Transcript title
Creative Writing: Nonfiction
Credits
4
Grading mode
Standard letter grades
Total contact hours
40
Lecture hours
40
Recommended preparation
WR 121Z.
Course Description
Introduces the many forms and purposes of creative nonfiction such as science or nature writing, travel writing, memoir, biography, and journalistic essay. Requires individual and collaborative workshop activities to develop skills in drafting and revision. Examines topics, purposes for writing, and elements of craft, including voice, scene, description, and structure. Requires creation of a portfolio of works reflecting various stages of their writing process.
Course learning outcomes
1. Identify and practice the elements of creative nonfiction, including ethics, invention and fact, personal feelings, themes, story-telling, and reporting, to serve the purposes of given audiences.
2. Develop a writing practice, including the discipline of craft, invention, drafting, revising, and collaborative sharing and criticism.
3. Produce a portfolio of original creative nonfiction within the described parameters of the class, using the class’s theme as a motive for focus, practice, and experimentation.
4. Read and analyze nonfiction by other writers, including both published work and work by fellow students, to develop an ability to provide constructive feedback.
5. Explore aspects of submission and publication and relate contemporary creative nonfiction to its professional and publishing trends.
Content outline
- Definition and craft features of creative nonfiction
- How to develop a writing practice
- How to read like a writer
- Professional and publishing trends of creative nonfiction
Required materials
Assigned textbooks, flashdrive or other means of storing one's work for class, notebook or other means of taking notes for class, writing utensil for taking notes and/ or writing in-class assignments
General education/Related instruction lists
