Course Overview:

This course introduces students to the basic tools needed to generate and interrogate new plays. Through reflection on the qualities that make for engaging scripts, we will scrutinize our own ideas about what plays ARE or MUST DO in written form. We will read plays for their structures, for their stories, for their characters, images, etc. We will pick them apart and then piece them back together. We will ask ourselves, “How does this thing work?”

Playwriting is a craft.

We will focus on adopting skills and practicing techniques, which we will gather through various readings (scripts and otherwise) as well as our conversations together. Reading, writing, and responding will all function as a mutually-perpetuating cycle through which we will cultivate our aesthetic tastes. This course emphasizes feedback as a crucial element in that cycle, so we will take extra care to tend to our relationships with our classroom collaborators. Note: There is no correct way to write plays. There is only your way. But you will have to make your own map to get there. 

Course Objectives:

1. We will articulate a common language for analyzing playwriting craft.

2. We will read scripts, watch performances, respond, and discuss the techniques employed.

3. We will practice discipline in our own writing.

4. We will offer productive feedback.

5. We will invite generative scrutiny.

6. We will collaborate.

7. We will imagine.

8. *________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________

*This is, after all, a writing course. Much will depend on self-reflection. In large part, you will direct yourself toward what you (want to) (aim to) (need to) learn, so I ask that you compose at least one major personal objective. What is it that you want out of our time together?

CRW 325F  l  Fiction Writing

Instructor:  Cásares, O

Unique #: 31460

Semester: Fall 2019

Cross-lists: n/a

Prerequisites: One of the following: C L 315, E 303D (or 603B), (316K,) 316L, 316M, 316N, 316P, or T C 303D (or 603B).

Description: This Creative Writing course focuses on the mechanics (structure, narrative voice, dialogue, character development, etc.) within selected fiction, allowing you to study the different elements you will use later as you write your own short stories.

Texts: Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Pearson/Longman (Publisher); How Not to Write Bad,Ben Yagoda, Riverhead Books; Various Handouts.

Requirements & Grading: You are required to write two short sketches (3-4 pages) and two short stories (each 6-10 pages) that will be discussed in a workshop setting or individual conference. One of the short stories will be revised for an additional grade.  As part of your Class Participation grade, you will read each other student drafts and write peer reviews.  For the student work discussed in class, you will be responsible for writing detailed critiques (1-2 pages).  I will also provide written feedback that should help you to revise certain assignments.

Attendance is required.  There will be no final exam.

Classroom participation/Quizzes/Written Critiques: 20%; Two Sketches and Two Stories, plus one revision: 80%.

CRW 325F  l  Fiction Writing

Instructor:  Harvey, J (aka E Carey)

Unique #:  34140

Semester:  Fall 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites: One of the following: C L 315, E 303D (or 603B), (316K,) 316L, 316M, 316N, 316P, or T C 303D (or 603B).

Description: In this class, we will discuss, dissect, criticize, and write short fiction.  We will examine through each other's work and through work previously written the possibilities of the short story.  We shall examine topics such as character, dialogue, setting, plot and language.  Students will read each other’s work with rigor and generosity.

Requirements & Grading: Attendance: Regular attendance is essential.  A workshop class is a community, and if you don’t show up to discuss your colleagues’ work, there’s no reason for them to read yours with any attention.

You may miss two classeswithout it affecting the final grade in your class.  You will fail the class after four absences.  Perfect attendance will improve your grade.  Please let me know ahead of time if you know you will miss a class for any reason.

Please be on time to class.  More than four late arrivals will affect your final grade.

Please submit stories to the class via e-mail before classthe day your story is due. I will send out an e-mail list after the first class meeting.  Make sure your work is double-spaced and page-numbered.

Laptops are not allowed to be open and on during class.  Please bring in hard copies of all notes you may need to consult.

All work must be original—that is both your own work, and written for this class.  Please do not recycle work written for other courses.  Do not submit work written by other people, even substantially rewritten.  That includes characters and scenarios: please, no fan fiction or alternate versions of other people’s published work.  If you have any questions, please talk to me.  For additional information on Academic Integrity, see http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/acadint.php 

FOR WORKSHOP:  you are required to read the other students’ work and to type at least two paragraphs of respectful critical response.  Please bring in two copies of your critiques, one for the author, and one for me in hard copy.  If I don’t have a hard copy of your student critiques, they will be marked as missing.  You are responsible for critiques even if you are absent for the workshop.

GRADING:  WRITTEN COMMENTS ON OTHER STUDENTS’ WORK: 15%; CLASS PARTICIPATION: 20%; CLASS ASSIGNMENTS: 20%; FIRST STORY: 20%; SECOND STORY: 25%; each story must be a minimum of six pages, double-spaced.

