Tag: Pedagogy

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1/8 Lesson Plan and Writing Exercise: “The Art of Losing”

Note: This will be my first meeting with my combined intermediate and advanced, undergraduate workshops. I hope that this exercise will open up our class in such a way that we get to know one another better and we begin to discuss meaningful craft elements. Like all of my writing exercises and readings beyond the required, book-length texts, this information is provided to students through a Google Document I call the “Course Reader,” which I update throughout the semester so as to provide necessary materials and instructions while developing a log for the course, the latter of which is especially meaningful for students who need to refresh on a class experience and/or who missed a class. I also like to have a record of our conversations, and so after each class I usually provide a quick, bullet-pointed list that recaps our conversations and/or important class decisions.

ENG 326/426 Writing Poetry: Intermediate/Writing Poetry: Advanced
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Spring 2018

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Writing Exercise: “Praise House”

ENG 326 Writing Poetry: Intermediate
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Fall 2017

Note: My intermediate poetry class is wrapping up workshop on their third poems and they are getting ready to turn in their fourth workshop poems this Saturday. This exercise is meant to allow them time and space to try something new (some have wondered aloud about if there can be “happy” poems) and draft something they can develop into their workshop piece. I always allow my students to revise in-class writing into their workshop poems, as this gives the class (optional) scaffolding of their assignments and helps to alleviate pressure surrounding “writer’s block.” (Side note: I don’t believe in writer’s block, as it often boils down to students second guessing themselves before they even begin, but they believe in it, so I want to help them overcome that fear in whatever way I can.)

 

9/28 Writing Exercise: “Praise House”

  1. Read “Praise House: The New Economy” by Gabrielle Calvocoressi and “To a Fig Tree on 9th and Christian” by Ross Gay.
  2. Freewrite a poem in which you praise a moment or a whole lot of things that you love or for which you are grateful.
    • Note: This exercise introduces you to a new form, the praise poem, while also giving you the option of continuing to cultivate your skills at using a poetic catalog (i.e., a list) in your poems.
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Text & Context: A Poetry Workshop at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

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Text & Context participants sharing their new poem drafts in the Resnick Rotunda. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Last night I taught Text & Context, a poetry workshop sponsored by the Philadelphia Poetry Collaboration, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art‘s Final Fridays: Rebel, Rebel night. I prepared a handout with four poetry exercises inspired by pieces in the modern art wing of the museum for registered and drop-in participants. We had a total of twenty-seven participants, with the youngest participant at 7 years old. Although the exercises were meant for adults, they were easily adapted to younger participants, especially the acrostic and self-portrait poems.

I have included the writing exercises below, with photos of the motivating artworks. Because we only had two hours for the workshop, we were unable to get to the fourth and final writing exercise, inspired by Marcel Duchamp, called “Readymades.”

Writing Exercise 1: “Acrostic to What”
Artwork(s): “According to What” (1964) by Jasper Johns
Room: 177
Time: 20+ Minutes

Jasper Johns (1930– ) introduces words into this work by painting them on the canvas and allowing their ghosts to haunt the backdrop. In this writing exercise, I’d like for you to select one word from this piece and free-write an acrostic poem. In A Poet’s Glossary, Edward Hirsch contextualizes and defines acrostic poetry as “From the Greek: ‘at the tip of the verse.’ A poem in which the initial letters of each line have a meaning when read vertically. The acrostic reads down as well as across.” Here is a very quick (and unpolished example):

Just this: the gift-hibiscus
Anguished by the cold context of
Soil in a slow thaw, spring’s unguent tongue.
Poignant is a word that implies the poisoned well
Emotion, only it needs a human eye—
Raw and farsighted, mirrored to the about-face of desire.

