revisions

I've taught a section of introductory creative writing just about every semester since I finished grad school in 2002 and I've only made minor changes to the syllabus over the years (kind of odd, given that I'm constantly overhauling my first-year comp syllabi). At both Miami University and UM-Dearborn, the course covers both short fiction and poetry and at both institutions I've used a fairly standard workshop model. The model has worked and I especially like the fact that students, from the very beginning, see everything they write as a piece-in-progress and see the rest of us as reader-coaches. But I'd like to change some things for next semester:

• Short fiction first and poetry second. I've always started with poetry, thinking that free-verse in particular is a natural extension of early finding-your-voice activities. But I want to try starting with short stories since I've got a more rigorous sequence of exercises (character sketches and the like) for the fiction unit. I'm thinking this sequence, early in the term, will reinforce the value of thinking deliberately about craft.
• Fletcher's Breathing In Breathing Out: Keeping a Writer's Notebook. We've used this book for several years down at the Ohio Writing Project and next term I'm going to see how undergrads respond. Fletcher uses a "writers at work" structure, talking about his own uses of generative writing, and also drawing on anecdotes from Naomi Shihab Nye and other writers who describe how and why they journal and the relationship between journaling and producing more finished pieces.
• More published examples. Student work is the priority and I don't want that to change. But I do want to bring in more examples of the genres we're learning. For example, this semester we read Updike's "A&P" and Walker's "Everyday Use" while students worked on the short fiction sequence. My thinking has been that I don't want to over-emphasize consumption of published work at the expense of writing time. Useful but I'm thinking a few more examples might open up possibilities for students.
• More accountability for feedback. I need to do more spot-checking of the written feedback students are giving to one another. Workshop participation counts and in the past I've always looked at spoken comments (again, we spend the vast majority of the term engaged in whole-class workshopping) as indicative of the quality of written commentary. But I know that some students are thorough and conscientious in their written responses while others slack off a bit. That's not fair and I want to do more policing, much as I hate to play that role.