CRW 325P  l  Poetry Writing

Instructor:  Reeves, R

Unique #: 34155

Semester: Fall 2019

Cross-lists: n/a

Prerequisites:  One of the following: C L 315, E 303D (or 603B), (316K,) 316L, 316M, 316N, 316P, or T C 303D (or 603B).

Description:  The Craft of Poetry and Poetry Writing –

This course will be structured in the manner of a poetry laboratory (what used to be called a workshop). However, this course will also be reading intensive in an effort to glean what we can, in terms of craft, from the masters.  The class will focus upon writing, revising, and engaging the intellectual, aesthetic, and cultural landscape that is American poetry.  We will begin with an examination of the line (long lines, short lines, medium-length lines) and weave our way through discussions of language, rhetorical and literary devices, camps / schools/ eras of poetry writing, the politics of the page, open and received forms, and even outlandish discussions of poetry’s efficacy, use, or contemporaneity.  However, these discussions will not be only loose scraps of blab.  We will experiment with these in our own work (i.e. the line, concrete language, imagery, received forms, etc.).  The experimentations will take the form of assignments as well as your own endeavors to evoke and invoke these new muses.  In this course, you will be responsible for writing poems that do not merely engage your own ideas of poetry, but instead, you will write poems that seek to further our understanding of poetry.

Texts:  Zong!, M. NourbeSe Philip; Heavenly Questions, Gjertrud Schnackenberg.

Requirements & Grading: Oh, how we rue this portion of the program.  The infamous grades—in a poetry writing class nevertheless—“how on earth will he do it,” ask the students.  Here’s how:

• 20% of your grade comes from class participation.  Class participation is contributing to the class conversation.  In other words, if there is a discussion, you talk.
• 80% of your grade comes from the written assignment and will be broken down as such:
• 60% poems turned in to workshop / discuss.  Throughout the semester, we will workshop your work (poems).  You will know the week before that you will be workshopped and should prepare accordingly.  I will “grade” your poems in terms of following the prescribed guidelines I set out for each assignment.  For instance, if we are doing a unit on long lines and concrete language, and your poem has short lines and abstract language, then obviously this poem will not curry a high grade.  Understand.  Also, part of this grade is offering written feedback to your peers.  You will turn in a minimum of one paragraph to each peer whose work we are workshopping each week.  Just for your own general knowledge, a paragraph consists of a minimum of eight sentences.  You can always turn in more.  You will also turn in that same paragraph to me.  I will discuss what feedback should sound like and seek to elucidate for the writer as we get closer to workshopping.
• 20% Final Portfolio.  Your final portfolio will consist of a minimum of six poems (a total of 10 original pages of poetry).  Not only should the portfolio contain all of the drafts in reverse chronological order (i.e. newest draft of the poem on top and so on), but you should also write a three- to five-page craft essay on how your work has developed and changed over the semester in regards to the readings, the critiques, and your general understanding of poetry.  This will be due at the end of the semester.  As we get closer to that time, I will go over this in more detail.

Description:

This course will require students to write critical essays as well as theatrical pieces about the performance of black identity in America. Participants will also give oral presentations and perform readings of their work using various African-American performance styles. Students will read texts that examine African-American performance, contemporary black identity, and expressive culture.

Texts:

Brandi Wilkins Catanese, Problem of the Color[blind]: Racial Transgression and the Politics of Black Performance

Nicole R. Fleetwood, Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness

E. Patrick Johnson, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity

Lynn Nottage, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark

Suzan-Lori Parks, The America Play and Other Works

Cherise Smith, Enacting Others

August Wilson, The Ground on Which I Stand

George C. Wolfe, The Colored Museum

CRW 330  l  Literature for Writers

Instructor:  Berry, B

Unique #:  34185

Semester:  Fall 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites: One of the following: CRW 325 (or E 325), 325F (or E 325F), 325M, 325P (or E 325P).

Description: “Literature for Writers” is a fledgling course, though new courses are frequently the perfect opportunity in which to create unique and vibrant writing.  CRW 330, originally created for graduate creative writers, is only in its second semester at the undergraduate level, so we are all getting in on the ground floor of what I plan to be a memorable course.  The class will introduce to creative writers literary readings that inspire, motivate, and encourage the best from one’s own work.  Sportswriter Red Smith famously quipped “Writing’s easy.  You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.”  But focused assignments and professional advice on what to write and how to do so can make the job easier, ideally resulting in solid, memorable results.  Thoughtful direction, motivation, and imaginative prompts that seek imaginative responses are tools of the trade that I will use to encourage the best writing from my students, forging a strong foundation for the future of your craft, what I like to call the writing life.

