English 340—Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry
Spring 2007 [updated 04/24/2007]
TR 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm Candelaria 0065 {Jan 16, 2007 - May 11, 2007}
contact info | required books | prerequisites | intro to course | about the workshop | practical guidelines |
The Disability Access Center | summary of course requirements | Final Portfolio guidelines | Advisories | Basic concepts | Plagiarism |
how to turn off Autocorrect in MS Word and automatic corrections in WordPerfect | schedule of assignments |
Office: Ross 1170A
Hrs: TR 10:30-11:30 a.m., 1:30—2:00 p.m. & 5:00-6:00 p.m.,
and T 9:00-9:30 p.m.
MWF by arrangement.
Phone: (970) 351-1476 / e-mail: jeffrey.lee@unco.edu
website: www.unco.edu/poetry/jeffrey.lee
Hours in class:
ENG 340 ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING: POETRY
TR 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Candelaria 0065
ENG 639-011: POETRY SEMINAR & WORKSHOP
T 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Ross 2260
MIND 288: 011 CONTEMPORARY ARTS CONNECTIONS
TR 3:30 pm - 4:45 pm McKee 0223
Required Books are at the B&N at UNC
They Sing at Midnight by Alison Stone
[MMM Press, ISBN 1-886976-14-7]
A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
[New Directions, ISBN 0-8112-0041-8]
Raw Silk by Meena Alexander
[Northwestern University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8101-5158-8]
Imaginarium by Lynn Levin
[Loonfeather Press, ISBN 0-926147-18-8]
Terrestrials by Eric Nelson
[Texas Review Press, ISBN 1-881515-65-6]
Old Man Laughing by Robert King [forthcoming from Ghost Road Press]
The Crucible: the UNC literary/arts magazine #14 & 16 [PRICE = $7.00]
Many Mountains Moving Vol VII No. 1 [ISBN 1-886976-19-1]
& Selected web sites and handouts.
INTRODUCTION:
Dialogue between writers is the soil from which many great works have been born. Friendships between writers are often much more than moral support; writers help each other in very profound ways. When a writer has a friend who really understands what she or he is doing, this understanding reader often fosters more creative and inventive and interesting writing. There are many instances in the history of literature when literary friends helped to create a great classic. In our class, the same ideas apply. We will strive to create conditions in which literary friendships can evolve so that you can become constructive insightful readers for each other as well as inspiring writers for each other.
Constructive dialogues enable you to develop more self-awareness as you see yourself participating in a larger literary world. If you have ever thought of your creative writings as belonging solely to yourself, here you have to agree that your writings belong to a larger society. This is a great opportunity because it means your work has an audience that cares; it is also a great burden because it means your work has an audience that cares.
ABOUT the Readings:
You CANNOT become a strong writer without becoming a strong reader; you need to read in a deeper way than most people do. Creative writers need more imaginative and personally meaningful ways of reading. All the great writers began as great readers. Writers have to experience the greatest depths of pleasure and pathos in reading before they can even know what to aim for as writers. But at the same time, writers read (and re-read) opportunistically, i.e. with a need, a hunger, a willingness to use, absorb, learn, and/or steal. Reading as a writer means studying the craft. In dialogues about literature, then, our goal is not just appreciation of literature for its own sake but for what makes it work, its techniques.
We will discuss literature by primarily contemporary writers:
* to appreciate the craft, forms, and techniques of poetry better....
* to give you the specific vocabulary (more advanced literary terms) to discuss writing....
* to inspire you to experiment....
* to increase your ability to see other perspectives and interpret other styles/aesthetics....
* and to help you understand and appreciate who the competition is!
NOTE: There will be some optional field trips to readings and nearby readings/slams that you may attend. There will also be opportunities for some of you to read in some public venues (many past 340 students have appeared on the Poetry Show on KRFC 88.9 FM). Qualified and highly motivated students may also become interns for Many Mountains Moving: a journal of diverse literary contemporaries.
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
The goal of workshop dialogues is to help you gain more independence about aesthetic decisions. The class helps you see the real consequences of each choice you make. In contrast to the ideas, positions, values of others, you must develop for yourself the insight and skills to overcome your own aesthetic, philosophical, technical, political and/or generic problems. Workshop participation is where you actually do much of the learning that happens in this class. It can be great fun, but it can also be extraordinarily hard work for your intellect and emotions.
