syllabus - rollins college · 2016-06-03 · aufhammer eng-267 syllabus page 2 of 18 • brief...

SYLLABUS

Rollins College: Arts & Science and Hamilton Holt School

ENG-267 Writing From Your Place Of Truth: Memoir or Fiction?

Catalog Description:

"Topics" version of this course offers an introduction to a very specific genre of writing

(fiction, autobiography, humor writing, etc.), giving close attention to the defining

characteristics of the genre and offering a sequence of short reading and writing

assignments designed to develop facility in producing the genre. "Techniques" version of

this course offers a close study of a specific literary technique (point of view,

character/dialogue, narrative design, voice), and requires practicing the technique in

short, focused writing assignments with emphasis on both literary and technical

excellence. Prerequisite: ENG 140.

Professor: Charles Bruce Aufhammer [email protected] Office: Orlando Hall - 208

Class/Section Information: (This class functions within the parameters of a Holt class)

• A&S & Hamilton Holt: Orlando Hall - 215, TR, 6:00-9:10 pm; begins T, 05/17/16—ends

R, 06/23/16; Culmination Chapbook submission and sharing will be during our Final

Class Period: R, 06/23/16.

• Required Text:

Goldberg, Natalie. Old Friend From Far Away, The Practice Of writing Memoir.

New York: Free Press, 2007.

• Suggested Texts:

Burroway, Janet. Imaginative Writing, The Elements Of Craft. New York: Longman,

2011.

-Cameron, Julia, The Artists Way.

• Scheduled Office Hours:

TR: 5:00-6:00 pm

Though I plan on keeping these office hours, I may have stepped out when you drop in;

it’s best to email me (use address above) if you need to make an appointment for a

student conference during these hours, or to seek another agreed upon time.

mailto:[email protected]

Aufhammer ENG-267 Syllabus of 18

• Brief Statement Of Course Activities:

You are to get a three-hole punch and a three ring binder to collect and make readily

available to you all the printed information given you as Handouts in this class.

Read in order and do prompts in Goldberg text, 75 pgs. per week for first month

Choose, read, respond in journals, and orally report on one book from reading list—

memoir or fiction

Draft, write, revise, and submit first manuscript (revise and label as memoir or as

fiction) from a particular place of truth

Workshop first submitted manuscript

Revise in light of workshop and your growth as a writer

Draft, write, revise, and submit second manuscript (revise and label as memoir or as

fiction) from a particular place of truth

Workshop second submitted work

Revise in light of workshop and your growth as a writer

Draft, write, revise, and submit third and fourth manuscripts (one revised and labeled

as memoir, one revised and labeled as fiction—both from the same place of truth)

Workshop paired third and fourth submitted works from same place of truth

Revise in light of workshop and your growth as a writer in partnership with your

trusted reader (see next entry)

Work intensely with trusted reader (and as trusted reader) in concentrated two week

relationship toward the revisions necessary for the creation of your Culmination

Chapbook of three paired manuscripts derived from the three manuscript

submissions above: a memoir and a fiction piece, revised, from each of the three

selected places of truth

Prepare you Culmination Portfolio precisely, following the pertinent Handout

Submit and celebrate copies of your Culmination Portfolio on June 23, 2016

Rollins Arts & Science Academic Policies:

CREDIT HOUR STATEMENT FOR ROLLINS COURSES MEETING 380

MINUTES WEEKLY FOR FOUR CREDIT HOURS DURING 6-WEEK

SUMMER SEMESTER:

This course is a four-credit-hour course that meets for 6.33 hours per week. The value of

four credit hours results from work expected of enrolled students both inside and outside

the classroom. Rollins faculty require that students average two and a half hours of

outside work for every hour of scheduled class time.

In this course, the additional outside‐ of‐ class expectations are [1] Readings (All reading

as a writer-reading): one text in its entirety; one selected book, in-text readings, fellow

student manuscripts, and one student’s final portfolio potential works in preparation for

submission during the revision process; [2] Writings: responding to all book readings in

your journal as a writer-reading, prompt writings, revising potential in-class manuscript


submissions, preparation for oral presentations of one selected book, initial writing and

revisions of work(s) for your final portfolio submission, and evaluative responses on all

fellow students’ submitted workshop manuscripts.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES:

Rollins College is committed to equal access and does not discriminate

unlawfully against persons with disabilities in its policies, procedures, programs

or employment processes. The College recognizes its obligations under the

Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to

provide an environment that does not discriminate against persons with

disabilities. If you are a person with a disability and anticipate needing any type

of academic accommodation in order to participate in your classes, please make

timely arrangements by disclosing this disability in writing to the Disability

Services Office at (box 2764) 1000 Holt Ave., Winter Park, FL, 37289 or call

407-646-2345 for an appointment.