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“According to What” by Jasper Johns, 1964. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Writing Exercise 2: “Memory Piece (My Heart)”
Artworks(s): “Memory Piece (Frank O’Hara)” (1970) by Jasper Johns
Room: 177
Time: 20+ Minutes

In 1967, Jasper Johns met Frank O’Hara, a poet of the New York School, art critic, and assistant curator at MOMA. Let’s read O’Hara’s poem “My Heart” and locate some visually associative connections between the poem’s images and Johns’s sculpture, “Memory Piece (Frank O’Hara).”

This poem is part self-celebration, part anti-apology, with a finalizing dash of ars poetica, that is, a poem about writing poetry. Ultimately, however, it is a self-portrait, one that fills in the speaker’s personality by degrees. Could we, however, think about Johns’s sculpture as a kind of figurative portrait of O’Hara? If so, what does the artwork imply about its subject?

Free-write a poem titled “Memory Piece (My Heart)” and use the epigraph, “After O’Hara and Johns.” In this poem, I’d like for you to create a self-portrait that is literal, as in O’Hara’s “I wear workshirts to the opera,” but also figurative, as this sculpture of Johns. What images describe you without describing you? Try to move back and forth between literal and figurative statements. Here’s a model of these two alternating moves:

All of my clothes have
at least one missing
button. Lately I’ve been a zipper
broken off its track. I drink
coffee on an empty stomach and peel
a rind on a clementine to find
rind upon rind underneath.
I am bad at self-portraits
because I have trouble looking
the stranger the mirror makes
me in the eye.

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Poetry Workshop: Text & Context participants writing in gallery 177. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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“Memory Piece (Frank O’Hara)” by Jasper Johns, 1970. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Writing Exercise 3: “Impress Me”
Artworks(s): “Sunflowers” (1888 or 1889) by Vincent Van Gogh
Room: 161, Resnick Rotunda
Time: 20+ Minutes

Think of something beautiful, startling, or grotesque you’ve recently seen from which you couldn’t turn away. It could be a flock of white birds rising from a snowy field or a deer skull on the side of the road, a clear vase on a basement shelf in which a spider has built a web or an evening shadow that crossed over a beloved’s face. Take five minutes to jot down every concrete detail you remember from that scene, no matter how small or insignificant.

Hirsch writes that “The poetic image is always delivered to us through words. Poetry engages our capacity to make mental pictures, but it also taps a place in our minds that has little to do with direct physical perceptions.” I would go further and insist that images are those tangible details in a poem that have extra meaning—what we might called “resonance”—than just their thisness, their thereness. They are the glittery surface images on a dark, deep well. That dark deep well contains our memories, the primary source of our meaning-making.

Read “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound, which emphasizes the image as the crucial and working element of a poem.

Go back through your draft and interrogate each and every detail: which ones are significant? Which are superfluous? Which details imply other details? Cut all those details that are just facts about that scene, and leave all of those details that ascend to the level of images. Remove all explanation, what we would call exposition, out of the poem. Allow the images to stand alone.

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“Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh, 1888 or 1889. Philadephia Museum of Art.

 I would like to thank Steven Kleinman and Sarah Blake from the Philadelphia Poetry Collaboration and Jenni Drozdek and Claire Oosterhoudt of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for all their work supporting and organizing this event. Special thanks also to Alexis Apfelbaum of PPC and Justine of the PMA for their on-the-ground assistance, organization, and knowledge.

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Erasure and Revision Writing Exercise: “Love Poem Lost”

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The Heracles Papyrus (Oxford, Sackler Library, Oxyrhynchus Pap. 2331), a fragment of 3rd century Greek manuscript of a poem about the Labors of Heracles.

