Syllabus
ENG 601: Essays & Creative Nonfiction
Description: Study and practice in nonfiction writing, including literary nonfiction, literary journalism, personal essays, and creative nonfiction. May not be repeated for graduate credit.
Rationale: This course provides graduate students the opportunity to pursue work in the study and practice of nonfiction.
Resources: ENG 601 will be paired with ENG 401. The pairing of the two courses is designed to enhance articulation between the undergraduate-graduate programs in English and to make the best use of existing faculty resources. Should more faculty resources become available, ENG 601 would function as a free-standing course.
Note on Enrollment: The combined enrollment of ENG 401/601 will be 25 students (e.g., 20 students in 401 & 5 in 601 or 15 students in 401 and 10 in 601, depending on needs and enrollment patterns).
Meeting Pattern:
M 1-2: ENG 601 meets jointly with ENG 401
W 1-2: ENG 601 will be held as an electronic course through the web or Blackboard; ENG 401 will meet as a separate workshop.
F 1-2: ENG 601 will meet as a workshop; 401 will be held as an electronic course.
Learning Outcomes: Students will learn about key works of nonfiction and about the diverse group of authors who produce contemporary nonfiction prose. Students will understand the nuanced differences between different subgenres of nonfiction prose. Students will be able to write and teach nonfiction writing.
Requirements:
(1) Submit workshop exercises and electronic assignments (30%)
(2) Design & Lead one mini-workshop (20%) for ENG 401.
(3) Submit a Portfolio (50%) containing one literary essay or critical analysis of nonfiction prose (12-15 pp.), one essay or piece of creative nonfiction (10-15 pages).
Texts: Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction
Kingston, The Woman Warrior
Essays & Articles on Electronic Reserve
Unit I: Essays
Week 0: Introduction
Introduction to Lopate’s Art of the Personal Essay
Tell It Slant, Ch. 9, “The Personal Essay”
Week 1: Seeing Narrowly/Thinking Broadly
M Lecture: Aims of Discourse
*White, “Once More to the Lake”
Introduction to Dillard’s Pilgrim At Tinker Creek
W Electronic Class
Literary Essays (“Mary McCarthy in New York” and “The Magic Prose of Poetry” from Hardwick’s Sight Readings)
Research Venues: Small Literary Magazines
F Workshop: short essays (two types)
Week 2: Seeing Narrowly/Thinking Broadly
M Lecture: Aims of Discourse
*Saroyan, “Chance Meetings”
Woolf, “Death of a Moth” & Dillard, “Transformations”
W Electronic Class
Wallace “Certainly the End” from Anchor Best Essays of 1998
F Workshop: chance meetings
Week 3: The Unsentimental Speaker
M Lecture: Aims of Discourse
*Dillard, “The Deer at Providencia”
Fisher, "I Was Really Very Hungry"
W Electronic Class
Individual, general research on period, author, sub-genres, themes, reception
F Workshop: ironic voices (Bly’s vignettes)
Week 4: The Sentimental Speaker
M Lecture: Aims of Discourse
*Walker, “Am I Blue?”
White, “Death of a Pig”
Eldred, “Modern Fidelity”
W Electronic Class
from Clark’s Sentimental Modernism
Individual, general research continued, start proposals
F Workshop: writing sentiment
Week 5
M Lecture: Aims of Discourse
*Intro, “My English, “La Gringrita” from Alvarez’s Something to Declare
Erdrich’s Intro to The Broken Cord
W Electronic Class
Literature/Nonfiction Paper Proposals
F Workshop (essays that declare)
Unit II: Creative Nonfiction
Week 6
M *Tell It Slant, Ch. 1 & 2 “Foundations”
Wexler, “Implementing Postmodernism in Creative Nonfiction” from Writing CNF
W Electronic Class
Gutkind, “Permission to Lie”
Wolcott, “Me Myself & I”
Gutkind, “Becoming the Godfather of Creative Nonfiction”
F Workshop: Perspectives (Bly’s taste ex.)
Week 7
M *Tell It Slant, Ch. 3 “The Body of Memory”
Pearson, “Researching your Own Life” from Writing CNF
W Electronic Workshop
Goldthwaite, “Confessions”
Villanueva, “Cuentos de mi Historia”
F Workshop: Memory
Week 8
M *Tell It Slant, Ch. 4 “Writing the Family”
*Kingston, “No Name Woman”
Alvarez, “Family Matters”
W Electronic Class
Pedagogy: Chapter 1 from Bloom’s Composition Studies as a Creative Art
F: Workshop: family (or Bly’s irritating character)
Week 9
M *Tell It Slant, Ch. 10, “The Lyric Essay”
Kingston, “White Tigers”
W Electronic Class
Pedagogy: Chapter 7 from Bloom’s Composition Studies as a Creative Art
F Workshop: Experimental Forms
Week 10
M *Tell It Slant, Ch. 6, “Gathering the Threads of History”
W Electronic Class
Castiglia, “Where I’m Coming From” from Personal Effects
F Workshop: Historical Selves
Week 11
M Tell It Slant, Ch. 7 “Writing the Arts”
Reece on Rothko (online)
W Pedagogy: Chapter 9 from Bloom’s Composition Studies as a Creative Art
Sullivan, “Composing Culture”
F Workshop: Arts
Unit III: Portfolio Workshops
Weeks 12-15: 601-led classes, Portfolio Workshops, & Instructor Conferences
Finals Week: Portfolios Due