ACADEMIC HONOR CODE:

Membership in the student body of Rollins College carries with it an obligation,

and requires a commitment, to act with honor in all things. Because academic

integrity is fundamental to the pursuit of knowledge and truth and is the heart of

the academic life of Rollins College, it the responsibility of all member of the

college community to practice it and to report apparent violations. The following

pledge is a binding commitment by the students of Rollins College:

The development of the virtues of Honor and Integrity are integral to a

Rollins College education and to membership in the Rollins College

community. Therefore, I, a student of Rollins College, pledge to show my

commitment to these virtues by abstaining from any lying, cheating, or

plagiarism in my academic endeavors and by behaving responsibly,

respectfully, and honorably in my social life and in my relationships with

others.

This pledge is reinforced every time a student submits work for academic credit

as his/her own. Students shall add to all papers, quizzes, tests, lab reports, etc., the

following handwritten abbreviated pledge followed by their signature: “On my

honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized

assistance on this work.” Material submitted electronically should contain the

pledge; submission implies signing the pledge.

FOR HOLT STUDENTS: COURSE AND INSTRUCTOR EVALUATION:

At the end of each semester, students are asked to evaluate the course and

instructor. These evaluations are extremely valuable in the teaching and learning

process on our campus. Student evaluations help assess student perceptions of


classroom learning and often lead to improved teaching. Your feedback is

important and Rollins students are encouraged to be honest, fair, and reflective in

the evaluation process.

The online evaluative survey is anonymous. Students are never identified as the

respondent. Instead, each student’s comments are assigned a random number.

You will be asked to rate your course and instructor on a numerical scale and

through narrative comments.

The online Course and Instructor Evaluation (CIE) process opens at 8:00 a.m. on

the first scheduled date. It remains open for a period of 14 days (2 weeks) until

12:00 a.m. (midnight) on the final scheduled date. The evaluation period ends

prior to the start of final examinations and faculty cannot access completed

evaluations until 10 days after the end of final exams.

Students will receive one email at the start of the CIE period, one after the 15th

day, and a final reminder the day before the CIE period ends. Students who

complete evaluations for all classes will be able to view grades ten-days before

students who do not complete an evaluation form.

ENG-267 Writing From Your Place Of Truth: Memoir or Fiction?

• Some Essential Prefatory Remarks (Because ENG-167 is not a prerequisite for this

course, some of what follows revisits the perceptions and concepts taught in that

course:

From my perspective, the vast majority of truly fine literature—fiction, poetry, drama,

(and memoir by definition)—is written from the writer’s core—from what it is for that

writer, in James Dickey’s words: “to be alive on the planet.” Or as Howard Norman says

so accurately, such works are written “from a place of truth.” Thus, our primary focus in

this course will be to look at the similarities of and differences between, the advantages

of and disadvantages of, fiction and memoir, whether prose or poetry, in order to help us

as writers determine which genre, or blurring of these genre, will best serve our desire as

poet or storyteller (griot) to express to the fullest level of realization of which we are

capable from our place of truth what it is for us to be alive on the planet.

As we sweat through the revisions (the re-seeing) of a particular work, does it speak to its

potential reader most effectively as memoir or as fiction?

We live and write in an era of literary flux. Note the use of “autobiography” in the

catalog description above, a term that has largely been replaced by memoir (superseding

the traditional “memoirs”) in the current lexicon when memoir blooms fully—and sells

exceptionally well. Memoir’s use of a strong first person narrator and other strongly

developed literary (craft) elements and attention to language has lead to it being referred

to as “creative non-fiction.” These defining considerations currently remain in a dynamic


condition with questions of honesty, honor, legality, and potential sales adding energy

and importance to the conundrum. Flux.

Therefore, in this course we will pay special attention to the storyteller’s decisions of

how best to communicate from your places of truth to your readers—choices of narrative

point-of-view and voice, especially as each relates to character, landscape, dialog,

plot/tension/events, conflict, imagery/symbol, language, and the cumulative effect of

these craft devices on the work itself.

Craft is often differentiated from art in a manner such as: a craftsperson paints a house

using rollers, paint buckets, and ladders; an artist paints a house on a canvas. Thus, in that

view, “craft” is perceived as a lesser endeavor than the practice of one who struggles to

create “art.” In the context of this syllabus, Craft instead speaks of the creative

ingredients the writer wrestles to make her/his manuscript effective, successful,

evocative, and memorable—to make it fully realized: the language and the literary

elements such as character, landscape, plot/tension. image, stanza structure, etc. These

are means by which the writing artist’s truth is evoked, realized, and communicated—

Craft. When we speak of a literary work of art being fully realized, we’re speaking of its

language and craft.

Another prefatory consideration. Remember, if you seek to be a writer, there are many

different kinds of writing you can do. If you choose to concentrate on writing

stories/memoir/poetry/drama/screenplays, there are many avenues you may follow. ENG-

267, being a college credit course, is primarily oriented toward what is most often

referred to as “literary” writing. Thus the following comments focus on learning that kind

of creative endeavor.

—————

From my perspective, and that of the highly honored writers whom I admire, creative

writing cannot be taught. Formula fiction/genre fiction and doggerel poetry can be taught.