Last week I had my 24PearlStreet Erasure and Revision students burn, soak, and rip up handwritten copies of a new love poem. I called these “environmental erasures,” inspired— or, rather, after—Sappho’s surviving verses on papyrus fragments. Here are the directions:

“Love Poem Lost”

  1. 1. Draft a poem addressed to a (real or imagined) lost love. This can be a romantic love or a love based in friendship, someone once known or a teenage celebrity crush.
  2. Write out by hand or print three copies of the poem, and then perform the following acts of environmental erasure, taking pictures along the way:
    – Burn: Go into a safe, open environment and hold a match or lighter up to strategic places on the page.
    – Soak: Use water, wine, coffee, vinegar, or some other liquid to ruin or occlude portions of the page. (Works best on free-flowing, not ball-point, pen ink.)
    – Rip: Tear up the poem into quarters. “Lose” at least two of these quarters.
  3. Post pictures from each act of erasure, along with paragraph-long reflection about the process. What happened to your poems in each of these environmental erasures? What was brought out? What was subverted?
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Teen Arts Workshop Writing Exercises: “Beyond Rhyme: Poetry’s Music” and “Speech Bubbles: Poetry 10 Ways”

The Warren County Cultural & Heritage Commission asked me to teach as a part of their Teen Arts day. Although post-blizzard school delays prevented us from taking full advantage of my two planned workshops, the exercises and lesson plans I prepared for the day are collected here for other educators’ use.

9:30–11:00 AM: Beyond Rhyme: Poetry’s Music
How do we make our poems “flow”? How many word fireworks can we set off in a single line of poetry? In this workshop, we will explore the sounds and rhythms of free-verse poetry by listening to poems, trying out new techniques, and writing our own new poems.

  1. Introductions:
    • Who are you?
    • What school do you go to?
    • Why did you take this class?
    • What’s your favorite word?
  2. Discussion:
    • What is poetry?
    • What makes poetry poetry?
    • What makes poems sound good? How do they “flow”?
    • Some vocab: rhyme, cadence, assonance, consonance, alliteration, anaphora
  3. Reading and Discussion of Sounds:
  4. Writing Exercise:
    • Free write a poem on any subject. For every noun you use, you must select one that has at least one sound similar to the previous adjective, verb, or noun. Example, from “Inversnaid”: “This darksome burn, horseback brown.” The noun “burn” borrows the sound of r- in “darksome,” as does the noun “brown” from “horseback.” Additionally, the latter noun also borrows the b sound from “back.”

11:30 AM–1:00 PM: Speech Bubbles: Poetry 10 Ways
Ever heard the phrase, “The medium is the message”? In this poetry workshop, we’ll try our hand at writing poems using different mediums-posterboard, postcards, typewriters, and on our toes-to see if we can appeal to different parts of our brains and become more creative.

  1. Introductions:
    • Who are you?
    • What school do you go to?
    • Why did you take this class?
    • How (and on what) do you usually write?
  2. Writing Exercise: Poetry 10 Ways
    • Station 1: Writing by Hand. Freewrite a poem of at least 4 lines on unlined paper.
    • Station 2/3: Landscape/Portrait. Freewrite a poem on the index card laid out horizontally, and then rewrite it on another index card laid out vertically.
    • Station 4: Big Concerns. Using a pastel, freewrite a poem on a piece of posterboard. Try to “size up” your handwriting to the size of the paper.
    • Station 5: Boxing It In. Using the colored pens, I’d like for you to take one of your poems written at a previous station and underline the most important five words in that poem. In another color, I’d like for you circle all the nouns. In another color, I’d like for you to put a square around all the verbs. In another color, I’d like for you to put an X through at least three unnecessary words in the poem.
    • Station 6: The Snake Eating Its Tail. At this station, you will partner with another student. Rewrite one of your previously drafted poems in pencil on a piece of paper. Swap poems with your partner, and then erase 5 to 7 words from your partner’s poem.
    • Station 7: Address. Select a friend or a family member to whom you have a lot to say. Write a poem to them on the provided cards.
    • Station 8: Cut! Copy out one of the poems you brought in previously. Use the scissors to cut it in half.
    • Station 9: Walk It Off. Go out into the hall. You will compose a poem in your head while you walk to the end of the hall and back. Try to come up with one word per step. Record yourself (using your phone or mine) speaking aloud the poem.
    • Station 10: Type It Up. Come to this computer workstation and type up one version of one of the poems you have written today in this Google doc. Your only parameter here is that you must introduce new line breaks.