[Important advice: if you ever feel that the whole class is biased against your kind of poetry or that I am biased against it, do not give up your rights to express your views to me or your classmates. It is always better to talk about these things rather than to let them fester and grow worse. Frequently, such feelings of bias are based on misunderstandings or miscommunications.]
THE WORKSHOP FORMAT
In this workshop, you read everything a week ahead and respond by writing on copies of the work before it is discussed. Further, I will collect from each of you a copy of all of your peer responses so that I can evaluate how seriously you are responding to your peers. The advantage here is that everyone takes the job of responding more seriously because it is a large part of your grade. You will help each other more and, ultimately, become more independent as writers. (NOTE: Your written feedback should supplement your oral feedback; it does not replace talking in class!)
Generally, participation in this class runs at or near 100%, which is how things ought to be.
[If you want to read an essay about the pedagogical theory behind this practice, go to this URL: http://www.schoolcraft.cc.mi.us/pdfs/cce/00HartingLoo.pdf
or try this link here. I wrote this essay with a friend and former colleague in creative writing.]
As a writer in a workshop, you learn to more effectively focus on those areas where your work needs critical attention.
In a typical week, as many as 8-9people will bring to the workshop a poem or a fragment of a longer poem (the maximum length is 1-2 pages typed). When it is your turn to present, you will read your work aloud to the group, and then the class will discuss it – starting with your own question – while you remain silent. You may respond afterwards, and the class may ask its own questions, as time permits.
We will get through as many as 8-9 people every week (so in a class of 17 or less, you would have to present new work every two weeks; in a class of 25, you would present every three weeks).
NOTE: YOU MUST MAKE COPIES OF YOUR OWN WORK FOR THE CLASS AND HAND IT OUT IN ADVANCE.
IF you miss your submission deadline for any reason, you may not be allowed to workshop the following week.
FURTHER, if you are absent without an acceptable excuse when it is your turn to get workshopped, you forfeit your turn in the workshop rotation.
Worse, if you miss two or more of your turns in the rotation, you may automatically fail.
Our goal is to create a comfortable environment for sharing work, so please follow these guidelines when you present work:
(i) Bring new work whenever possible.
Recycling old work almost always results in slower progress and less actual learning. Significant revisions of earlier work, however, are often a good thing to present to class.
(ii) Always bring at least one question about your work whenever you present anything.
If you are still evolving as a writer, you should have at least some doubt in your mind about some part of any new work. It is not as productive to bring old works about which you feel completely certain. (If you are sure it is perfect, you won’t need, or want, any help.)
(iii) Decide what you hope to accomplish with a work before you bring it to workshop.
You can help your peers get to the heart of the work if you think it through beforehand instead of abdicating all responsibility and depending on everyone else to decide what you have accomplished or failed to accomplish.
(iv) NEVER ask others to rewrite your work—your work is always your responsibility.
When you are responding:
(i) Try to discern the writer’s goals before you judge how successful the work is.
One has to know what a work is trying to do before one can judge if it works; one must
understand the needs of the work before one can constructively critique it.
(ii) Try not to prescribe remedies for someone else’s work.
This puts a writer in the position of a patient or, worse, a disease. Even though many ask for such treatment (imagining the short-term pain will be worth the long-term gain), any one standard that forecloses dialogue deprives someone of her/his chance to think creatively through the work.
(iii) Try to be as honest as possible but be aware of others’ feelings....
(iv) NEVER rewrite others’ work in your own voice....
(v) NEVER assume that any work is autobiographical....
Even if a writer says, “This really happened,” we will discuss the work without reference to anyone’s “real life.” But we will ask about the verisimilitude (or the life-like quality) of the work because readers need to willingly suspend their disbelief. Just because something really did happen does not mean it is credible.
The Disability Support Services Statement is as follows:
“Students with disabilities who believe they may need accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact the Disability Support Services at (970) 351-2289 as soon as possible to better ensure such accommodations are implemented in a timely fashion.”
If you have some special needs due to a disability or condition that is acknowledged by the university, please tell me during the first week of classes.
SUMMARY OF COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
(i) Write and present new work regularly (every week, every other week, or every third week, depending on class size). In the end, you must submit a final portfolio of works (10 double-spaced pages of poetry.) More than half of this work MUST have appeared in the workshop, and all of it should be revised.
35% OF YOUR FINAL GRADE COMES FROM THE FINAL PORTFOLIO.
(ii) Respond in writing on others’ drafts and respond aloud
in workshop dialogues. Your workshop participation reflects your development
as a writer within a community and your depth as a critical reader of the works
of others.
