Sarah Jane Sloane Introduction to Creative Writing Semester at Sea 1

SEMESTER AT SEA COURSE SYLLABUS

Voyage: Fall 2013

Discipline: English
ENWR 2559: Introduction to Creative Writing
Division: Lower Division
Faculty Name: Sarah Jane Sloane

Pre-requisites:

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Creative writing students will practice writing strategies, techniques, and structures, and will
learn the basic elements of craft in writing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. By also reading
examples of these genres, students will complement their writing practice by seeing how
contemporary writers have navigated shoals similar to their own struggles with craft. In addition
to reading short stories, poems, nonfiction, travel writing, and essays on craft, students will be
expected to complete several substantive writing exercises as well as a final project. Writing
workshops will be the centerpiece of the course, with required background readings tied to some
of the countries we visit. The course will be divided evenly among practice in fiction,
nonfiction, and poetry, with students electing to specialize in one of these genres for their final
project. Students are expected to keep a writer’s notebook where they transcribe and reflect on
their experiences and questions about travel around the Atlantic Rim in each port we visit. The
Field Lab will give students a chance to write in different genres, doing a structured set of
exercises to stretch them as writers.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

To practice writing in multiple genres and for multiple audiences

To read with a sensitivity to language and an awareness of the rhetorical and technical
devices used by contemporary writers
To develop close reading skills
To connect Semester at Sea ports with specific creative writing exercises
To learn how to compose a single sustained piece of writing of more than ten pages

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Do all the reading assigned

Over the next 23 class periods, we will be discussing selections from seven
books, and the pace of that reading is rapid. Read each book selection
thoroughly, taking notes according to what you find interesting, according to
what might be useful to you on the exams. Amplify some of those notes
according to prompts offered by your professor, as described below. Remember
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to read carefully the book selections related to your genre analysis, also
explained below.

COMPLETE THE FIELD EXPERIENCE

In addition to exploring the port(s) assigned, listening to lectures, and practicing
close observations, students are required to take field notes and develop them
into work in a genre or genres, as discussed in class.

KEEP A FIELD NOTEBOOK

For each port we visit, you should bring your field notebook and take notes on
what you see in terms of sights, relationships, events, and dialogues overheard.
This field notebook probably will become the basis for the three genres you
must practice.

GENRE ANALYSIS ESSAY

Based on in-class readings and discussion, and reserve readings, write a three-to-five page
paper in which you explain to your readers how to write in a particular genre. For example,
you might write a “Letter to a Young Nonfiction Writer,” and, drawing on the materials in
the genre you have selected, you may have a set of observations and advice for the reader.
These will be posted on the class’s intranet page.

THREE GENRE WRITING

During the course of the semester, as guided by your professor, you will be required to write
three works, creative nonfiction and fiction pieces of at least five pages, and three poems of
at least one page each. One of these will be discussed in the class’s writing workshops, and
all must be turned in for a grade.

FINAL PROJECT
Students are required to write one longer piece, usually an amplification of a piece written in
your field notebook or one of your three-genre writing projects. This will be your primary
work for the class, where you showcase everything you have learned about one specific
genre, and turn in a final piece that demonstrates your new understanding and knowledge of
a genre. Hybrid pieces are accepted after consultation and approval by your professor.

GRADING AND EVALUATION

Students will be graded based on their creativity, originality, seriousness of purpose,

inventiveness, and adherence to the conventions of Standard Written English—except in the
service of an experiment or innovative writing. Students are advised to consult with their
professor before they turn in such an experiment for a grade.
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FIELD NOTEBOOK AND FIELD EXPERIENCE (20%)

Students will be graded based on the length and quality of their field notebook, with notes
taken not only during the field experience but also during other port visits. Students are also
expected to keep notes on every port we visit. Notes should be thorough, insightful, and
based on concrete observations or detailed mullings.