 

The room set up for “Poetry 10 Ways”
Station 1: Writing By Hand
Station 2/3: Landscape/Portrait
Station 4: Big Concerns
Station 5: Boxing It In
Station 6: The Snake Eating Its Tail
Sation 7: Address
Station 8: Cut!
Station 9: Walk It Off
Station 10: Type It Up

 

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Craft of Poetry Writing Exercise: “Exercising It Out”

"Knitting_for_our_soldiers"_-_Kambala_School,_Sydney,_NSW,_between_1914-1918_-_photographer_unknown_(4658764197).jpeg

Students’ Materials

  • Writing journal, with plenty of paper and/or your laptop
  • A previous draft of one of your poems

Room Setup
Six “stations” will be set up at even intervals around the room, each with its own set of instructions. They will be identified by the following names:

  1. Anaphora
  2. Heavy Enjambment
  3. Sentence Fragment
  4. Lack of Punctuation
  5. Cut
  6. Splice

Instructions
There will be six rounds of writing, each lasting 10 minutes. For the first round, Group 1 will be at Station 1: “Anaphora,” Group 2 at Station 2: “Heavy Enjambment,” etc. For subsequent rounds, the groups will rotate to new stations in numerical order. Students should have their previous poem draft and writing notebook at each station. Upon arriving at a station, each group member should read and follow the instructions on the card. After completing the assignment, you should have revised your previous draft into a whole new poem. If there’s time, each student should share their new, revised poem.

Station 1: Anaphora
Read your poem draft, and circle a phrase that is the most charged, most crucial to your poem. Re-write the poem and introduce a repetition of this phrase or syntactical unit. Read Joy Harjo’s “She Had Some Horses” for an example.

Station 2: Heavy Enjambment
Locate all of the end-stopped lines in your poem and circle them. Remove half of those end-stopped lines by breaking the line elsewhere in the sentence and thereby introducing enjambment. Take a look at Ross Gay’s “Love, I’m Done With You” for an example; pay special attention to incidence of enjambment in the first seven lines.

Station 3: Sentence Fragment
Turn at least two complete sentences in your poem into sentence fragments. See Chen Chen’s “Self-Portrait as So Much Potential” for an example of a poem that employs many sentence fragments.

Station 4: Lack of Punctuation
Remove the punctuation in all or half your poem, like Morgan Parker in “Take a Walk on the Wild Side” or “If You Are Over Staying Woke”  respectively.

Station 5: Cut
The poet Jean Valentine tapes her poems up on her door after she initially drafts them. Every time she passes the poem, she cuts one word. In the next ten minutes, cut at least five words from your poem. Read her poem “God of Rooms” for inspiration.

Station 6: Splice
Steal 1–2 lines full or partial lines from a group member’s poem. Try to make them work in the dramatic situation of your poem. Check out Matthew Olzmann’s “Letter Beginning with Two Lines by Czesław Miłosz” as an example.

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“Every Phantom // A Story: Erasure & Revision” 24PearlStreet Course Syllabus & Calendar

My eight-week, online course for the Fine Arts Work Center’s 24PearlStreet, “Every Phantom // A Story: Erasure & Revision” starts tomorrow, Monday, March 8th.

Course Description
What isn’t said in a poem is just as meaningful—just as much a craft choice—as what is said. As poets, we so often go to the page with the intention of telling our readers something; this approach, however, often positions us between the reader and the text, like a person narrating a movie in front of the projector. In this course, we will investigate the ways in which poems “write themselves” and how images, without the aid of expositional transitions, create their own narratives, after Cesare Pavese’s idea of the “image narrative.” We will discover the impact and implied meanings of white space in poems, and we will investigate the strategies of other poets in revising through redaction and compression. We will look at erasure texts-texts that have been redacted into new texts-by poets like Mary Ruefle and Robin Coste Lewis, and consider the legacies of poets, like Sappho whose work survives only in fragments. Throughout the course of the eight weeks, participants will be asked to draft at least six new poems, unwieldy and wild and uninhibited, that in subsequent weeks they will slowly revise, re-form, and compress; through these long-term revision strategies, participants will be able to introduce subtext and depth to their poems, while honing their craft and style.