We will look with a careful eye at several successful writers whose prose offers highly “teachable” literature.  We will focus on such strategies as point of view, voice, place, atmosphere, author imitation, character names and development, and of course plot.  We will neither study nor be writing sci-fi, fantasy (gothic or otherwise), or YA (as in Young Adult).

Texts: We will most likely be using a textbook by the aptly named Francine Prose, Reading for Writers: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them.  (I might also be using various writing examples and suggestions from Janet Burroway’s Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, but this text will not be required.)  We will also be reading Australian writer Kate Jennings’ novel Snake, a unique novel in its plot and telling, probably like nothing you have ever read.  We will read from master stylist Ernest Hemingway’s first story collection, In Our Time, published when Hemingway was 27.  We will also be reading a memoir, which is what I am working on in my own writing at present, so I won’t have a final choice in that important category until nearer the beginning of our course.  I will post required course texts on Canvas when they are available.

Requirements & Grading: There will be weekly writing briefs, written responses to both the readings and my own writing assignment concoctions (which I try to make challenging, fun, and rewarding).  One piece of writing will be initiated early and revised through the semester.  Specifics will be outlined on the course syllabus, presently a work in progress.

CRW 330  l  Literature for Writers

Instructor:  Heinzelman, K

Unique #:  34180

Semester:  Fall 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites: One of the following: CRW 325 (or E 325), 325F (or E 325F), 325M, 325P (or E 325P).

Description: The official name of this course is “Literature for Writers,” but I would prefer to call it “Reading Like a Writer,” which is also the title of a wonderful book by an author with the wholly appropriate name of Francine Prose.  Her book is subtitled: “A Guide for People Who Love Books And For Those Who Want to Write Them.”  I recommend this text highly to all prospective students.

The texts that we will be “reading as writers” will be composed in both prose and verse, for the simple reason that prose writers can learn much about rhythm, figurative language, and structure from reading lyrics, just as poets can learn much about narrative, character, and timing from reading fiction.

Some of the literary works will focus on poetic or narrative forms; others will be thematic—e.g., writing about place or about art (the technical term for the latter is ekphrasis); and still others will introduce comparative analyses—e.g., of why one translation is “better” than another.

Requirements & Grading: There will be weekly writing briefs—short responses to the week’s literary reading; there will be creative responses (in prose and/or verse) to the readings, 3 over the course of the term; and there will be one final creative work.  No exams—no final, no quizzes—but students will be periodically giving oral presentations on the weekly textual assignments, which will require some original research on their part.

Students are permitted two absences without penalty.  More than that and the final grade will be affected.  Grading scale: final essay and creative responses = 60%; class participation and responses to weekly reading = 40%

COURSE OVERVIEW

“A composer knows his work as a woodsman knows a path he has traced and retraced, while a listener is confronted by the same work as one is in the woods by a plant he has never seen before.” - John Cage

One of the great pleasures of undertaking a new project is that we get to (and, I think, must) experience our works in both of Cage’s modes. When we write, we carve a path through a narrative wilderness for others to follow while at the same time observing the new environment for ourselves. In other words, what we discover in the exploration informs the small choices we make to guide the journey. We notice as we decide. This is my favorite metaphor for writing a new project. Who hasn’t looked up in the middle of their first draft to realize that, at that moment, they’re mostly just lost in the woods?

I’m setting out a very simple goal for us this semester. We will each write the first draft of a new full-length play. If we are successful, about 14 brand-new, totally unique, never-seen-or-read-before plays will be brought into the world.

To achieve this, I’ve tried to structure the class to accommodate your emerging processes and interests, while also prodding your eye and dramaturgical assumptions. Periodically, we’ll pause our workshopping to read other plays and ask ourselves how they are in conversation with the field. Hopefully, through the process of comparative analysis, we’ll grow more curious and tolerant of the surfacing natures of our own work. Our voices and interests have their own histories, after all, whether or not we’re aware of them.

One last thought: Starting out as writers, we spend a lot of time learning how to write. The next life-long step is learning again and again how to write like ourselves. I believe that process is rooted fundamentally in learning to notice the woods of our imagination. It doesn’t matter how experienced we are – Take risks. Let’s make sure the next play we write scares us into seeing ourselves fresh. Treat this course like an expedition.

COURSE OVERVIEW

Writing’s hard, so most of the time, I just try not to be Kostya. You know Konstantin from The Seagull? That boy suffers for his art and it kills him, but near the end, just before he loses hope, he thinks he’s cracked it:

“The more I write, the more I think it’s not a matter of old forms and new forms: what’s important is to write without thinking about forms at all. Just write and pour out whatever’s in your heart.”

