Syllabus for Creative Writing 10

SYLLABUS FOR CW10
(Creative Writing for Beginners)
2ND Semester 2010-2011

Course Description: A workshop exploring the potentials of creative writing as expression, as discipline and as a way of thinking about the society in which we live.
Prerequisite: none
Textbooks:
Mcquillan, Martin, ed. The Narrative Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. (NR)
Gross, Harvey and Robert McDowell. Sound and Form in Modern Poetry. 2nd Edition. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Volpe, Galvano Della. Critique of Taste. London and New York: Verso, 1991.
Forche, Carolyn, ed. Against Forgetting, Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. New York and London: Norton & Company, 1991.
Brandt, George W., ed. Modern Theories of Drama. A Selection of Writings on Drama and Theater 1850 - 1990. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

READINGS

Narrative

Selections from: Martin Mcquillan, The Narrative Reader.

Plato, The Republic, Chapter XXV, ‘The Allegory of the Cave,’ 37.
Aristotle, from The Poetics, ‘Plot,’ 39.
Mikhail Bakhtin, from The Dialogic Imagination, ‘Forms of time and the Chronotope in the Novel: Notes toward a Historical Poetics,” 53.
Wayne Booth, from The Rhetoric of Fiction, 69.
Roland Barthes, ‘Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives,’ 109.;
Barbara Hernstein Smith, ‘Narrative Versions, Narrative theories,’ 138.
John Berger, ‘Stories,’ 170.
Judith Roof, from Come As You Are: Sexuality and Narrative, 212.
Wolfgang Iser, ‘A Conversation with Wayne Booth,’ 245.
Dorrit Cohn, from Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction,’ 250.
Paul Ricoeur, ‘Narrative Time,’ 255.
Fredric Jameson, from The Political Unconscious: Narrative as Socially Symbolic Act, 266.
Samuel Weber, ‘Capitalizing History: Thoughts on The Political Unconscious,’ 269.


Writing Exercise 1: A piece of narrative or story of not less than 300 words.

Poetry
From: Harvey Gross and Robert Mcdowell, Sound and Form in Modern Poetry.
‘Prosody as Rhythmic Cognition,’ 8 – 21.
‘Imagism and Visual Poetry,’ 99 – 124.

Selections from:
Della Volpe, Galvano. Critique of Taste. 1991.

Carolyn Forche, ‘Introduction,’ Against Forgetting. 29 – 48.

Writing Exercise 2: A lyric poem, preferably social or socially relevant.

Drama

From: George W. Brandt, Modern Theories of Drama.

Eric Bentley, ‘Melodrama,’ 35.
Victor Turner, ‘Are There Universals of Performance in Myth, Ritual, and Drama? (1989),’ 62.
Erwin Piscator, ‘The Programme of the Proletarian Theatre (1920),’ 220.
Bertolt Brecht, ‘A Short Organum for the Theatre (1948),’ 232.
Marvin Carlson, ‘Psychic Polyphony (1986),’ 288.

Writing Exercise 3: A short, or one-act play.

Course Requirements: 3 or 4 unit exams on the readings
Writing Exercises
Final Exam (optional)
Group Reports (in powerpoint presentation format)
Workshops

Prepared by:
NVQUEANO/22November2010