ENGL 491.002:
Senior Portfolio in
Creative Writing
Cynthia Hand
Spring 2017
Class Time: Mondays
9:00-11:45 a.m.
Class Location: Hemingway
Center, Rm 107
Office Location:
Gateway 119
Office Hours: Tuesdays/ Thursday 12:00 p.m. to 1:00
p.m. or by appointment
Cell Phone: (I will give you this during class.) (No calls after 9 pm or
before 7 am)
E-mail: cynthiahand@boisestate.edu
CATALOG COURSE
DESCRIPTION
Extensive revision of previous written work in creative writing
courses and creation of a portfolio focused on fiction or poetry. (In this
case, fiction.)
PREREQUISITES
Prerequisite:
Senior standing and PERM/INST.
CREDIT HOURS
Three
(3) units. This translates to
approximately 2-3 hours of studying outside of the classroom for every hour you
spend in the classroom for the course. (Which means you should spend 6-9 hours
per week preparing for this course. Ha. But seriously, how accurate this
estimate is depends on how quickly you read and how quickly you write.)
COURSE OBJECTIVES
To produce a
high quality portfolio that represents your best work in fiction writing here
at Boise State.
To effectively
establish effective habits and new methods in analyzing and revising your own stories
and / or novels.
To study
published work as a way of examining the different techniques and aesthetics of
professional writers.
In other
words: to do your very best work.
COURSE FORMAT
Class will
meet once a week for two hours and forty-five minutes, divided into three
segments. The first segment will be spent having in-depth conversations about
the writing craft, revision, and discussions of published work. We’ll do class
workshops during the second segment (on the weeks that we have workshop). The third segment will consist of revision
exercises, writing time, and one-on-one conferences with Dr. Hand. There will
be at least break.
REQUIRED MATERIALS
- Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. *I would prefer you buy the paperback copy of this, simply because there will be lots of flipping through this book, which would be difficult with an ebook.
- Every day, bring at least one story or part of a novel to actively work on in class.
- Access to the internet, a copy machine, (as you will need to copy a story out of a book) a Google account, and a Dropbox account.
- Something to write with and something to write on.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Stories:
You will write 30 pages of high
quality fiction during the semester.
All work must be typed,
double-spaced, titled, and page numbered. Use a 12 point font size in Times New Roman
font with one inch margins. You will
upload your stories into our class Google Doc folder in the appropriate week by
9am on the day the story is due (see the Workshop Schedule for the specifics).
WARNING: Because
I take workshops so seriously, if you don’t
upload your story on the day that it is due, you can expect your assignment
grade to drop by a full letter. If you are having trouble
finishing your story, please contact me and I will read what you have and help
you.
Workshops: Much of our class time will be spent
in what writers refer to as workshops. You should come to class having closely
read and marked the student stories up for discussion, and also equipped with a
1 (single spaced) page typed critique that I may ask you to read on occasion
and that I will collect. Make two
copies of these letters, one to give back to your colleague along with
his or her story at the end of the workshop session, and the other to give to
me at the end of the class.
SEFFW: Every
week I will assign a chapter from Self-Editing
for Fiction Writers. You should come
to class having fully read the material and having already done the exercises at the
end of each chapter. As a rule of thumb, always come with two or three passages
from the text that you would like to discuss. You'll also be expected to bring in a sample from your
own work that you believe is relevant to that week’s subject or some work you've done as part of the chapter, which we will continue to work on during class.
Dr. Hand’s Library:
In the second week of the class you will pick three books from the “Dr.
Hand’s Library” list to study over of the course of the semester. One of these
will be a book on craft, the other two collections of short stories. You are
free to borrow these books from my collection (but there will be a penalty if
you don’t return it) or buy your own copy.
Craft Talks:
After you’ve picked a craft book from the Library, you will be expected to
read this entire book and present what you learned from it during class. Please
see the Craft Talk page for more details.
Story Discussions:
As with the Craft Talks, at the beginning of the semester you must pick two
story collection from the Library and read them in their entirety. (If you are
working on a novel, please contact me—I have an entirely different list for
novels.) Then, you must bring one of the stories for the students to read and
discuss. Photocopy it as neatly as you can and bring it to class the week
before our discussion, and I will scan it into a pdf and put it in the class
Dropbox. Please see the Story Discussions page for more details.
There will be periodic quizzes.
Portfolio: The
portfolio will be due at the end of the semester, (May 1 by 12:00pm) and it will constitute 50% of your final
grade.
The portfolio
consists of:
- No fewer than 30 pages of your best work in fiction, either as completed short stories or a novel excerpt.
- A letter that details the revision journey for the pieces in the portfolio—where they started out and the steps you took before you ended up with the finished products.
COURSE POLICIES
Attendance:
You will be expected to attend every class. Simply put, if you miss class, your grade
will suffer. If you have more than ONE
absence for any reason, your grade will drop one grade step for each
absence (e.g. A to A-, C-to D. . .) With excessive absences (4 or more) you
will fail the course. I realize that sometimes emergencies will come
up, but more importantly, you should realize this and save those free absences
for a time when you will really need them.
It is inexcusable to miss a day in
class when you own work is going to be discussed. In the case that the unimaginable does happen, you can
expect your grade to drop at least one full letter.
If you do
happen to miss a class, you are responsible for all announcements made,
policies set, and materials covered during any class meeting. Please check our
class website obsessively and our Dropbox folder for announcements and materials
handed out in class.
3 tardies equals an absence.
Participation:
I expect active
participation from everyone, which means engagement in course materials and
in-class assignments, as well as sharing your opinions during class discussions.
Each day I will award you one point for participating in the course. If you
don’t speak, you will not receive a participation point for the day.
Extra Credit:
I will occasionally
bestow an extra participation point if your contribution to the class
discussion on a given day was simply outstanding. Here are some other ways you
can earn extra credit participation points in my class:
- Attending published fiction or poetry readings. There are a few of these on campus every semester and several readings in the Boise area. To get credit you must write a quick response/analysis of the reading.
- Attending amateur readings, such as student readings or area open mics. Again, you must write up a short response in order to receive credit.
- Commenting in a meaningful way on the course website.
Dropbox / Google / Blackboard: Nearly
everything that I use in this class (the syllabus, schedule, workshop and
presentation schedules, hand-outs, assignments, and so on) is posted in our class
Dropbox folder. Our short stories will be available on Google Drive. I will
also keep a current grade standing on Blackboard.
GRADING
50% Portfolio (The quality, effort, and
revision that I find in your collected work at the end of the semester.)
25% Assignments (Quizzes, peer responses, craft talks,
story discussions, and exercises. I will grade these for quality and effort, but
simply whether or not you turn them in is a big part of it.)
25% Participation
(Your level of
involvement in class discussions and the quality of your feedback.)
Grading Scale:
A 93-100
90-92
B+ 87-89
B 83-86
80-82
C+ 77-79
C 73-76
70-72
D+ 67-69
D 63-66
60-62
F below 60