At first glance, this philosophy appeals, doesn’t it? Knowing what happens next in The Seagull, I might think twice: Kostya applies this writing approach to his reunion with Nina, pouring everything he’s ever felt, revealing the ardent shapelessness of his love, its ardent formlessness, only for her to slip back out the door into the night, forever. There was no room for her to live in this love. I wonder if this tragedy is one of a person who can only live in ardent first drafts.

Don’t be Kostya. While first drafts are acts of Will, Revision is an ethic of Love. It requires attention, flexibility, trust. It’s having the courage to recognize the center of your play as it lives in you, then deepening, forming it. Don’t just “Kill Babies (yuck), nurture them. Make compositional choices that will allow the things you adore to flourish. Maturity in writing isn’t just learning what to say “No” to. It’s understanding what deserves a committed “Yes.”

But be careful! Good first drafts are themselves found texts. They have their own form and integrity (like Nina, maybe). Before you start fixing your play, you have to first learn What you actually wrote? Bring a generous eye to this task: Identifying what works and what doesn’t need not entirely determine what gets to stay in your play. Often the thing that works the least, the thing that you can neither cut nor defend, is the key to unlocking the piece.

Once you have a feel for what your intuition left behind for you, we can dig into some well-worn revision techniques. Most playwrights ask the same sets of questions of their plays to make them feel “done,” so I’ll share some of those checklists with you, as well as others I’ve found helpful in my own process. But as useful as those questions are (and they are useful, especially when it comes to creating a smooth audience experience), I sincerely hope these tools will prove insufficient. If you’re doing the work, the real, serious work of being an artist, your play in its most potent form will ask questions you don’t know how to answer. This will be frustrating, this patience, this listening, so try to be open and ready. (Don’t be Kostya.)

Fortunately, we have each other to help push us through drafts, call bullshit, and remind us of the good work we’ve already done to get here. In the end, you’ll have a play, one more crafted, more confident, more itself. If you do this right, it will still pour out of your heart, only now you’ll have a better sense of the heart that formed it and how others might share in it with you. I’d wager there’s no better reason to write.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

1. To work through two full revisions of your new play.

2. To develop playwriting terminology, challenge it, and apply it to our work.

3. To undertake committed dramaturgical relationships

4. To practice tools for submission and the business of playwriting

5. _________________________________

CRW 355F  l  Advanced Fiction Workshop

Instructor:  Cásares, O

Unique #:  34210

Semester:  Fall 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites: CRW 340F (or E 341).

Description: This is the final fiction workshop available to students earning their Creative Writing Certificate.  Students will write three original short stories for our workshops. Original, in this case, means work produced exclusively for this course and not previously discussed in another class. Along with the workshop stories, students will read and discuss published work assigned by the professor.

Class Policies: Students will submit hardcopies of their stories on three due dates.  Stories need to be double-sided, double-spaced, and page-numbered.  One of your first two stories may be revised substantially and submitted as your third story.

Each story needs to be at least 8 pages and no longer than 20 pages in length.  These should be complete stories and not novel excerpts.  The focus of this course is literary fiction, which means your work, regardless of the subject matter, will need to have fully developed characters and be more than simply plot driven.

WORKSHOP:  To prepare for our workshop, students will write a one-page critique, double-spaced, for every story we discuss.  Please staple a hardcopy of your critique to the workshop story, and email me a copy of your critique in word.doc.  Critiques need to arrive before class to receive credit for the assignment.  No exceptions.  You are responsible for these critiques even if you are absent from class.  These critiques will make up a significant part of your final grade.

ATTENDANCE: You may miss only two classes without it negatively affecting your final grade.  Students missing more than four classes will fail the course.  Arriving late for more than four classes will also lower your grade.  Students are required to be present for their own workshop.  Attending every class and contributing to our discussion will help your grade.

Laptops, tablets, and phones are not allowed during class.  Please bring hardcopies of any material we are discussing that day in class.

GRADING:  Your final grade will be based on your 3 short stories (or 2 stories + 1 revision), critiques, and participation in class.  3 STORIES/REVISION: 60%; CRITIQUES: 20%; and CLASS PARTICIPATION: 20%.

CRW 355F  l  Advanced Fiction Workshop

Instructor: Van Reet, B.

Unique #:  34215

Semester: Fall 2019

Cross-lists: n/a

 Prerequisites: CRW 340F (or E 341)

Description: Students in this advanced fiction class will write and workshop two stories, and will revise one of them.  Each story must be at least 12 double-spaced pages and no more than 25.  Novel excerpts or a series of flash pieces may be submitted, per instructor approval.

