Creative Writing Elective - One Semester
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This semester-long course focuses on writing in a variety of genres. |
Creative Writing Elective |
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What moves me to write and be proud of what I've written? |
The purpose of this class is to encourage students to cultivate the habits, attitudes, and flexibility of a professional writer in a professional writing community. Students will be expected to conference with the instructor, participate in writer response groups, research and read contemporary published authors, keep and regularly write in a writer’s notebook, and experiment with and revise writing routinely. Notebook writing is just one of the steps in the creative process. The true art of writing includes not only the process of journaling or generating, but also phases of reading, mentoring, experimenting, revising, and editing. All final pieces created for this class will reflect the process of writing. The goal is to become a community of writers who experiment, craft, revise and tinker with our work.
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Students will practice strategies for accessing memories and Students will use published readings as model texts. Students will use a variety of approaches to creative nonfiction and be expected to make They will consider audience and purpose. Students will share work with peers while offering constructive criticism. Be an open and supportive community of writers, and explore the possibilities of different form. |
Creative writing is the art of crafting a piece for publication. Students will choose their best/favorite pieces and create a portfolio of work. Included:
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3-4 weeks |
Creative Writing Process |
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Who am I as a writer? How can we (the class) help each other and learn from each other? What interests me, and how can those interests evolve into storytelling? |
You are a writer Team Builidng:
Journaling
Personal Narratives Show! Don't tell. Creating Imagery Using Sensory details Writer's perspective |
structure
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Show! Don't Tell - handout Hi! I'm your student! - Google Slide Template |
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4-5 weeks |
Short Fiction |
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Writing elements Short stories Technique Ideas from life: Observation Journaling Knowing your character Conflicts: multi-layered
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Self-editing Dialogue Checklist Scene Plotting Chart for One Point of View Scene Plotting Chart for Two Points of View Overused Words and Phrases - For Grammar sake
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Socratic Seminars |
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3-4 weeks |
Poetry |
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Terms and techniques Poetry analysis Music /Lyrics analysis Musical elements Structural elements Story elements Creation of Poetry Collection
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Poetry Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds in a sequence of nearby words (ex. From Beowulf: “So Hrothgar’s men lived happy in his hall…” “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”) Allusion: a reference to anything outside the text. (ex. “He was a combination of both Robin Hood and Santa Claus, someone obviously too good to be real,” - when a historical character/occurrence appears in a literary/visual work, like mentioning “Macbeth” on your favorite T.V. show) Anaphora: the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. Apostrophe: an passage in a speech or poem addressed to a person (typically one who is dead or absent) or thing (typically one that is personified). Assonance: sound device where the vowel sounds are repeated in words close together Caesura: punctuation for the purpose of creating a dramatic pause Consonance: sound device where the consonant sounds are repeated in words close together Couplet: two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme (ex. “There once was a boy named Matt,/ who had a really big hat…”) Enjambment: (in verse) the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. Hyperbole: A deliberate exaggeration used to achieve an effect. (ex. “It is 1000 degrees in here!”). Iambic pentameter: A 10-syllable line of poetry, written with 5 iambs (unstressed-stressed syllable). Syllables alternate between unstressed and stressed beats, creating this pattern: “de/DUM de/DUM de/DUM de/DUM de/DUM.” (ex. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) Imagery: Language that appeals to the senses; usually accomplished by descriptions, use ofsimile/metaphor. (Color Imagery, Visual Imagery, Auditory Imagery, Olfactory Imagery,Gustatory Imagery, Tactile Imagery) Inversion: Metaphor: Comparing 2 things without using LIKE or AS. (Love is a rose. It is an iceberg in here). Mood: The emotional attitude/feeling of a PART of a work. (i.e. sad, happy, nostalgic, etc). Narrator: The character who tells the story. Onomatopoeia: Use of words whose sounds express/suggest their meaning (zap, hiss, meow). Oxymoron: Two contrasting terms. (ex. Thunderous silence, jumbo shrimp, dark brightness). Paradox: An apparent contradictory statement which is actually true. (ex. “Fair is foul and foul is fair” or “War is Peace”). Personification: Giving human qualities to anything non-human. (ex. The dog spoke to me. The window watched me as I walked down the street. The rose blushed.) Refrain: Repetition of a line throughout the poem. (ex. “Oh Captain! My Captain!” repeated in two stanzas.) Rhythm: beats in a line of poetry Rhyme: endings of words that have the same sounds (but there are half-rhymes too!) Rhyme Scheme: The repetition of thyme at the end of lines in poetry that create a pattern. Use lower case letters to show the pattern. Simile: Comparing 2 things using LIKE or AS. (Love is like a rose. It is like an iceberg in here!) Speaker Stanza Symbol: Something that stands for something else, usually an abstract idea. (ex. The American flag, the Peace sign, a recurrent thing/object in a work is usually symbolic of something much larger Theme: The central idea/main point of a story. A story can have more than one theme. Tone: The emotional attitude or feeling of the ENTIRE work as the speaker sees it. (Ex. Formal, informal, playful, ironic, pessimistic, optimistic) Understatement: Something represented as less than it is. (Ex. She was thrown off-balance when she was hit by the truck.)
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4-5 weeks |
Creative Nonfiction |
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Blogging Digital publications Be a Food Critic News Articles Advertising Memoir Author's Bio
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Jumpstart with Ads - use advertisements as inspiration Author's Bio Madlib - For brainstorming |
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2-3 weeks |
One-Act Play (optional) |
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2 weeks |
Portfolio Creation |
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Organization of Created Works Included:
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