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ENGL 236: INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING / MS. HOFFMAN

Monday 2:00 - 4:30/Nicely 410

Office Hours: Wednesday and Friday: 2:00 - 3:30 and by appointment (subject to change)

Office: 204A Fisk Hall / E-Mail: ch39@aub.edu.lb / Office Phone: ext. 4143

AIMS

The aim of this course is to engage the student in the processes of imaginative writing, studying forms and characteristics, both traditional and currently evolving, in the major genres of creative writing. Students will learn to critique work in progress through conferences and workshops and to apply useful criticism to their own works in progress. Also students will be encouraged to adopt a writer's eye for detail by keeping a writer's sketchbook. By additional readings from current small magazines, journals, and books, students will be introduced to contemporary writing as published by university presses, small independent publishers, and on-line journals. Finally, students will produce a portfolio of poetry, fiction, and drama all in final draft, with evidence of thoughtful revision, which will be evaluated at the end of the semester for 30% percent of the final grade. The final outcome of the course is the attainment through study and practice of a solid, up-to-date basic knowledge of the genres of creative writing.

TEXT

Minot, Stephen. Three Genres: The Writing of Poetry, Fiction, and Drama. Seventh Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. Available at Riad Copy Center, off the street on left up Jeanne d'Arc in the close across from the church.

EVALUATION

Grading will be based on the portfolio (30%) mentioned above; individual draft grades received through the semester (30%); five quizzes (10%); overall workshop and class participation (10%); and the quality and quantity of the regular writing in a writer's sketchbook (20%).

The PORTFOLIO should include all assignments that had been presented in rough or intermediate drafts in class workshop (or individual conference, if required) and then revised and finished through subsequent drafts, showing a conscious engagement with student and instructor critiques. It is due in my office on Monday, 16th January, presented to me IN PERSON in a two pocket folder, or equivalent, early graded drafts on one side and final drafts on the other. As no late drafts can be handed in after our last class meeting, resulting negative effect on portfolio grade should be anticipated from missing assignments in draft and revision. The portfolio is graded for quality of the work as if a submitted manuscript rather than application and progress as with the assignments given through the semester.

The DRAFT GRADE is the combined result of the individual grades each of the assignments receives as they are submitted for workshop. Larger and more demanding assignments receive a more significant percentage of grade points as indicated in the course schedule. Assignments will be graded according to a rubric specifically relevant to each. Late assignments are automatically penalized one letter grade for each day late.

The WRITER'S SKETCHBOOK should be an ordinary composition book but with extraordinary contents. I will check them every Monday at the end of class, as students exit, to ensure that students are writing regularly. Due for grading on two occasions, near the middle of the semester and in early January, these sketchbooks will be read for evaluation and returned to the writer. Write one full longhand page every other weekday and two on weekends. Each week I will expect at least three new entries, and typically four. The sketchbook should be full of descriptive writing: it should show the writer is paying close attention to the concrete details around him/her, emphasizing the sensory and specific. Every entry should be a detailed description of a thing, person, setting, process, or work of art. It should not be a private diary with intimate details unrelated to the creative ends of a writer. Instead, it should represent a writer's engagement with the world around him/her. For example: one might describe the details of a grandfather's funeral, but the emotions and feelings inspired by the writer's personal loss implied rather than stated. Every entry must be accurately dated either at beginning or end of entry. Please number the pages. I insist that you write them longhand rather than on your computer, using pencil or pen, preferably not erasing but only marking out words with line strokes. Spelling and grammar is not as important as the creative language. By mid-May the sketchbook should be a minimum of 25 pages long with an average of about 200 words to the page (that is, 5000 words total). Only original writing counted. Please, no entries over 500 words.

PARTICIPATION is essential both in workshop and class discussion. I will evaluate each student's contribution to the class/workshop over the course of the semester through reference to attendance records, tardiness, personal observation of workshop contribution, and peer evaluation sheet filled out by students at the end of the semester. These elements of class participation will represent part or whole of 10% of the final course grade. To receive full credit a student must be actively engaged in all class processes: to be merely present and attentive is not enough for an A grade in participation. Please note: students are automatically penalized one point for every absence, up to the allotted 10 points. It does not matter what the circumstances are for the absence. Not in class? Not participating.

QUIZZES will be given at the very beginning of class on dates indicated. Most of the quizzes will have ten questions, short answer, multiple choice or True / False, testing knowledge of the reading assignments due for the class meetings since the last quiz. If missed at the time they are given, they cannot be made up.

You are required to be present at all class meetings. ATTENDANCE will be taken every class at the beginning of the class. If a student is absent more than 15% of class meetings, a failing grade for the course may be assigned. This means that the student will fail the course if he or she misses more than three class meetings during the semester and fails to withdraw by final drop date. A student is marked as negligent if he or she comes in more than 15 minutes late, incurring a negative effect on the participation grade [see above]. Drafts for the workshop are set out for distribution before class, and the first to class is work-shopped