Grammar can be taught, as can composition and logic and philosophy, psychology,

sociology, theology, ethics, literary criticism, and history—particularly, essay writing can

be taught (especially the argumentative essay). Be aware that the very fact that you are a

college student affirms you are an accomplished writer of essays. Though such writing

may increase your ability to argue logically, to communicate abstractions one to another,

to increase your vocabulary, and to help you learn grammar skills, mastery of essay

writing skills offers you very little preparation for creative writing. It teaches you to

“tell.” The creative writing genre demand that you evoke (show).

Though it may be incapable of being taught, creative writing can be learned by writers

seeking to do so. It cannot be taught because it essentially depends on writers finding the

courage to dive deeply into their core to discover their place of truth and what it is for

them to be alive on the planet. Then these would-be-writers must find the courage to

invite their inherent poet or story teller, that griot, to be unafraid to be honest with that


discovered truth, and unabashed in seeking the most effective ways to express that truth

in language and the literary elements: Craft.

Then creative writers must embrace the practice of revision—the struggle to revise that

language and those craft elements and their relationship to the story’s or poem’s or

memoir’s truth until the work is brought to the fullest level of realization those writers are

currently capable of achieving—the most appropriate and dynamic level of evocation.

Hard work—that oft sited blood, sweat, and tears.

• The Fundamental Nature Of This Course As I Perceive It:

First, using the prompting nature of the Goldberg text, and in-class writing prompts, (and

your work in The Artists’ Way if you’re currently encountering it) we’ll work diligently at

nurturing your ability to discover YOUR PLACE OF TRUTH and at encouraging your

ability to harvest and select those truths as evidence of what it is for you to be alive on

the planet. These will be fostered through journal keeping.

Then we’ll work at experimenting with your level of comfort and the potential evocative

power of deciding whether memoir or fiction is the best choice for any particular truth of

yours. NOTE: You’ll receive a Handout helping you to consider the difference between

True and Truth as these notions relate to memoir and to fiction. Consider their differences

throughout the course and in each application in your writing.

Concurrently, because your mastery of the essay may make it a bit more difficult for you

to become a creative writer, we’ll struggle specifically toward getting you over that

hurdle by practicing TWO ESSENTIAL PARADIGM SHIFTS.

Each will be expanded upon and will be made more specific in this syllabus, in my

instruction, and in Handouts specific to the assignments. As introduction, the first

paradigm shift lies in the arena of reading, one of the essential practices of a serious

creative writer; the second lies in the arena of writing, the other essential practice.

In reading, you must retrain yourself to read as a writer reading rather than reading as

an essay “theme-hunter” following logically developed theses leading to an abstract,

informational concept or thesis for your intellectual consideration. Nor do you read for

comprehension to prove you’ve read and understood the work.

Instead you must retrain yourself to read to discover the craft the writer employed to

make the work fully realized, truly experiential, truly evocative, truly powerful and

memorable—perhaps life changing. It is the writers’ mastery of and success with these

elements of craft and of language that make great works of literature great.

Literature may give us ideas to ponder and respond to, but that is NOT its true gift to us.

(Essays do that; essays are the communication of ideas as abstract thoughts. [Pam

Houston: “I can write a saleable, effective essay in 8 hours; I’m very lucky if I can bring


a story to full realization in 8 months.”]) A story or a poem is a construct that evokes in

the reader through mastery of language and craft the experiences of the world and

characters created by the author; it’s an experiencing via evocation of what it is to be

alive on the planet. Thus, to most fully celebrate a story or a poem, you must read it as a

writer reading, not merely as a seeker of ideas.

In writing, you must learn to evoke within your reader through concrete experiential

creations—stories, poems—rather than telling your reader abstractly through thesis-

oriented and transition-guided logical constructs—essays. In other words, instead of your

abstract thesis or theme being paramount, your craft as storyteller and/or poet, as an artist

of language, is. In addition and to that end, I urge you to surprise yourself in your writing,

“to say what you didn’t know you knew,” through constant journaling and revision,

inviting and welcoming the presence of your muse.

Consider your journal as a verb rather than as a noun—not a thing or a place, but an

activity, a practice. Think of your journal keeping, your writing, in the same way you

consider a sport you seek to excel at, a musical instrument you seek to master. In neither

of those circumstances would you expect to do well if you solely engage in them

whenever you get the urge. Establish a regimen, a practice—including revision, an

essential practice—for your writing.

Thus practice lies at the core of the assignments in this course: constant and varied

reading as a writer, regular and endless writing. Honor yourself as a writer with a

challenging regimen. That is how you learn to be a creative writer, how you train

yourself. You must wrestle from each week the time needed for observation, for

introspection, for contemplation, to be available to your muse(s), and for the solitary

exploration and practice of your art: the time to write, to read as a writer reading, to write

responses to your readings, to revise your writings.