Students will also write one- to two-page responses to their peers’ stories.  Bring two copies of these responses to class: one for the instructor, and one for the student being workshopped.

Finally, students will choose one of their stories to revise and submit as part of an end-of-semester portfolio to include all written work for the class.

There will be readings and discussions from three texts.

Texts: Twilight of the Superheroes, Deborah Eisenberg; The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, Denis Johnson; Story, Robert McKee (a book on screenwriting principles to consider as fiction writers).

Requirements & Grading:  80 percent final portfolio, graded solely on the completion and quality of the writing and revision.  20 percent participation in class.

More than two absences will affect the grade.  Perfect attendance may improve it.  Missing a day when your story is being workshopped may result in an F for the story.  Plagiarism or more than four absences may result in an F for the course.  All materials used in class will be hard copy.  No laptops/screens in class.  No stories featuring characters invented by other writers (i.e., fan fiction).  No stories about writing workshops or anyone in class.  The instructor and students will respond to each other with thoughtful generosity.

CRW 355F  l  Advanced Fiction Workshop

Instructor:  Harvey, J (aka E Carey)

Unique #:  34190

Semester:  Fall 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites: CRW 340F (or E 341).

Description: We will discuss, criticize, and write short fiction.  Students will read each other’s work with rigor and generosity.  Students will write three original stories for class.

Class Policies: Stories will be submitted via e-mail to your fellow students the morning your story is due.  Make sure your work is double-spaced and page-numbered.

Stories should be at least 8 pages and no longer than 25.  No novel excerpts, please.  All work must be original—both your own work, and written for this class.  Please do not recycle work written for other courses.

Please do not write stories with characters invented by other authors.  And, of course, do not submit work written by other people, even substantially rewritten.  For the purposes of this class, I also ask that you do not allow other people to edit your work.  For additional information on Academic Integrity, see http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/acadint.php.

A workshop class is a community, if you do not show up to discuss your colleagues work, there’s no reason for them to read yours with any attention.  Much of what you will learn about fiction will be from each other—you will see how actual readers interpret and respond to your work.  If you miss the day of your own workshop you may receive an F for the assignment.

You may miss two classeswithout it affecting the final grade in your class.  You will fail the class after four absences.  Perfect attendance will improve your grade.  Please let me know ahead of time if you know you will miss a class for any reason.

Please be on time to class.  More than four late arrivals will affect your final grade.

Laptops are not allowed to be open and on during class.  Please bring in hard copies of all notes you may need to consult.

All work must be original—that is both your own work, and written for this class.  Please do not recycle work written for other courses.  Do not submit work written by other people, even substantially rewritten.  That includes characters and scenarios: please, no fan fiction or alternate versions of other people’s published work.  If you have any questions, please talk to me.  For additional information on Academic Integrity, see http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/acadint.php.

FOR WORKSHOP:  you are required to read the other students’ work and to type at least two paragraphs of respectful critical response.  Please bring in two copies of your critiques, one for the author, and one for me in hard copy.  If I don’t have a hard copy of your student critiques, they will be marked as missing.  You are responsible for critiques even if you are absent for the workshop.

GRADING: Your final grade will be based on both your written work in the class, and also your participation.  You will receive letter grades on written assignments.

EXTRA CREDIT:  You may earn extra credit by attending readings by authors on campus or at local bookstores and writing a one-page response.  If you are unsure of whether a writer qualifies or not, please ask me.

The breakdown of grading follows:  FIRST STORY, 20%; SECOND STORY: 20%; THIRD STORY: 20%; REVISION: 10%; WRITTEN COMMENTS ON OTHER STUDENTS’ WORK: 15%; CLASS PARTICIPATION: 15%.

CRW 355P  l  Advanced Poetry Workshop

Instructor:  Young, D

Unique #:  34205

Semester:  Fall 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites: CRW 340P (or E 341L).

Description: This is a class for practicing poets with workshop experience.  While emphasis will be upon work written by students in the class, we will also foster a vital connection to the work of contemporary and past poets.  Students will be expected to work not only on their own poems but also their ability to articulate a sophisticated and informed relationship to poetry in general.

Requirements & Grading: About a poem a week to be submitted for workshop although all these poems will not be addressed in class.

Ongoing written responses to the work of classmates as well as occasional assignments made at the discretion of the professor.

Attendance. Active and vocal engagement demonstrated in class consistently.

A final portfolio of about five poems, the majority of them substantially revised in response to workshop feedback.