John
Vanderslice
Office: Thompson 339
Office
phone: 450-3653
Office
hours: Monday/Wednesday: 10-12,
Tuesday/Thursday: 11-2
E-mail: johnv@uca.edu Web site : http://faculty.uca.edu/~johnv
UCA Policy on Disabilities: It
is the policy of UCA to accommodate students with disabilities, pursuant to
federal and state law. Any
student with a disability is encouraged to contact the Disabled Student Services
office, which is located in the Student Center basement.
The phone number is 501-450-3135.
A Writer’s Country (WC),
ed. Jeff Knorr and Tim Schell.
Prentice-Hall, 2001.
Spiral notebook for in-class journal.
Course
description: Introduction
to Creative Writing will introduce you to some of the aspects or
“components” of craftsmanship employed by writers of creative non-fiction,
fiction, and poetry. The course is
organized around seven of these component: word choice, point-of-view, character
development, beginnings and endings, metaphor, line breaks, and writing outside
the self. At the same time,
we will be emphasizing prose writing (fiction and non-fiction) in the first half
of the semester and poetry writing in the second half.
In both halves, you will write, write, write, and show your writing to
others. You will respond to work
written both by professionals and by your peers, developing that crucial
critical eye which good writers eventually must and do turn on their own work.
You will be critiqued by others, developing the openness which good
writers must also bring to their own work.
Most of all, you'll have fun (I hope) and feel free to mess around—to
discover—on the page. If all goes as planned, your eyes will be opened to aspects
of craft you haven’t considered, traditions you never knew about, and
experiments you find intriguing
Creative
Assignments:
You’ll turn in three original manuscripts: a short narrative
featuring two characters developed during an in-class exercise, a prose piece
(i.e., creative non-fiction or fiction), and a poetry manuscript which includes
both formal and free verse poems. These
assignments will be read and responded to in small group sessions with your
peers.
Character assignment: This assignment is directly and immediately linked to an
in-class exercise we will work on in the first half of the semester.
That exercise will involve developing two specific and particular
characters. For the formal
assignment you will portray these two characters going out on a date.
Make sure you attend class to carry out the necessary preliminary steps
for this assignment. The
assignment, when you turn it in, should be three to five pages long
(typed or word processed). Please
follow normal conventions for a prose manuscript.
These include: double-space your lines, use a 12-point font, avoid over
showy and flowery fonts, have a reasonable margin (about an inch) on all sides.
Prose assignment: This
means either a piece of creative non-fiction or fiction.
Your prose assignment should be at least five
to seven pages long (typed or word processed).
Again, follow the normal conventions for a prose manuscript.
You are rather free, however, in your choice of subject or theme for this
assignment. If you decide to write
creative non-fiction, make it a personal essay, i.e. a first-person narrative
about something that happened to you or someone close to you.
If you write fiction, choose whatever style of fiction you prefer and
whatever narrative point-of-view seems most appropriate.
Poetry assignment: Your
poetry assignment must include at
least five formal poems, including four haiku and one sestina.
It must also include at least five free verse poems, including at
least three of the free verse poems we begin in class.
Please make it clear which in-class exercise generated which poems.
Workshops:
Every student in class will have the opportunity to have his or her work
discussed in a full class workshop (FYI: these are simply listed as
“Workshop” on the daily schedule). There
are some rules governing these workshops. First,
you can workshop either creative non-fiction, fiction, or poetry.
If workshopping poetry, you must
give your classmates at least three poems to consider. Second, I want you to workshop something written recently,
preferably since the semester began. I
also want you to workshop something which you are least willing to consider
revising. Any piece which you feel
is 100% completed and know you are never going to change is not acceptable workshop material.
Last and most important, it is imperative that you distribute your
workshop material at least one class
period prior to the day when the workshop will take place.
Your classmates need time to read over your piece and compose a critique.
Please respect your classmates and their need to manage their time, which
is as strong a need as your own. Workshop
material will be distributed via e-mail attachment formatted in Microsoft Word.
Important:
If you fail to show up for your scheduled workshop you will probably not have
another chance. The class is
very full and there simply will not be extra time available.
The penalty for missing your
workshop is a one letter grade reduction of your final semester grade.
Critiques: Every time one of your fellow students has his or her work
"workshopped" in class you will write a critique for that piece.