You are the only one who can teach “you” to write creatively: to create fiction, poetry,

drama, and memoir/creative non-fiction from your place of truth, in your own voice. I

can guide you by assigning readings and writings that inspire, challenge, set free, give

permission, and act as models of excellence. And we can all work together in a workshop

environment that nourishes and challenges you. But you must break every writing

envelope that precedes you by creating pieces within your own voice that speak honestly

from your core self, from your place of truth, determining whether memoir or fiction

serves you most evocatively and powerfully. It’s not easy, perhaps nearly impossible, and

it’s often lonely. But if you’re determined to become a writer, you can and will learn in

this course.

As I previously mentioned, the poet James Dickey said that all good writing is merely the

outcome of a writer’s struggle to share “what it is to be alive on the planet.” Thus you

must dare to try to give voice to what is genuinely your perception of what it is to live;

writing from your core, your place of truth, with absolute honesty. That does not mean

you must be autobiographical, a writer of memoir, or shy away from casting your

experience as fiction. It means you must share your truth, but not necessarily your facts.


Lorrie Moore said, “. . . the proper relationship of a writer to her or his own life is similar

to a cook with a cupboard. What the cook makes from the cupboard is not the same thing

as what’s in the cupboard. . . .”

The essential struggle of an artist is to find concrete ways to express the abstract. The

artist must evoke, not tell, by creating works that are rich in sensory experience, rather

than merely speaking abstractly, intellect-to-intellect, as is done in journalism, a

biography, formal essay, thesis, lecture, or sermon. The relationship between a work of

art and its audience is experiential. There may well be intellectual considerations, but

they are evoked through experiencing the work of art. Thus, as creative writers we

struggle to find sensory details that create ways to magically lift our words off the page as

evocative experience. And we struggle to do that through precision of language.

John Ciardi reminded us that no matter how hard Michelangelo yearned to communicate

the emotion/life of “The Pieta,” he had to first be a stonemason. We must train ourselves

first of all to be word-masons.

This course is a combination of generative stimuli (readings and prompts), journal

keeping, and workshop. Its primary goal is to help you discover and nurture your own

unique writer’s voice through practicing surprise in your writing. Decades ago I heard an

author who I respect respond to the question: “What do you consider to be your best

works?” His answer: “When I’ve written what I didn’t know I knew.”

Think about that.

It’s the most stunning advice to writers I’ve yet to encounter. Rather than have outlines

and goals (theme/assignment)-oriented deadlines, seek to surprise yourself by allowing

your writing practice/regimen to foster surprise. From your place of truth, seek to surprise

yourself into saying what you didn’t know you knew about what it is for you to be alive

on the planet. Don’t forget that revising your works is richly full of opportunities for you

to surprise yourself, to invite your muse to surprise you. (You will receive a Handout

dedicated to revision.)

As Robert Frost said, “If your writing doesn’t surprise you, how can it surprise the

reader?” And, as you are aware, if readers aren’t surprised, they are often bored and set

the work aside.

Treating your writing, including revision, as a regimen, a practice, which you engage in

regularly, will help you learn how to surprise yourself in your writing. I encourage you to

be attentive to your writing so it may guide you to accomplish saying from your place of

truth what you “didn’t know you knew.” (Do not look ahead to an assigned manuscript

trying to get it done early for example [see statement below under “Assignments”].)

Writing generates writing. Within your writing—initial and revised drafts, responses to

readings as a writer reading, journal keeping —you’ll find what a piece wants to become.

Listen; it may well surprise you.


Thus, revision lies at the heart of fine writing. To revise means to re-see. (See the

Handout on revision.) This course is a workshop built upon the practice of your revising

writing from prompts (from Goldberg and from class), an aspect of your journal keeping.

Because I doubt if, at least initially, you have any deep investment in such drafts, you are

far more likely to be surprised by what directions those writings may suggest to you for

revision during the process of revision. May you be surprised by the outcome. I hope

you’ll grow to transfer that practice to revision of your own “personal” works.

Unaware or beginning writers write “on demand.” They simply jot onto the page

(computer or paper) words as they spill (or painfully drip one syllable at a time) out of

their mind, heart, glands, core—slavishly struggling to say exactly what they want to say,

what they intend to communicate—not surprising themselves in the act of writing.

What has fallen onto that page seems to such writers the only way to put into words what

they desire. You, as a practicing writer, a word mason, realize there are innumerable

ways of combining words to communicate what you’re trying to wrestle into evocative

language and to create through craft—each offering a degree of clarity, a nuance of

meaning, or an evoking impact on a reader that another does not. That is why we writers

always revise, constantly being attentive to craft, constantly seeking to surprise ourselves.

• Final Introductory Remarks:

I hope you’ll be surprised and empowered by this course after keeping your journal,

using the textbook(s) as guides and inspiration, reading your selected fiction or memoir

book, submitting your manuscripts for workshopping, actively participating in

workshopping, and reading manuscripts as a writer reading. I hope you become a writer

who practices and appreciates revision, one who perceives herself/himself as a writer

because you establish a writing practice or regimen independent of “demand,” one who

actively seeks surprise within your writing, and one who reads widely to seek excellent

models to emulate and examples that give you permission to experiment and to risk.

