ENGL 2241 - Introduction to Creative Writing

1. Read, discuss, and critique a broad selection of literary texts, including creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, with a focus on analyzing form and technique in order to guide and inform one’s own creative work.
2. Identify contemporary techniques in creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.
3. Discover one’s own preferred literary genre, content, and style.
4. Understand the creative process and practice techniques for prewriting, writing, revising, and editing one’s own creative work.
5. Understand writing for different audiences.
6. Understand the contemporary literary aesthetics and standards of creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.
7. Participate in large and small workshops and be able to respond critically and analytically to written work, and practice this critical analysis of one’s own writing.
8. Understand that excellent contemporary literary writing derives from both individual and cultural values that are shaped by broader social, historical, and aesthetic standards and movements.
9. Students will be expected to produce a body of revised, polished creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry that will culminate in a final portfolio of 15-25 pages.

1. Overview of the creative process
2. Overview of basic literary genres
3. Understand the importance of word choice and language
4. Develop and control figurative language and imagery
5. Explore techniques for discovering and creating material
6. Overview of traditional narrative and poetic structures
7. Overview of experimental narrative and poetic structures
8. Practice methods in showing vs. telling
9. Explore elements of the three genres
10. Shape and revise drafts based on peer and instructor feedback