Check out the course’s syllabus and calendar online.

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Spring 2017 ENG 2030 Craft of Poetry Required Texts

The following information is taken directly from my Spring 2017 ENG 2030 Craft of Poetry Syllabus.

ENG 2030 Craft of Poetry Required Texts and Materials

  • Girmay, Aracelis. Black Maria. BOA Editions, 2016. ISBN: 978-1942683025.
  • Johnson, Jenny. In Full Velvet. Sarabande Books, 2017. ISBN: 978-1941411377.
  • Levin, Dana. Banana Palace. Copper Canyon Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-1556595059.
  • Rankine, Claudia. Citizen. Graywolf Press, 2014. ISBN: 978-1555976903.
  • Rekdal, Paisley. Imaginary Vessels. Copper Canyon Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-1556594977.
  • Sharif, Solmaz. Look. Graywolf Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-1555977443.
  • Online Course Reader
  • A bound writing journal and writing utensil, required in every class*

*If you have accommodations for the use of a computer at all times, you may complete your writing journal electronically and will not need the bound writing journal. Please be sure that you provide me with your accommodation letter as soon as possible.

A Note About Ordering Books

If you choose not to order from the university bookstore, I encourage you to consider ordering books directly from the publisher. Cutting out the middleman helps ensure that publishers and authors are treated fairly in the transaction. Here are the links to our books on their publishers’ websites:

You can also make a difference with your book purchase by placing a special order with a local or regional bookstore, like Labyrinth Books in Princeton or Black Dog Books in Newton; an independent bookstore with online ordering, like Powell’s or Strand Bookstore; or a philanthropic independent seller like Better World Books.

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Creative Writing Curriculum Proposal Accepted!

My proposal for a new Creative Writing curriculum here at Centenary University went for a full faculty vote today and was accepted. The proposal was fourteen pages, so I’ll only share the new courses, their descriptions and their goals below.

NEW COURSES

  • WRI 2005: Intro to Creative Writing
  • WRI 2040: Writing Poetry
  • WRI 2041: Writing Prose
  • WRI 3050: The Form and Theory of Poetry
  • WRI 3051: The Form and Theory of Prose
  • WRI 3052: Hybrid and Digital Genres
  • WRI 3055: Literary Editing and Publishing

 

PROPOSED COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

WRI 2005 Intro to Creative Writing
4 Credits
This course is designed to introduce students to four primary genres of creative writing: fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, and poetry. Students will learn key terminology that will help them understand, analyze, and discuss these genres in a workshop setting. Students will write and contribute original pieces of writing to workshop, a collaborative and evaluative discussion about the writer’s craft, and look to a variety of published writers as guides for incorporating different new techniques into their own work.

Course Objectives

  • To introduce students to the fundamental concepts of creative writing
  • To differentiate creative writing from academic and scholarly writing
  • To learn key terminology that will allow students to workshop their peers’ work
  • To encourage creative thinking through in-class writing exercises
  • To teach students what to expect from each genre (poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction) and how to read them
  • To ready students for more advanced discussions in genre-specific creative writing courses

 

Content Areas Covered

  • The course will contain units on fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, and poetry.
  • Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft by Janet Burroway, the proposed textbook, covers all four genres and fundamental techniques for beginning creative writers.

 

WRI 2040 Writing Poetry
4 Credits
Pre- or co-requisites: ENG 1001 and WRI 2005
This course is structured around workshop, a collaborative discussion about writing techniques and their effects on readers. Students will write and submit original poems to the workshop and participate in the discussion of their classmates’ work. As such, the focus of this course is creative output so that students will have a portfolio of original poetry by the end of the semester. Additionally, students are asked to examine the work of contemporary poets in order to learn new techniques and approaches to writing poetry.