Additionally, I hope you’ll regularly seek out individuals or groups to share your writing

with while its in process/progress.

I hope in this course you’ll learn to make your writing a practice or regimen in which you

may surprise yourself by saying what you didn’t know you knew from your place of truth

about what it is for you to be alive on the planet. Thus, creating works of memoir or

fiction that surprise you and move ever closer to being fully realized, to being excellent,

to coming as close as possible to what Michael Cunningham calls that imagined

“cathedral of fire.”

Further, I hope you feel not only fully empowered to dare to express from your place of

truth what it is for you “to be alive on the planet,” but also responsible for doing so.


• Additional Notes About Texts:

Goldberg’s Old Friend From Far Away, The Practice Of Writing Memoir is the primary

text of this course. You are expected to read, in order, 75 pages of Old Friend

From Far Away each week and do all of the exercises/prompts within those pages

in your journals through June 10th. (After that date we switch to your intense two

weeks of working with your trusted reader toward your Culmination Portfolio.)

Goldberg’s Old Friend From Far Away, The Practice Of Writing Memoir: on pp. 303-

305 the author reminds us of her “gems” and prompts, guiding us back to where

in her text we can locate them. Especially later in the semester while you’re

intensely working with your trusted reader toward your Culmination Chapbook,

you may find these very helpful.

Burroway, Janet. Imaginative Writing, The Elements Of Craft. New York: Longman,

2011. If you chose to purchase the Burroway text, I believe you’ll find it to be a

fine introduction and guide to and practice of the craft devices of story telling.

Study and apply each section you find appropriate as you find the need for it as

you’re creating and revising your manuscript submissions for this class.

Cameron, Julia, The Artists’ Way. (A strangely powerful twelve-step self-help book

designed to heal, affirm, and restore the creativity our culture tends to teach you

to deny yourself.) If you decided to buy and utilize The Artists’ Way, try to read

and do the exercises in each “Week” (they are chapter titles) for each class

meeting; thus 12 “Weeks” in our six-week summer semester.

Kephart, Beth. Handling The Truth: On The Writing Of Memoir. New York: Gotham

Books, 2013. (A highly recommended additional guide to writing memoir.)

Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters To A Young Poet, 1929. (A highly recommended collection

of letters of encouragement written by the renowned poet to a young writer.)

• Assignments:

General Comment About Manuscript Assignment Due Dates:

As a workshop course, you will be submitting story and/or poetry manuscripts

regularly to be critiqued in the workshop. Each manuscript is to be submitted on time

and to follow all of the manuscript guidelines to receive full credit. (A Handout will

be distributed.)

I expect you to find within your on-going journaling (from prompts and revisions)

drafts of what will become the manuscripts you will revise and submit, determining

whether each is most evocative as memoir or as fiction.


Do not view your manuscripts as assignments to be prepared early as a responsible

student often does. Instead, nurture your muse and the potential for surprise through

as many revisions as possible right up to the last possible moment—even in this time-

challenged summer course.

Journal Keeping:

Journal keeping is a proven and powerful tool for writers. It is also a sure way to

foster the notion of surprising yourself in/through your writing. It is where you

practice your craft and discover what lives in your place of truth, what it is for you to

be alive on the planet.

If you keep your journal as a regimen, your muse will know where and when to find

you.

Most beginning writers write “on demand.” They’re angry, hurt, afraid, proud, in

love, frustrated, insulted, filled with joy, have a wonderful idea, or a breakthrough

understanding, etc. Or they have an assignment due. The results are seldom if ever

successful stories, memoirs, or poems because they’re so freighted by their

“purpose/theme” they cannot grow the wings necessary to soar as a fine, evocative

piece of creative writing. If you want to be a writer, do just that. Write. Writing

generates writing. Whatever lives in your place of truth, whatever it is for you to be

alive on the planet, will emerge in your writing; it will surprise you there. Trust me; it

will. Then, as you revise (the most exciting, surprising, creative aspect of writing—it

is not editing [you will receive a Handout], you can determine if your piece works

best as fiction or memoir.

Though I encourage you to consider every draft and revision of each of your pieces as

journal entries, such entries are not finished writing, appropriate for submission, but

are instead notes, jottings, fragments, initial responses, ideas, and drafts—perhaps at

their richest they are personal revelations that may well function as paths to liberating

your creativity and discovering who you are. Journal entries are raw writing, rarely if

ever worthy of submission—no matter how exciting they may seem to you. They are

the well you go to as the carefully kept, though likely random and fragmented,

sources of potential pieces worthy of revision and eventual submission. Thus, I will

not read your journals.

Because your journals should invite you to explore your very core (that place of truth

where you’ll find what it is for you “to be alive on the planet” while doing Goldberg’s

chapters), they are by my definition absolutely private and not meant to fall under the

scrutiny of a reader other than yourself. I will never see them. If you wrote knowing I,

or any of your fellow students, would be reading your entries, you would not be

honest; your effort would, thus, be wasted and superficial. Hardly likely to surprise

you. Counterfeit.


