Module Identifier EN32420  
Module Title THE WRITING CLASS  
Academic Year 2001/2002  
Co-ordinator Dr Patricia Duncker  
Semester Semester 2  
Other staff Mrs Carol Marshall  
Course delivery Seminar   20 Hours (10 x 2 hr seminar workshops)  
Assessment Portfolio   Two portfolios of your own writing, one mainly of poetry and one mainly of prose. Your portfolios must include early drafts, revised versions and a piece of critical commentary and reflection on your own writing methods. Each portfolio not to exceed 2,500 words.   100%  
  Resit assessment   Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements    

Brief description


This class will be a practical workshop and writing discussion group. Students will be expected to present their own and each other's work to the class throughout the semester and to offer thoughtful and constructive criticism to other members of the group. You will also be expected to present your own work for examination assessment. The module is designed to extend your understanding of the craft of writing; to equip you with practical skills to revise and improve your work, to consider what works and what doesn't, to encourage you to be ambitious and to take risks on the page. You may also find that you want to try your hand in a medium that you hadn't previously considered. Talent and imagination can't be taught, but technique can. So come prepared to learn from each other and from your own mistakes and triumphs.


Assessment

Two portfolios of your own writing, one mainly of poetry and one mainly of prose. Your portfolios must include early drafts, revised versions and a piece of critical commentary and reflection on your own writing methods. Each portfolio not to exceed 2,500 words. You will be expected to work in collaboration with other members of the group on occasions and to produce written work for each session. I won't accept excuses for not doing this. Writing regularly - every week - is the most important aspect of the class.


Programme:

1. Introduction: Craft, Graft and Inspiration: The Practice of Making Writing: Strict forms: Naughty Verses: Musical Forms
2. Poetry: Confronting Cliches or How to Be Fearless of Bad Writing
3. Strict form: Writing sonnets
4. Lyric: Songs
5. Narrative verse: Ballads
6. The Discipline of Free Verse
7. Prose: A Question of Length and Shape: The Novel, the Novelle, The Tale and the Short Story
8. Character
9.Dialogue and Description
10. Problems of Genre and Meaning in Prose Fiction


Suggested Reading

Beware of the 'How To Write a Bestseller' writing manuals, although these can be interesting eye-openers about the writing industry. The most interesting writing on writing is often also the most eccentric and opinionated and always by writers who have produced excellent, challenging work. Look at writers' notebooks. Everything is of interest, even the doodles. Of especial interest are: the diary of Virginia Woolf, the notebooks of Henry James, Flaubert's letters, all of them, but especially the letters he wrote while he was writing Madame Bovary. See also the letters of Emily Dickinson, which often contain drafts, or poems, which she sent as letters. On fiction in process one of the most interesting books you can read is Albert Camus's unfinished last novel Le Premier Homme (The First Man), published by Penguin. This has some of his notes and hesitations reproduced on the page. It is a glimpse into a master's workshop. For the full horror of Hollywood try William Goldman listed below.


CHESTER, Gail & NIELSEN, Sigrid (eds) In Other Words; Writing as a Feminist (Hutchinson 1987)
GERRARD, Nicci, Into The Mainstream: How Feminism Has Changed Women's Writing (Pandora 1989)
GOLDMAN, William Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting (Abacus 1996)
HIGGINS, George V. On Writing (Bloomsbury 1992)
KAPPELER, Susanne, The Pornography of Representation (Polity Press 1986)
LAWRENCE, D.H. Phoenix Vols 1 & 2 See Section 'Literature and Art'. Especially essays 'Introduction to His Paintings', 'Why the Novel Matters', Moby Dick'.
MILLS, Paul. Writing in Action (Routledge 1996)
NEWMAN, Jenny et al, The Writer's Workbook (Arnold 2000)
O'CONNOR, Flannery, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (Faber and Faber 1972)
OLSEN, Tillie, Silences (Virago 1980)
SELLERS, Susan ed. Delighting the Heart: A Notebook by Women Writers (The Women's Press 1989)
STEIN, Gertrude, Lectures in America (1935: Virago 1985) See especially 'Poetry and Grammar'.
WOOLF, Virginia, A Writer's Diary (1953)

Learning outcomes


On completion of this module students should typically be able to:
demonstrate an ability to work through successive drafts to produce imaginative writing in prose and poetry;
demonstrate an ability to reflect critically on their own writing practice.