Course Objectives

  • To further students’ knowledge of contemporary poetry
  • To have students create a portfolio of original poetry
  • To establish a regular writing and revision practice
  • To increase their experience and expertise in a workshop setting

 
Content Areas Covered

  • Students will write at least six original poems for workshop and revise at least three for a final portfolio.
  • The course will also focus on three contemporary poetry collections to introduce students to new techniques.

 

WRI 2041 Writing Prose   
4 Credits
Pre- or co-requisites: ENG 1001 and WRI 2005
This course is structured around workshop, a collaborative discussion about writing techniques and their effects on readers. Students will write and submit original prose pieces, including short stories and personal essays, to the workshop and participate in the discussion of their classmates’ work. s such, the focus of this course is creative output so that students will have a portfolio of original prose by the end of the semester. Additionally, students will examine the work of contemporary prose writers in order to learn new techniques and approaches to writing in the prose genres.

Course Objectives

  • To further students’ knowledge of contemporary fiction and creative nonfiction
  • To have students create a portfolio of original fiction and creative nonfiction
  • To establish a regular writing and revision practice
  • To increase their experience and expertise in a workshop setting

Content Areas Covered

  • Students will write at least four original prose pieces for workshop in addition to in-class writing exercises.
  • The course will also focus on two contemporary prose texts or anthologies to introduce students to new techniques.

 

WRI 3050 The Form and Theory of Poetry   
4 Credits
Pre- or co-requisites: ENG 1001 and WRI 2005
This course focuses on improving skills in the reading and writing of poetry, especially as it relates to considerations of craft, form, and theory of the genre. Students will analyze, practice, and demonstrate elements of poetry construction through critical reading, writing exercises, and collaborative workshop. Using contemporary poetry collections and poetic craft texts, students will develop their skills of “reading like a writer” and situate their own work within poetic theory. Other assignments may include imitations of other writers, scansion of poetic texts, revisions of original pieces, and group presentations on assigned texts. Additionally, they will consider the context and relevancy of poetry in their lives, communities, and culture, and explore the opportunities for serious poetry writers.  This course will feature a revolving theme oriented around poetic concepts like a lines and sentences, rhythm and sound, and received forms and prosody.

Course Objectives

  • To further students’ knowledge of the history of lyric forms, with special attention to the influences of the 19th and 20th century movement on contemporary verse
  • To expose students to the form and theory of poetry by introducing them to received forms (sonnet, ghazal, etc.), contextualizing free verse in literary history, and engaging specific craft concerns including cadence and lineation
  • To establish the reading of poetry, canonical and contemporary, as a vital part of the writing practice
  • To engage in texts about the craft and theory of poetry so that students have the language to discuss advanced writing concepts
  • To have students create a portfolio of original poetry, including specific exercises in form and with prosody

Content Areas Covered

  • Students will write biweekly poetry pieces in various forms or using specific techniques.
  • The course will introduce students to theories of meter, form, and lineation, in addition to various poetic composition practices.
  • The course will pair poems with critical and craft texts that introduce students to the theory and history of poetic form and craft.

 
WRI 3051 The Form and Theory Prose   
4 Credits
Pre- or co-requisites: ENG 1001 and WRI 2005
This course focuses on enhancing skills in writing fiction and/or creative nonfiction, especially as it relates to considerations of craft, form, and theory of the genres. Students will read, analyze, and discuss the contemporary prose texts and incorporate skills learned from the texts into their own work. Using contemporary novels, memoirs, short story and/or personal essay collections, students will develop their skills of “reading like a writer.” Students will regularly participate in in-class writing assignments in order to practice new writing techniques and work in new forms, such as flash fiction, travel writing, memoir, and personal essay. Other assignments for this course include imitations of other writers, revisions of original pieces, and group presentations of assigned texts. This course will feature a revolving theme oriented around literary concepts like world building, character development, and genre expectations.