Thus, for those two primary reasons, your Journals will not be read by me. Instead,

to give credence to the notion that you learn to write by writing, a quantitative record

of your journal pages will be kept each class meeting. For this purpose, consider

every hundred words to constitute a page—100 words = 1 page.

Though not necessarily disparate sections, there are two aspects of your journal

keeping. One is writing: your response to prompts, your revisions of those writings,

and your own creative genre drafts and revisions. Secondly, you will practice journal

keeping that is in response to readings: responding as a writer reading to each

manuscript submitted by your peers, readings in your textbook(s), and reading and

responding to the novel/poetry/memoir/creative non-fiction works you select.

(NOTE: Make notes in your journal each time you set these books down from a

reading session. This way your responses to the whole book will be incremental,

reflecting your immediate response to each read—thus your responses will be in

process so you have a good record of how the work affected you step by step. This

will be far more accurate and illuminating to you as a writer reading than would a

remembered response after completing the book. And it will facilitate the creation of

your oral report on this work.

Additionally, as your journal begins to grow, I ask you to go back and reread your

responses as a fluid things. Move forward and backward through all its parts,

revisiting and reappraising every aspect of it. Find yourself here. Try to write about

who that person is who’s responding as you have—you. What possible insight into

who you are as one alive on the planet is made evident by the nature of your

responses? Who are you, really? Who lives at home in your place of truth? What are

the truths about you apparent here? Attempt to make this an on-going self-discovery

within your journal.

Write about all of this in your journal. Apply it to your revisions where applicable.

Find sources for your manuscripts here; find your responses to the published works

that give you permission, that inspire you to break into another level of writing here.

Consider what relationship each of your manuscripts might have to your place of

truth, which might evoke most effectively, fiction or memoir?

Thus, your journal will be a huge and amorphous thing that you will have to

determine how to manage and accomplish the logistics of. Some or all of it may be

handwritten. Those pages may be in different notebooks, of perhaps different sizes, or

may be on scraps of paper collected together. Some or all of it may be on your

computer. Remember to ALWAYS backup your computer files, and DO NOT write

over a file as you revisit it to revise. Keep each revision as a separate file, thus

available to you.

Always have with you in each class meeting that part of your journal that has your

responses to works read to you and which includes writing(s) from prompts and the

revisions of each. You may wish to have your writing in response to your chosen

book with you as well.


Because I will not see your journal is not a reason to fail to keep it faithfully and

fully; always challenge yourself to write more and more often. The judge of the

contest you enter, the editor of the journal or magazine you submit a manuscript to,

the agent you hire to sell your book will not be privy to your drafting. But you, the

writer, will be. It is your source, your practice field, where your muse knows to find

you. You must write faithfully in order to bring to fruition the potential of your

creativity.

From past experience, I expect a responsible student to write at least 75 to 100 100-

word pages per each summer school class meeting.

On-going Reading and Writing Assignments:

You will receive a Handout entitled, “Responding to Readings in Your Journal.” It

will specify and suggest how most productively to respond to not only your chosen

author’s book of fiction or memoir, but also to the student story and/or poetry

manuscripts submitted to you for critiquing during this workshop (A specific Handout

will be supplied for this activity as well).

Recall that to revise means to “re-see.” Surprise may be lurking in a draft waiting to

take you unaware. Therefore, in your journal, for each class meeting you are expected

to revise at least one draft of a piece of your writing. Most probably this responsibility

will be taken care of by your weekly writing assignments.

The Contemporary Fiction Selection or the Memoir Selection (You’ll receive an

additional Handout):

Select one work from the list of Fiction or one work from the list of Memoirs as

instructed in class. Order/purchase the works and have them completed by the

assigned dates.

Though I ask you to respond to them as a writer reading as suggested in the Handout,

“Responding to Readings In Your Journal,” try to enjoy the reads rather than

considering them works you’ll be tested on. Use the works as a means of discovering

excellent language and craft. Ponder the choice of fiction or memoir made by your

writer. How powerful and effective is the outcome of that choice as demonstrated in

this selection? Note via quotations where, what, and how the writer has succeeded

through language and craft.

Additionally, can you use aspects of the work as prompts?

You’ll be given a five to seven minute window of opportunity to share your responses

to this work orally. Thus, after the due date, have the book and/or your notes with you

in class each class meeting so you’ll be ready when the opportunity presents itself. If


you’ve responded in your journals each time you’ve set the book down, using

quotations as suggested, your journal is all you need to have in class.

The Workshop (Handouts will be given for each assignment):

You will be submitting three manuscripts for workshopping during this course, and

on the last day (June 23) you will submit a Culmination Portfolio.

