For “Spin,” students will be negotiating subtext, rumor, dramatic irony, subjectivity, objectivity, and context in our readings and their own work. Students will discuss the elements of reportage and rumor in their icebreaker text, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and then discern the difference between Rowling’s subtext and the subtext, however erroneous, read into the actions of the protagonists by other characters. Students will likewise watch a clip from the 1966 film Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and identify elements of dialogue, actions, body language, and gestures that reveal subtext, and then they will do a writing exercise in which they describe the innocent actions of a character in public and then re-describe them in the point of view of a law enforcement official, private investigator, reporter, or suspicious bystander who misconstrues, willfully or automatically, the actions of that innocent person.
Iago’s Wife & Borges’s Babel
I keep returning again & again to these underlined lines in “The Library of Babel” by Borges: “If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell.”
And they make me think of my namesake Emilia’s lines in Othello: “Let heaven and men and devils cry, let them all / All, all cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak,” which I have tattooed on my back. My ars poetica, my body magic.
“All in Good Sport”: A Writing Exercise for Craft of Prose
In this exercise, I ask my Craft of Prose students to think about the ways in which one element of their worlds—sports—can reveal a great deal about cultural values in addition to demonstrating some of what’s possible. With the class having just read about the Quidditch World Cup in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and been introduced briefly to other examples of games popular fiction, they will create their own sport, have a partner demonstrate, in a charades-like fashion, how that sport works, so that the writer m then ask themselves if they effectively described the sport in “All in Good Sport.”
Introductions and the Alias of Imagination for First Day of Craft of Prose
Note: In an effort to keep this blog updated regularly, I’m going to be storing my writing exercises and handouts in my Google Drive. I will post these exercises as a link here.
This single document includes two components:
- An introduction questionnaire, allowing students to tell me a little about them, their needs, and their preferences.
- A Writing Exercise in which students introduce themselves by creating a fake or exaggerated writer’s bio or acknowledgments page, titled “Alias of Imagination.”
Students will read two of Michael Martone’s flash CNF pieces titled “Contributor’s Notes” and “Acknowledgments” by Paul Theroux. This should be a fun way for students to tell one another about themselves while exercising their skills on the page.
Course Descriptions & Reading Lists for ENG 2015: Poetry Workshop & ENG 2016: Prose Workshop
ENG 2015: POETRY WORKSHOP
Instructor’s Course Description
American poet C.D. Wright once wrote: “If I wanted to understand a culture, my own for instance . . . I would turn to poetry first. For it is my confirmed bias that the poets remain the most ‘stunned by existence,’ the most determined to redeem the world in words.” In this course, we will hold poetry to this noble standard, as an amplifier for the voices in our culture and an invocatory rendering of our world. In doing so, I’ll ask you to not only read and write poetry but also begin to look at your surroundings as a poet would. This requires close examination of images, scrutiny of your thoughts and feelings about subject matter, and consideration for other points of view. Additionally, you will be asked to think deeply about language, in terms of its meanings, its sounds, its rhythms, and its forms. You should bring to this class a hard work ethic supported by curiosity and generosity. As a means of introduction to the craft of poetry, students will submit original poems for workshop, a collaborative discussion about writing techniques and their effects on readers. In addition to workshop, you will be asked to engage with the writing of contemporary poets, to read like a writer would. I’ve chosen a couple of poetry collections and The Best American Poetry 2015 so that you will have a lens through which to examine the current landscape of American poetry and to see that even today poets are still trying to “redeem the world in words.”
Required Texts
- The Best American Poetry 2015, ed. Sherman Alexie. Scribner, 2015. ISBN: 978-1476708195
- Charms Against Lightning by James Arthur. Copper Canyon, 2012. ISBN: 978-1556593871*
- Poems by Elizabeth Bishop. FSG, 2011. ISBN: 978-0374532369
- A Larger Country by Tomás Q. Morín. Copper Canyon, 2012. ISBN: 978-0966339598*
- Miscellaneous poems/packets on Moodle
*Arthur and Morín will be reading at Centenary College on September 23, 2015.