30% OF YOUR FINAL GRADE COMES FROM WRITTEN AND ORAL PARTICIPATION.
(iii) Read great poems and write about and discuss them. Reading
response logs are required HW. There will also be other HW assignments and
quizzes.
30% OF YOUR FINAL GRADE COMES FROM HW LOGS AND QUIZZES.
(iv) You must also have a one-on-one conference with me at some point during the term.
5% OF YOUR FINAL GRADE COMES FROM YOUR ONE-ON-ONE CONFERENCE. (This is a PASS/FAIL requirement i.e. if you show up before midterms, you pass this requirement.)
Final Portfolios—Principles & Practical Guidelines for Evaluation
Ideally, the work is moving, evocative, powerful and comprehensible. The feeling is fully realized.
Rule of thumb—it makes people want to read more.
The work demonstrates aesthetic sense appropriate to the needs of the subject of the work, and it shows an awareness of the needs of a real audience (however you define that).
Rule of thumb—it says what you intend to others. There are no inconsistencies or misleading or inadvertently offensive or obscure cues in the writing.
The manuscript represents your work in the best possible light, i.e. it has no mechanical, grammatical mistakes, unintended errors in factual information, misspellings etc.
Rule of thumb—it is ready to present to a total stranger like an editor.
The work shows growth, development, or increased range or depth or inventiveness:
(i) new works
(ii) revisions of earlier works—reflecting changes in aesthetic sense....
(iii) fresh, original, innovative, or engaging use of whatever genre is presented.
Rule of thumb—you feel a difference &/or other people notice a change.
Important: quality is far more important than quantity! Even if you have ten pages of outstanding material, your grade will be hurt if you surround it with lesser work. Be selective when you submit your final portfolio just as you would when you submit to any respectable publication.
Important: there are RED
FLAGS in poetry mss. that automatically disqualify them from being
published or read as seriously as they deserve. RED
FLAGS will pull down your grade.
It has happened in the past that a student will fail this course or have great difficulty because he/she does not believe in the value of the workshop process and/or the value of revision. This class is mostly an intense workshop, so you have to agree to work with the class this way. If you think that everything that pours out of yourself is perfect and it would be a violation of your integrity to revise anything, you may not be able to do your best here.
Some have also struggled or failed because of excessive unexcused absences or chronic tardiness.
It is even possible to fail due to intolerant attitudes e.g. sometimes a student thinks that others in the class are writing “filth.” If you feel this way and you antagonize your peers, you may be interfering with the rights of other students to learn. Please bear in mind that the subject matter that people decide to write about is entirely open and up to each writer in the class. In the past, poems have covered subjects such as alcohol and drug use, violence, sex, sexual situations, sexual violence, sexual humor, interracial dating, profanity, heresy, suicide, war, politics etc. If you are worried that will not be comfortable in a class where all the above, and more, is acceptable, please talk to me. Artists need artistic freedom, so it would be wrong for me or anyone in the class to censor or bully anyone in the class due to subject matter. There are a few things that are off limits though... (See “Your right to express moral, social, cultural, religious and political themes etc.... Special exceptions,” below.)
The concept of individual answerability in writing
There are no innocent bystanders in writing — you are answerable for your words. Even drug-induced and trance writings bear the individual stamp and style of the author whether s/he knows it or not. And even though it has become fashionable in some Postmodern poetics to say that one creates the work with inherent indeterminacies, letting readers add or subtract whatever they want, writers are still answerable for their abdication of answerability. The way one writes defines a self, a world, a style.
Your right to express moral, social, cultural, religious and political themes etc.
You are entitled to any view of the world that you choose in your writing. Just be aware that when you adopt a theme or a style that reflects a certain stance, you may offend others, and your peers are entitled to voice objections. If you state certain moral, immoral or amoral agendas, others may question them, especially when such issues interfere with the aesthetic of the work.
Keep in mind, however, that our job here is merely to improve creative writing, not to improve anyone’s views, solve world problems, or save lives. But it is worth noting that the greatest literature has almost always had moral (and other) dimensions beyond its aesthetics.
Special exceptions to the above....
Please follow commonsense – do not attack, harass, denigrate, slander, ridicule or brutally satirize anyone in our class. On the other hand, according to the law famous public figures are expected to tolerate some degree of attacks, ridicule and brutal satire etc. And if what you say about a public figure is true, it is not slander.