Course Objectives

  • To further students’ knowledge of the history of prose forms, with special attention to the short story, flash and micro fiction, the personal essay, travel writing, and memoir
  • To expose students to the form and theory of prose by having them read and imitate the styles of touchstone writers of the 20th and 21st centuries
  • To establish the reading of prose and craft texts as a vital part of the writing practice
  • To engage in texts about the craft and theory of prose so that students have the language to discuss advanced writing concepts
  • To have students create a portfolio of original prose, including specific exercises in various prose forms and imitative styles

Content Areas Covered

  • Students will write biweekly prose pieces in various forms or using specific techniques.
  • The course will introduce students to theories of prose styles, structures, and forms.
  • The course will pair poems with critical and craft texts that introduce students to the theory and history of prose form and craft.

 

WRI 3052 Hybrid and Digital Genres
4 Credits
Prerequisites: ENG 1001 and WRI 2005
This course will introduce students to hybrid and digital genres of creative writing, including but not limited to the lyric essay, prose poetry, poetry comics, graphic novels, video essays, and digital media storytelling. Students will try their hand at these genres for workshop, and they will likewise try their hand at multi-modal and multimedia composition.

Course Objectives

  • To further students’ knowledge of non-traditional genres and forms by having them analyze and create hybrid and multimodal texts
  • To expose students to the form and theory of creative writing, especially as it relates to new expressions of genre
  • To teach students new technical skills that will allow them to express themselves through multimodal composition
  • To engage in texts about the craft and theory of hybrid and digital genres
  • To have students create a portfolio of original hybrid and digital works

 
Content Areas Covered

  • Students will explore and compose in hybrid genres like lyric essays and prose poetry, as well as multimodal forms like poetry comics, video essays, and digital media storytelling.
  • The class will pair hybrid and digital texts with cutting-edge criticism and craft texts about hybrid and digital genres, relying heavily upon new research into genre theory and digital humanities scholarship.

 
WRI 3055 Literary Editing and Publishing   
4 Credits
Prerequisites: ENG 1001 and WRI 2005
“Editing, like writing, is fundamentally about composing a world,” Peter Gizzi writes in his essay “On the Conjunction of Editing and Composition.” In this course, students will learn how this act of composition takes place, from submissions to printing, by reading first-hand accounts of editors in the profession and through practical application. This reading intensive course will challenge students to read like an editor and consider how literary magazines contribute to literary culture. Although literary magazines will be used as a case study for all publishing inquiries, the book-publishing process and market will likewise be explored. The class will include an investigation into the history of literary magazines; editorial meetings in which students will evaluate and debate sample pieces; papers that analyze literary magazines, editorial roles, and the state of contemporary publishing; and a final editorial project in which student groups will “compose a world” through a mock literary magazine by developing its mission, design, and content. In many ways, this course acts as a kind of introductory practicum for students interested in pursuing future publishing opportunities as editors, production editors, and as writers.

Course Objectives

  • To further students’ knowledge of literary editing and publishing by providing them with insight into the book publishing and literary magazine industry
  • To contextualize their work as writers within the business of creative writing
  • To expose them to the work of editors, agents, and publishers through first-hand accounts in articles and class video conferences with professionals in the field
  • To offer students the opportunity to experience the work of creative a literary publication from start to finish with a mock literary magazine project
  • To consider the ethics and issues of contemporary publishing, especially as it relates to the decolonization, parity, copyright, and stewardship of literary works
  • To explore the history of literary magazine publishing to better understand contemporary trends and advances
  • To better prepare students to work in publishing or to engage professionally as writers with the publishing industry

Content Areas Covered

  • Students will discover the history of literary book and magazine publishing, consider the ethics and issues in contemporary publishing, and establish best practices for compiling and designing a literary magazine.
  • The course will use two texts, Paper Dreams on the history of American literary magazines and Thinking with Type on the materiality and design of texts, along with many supplemental readings that will allow students to contextualize literary publishing within its history and contemporary issues.