Recall that literature may give us ideas to ponder and respond to, but that is NOT its

true gift to us. (Essays do that; essays are the communication of ideas as abstract

thoughts. [Pam Houston: “I can write a saleable, effective essay in 8 hours; I’m very

lucky if I can bring a story to full realization in 8 months.”]) A story or a poem is a

construct that evokes in the reader through mastery of language and craft the

experiences of the world and characters created by the author; it’s an experiencing via

evocation of what it is to be alive on the planet. Thus, to most fully celebrate a story

or a poem, you must write it as storyteller and read it as a writer reading, not merely

as a seeker of ideas.

The first two manuscripts will be either a work of fiction or a work of memoir,

determined by you, each springing from a different place of truth. Goldberg prompts

and in-class prompts may be the primary generative sources, revised in your journals.

The third manuscript will be a pair from a same place of truth (different from those

places of truth utilized in your first two manuscript submissions), one a work of

memoir, the other a work of fiction.

Each of us as writers-reading workshop participants will give a numerical evaluation

to each writer’s manuscript to indicate our perception of its degree of realization: 1)

still very weak; 2) needs quite a bit of work; 3) about average—needs a good bit of

development and/or proofreading to become fully realized; 4) quite good—just a bit

more revision needed; 5) Exceptional—fully realized—consider submitting for

publication.

Your Culmination Portfolio will be submitted during the final class period (June 23)

and after a two week concentrated paired endeavor with you and a trusted reader and

with you as a trusted reader of another writer. It will include each of the first two

manuscript submissions, now revised and paired with a new manuscript: memoir if

the initial submission(s) was/were fiction; a piece/pieces of fiction if the initial

submission(s) was/were memoir. And it will include the paired third submission, both

revised. All with the insight and input of your trusted reader (and I hope your hyper-

stimulated muse).

Thus your Culmination Portfolio will contain a chapbook of a total of six works—

three paired works— each pair from a same place of truth, each a story or poem as

fully realized through revision as possible, one as memoir, one as fiction.


Submitted manuscripts must be typed using Times New Roman font, 12 pt. (this

syllabus is written in that font and that point size), double spaced (computer created

and printed), with normal margins. Be sure you include a good title, your name, and

the signed Rollins Honor Code. Submit enough hard copies for everyone, including

the professor.

It is customary in editorial offices and the offices of judges at contests to discard,

automatically, any submission that does not adhere absolutely to the submission

guidelines. I want you to learn that. Thus any manuscript that doesn’t follow the

guidelines given in the paragraph above and in the Handout: “FLASH

FICTION/SHORT POEM/CREATIVE NON-FICTION WORKSHOP

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS” may not be workshopped. Please learn from this.

Workshopping manuscripts is also the culmination practice of your ability to read as

a writer as you apply that to your fellow students’ manuscripts. Your critical

responses to each student’s manuscript must be written on the submitted manuscript,

signed, and the manuscript returned to the author immediately after the completion of

our workshop discussion of that work.

The Culmination Portfolio Submission (You will receive a Handout):

(Repeated from above) Your Culmination Portfolio will be submitted during the final

class period (June 23) and after a two week concentrated paired endeavor with you

and a trusted reader and with you as a trusted reader of another writer. It will include

each of the first two manuscript submissions, now revised and paired with a new

manuscript: memoir if the initial submission(s) was/were fiction; a piece/pieces of

fiction if the initial submission(s) was/were memoir. And it will include the paired

third submission, both revised. All with the insight and input of your trusted reader

(and I hope your hyper-stimulated muse).

(Repeated from above) Thus your Culmination Portfolio will contain a chapbook of a

total of six works—three paired works— each pair from a same place of truth,

each a story or poem as fully realized through revision as possible, one as memoir,

one as fiction.

You will be asked to include a bibliography of the published work you’ve read, the

Goldberg text you’ve used .as a source of prompts, and the stories and poems I’ve

read to you in class. It should to be placed within my copy of your Culmination

Portfolio. You might wish to begin constructing this bibliography early on so it’s

completed as you complete the course. If you wish, you may choose to make this an

annotated bibliography oriented to your reading as a writer.

This Culmination Portfolio assignment is due June 23, at the outset of our class

period. You will read aloud, sharing from your submission. Failure to submit this

final manuscript submission and share it will result in failure of the course.


But don’t perceive your Culmination Portfolio as an exam; it is, instead, intended to

be a celebration of your writing shared among the workshop participants, culmination

manuscripts revised and prepared within the stated guidelines for an established

deadline—the capstone of this course.

• The Rollins Academic Honor Code (Also see p.3 of this syllabus:

Prefatory Remarks:

One of the things I hope you take away from this class is the value of writing within a

supportive group of fellow writers who act as comrades and readers in this lonely

endeavor. Thus, there is inherent in my perception of how we write the notion of

collaboration in the process of writing. I heard a famous and highly honored

contemporary poet joke that “writers borrow; great writers steal.” I laughed, but also

recalled that ideas are not able to be patented. What we “patent” in our writing is our

voice; that’s what is uniquely our own. Our voice is made evident by the unique

writing we create—the stories and/or memoirs made up of the language and craft

elements available to us as creative writers. Therefore, though we share our drafts

with others seeking feedback, what we decide to put together as the final combination

of all the possibilities available to us, we must make our own. That is what we author.

