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