If your work is in a gray area, e.g. graphic violence, and you are not sure if it is appropriate to bring to class, please consult with me. A rule of thumb: if there is a distinct possibility that your work will upset others so much that they feel unable to participate in class with you, talk to me. There may be other ways to accommodate your work beyond the workshop.
Understanding the significance of genre in workshop
dialogues....
Beyond just finding one’s voice, every writer has to
search for the most perfect form or at least the most useful, potent or beautiful
method. In this search, everything begins with an understanding of genre. Understanding
the genre (including the audience, origin, or purpose of a work) reveals the
essential qualities a work has or lacks. The needs of the work may depend upon
the larger dialogue between the writer and his/her living audience. However
one may search for the true, the good, the beautiful, or give pleasure to an
audience, understanding the limits of genre strengthens one’s work.
If you ever knowingly use someone else’s writing and try to pass it off as your own to the professor, you may be guilty of plagiarism, which may warrant an automatic F. Plagiarism does not include acknowledged collaborations or other approved learning situations. (See the attached statement from UNC Student Rights and Responsibilities for more details.) Excerpted from “GENERAL UNIVERSITY INFORMATION AND POLICIES,”
“Student Rights and Responsibilities,” at http://www.unco.edu/dos/handbook/stuhndbk.htm
Academic Expectations Related to Student Conduct
In order to encourage and foster academic excellence, the University expects
students to conduct themselves in accordance with certain generally accepted
norms of scholarship and professional behaviors. Because of this expectation,
the University does not condone any form of academic misconduct. Academic misconduct
includes but is not limited to plagiarism, cheating, fabrication, and knowingly
or recklessly encouraging or making possible any act of plagiarism, cheating,
or fabrication. Academic misconduct is an unacceptable activity in scholarship
and is in conflict with academic and professional ethics and morals.
Consequently, students who are judged to have engaged in some form of academic
misconduct may be subject to (1) a zero or an "F" on the work in question,
(2) an "F" in the course, (3) other academic penalties as outlined
in the professor's course requirements and expectations, (4) disciplinary action
as specified in the Sanctions for Misconduct section below, or (5) any combination
thereof. Procedural due process, including the right to appeal, is to be followed
in making a determination of whether academic misconduct has occurred.
Generally, a student's intentions will not be the primary consideration in the
determination of whether academic misconduct has occurred. A student's intentions
will usually be considered only during the process of deciding on the appropriate
sanctions or penalties.
Plagiarism is the act of appropriating the written, artistic,
or musical composition of another, or portions thereof; or the ideas, language,
or symbols of same and passing them off as the product of one's own mind. Plagiarism
includes not only the exact duplication of another's work, but also the lifting
of a substantial or essential portion thereof.
Regarding written work in particular, direct quotations, statements
which are the result of paraphrasing or summarizing the work of another, and
other information which is not considered common knowledge must be cited or
acknowledged, usually in the form of a footnote. Quotation marks or a proper
form of indentation shall be used to indicate all direct quotations.
As long as a student adequately acknowledges his/her sources and as long as there is no reason to believe that the student has attempted to pose as the originator, the student will not be charged with plagiarism even though the form of the acknowledgment may be unacceptable. However, students should be aware that most professors require certain forms of acknowledgment and some may evaluate a project on the basis of form.
How to turn off AutoCorrect in MS Word & WordPerfect
(Useful information for poets)
Go to the TOOLS option in the taskbar at the top of the screen
and click on it.
You should see a choice in the drop down menu that says: “AutoCorrect
Options.” Click on this.
You should see a dialogue box where you can turn off features
such as:
Capitalize first letter of sentences.
If you look at the other tabs in the box, you can also turn off many other annoying features.
How to turn off automatic corrections in Corel WordPerfect 9, 10, 11 & X3
Go to the TOOLS option in the taskbar at the top of the screen
and click on it.
You should see a choice in the drop down menu that says: “QuickCorrect...”
Click on this.
You should see a dialogue box with several TABS. The easiest
way to turn off all automatic corrections is to uncheck the little box at the
bottom of the dialogue box that says “Replace words as you type.”
If you want to keep some automatic correction features and get
rid of others, under the tab “Format-as-you-go” you can turn off features such
as:
Capitalize next letter after end-of-sentence punctuation.
The QuickCorrect TAB has a list of commonly misspelled words,
and you can delete words from this list in case you want to misspell them on
purpose for a special effect.
You can also add items to this list in case you need help with spelling.
*You can also add your own most common typos to this QuickCorrect list so that your errors will “fix themselves.”