To Do: Finish your reading response from last week. Finish any workshop comments. Remember that you have to comment on everyone’s submission in your group (unless the submission is yours). This [ … ]
Reading Response 10: Week of 3/22
Poems tend to intimidate. I wanted you to read the chapters on Self-Doubt and Writers Block because I often find that students, especially beginning students, are apprehensive about poetry. They [ … ]
Agenda: Week 10
To Do: Finish your reading response from last week. Do Homework Assignment #3. Read “Don’t Write What You Know” by Bret Anthony Johnston. Read “Emergency,” “A Country Doctor,” and “Dial [ … ]
Reading Response Week 10: Week of 3/15
The stories assigned to you this week are weird, I know. More, they engage with states of mind we may find uncomfortable: hallucinations, psychosis, otherworldliness, dream. Most likely these are [ … ]
Agenda: Week 8
To Do: Finish your reading response from last week. Read chapter 5 in The Emotional Craft of Fiction.’ Read “The Other Place,” “Concert,” “Horror Story,” and “Girl” (Blackboard). Read [ … ]
Reading Response 8: Week of 3/1
As noted last week, characters must be complex. All of the stories you read for today are from a first-person point-of-view (even “Girl,’ which at first seems to be in [ … ]
Agenda: Week 7
To Do: Finish your reading response from last week. Read chapter 4 in The Emotional Craft of Fiction’ and “The Scourge of Relatability” on Blackboard. Read “Cat People’ and “Lawns” [ … ]
Reading Response 7: Week of 2/22
Characters are the lifeblood of conventional fiction. The most exciting plot will fail to engage your readers if your characters are flat. Instead, you want to write complex characters, and [ … ]
Agenda: Week 6
To Do: Finish your reading response from last week. Finish any workshop comments from last week. Remember that you have to comment on everyone’s submission in your group (except yours). [ … ]
Reading Response 6: Week of 2/15
I’m sure that many of you are eager to begin the fiction unit of the course. But before we start our stories, we need to remember what constitutes a “story.” [ … ]