Each critique should be about a page
typed. Please try
to be both as honest and as constructive as you can in your critiques.
To critique does not necessarily mean to criticize.
In fact, you may find yourself offering your fellow writers a great deal
of praise. I expect that and
encourage it. All of us need a pat
on the back and need to first be told what we are doing right.
On the other hand, you shouldn’t avoid raising a topic of concern or
making suggestions (I prefer this word to “criticisms”) that you feel are
warranted. If I sense that you are
not saying something in your critique that you want to say and which should be
said I won’t be too happy. It’s
all in how you say it and why you say it. In
the end, what we are trying to do is help each other. That should be the final goal of whatever you write: whether
it’s unrestrained praise or significant reservations. And do not ever get nasty, please, no matter how boiled you
may feel. You also don’t want to
spend your critiques belaboring little niceties of grammar, unless these grammar
issues present serious interpretive problems for a reader. Whatever you may have done or been told in the past,
workshopping a creative piece is not
about hunting out misspellings and grammatical errors. Nor is it merely a matter of “I like this” and “I
don’t like that.” It’s not about “If it was my story I would write it this way.”
It’s about discussing what the piece itself is trying to do and
how the piece might better accomplish its own purposes.
Respect your fellow students and hold them to a high standard.
Make two copies of each critique: one for the student
(which you will give to her at the end of the workshop) and one for me.
It is imperative that you take these critiques seriously.
Besides the fact that it is invaluable for a writer to get feedback from
her peers, it is my firmest belief that by reading others' work carefully,
thinking about others' work, and then articulating those thoughts, a writer
develops a conception of her own aesthetic principles, principles with which she
can and should (although maybe not immediately) apply to her own work.
Talking
Points: Throughout the semester we will be reading and discussing
selected stories, poems, and essays in our two textbooks. You will turn in
response papers for each reading assignment.
Rather than discursive and essay-like, these responses will be talking
points. Each response should
include ten talking points total, with at least one talking point for
every poem, story, or essay in the assignment. By a talking point, I mean an
observation, question, or analytical point which you want to raise or think
would be worth raising in a class discussion about that story.
(For example: “I like how Jo Ann Beard in ‘The Fourth State of
Matter’ gradually layers the tensions until they are almost too much to
take;” “’Happiness’ is so specific in all its descriptive
references—there’s nothing ‘gooey’ about it, even though it’s a love
poem;” “So what exactly happens to Kenny at the end of ‘Hunters in the
Snow’?’”)
Author
Responses: This semester we are fortunate to have a number of professional writers visit campus.
These include television writer Rick Cleveland (Six Feet Under)
and, as part of the Arkansas Writers Festival, journalist Jennifer Christman,
poet Jo McDougall, and fiction writer David Jauss.
The Writers Festival writers will each give both a craft lecture and a
public reading, i.e., two events each. You
are required to attend a total of 3 events this semester featuring visiting writers.
You must write a one page, typed response for each of these three events.
Turn in each typed response the
next time the class meets after the event.
Final
portfolio:
More instructions will come, but for now know this: the
Contrary
to popular opinion, a creative work is not brought to us from the gods perfectly
formed at the moment of conception. Perhaps
the idea is perfect, but most of the time, the writer must struggle over time to
make its form perfect. And that
means rewriting. Every successful
writer that I have ever known (and I've known many) has placed a premium value
on revision; they revise willingly, thoughtfully, and intelligently, making a
good work that much better. As James Michener once said, "I'm not a good writer,
To
Pass: All creative assignments and the final portfolio must
be turned in in order to pass this class.
Late
Papers: All critiques, response papers, and creative assignments are
due at the beginning of class on the date due.
Critiques: If you are absent on day when a critique is due you
may turn it in on your return, provided you come to the next class.
No critiques can be turned in more
than one class period late.
Creative Assignments:
If creative assignments are not turned in on the date due these will be
considered late and automatically downgraded: 25
points for each class period.
Talking Points: If
these are satisfactory and turned in on the date due they will receive full
credit. If turned in one class
period late they will receive half-credit at best.
Response papers will not be
accepted more than one class period late.
Absences:
After a student misses 5 classes his
final semester grade will be lowered 50 points for every additional
absence. Also, frequent,
excessive lateness to class is decidedly frowned upon and will be taken into
consideration at grading time.
