writers
•	give and receive supportive, thoughtful feedback
•	get better at talking about the elements of poetry and fiction
•	revise new poems and stories

Course Requirements:
•           attend class; be devoted to our community both in class and online
•	 be in class on time and prepared with notebook, poems, course readers
•	 Hand in 3 pages of new work each Thursday in class
•	 post at least five times to course listserv and respond to two classmates per week.
•	       give written feedback to colleagues in your poetry and fiction critique groups
•	 create a final portfolio of 15 or more pages of revised work 
•	 participate in our class reading  (August 4 or 5)
•	       read model poems and short stories as assigned
•	 attend student/instructor final conference as arranged

Extra Credit Options (60 pts. possible) (negotiate pts./projects with instructor)
•	 Attend every class period (in its entirety) (40 pts) (all but one class, 20 pts)
•	 Attend a literary reading or event in the community and report on it (10-20 pts)
•	 Memorize and perform some of your own poetry or someone else's poetry (10-20 pts)
•	Multimedia work: integrate your own work w/film, theater, music or dance (10-30 pts)
•	 Write and perform a group poem, a fiction dialogue, or a play (10-30 pts)
•	 Take a leadership role in our virtual poetry community "e-group." (10-20 pts)

Required Texts  
•	Weisner course readers for poetry writing and fiction writing, summer 2010
•	A notebook you love and write in daily that is only for this course
Optional Text
•	      Jason and Lefcowitz, Creative Writer’s Handbook. Longman/ Pearson, 2010.  

Notebooks:  Notebooks can contain anything—first drafts of assigned exercises, notes from text and class; story and poem drafts, including in-class writings; ideas, lines, dreams, fragments, freewrites, beginnings—anything you find that you think you might use as a creative writer—from quotations to newspaper clippings to works you find inspirational, etc. This notebook is your creative repository as an artist and cutting edge explorer in creative writing.  Write in it every day. Carry it around.  Sleep next to it.  Try not to lose it (!)

Typical class agenda (this will vary): 
12:30-1:10 Inspirations and in-class writing
1:10-1:40, Small group sharing
1:40-2:15, Worksheet discussions; prompts for upcoming class, extra credit reports

No class: July 5
Meet at the Museum: July 14th
Hybrid Thursday: July 22nd

Grading*:
Attendance and participation (class, small groups, and online)	 	  240 points
Weekly typed homework (60 x 6)					 	  360 points 
Poetry notebook (drafts, notes, daily writing exercises—collected twice)	  200 points
Final Portfolio  (revised, including reading, poems sent out)			  200 points
										1,000 points
Students with grade option: 
A= 920-1000		A- =900-919		B+ =880-899	
B= 820-879		B- =800-819		C+ =780-799	
C= 700-779		D  =600-699		F    =0-599	

Some Cautionary Notes:
*Attendance is vital to this course.  Contact—e-mail or telephone—instructor when you need to miss all—or part—of a class.  Don't miss more than three classes or you could be dropped. Also, please be prompt; tardiness and early departures will strip away points from your participation grade.  

*Reminder: don't plagiarize (steal the words and ideas of others); plagiarism gives you an "F" on the assignment in question and perilously jeopardizes your ability to pass the class.  This can also end up on your permanent De Anza record.

Overview of weekly content
June 28-July 1		Course and student introductions.   Metaphor as a language of liberation; poetry, 
like storytelling, as oral and ancient; poetry as a subversive function of language; literature and what words mean; the pleasures of words themselves; poetry and the ode, the homage, the riddle, the dream, syneesthetic mystery. The nominal subject vs. the true subject of a poem.  Literal and figurative imagery, concrete language.

July 5-July 7		Poetry as a narrative with a leap; poetry of witness: poetry as a political act; writing 
about work; poetry and gender; poetry, animals, and the body.

July 12-July 15	Poems in sections, poem sin strict forms and various free verse forms; ekphrastics: a day at the museum; slam and performance poems; group poems.
 
July 19-July 22	Flash fiction: entering the Matchbook competition.  Significant detail.  Voice. Point of view. Writings by Elizabeth Tallent, Jane Martin, Jane Anne Phillips, Studs Terkel, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Cade Bambara.

July 26-29 	The short story, continued: conflict, shape, dialogue, development, flashback, tone.  Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, Tim O’Brien, Tobias Wolff, James Baldwin, Edwidge Danticat, De Anza award winners.“Leaving out” and “putting in.”

August 2-5		Final conferences, class reading & potluck, portfolios due, send out poems or story.

Background Sheet/EWRT 30, Creative Writing—Summer, 2010

Name:

Address/Phone/E-mail (neatly please):

How many units are you taking?  Which courses? Any major in mind, career goal, and/or plans to transfer? Are you working in addition to going to school?  What kind of work?  How many hours?

What brings you here, to EWRT 30? What history do you have as a creative writer? Do you have favorite writers/poets? Any concerns related to taking EWRT 30?

***
What are some things you’d like to write about this quarter—and ways you’d like to try writing?  This should include a list of topics or themes—as well as things you know a lot about; perhaps also a list of styles, genres, or approaches to writing you’d like to try; and a list of things you think you might be good at as a writer; as well as a list of areas you want to work at in order to improve. Finally, please set a personal goal for this class.