ENGL226 Writing About Writing: CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPPING
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 ltorda@bridgew.edu www.leetorda.com |
FALL 2013 Office Hours
Monday & Wednesday: 3:30 to 4:30 Tuesday: 2:00 to 3:00 and by appointment. |
Conferences. Many writers work with an editor. The job of an editor might seem a bit mysterious, or, on the other hand, it might seem pretty tedious. Student writers think of editing as fixing typos. But a real editor helps a writer see the best in his or her piece and helps them to bring it out in the text. It's a kind of behind-the-scenes magic that doesn't get a lot of praise but should. Sometimes the difference between a really good piece of writing and a really great piece of writing, it turns out, is a good editor. Once this semester, we will meet one-on-one to talk about a piece of your writing. My rational is two-fold: I want you to see the power of editing, really editing, from a writer's perspective, but I also want you to see what it might be like to be an editor yourself. Class will be canceled for these meetings (the week after Thanksgiving), and we will schedule them during and around class times. You will be required to bring material to the conference--actual text--not just ideas. Editorial Conferences are a part of the "Writing As Art" assignment.
Workshopping. Think of the word "workshop." Things get done in workshops--furniture gets built; cars get fixed; dresses get stitched. Real work. That's what should happen in a writing workshop--stuff should get done. This experience, though, is not how writing is typically treated in any classroom. So workshops can be a rough experience if you've never participated in one before. But, if you stay in the writing concentration, the writing workshop will become the chief methodology--the principle way writer's get work done--will become a significant part of your writing life. Workshops can look different ways in different settings, and we will experience a little of all them.
During the first half of the semester, we will do two kinds of workshops. We will do small group, whole class workshops. This model is most generally what you would find if you worked in creative jobs where people work as teams to produce whole campaigns. You will pitch your material to your classmates and then you will get feedback from them and from me. We will do this kind of a workshop for the Writing in the Professions assignment.
You will also have small groups workshops, what I would call a writing group, for the second assignment, Writing Studies. Writing groups are like long-running workshops with small groups of writers that come to know each other's work very well. I've been in a writing group that helped members through not one but two books. It can be a professional relationship that lasts a lifetime. That might be a bit ambitious for this class, but that is the idea.
Finally, we will engage in the quintessential version of workshops, the sort of workshop that you would encounter in a creative writing course. At the end of the semester, you will circulate drafts of your creative work during the Writing As Art assignment. As a reader of those drafts you will respond to the material in ways that will help the writer move the piece forward. I will provide more specific details about how these workshops will happen.
Workshopping. Think of the word "workshop." Things get done in workshops--furniture gets built; cars get fixed; dresses get stitched. Real work. That's what should happen in a writing workshop--stuff should get done. This experience, though, is not how writing is typically treated in any classroom. So workshops can be a rough experience if you've never participated in one before. But, if you stay in the writing concentration, the writing workshop will become the chief methodology--the principle way writer's get work done--will become a significant part of your writing life. Workshops can look different ways in different settings, and we will experience a little of all them.
During the first half of the semester, we will do two kinds of workshops. We will do small group, whole class workshops. This model is most generally what you would find if you worked in creative jobs where people work as teams to produce whole campaigns. You will pitch your material to your classmates and then you will get feedback from them and from me. We will do this kind of a workshop for the Writing in the Professions assignment.
You will also have small groups workshops, what I would call a writing group, for the second assignment, Writing Studies. Writing groups are like long-running workshops with small groups of writers that come to know each other's work very well. I've been in a writing group that helped members through not one but two books. It can be a professional relationship that lasts a lifetime. That might be a bit ambitious for this class, but that is the idea.
Finally, we will engage in the quintessential version of workshops, the sort of workshop that you would encounter in a creative writing course. At the end of the semester, you will circulate drafts of your creative work during the Writing As Art assignment. As a reader of those drafts you will respond to the material in ways that will help the writer move the piece forward. I will provide more specific details about how these workshops will happen.