GENRE ANALYSIS ESSAY (10%)

Students must demonstrate an understanding of each of the three primary genres under
study, based on close readings of the texts required for class. For example, those who elect
to write about fiction must include references to John Gardner, James Joyce, and Annie
LaMott. The essay should be framed as a letter to new writers of the genre, in kind like
Letters to a Young Poet, but with clear references to class readings. Students will be graded
on their understanding of audience, ability to include relevant selections from class readings,
and liveliness of prose.

THREE GENRE WRITING

Students should demonstrate that they understand and have mastered the basic conventions
of each of the following genres.

FICTION (10%)
POETRY (10%)
NONFICTION (10%)

FINAL PROJECT (25%)

Students must demonstrate a thorough understanding of one genre, in their extended piece
of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry.

PARTICIPATION (15%)
Students will be graded not only on their cheerful and fulsome participation in class
discussions and workshops, but their written responses to their peers in workshops will also
be taken into account.

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS

AUTHOR: John Gardner

TITLE: The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
PUBLISHER: Vintage
ISBN #: 978-0679734031
DATE/EDITION: 1991

AUTHOR: Rainer Maria Rilke

TITLE: Letters to a Young Poet
PUBLISHER: Modern Library
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ISBN#: 978-0679642329
DATE/EDITION: 2008

AUTHOR: Elizabeth Bishop

TITLE: Geography III
PUBLISHER: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN #: 978-0374530655
DATE/EDITION: 2001

AUTHOR: Anne LaMott

TITLE: Bird by Bird
PUBLISHER: Anchor
ISBN#: 978-0385480017
DATE/EDITION: 1995

AUTHOR: James Joyce

TITLE: Dubliners
PUBLISHER: Dover Thrift Editions
ISBN #: 978-0486268705
DATE/EDITION: 1991

AUTHOR: Tahir Shah

TITLE: The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca
PUBLISHER: Bantam
ISBN#: 978-0553383102
DATE/EDITION: 2006

EDITOR: Lee Gutkind

BOOK TITLE: Keeping It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Research and Writing
Creative Nonfiction
PUBLISHER: WW Norton
ISBN 978-0393330984
DATE/EDITION: February 2009

TOPICAL OUTLINE OF COURSE

A1- August 27: Course Introduction and In-class writing

A2-August 29: Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, the following essays: Writing, Getting
started
Short assignments, Shitty first drafts, Perfectionism, School lunches, Polaroids

August 30-September 1: St. Petersburg

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A3- September 3: Selection from John Gardner, The Art of Fiction.

September 4-7: Copenhagen

A4- September 9: James Joyce, Dubliners.

September 10-12: Antwerp

September 13-15: Le Havre

A5- September 17: James Joyce, Dubliners.

September 18: Arrive & Depart Galway

September 19: In Transit
September 20-21: Dublin

A6- September 23: John Gardner, Selections from The Art of Fiction.

September 25-27: Lisbon

September 28-30: Cadiz

A7- October 1: Selections from The Caliph’s House

October 3-6: Casablanca

A8- October 7: Selections from The Caliph’s House

A9- October 9: Letters to a Young Poet.

A10- October 12: Writing Workshop

October 13-16: Tema

A11- October 18: Letters to a Young Poet.

A12- October 21: Letters to a Young Poet.

October 23-27: Cape Town

A13- October 28: Writing Workshop

A14- October 31: Elizabeth Bishop, Geography III

A15- November 2: Writing Workshop—Final Project Draft

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A16- November 5: Writing Workshop—Final Project Draft

November 7-9: Buenos Aires

November 10-12: Montevideo

A17- November 13: Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, the following short essays: Character, Plot,
Dialogue, Set design, False starts, Plot treatment, How do you know when you're done?

A18- November 15: Selections from Lee Gutkind, Keeping It Real.

November 16-18: Rio de Janeiro

A19- November 20: Selections from Lee Gutkind, Keeping it Real.

A20- November 22: Writing Workshop—Final Project.