ENG 2016: PROSE WORKSHOP (ONLINE)
Instructor’s Course Description
This online course will introduce students to a variety of prose forms: flash fiction, the short story, personal essay, and memoir. Using Janet Burroway’s Imaginative Writing as a technique and terminology guide, students will analyze published prose and write their own pieces for workshop, a collaborative discussion about the effects of writers’ choices on readers. You should bring to this class a hard work ethic supported by curiosity and generosity. We will base our discussions on how texts work rather than what they mean, after Francine Prose’s ideal of “reading like a writer.” My approach to teaching writing is founded on the belief that our writing skills must be practiced and cultivated, and that one must continually challenge one’s aesthetics, habits, and concerns throughout one’s writing life in order to write anything of consequence to one’s readers and, perhaps more importantly, one’s self.
Required Texts
- Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft by Janet Burroway. Longman, 2014. ISBN: 978-0134053240
- The Best American Short Stories 2014, ed. Jennifer Egan. Mariner, 2014. ISBN: 978-0547868868
- The Best American Essays 2014, ed. John Jeremiah Sullivan. Mariner, 2014. ISBN: 978-0544309906
- Miscellaneous readings on Moodle
“The Craft of Prose” Fall 2015: Course Description, Required Texts, and Grade Requirements
Instructor’s Course Description
As a means of exploring the craft of prose writing, we will read, analyze, and imitate two living writers: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Jesmyn Ward. By reading two, book-length works by each writer—a short story collection and book-length essay by Adichie and a novel and memoir by Ward—we will see how these writers develop their unique styles across genres and locate how their personal concerns inform their fictional narratives. Additionally, we will supplement these texts with short stories and essays by some of the most influential prose writers of the 20th century to understand the history and development of American prose over the last one hundred years. We will translate these immersive reading experiences into writing skills through discussion, exercises, and workshop. Several times throughout the semester, students will turn in original writing for workshop, a collaborative discussion about writing techniques and their effects on readers, and later revise two of the pieces using the comments received in workshop. You should bring to this class a hard work ethic supported by curiosity and generosity. We will base our discussions on how texts work rather than what they mean, after Francine Prose’s ideal of “reading like a writer.” My approach to teaching writing is founded on the belief that our writing skills must be practiced and cultivated, and that one must continually challenge one’s aesthetics, habits, and concerns throughout one’s writing life in order to write anything of consequence to one’s readers and, perhaps more importantly, one’s self.
Required Texts
- The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Anchor, 2010. ISBN: 978-0307455918
- We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Anchor, 2015. ISBN: 978-1101911761.
- The Best American Essays of the Century, ed. Joyce Carol Oates. Mariner, 2001. ISBN: 978-0618155873.
- The Best American Short Stories of the Century, ed. John Updike. Mariner, 2000. ISBN: 978-0395843673.
- Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward. Bloomsbury USA, 2014. ISBN: 978-1608197651
- Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. Bloomsbury USA, 2012. ISBN: 978-1608196265
Grade Requirements
- Class Participation (10%)
- Group Presentation (15%)
- Four Workshop Pieces (40%)
- Two Revisions (15%)
- Two Imitations (10%)
- Discussion Board Participation (5%)
- Final Reading (5%)
Literally I wrote
Why are things happening literally in student creative writing?
If “literally” is not present, does that mean things are happening metaphorically?
If “literally” is emphasis to ensure us that something is happening exactly as it’s said, does that mean other sentences embellish the details?
Or does “literally” work like a double negative with the meaning of the sentence so that we should see the exact opposite?
Or is “literally” used in a very nonliteral sense? Is it literally literal or literally nonliteral?
Is it literally necessary to use “literally”?
Is “literally” a literal word? Or is “literally” a nonliteral word?
Emilia Phillips 