Points:
In-class journal
400 points
Character assignment
100 points
Prose
assignment
100 points
Poetry
assignment
100 points
Critiques 600 points
Talking points 200 points@40 each
Author
responses
90 points@30 each
Final portfolio
410 points
Grades:
Possible semester grades for this course are A, B, C, D, and F. A=
1800-2000 points, B= 1600-1799 points, C= 1400-1599 points, D= 1200-1399
Semester
schedule—subject to change.
1/9
Introduction to class.
1/12
Exploring ideas about writing. Journal
writing.
1/14
Component 1: word choice. Journal
writing.
1/16
Word choice continued. Journal
writing.
Week 3
1/19
No class. Martin
Luther King Holiday.
1/21
Word choice. Textbook selections. BY:
“Bonanza,” “Cousins.” WC:
“The
Things They Carried” (Tim O’Brien).
Talking points due.
1/23 Component 2: point-of-view. Mini-lecture.
1/26
Point-of-view. Textbook selections.
BY: “Bulldozing the Baby,” “The
Family
WC: “The Lady with the Pet Dog” (Anton Chekhov) (third person limited), “The Enormous Radio” (John Cheever) (third
person dual), “Hills Like White Elephants”
(Ernest Hemingway) (third person objective).
Talking points due.
1/28 Point-of-view continued. Journal writing.
1/30
Workshop.
2/2 Component 3: building character. Journal writing.
2/4
Building character. Journal
writing.
2/6 Building character. Journal writing.
2/9
Character Assignment due.
2/11
Workshop.
2/13
Workshop.
2/16 Component 4: beginnings and endings. Textbook selections. BY: “The Fourth
State of Matter,” “Out There.” WC: “Shiloh” (Bobbie Ann Mason), “Hunters in
the Snow” (Tobias Wolff). Talking points due.
2/18 Beginnings and endings continued. Journal writing.
2/20 Beginnings and endings continued. Journal writing.
2/23 Prose Assignment due.
2/25 Film: Bird by bird with Annie Lamott.
2/27 Workshop.
3/1 Introduction to free verse poetry. Textbook selections. WC: “Oranges” (Gary Soto),
“Rite of Passage” (Sharon Olds), “Happiness” (Robert Hass), “Lying in a Hammock” and
“A Blessing” (James
Wright), “The Colonel” (Carolyn Forche), “March Walk” (Jim Harrison).
Talking points due.
3/3 Free verse stuff.
3/5 Workshop.
Week 10
3/8
No class. Arkansas Writers Festival.
3/10 No class. Arkansas Writers Festival.
3/12 No class. Arkansas Writers Festival.
Week 11
3/15 Component
5: Metaphor. Journal writing.
Author responses from Writers
Festival due.
3/17 Metaphor continued. Journal writing.
3/19 Metaphor continued. Textbook selections. WC: “Traveling Through Dark”
(William Stafford), “a woman is not a potted plant” (Alice Walker), “The
Abortion” (Anne Sexton), “Pablo Neruda” (Stephen Dobyns), “In the Mountain
Tent” (James Dickey). Talking points due.
3/22-3/26 SPRING BREAK
3/29 Component 6: Line breaks. Mini-lecture and exercise. Journal writing.
3/31 Workshop.
4/2 Workshop.
4/5 Formal poem 1: haiku. Journal writing.
4/7 Haiku continued.
4/9 Workshop.
4/12
Component 7: Writing outside the self.
Textbook selections. WC:
“The Fathers”
(Gary Thompson), “At the Bomb Testing Site” (William Stafford),
“Wind Water
Stone” (Octavio Paz), “Weathering Out” (Rita Dove), “Famous”
(Naomi Shihab
Nye), “A Poem for Magic” (Quincy Troupe).
Talking points due.
4/14 Writing outside the self continued. Class meets at Baum Gallery. Bring journal.
4/16 Formal poem 2: sestina.
Week 16
4/19
Fun free verse stuff.
4/21
Poetry assignment due.
Journals due.
4/23
No class. Reading day for
final exams.
Important:
Come
to my office—Thompson 338—on Monday, December 8 to pick up your
poetry assignments.
Final
portfolios are due no later than 11:00 am, Friday, April 30.
Bring them to my office. Journals
will be returned at that time.