A21- November 25: (enter Amazon) Read Annie LaMott’s Bird by Bird, the following essays:
The writing frame of mind; The moral point of view; Broccoli; Radio Station KFKD; and Jealousy.

November 27-29: Manaus

A22- December 1: (exit Amazon) Writing Workshop—Final Project

A23- December 3: Writing Workshop—Final Project

A24- December 10: A Day Finals

FIELD LAB

Proposal #1: Rabat, Memory, and Writing

Explore the sights of Rabat and practice place-based writing: a series of exercises in three genres,
from three temporal points-of-view.

Starting with an hour long train ride from Casablanca to Rabat, students will be asked to practice a
three-part, daylong set of exercises in creative writing. The day is organized around three ways of
observing Rabat—as a particle, a wave, and a field—a series of exercises or practices itself loosely
based on tagmemic linguistics. Students must practice writing in three genres—poetry, fiction, or
nonfiction—during the day.

Particle/Poetry
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This observational practice is related to Modernist ideas of seeing the “thing” itself, exactly as it is.
Students will write in their notebooks about the hour long train ride from Casablanca to Rabat,
taking down every detail, writing a description of someone they see on the train, observing the
train itself, and looking at what is passing by outside the train. This writing is confined to what is
happening in the moment, what is immediately present. It is designed to help students become
good observers. We will review the ways in which poems are patterned, their metaphors and
returns, what language can do, how it can flex.

Wave/Nonfiction This writing practice demands that students look at an event, an object, a place,
or a person as it, he, or she exists across time. In other words, this exercise asks students to look at
something historically, from when it began to where it will eventually go. We will do this exercise
in Kasbah des Oudaias, the oldest part of the city, imagining its origins and its future. We will
enter the kasbah through the Almohad gate of Bab Oudaia, built in 1195, and proceed to walk
along the Rue Jamaa. Reference will be made to Shah’s The Caliph’s House and the principles of
good nonfiction writing we can see operating in that book—and, with luck, in our own work, too.

Field/Fiction This third writing practice requires students not only to observe something closely in
the present, and explore how it changes over time, from its past to its future; this prompt requires
students to explore how something compares to all the other somethings in the same field, or
species. For example, you would not only minutely study an oak tree, describe that oak tree’s life
from acorn to ultimate decay, but for field/fiction you would describe oak trees generally—pin
oaks, gray oaks, dead oaks, etc. We will go to the Museum of Archaeology, ask you to find an
exhibit or artifact that you like, describe it in relation to all the other artifacts or exhibits like it, and
write the first draft of a story related to it. Structure, pacing, dialogue, and the general components
of fiction will be reviewed.

On the train ride home and for homework based on the day’s travels, students will expand their
draft of poetry, fiction, or nonfiction into a finished product.

Proposal #2: Imagining Dublin

Explore firsthand the literary history of Dublin and see the places of James Joyce’s Dubliners.

The day will begin at the Dublin Writers Museum at No. 18 Parnell Street. Students will get a
general sense of the rich literary tradition of the city. A guided tour of the museum by the curator
will be included. Following our general tour of the literary lights of London, we will go to 35
North Great George’s Street, to the James Joyce Center. Getting our audio tour materials there, we
will commence on a two-hour walking tour of the sites of Dubliners, listening to recordings of the
stories as we seek the places where they are set. We will eat our lunch along the way. In the
afternoon we will go to the National Museum of Ireland to see and write about the bodies perfectly
preserved in peat bogs, such as the Celtic nobleman whose perfectly manicured hand is still
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preserved, hundreds of years later. We will end our day at Oliver St. John Gogartys (the name of a
friend of James Joyce and WB Yeats), a pub where traditional Irish music is played from 2:30pm
to 2:30am every day.

