ENG-110 Introduction to Creative Writing

This course focuses on the writing of short stories, poetry and creative non-fiction. The art and techniques of these forms are examined in class and practiced in student writing. The workshop format of the course will teach students how to share their own writing and critique the work of other students through class discussion. Previous experience in fiction writing, poetry, and creative non-fiction is not required.

Credits

3

Corequisite

ENG-101

Lecture Contact Hours

3

Lab Contact Hours

0

Other Contact Hours

0

Department

• Humanities

Grading Scheme

• Letter

SUNY Gen Ed Credit

• Yes

Semesters Course Will Be Offered

• Fall
• Spring

Course Learning Outcomes

1. Craft and submit creative writing to be assessed by their peers and professor.
2. Integrate feedback from classmates and professor through workshops, conferences, and writing comments into their creative writing during revision.
3. Read, explicate, and write an essay on at least one piece of published creative writing in order to analyze craft.

View Course Outline

ENG 110: Introduction to Creative Writing

Department

Humanities

Course Description

This course focuses on the writing of short stories, poetry and creative non-fiction. The art and techniques of these forms are examined in class and practiced in student writing. The workshop format of the course will teach students how to share their own writing and critique the work of other students through class discussion. Previous experience in fiction writing, poetry, and creative non-fiction is not required.

Credit Hours

3

Contact Hours

Lecture	3
Lab	0
Other	0

Grading Scheme

Letter

Semester(s) Course Will Be Offered

Fall, Spring

Corequisites

ENG-101

Course Learning Outcomes

1. Craft and submit creative writing to be assessed by their peers and professor.
2. Integrate feedback from classmates and professor through workshops, conferences, and writing comments into their creative writing during revision.
3. Read, explicate, and write an essay on at least one piece of published creative writing in order to analyze craft.

Topic Outline

1. Fiction
   1. Point of View: the impact of narrative perspective
   2. Plot: exposition, conflict, climax, resolution, and denouement
   3. Characterization: motivation, speech, appearance, and psychology
   4. Dialogue: natural speech, elision, tone
   5. Setting: detail and relationship to theme, characterization, and plot
   6. Theme: the guiding meaning(s) of the story
   7. Symbolism: how specific items, behaviors, or actions reveal the other element
2. Poetry
   1. Forms: exposure to a variety of possibilities, including free verse, sonnet, sestina
   2. Style: such possibilities as persona, ekphrasis, and epistle
   3. Tropes: including imagery, symbolism, personification, metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche
3. Creative Non-Fiction
   1. Types: personal essay, memoir, flash, literary journalism, lyric
   2. Methods: narrative choices, point of view, topic, truth vs. fictive truth, lyrical language
4. Workshop
   1. Identification and discussion of the various aesthetic elements practiced within the genres
   2. Oral presentation of key observations of craft
   3. Discussion of strategies for invention and revision beyond the drafting stage
5. Reading in the Genres
   1. Analysis of aesthetic choices and craft in established literature
   2. Examination of historical trends within genre practice as well as the contemporary transformation of the written arts
   3. The ways the historical moment informs rhetorical motivation and intent