That is what we submit with our name upon it.

Thus, I authorize you to seek a trusted reader from whom you come to expect honest

feedback, and to employ that feedback as you find appropriate in the revisions of

what will become your submissions. You and you alone are the final author of your

work.

Rollins Academic Honor Code:

Reread the Honor Code section on page 3 of this syllabus. That pledge is reinforced

every time a student submits work for academic credit as his/her own. Students shall

add to all creative works submitted for this class the following handwritten

abbreviated pledge followed by their signature:

“On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized

assistance on this work.”

• Attendance (*NOTE Texting, Facebook, and Twitter statements herein):

You are expected to attend every class meeting. The dynamic of this course is a

community of writers meeting in a safe but challenging workshop environment; such

a class demands attendance and participation. Assignments are given in class.

Additional readings from the genres may be presented in class. Exercises and

prompts/games which foster surprise in your writing are given in class.


It is far better to have to come in late, or to have to leave early, than it is to miss a

class entirely. However, do not make this your pattern of attendance.

E-mail me ([email protected]) if you know in advance you must miss a class, and as

soon afterward if you’ve had to miss a class unexpectedly.

If you have an emergency and must take a cell phone call, please get up quietly and

leave the room causing as little disturbance as possible.

Most contemporary writers use their computer/lap-tops to write. Thus, during class it

is likely your lap-top will be open and on/asleep. If you use it or your iPad or phone

for texting, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. or any other non-class related writing

activity, you are being disrespectful to your fellow writers because it precludes your

full participation in class Thus, you will be recorded as ABSENT from that particular

class meeting.

*Your responses in class to writings are an essential part of this course.

Remember that if you are not present during our discussion, what you

potentially might have contributed is forever stolen from those of us who were

here. It cannot be made up. Your participation has failed.

*Recall that your Culmination Portfolio is due and will be shared during our last

class meeting, June 23. Therefore, do not make, nor allow your family to make

reservations or arrangements for you to leave at the end of the semester prior to

fulfilling your course obligation on this date.

• Evaluation:

Evaluation in a creative art course such as this is inherently subjective and difficult to

quantify. To help you get some idea of what I look for in a fine student, consider the

following:

You must attend class promptly and consistently. You should demonstrate your

ability to read as a writer in your responses to readings and manuscripts. You should

appropriately keep a journal. I expect you to participate constructively in those areas

of our “community-of-writers environment” from the very first day. That doesn’t

mean you must speak every class meeting, but it does mean your fellow students and

I must be aware of your contributive effort. This is a workshop during which we talk

about readings and respond to student manuscripts. If you’re not here, you dishonor

our community of writers.

You must submit assigned manuscripts in a committed and timely manner.

Consider as a guide the numerical evaluations you receive on your manuscripts from

our workshop participants as a rough guide to how fully realized each of your

submitted manuscripts is as a work of fiction or memoir from your place of truth.


You must submit the Final/Culmination Portfolio complete and as assigned in order

to pass this class.

Because you will be asked to include a bibliography of the prose and poetry you’ve

read to be attached to my copy of your Culmination Portfolio, you might wish to

begin constructing it early on so it’s completed as you complete the course. If you

wish, you may choose to make this an annotated bibliography oriented to your

reading as a writer.

You will be instructed to evaluate every other student’s personal contribution to you

as a writer as part of my copy of your Culmination Portfolio

It’s inherently difficult to fail such a course as this, but there are students in the past

who’ve worked so hard at doing so, they’ve accomplished their goal.

An insight: A number of semesters ago a conscientious, mature, responsible student

announced in class that she didn’t accept a grade lower than an “A.” Another student

with less gravitas than she might have evoked an uncomfortable chuckle from the

class. She did not. Her verb, “accept” helped me formulate and articulate my

response. Her verb implies two things to me. First, that grades, rather than being

earned by the student, are applied to a student by the professor, and thus can be either

accepted or rejected by the student. You earn your grades in this class. Second, it

implies a student learns nothing during the duration of the class. At any point,

including the very first day, a student is already fully capable of doing exceptionally

fine creative work, surprising herself or himself in his or her writing, and

participating with the voice of a writer reading reflecting all that will be taught, and

learned, during the duration of the course. Because of the two central and essential

paradigm shifts stated at the beginning of this syllabus, it is highly unlikely, most

probably impossible, for a student to achieve demonstrable mastery (A-quality work)

of those practices and perspectives until the latter part of the semester.

• Contact Information (Restated):

My preferred e-mail address: [email protected] Office: Orlando – 208. Though I

plan on keeping my office hours, I may have stepped out when you drop in; it’s

best to email me if you need to make an appointment for a student conference.

mailto:[email protected]

syllabus - rollins college · 2016-06-03 · aufhammer eng-267 syllabus page 2 of 18 • brief...

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