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assignments ENGL227 Introduction
​to creative nonfiction workshop: Writer's Notebook

Need to be in touch with me? 
LEE TORDA
310 Tillinghast Hall
Bridgewater State University
508.531.2436
ltorda@bridgew.edu
www.leetorda.com
Fall 2016 Office Hours:
M/W 11:30-12:30
T 11:00-12:00
and by appointment.
Need to make an appointment? Click here: https://goo.gl/3CqLfo
Overview. Real writers work at their craft every day. If they aren’t drafting new ideas for a story or an essay they are revising what they’ve started previously. This is because, of course, working writers make a living out of what they produce, and they know that to produce a finished product they must engage, at every turn, in the process of writing.  Each week, I will ask you to turn in to me a writer’s notebook. This is my effort to get you to engage in an important part of the writing life: the habit of writing.
 
Part of your notebook will be writing you do in class. Part of your notebook will be writing you do outside of class. You should write in your notebook outside of class at least three times a week. You can, if you chose, write in it every day, but I will expect you to write three times. I am looking for no particular length, but if I feel you are not producing anything useful, I will say so. Again, you don’t need to write at length to impress. Write usefully.
 
In class, we will work with different short prompts that are meant to inspire entries. These in-class writings will be collected at the end of a class period as a part of your writer’s notebook that week.
 
Keep in mind that the writer’s notebook is a collection of highly informal writing. I think of the writer’s notebook as a place to try out and test possible ideas in writing that you might pursue more fully in some of your formal drafts. Not everything you write in your notebook will become anything, but some of it might.
 
You will not get a grade from journal to journal, but, rather, I will give you comments meant to help you to do something with this raw material—new angles you might try, language you might play with, potential problems I see on the horizon if you were to pursue that entry as a fully formed piece.
 
On a technical note, we meet once a week so the word “notebook” is meant figuratively rather than literally. If you like the physical sensation of writing in some sort of notebook, fine. But you’ll need two of them so you can turn one in to me each week. If it’s possible for you to keep your notebook on a computer (as I do), than you can just turn in new pages to me each week. I’ll have WN folders for folks who turn in loose pages.
 
Some students are frustrated by this assignment because they want more direction on what to write. The most I can tell you is that you need to write about things that you might develop into an essay. And that you must trust that I will give you feedback that will help you to do so as the semester unfolds. You should also trust that if you are making a good-faith effort to keep your journal, your grade will be safe at semester’s end. 

One final note: Some students have made the mistake of treating the writer's notebook into a diary. That is not what this is. You may, and probably will, write about things that happen in your day, your week, etc. But understand that whatever you write, I will read not as a therapist but as a writer helping another writer move forward with her work. Long entries about what happened in your day will most likely not yield an essay. You want to think about the writer's notebook in a writerly way--a place to begin to draft out what might become an essay. An odd or bad or great day might inspire an entry, but a simple retelling of it probably won't work. I should be able to see the essay potential in the entry. 

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  • Home
  • ENGL 226 policies
    • 226 Discussion Board space
    • ENGL 226 syllabus
    • ENGL 226 PORTFOLIO
    • ENGL 226 PARTNER INTERVIEW MINI-PAPER
    • ENGL226 READING JOURNALS (assignment)
    • 226 BLOG INFORMATION
    • ENGL 226 Writing Studies Timeline Project
    • ENGL 226 Professional Writing Project
    • ENGL 226 SUPER FAST CAREER PRESENTATIONS
    • ENGL 226 Writing As Art
  • Previously Taught Classes
    • ENGL 301 >
      • ENGL 301 SYLLABUS >
        • PARTNER INTERVIEW ENGL 301
      • ENGL 301 Discussion Board When We Need it
      • ENGL 301 PORTFOLIOS
      • ENGL 301 READING JOURNALS (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 INTERVIEW WITH A TEACHER (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 BOOK CLUB (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 FLASH MENTOR TEXT MEMOIR (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 RESEARCH IN TEACHING DIVERSE POPULATIONS (assignment) >
        • ENGL 301 RESEARCH IN TEACHING DIVERSE POPULATIONS (instructions & sample annotations)
      • ENGL 301 ASSIGNMENT DESIGN (assignment)
    • ENGL102 >
      • ENGL 102 Class Discussion Board
      • ENGL102SYLLABUS
      • ENGL102 PORTFOLIOS/Research Notebook
      • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: Class Profile Page
      • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENTS: Reading Journals
      • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH PROJECT >
        • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: POSITIONING YOURSELF
        • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: Locating & Evaluating part I
    • ENGL 202 BIZ Com >
      • ENGL 202 Business Writing SYLLABUS
    • ENGL 227 INTRO TO CNF WORKSHOP
    • ENGL 298 Second Year Seminar: This Bridgewater Life
    • ENGL406 RESEARCH IN WRITING STUDIES
    • ENGL 493 THE PERSONAL ESSAY
    • ENGL 493 Seminar in Writing & Writing Studies: The History of First Year Composition >
      • ENGL 493 Assignments: Annotated Bibliography & Presentation
    • ENGL 511 Reading & Writing Memoir
    • DURFEE Engl101
  • BSU Homepage