Students will take notes throughout the entire day, and will be evaluated both on their participation
on the trip and on the eight-to-ten-page stories, linked poems, or nonfiction essay they write related
to what they heard and saw. Their creative work will be graded based upon its originality,
creativity, and knowledge of the conventions of contemporary poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

RESERVE LIBRARY LIST

AUTHOR: Sarah Jane Sloane

TITLE: The I Ching for Writers
PUBLISHER: New World Library
ISBN #: 978-1577314967
DATE/EDITION: 2005

AUTHOR: Paul Bowles

TITLE: The Stories of Paul Bowles
PUBLISHER: Harper Perennial
ISBN #: 978-0061137044
DATE/EDITION: Special Edition, 2006

AUTHOR: E.M. Forster

TITLE: Aspects of the Novel
PUBLISHER: Mariner Books
ISBN #: 978-0156091800
DATE/EDITION: Any edition/Original is 1956

AUTHOR: John Gardner

TITLE: On Becoming a Novelist
PUBLISHER: Norton
ISBN#: 978-0393320039
DATE/EDITION: 1999

ELECTRONIC COURSE MATERIALS

AUTHOR: Gregory Spotz

ARTICLE/CHAPTER TITLE: The Teachable Talent: Why Creative Writing Can Be Taught
JOURNAL/BOOK TITLE: Poets and Writers
VOLUME: 40(5)
DATE: Sept/Oct 2012
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PAGES: 102-110

AUTHOR: Natalie Goldberg

ARTICLE/CHAPTER TITLE: We are Not the Poem
BOOK TITLE: Writing Down The Bones
PUBLISHER: Shambhala Library Edition
ISBN#: 978-1590307946
DATES: 2010
PAGES: 40-42

AUTHOR: ?
ARTICLE/CHAPTER TITLE: Markets
JOURNAL/BOOK TITLE: Writer
VOLUME: 125(8)
DATE: August 2012
PAGES: 43-47

AUTHOR: Francine Prose

ARTICLE/CHAPTER TITLE: Going Native
JOURNAL/BOOK TITLE: In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction
PUBLISHER: Norton
DATE: 2005
PAGES: 356-367

AUTHOR: Lee Gutkind

ARTICLE/CHAPTER TITLE:
JOURNAL/BOOK TITLE: Creative Nonfiction: How to Live It and Write It
PUBLISHER: Chicago Review Press
DATE:1996
PAGES:

AUTHOR: Lee Gutkind

ARTICLE/CHAPTER TITLE: The Creative Nonfiction Police
BOOK TITLE: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative
Nonfiction—from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything In Between
PUBLISHER: Da Capo Lifelong Books
DATE: 2012
PAGES: 32-42

AUTHOR: Dinty Moore

ARTICLE/CHAPTER TITLE: Writing the Memoir Essay
BOOK TITLE: Crafting the Personal Essay: A Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Non-
fiction
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PUBLISHER: Writer’s Digest Books

DATE: 2010
PAGES: 26-37

AUTHOR: Robert Boswell

ARTICLE/CHAPTER TITLE: Process and Paradigm
BOOK TITLE: The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction
PUBLISHER Graywolf
DATE: 2008
PAGES: 27-46

AUTHOR: Gotham Writers’ Workshop and Alexander Steele

Chapter Title: Fiction: The What, How, and Why of It
BOOK TITLE: Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York’s Acclaimed Creative
Writing School
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury
DATE: 2003
PAGES: 1-24

AUTHOR: Susan Stewart

CHAPTER TITLE: Metaphor and Music
BOOK TITLE: The Poet’s Freedom: A Notebook on Making
PUBLISHER: University of Chicago Press
DATE: 2011
PAGES: Not available

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

HONOR CODE
Semester at Sea students enroll in an academic program administered by the University of
Virginia, and thus bind themselves to the University’s honor code. The code prohibits all acts of
lying, cheating, and stealing. Please consult the Voyager’s Handbook for further explanation of
what constitutes an honor offense.

Each written assignment for this course must be pledged by the student as follows: “On my honor
as a student, I pledge that I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment.” The pledge
must be signed, or, in the case of an electronic file, signed “[signed].”