Creative Writing for the Rhetoric Stage II

One-semester course. A semester-long workshop dedicated to the development of theme. As the second course of a three-course series, the class will provide the first opportunity for students to consider the intricacies, pitfalls, delicacies, and excitements of developing macro-content. Which is to say: students will be asked to 1) identify their primary creative concerns and inquiries; 2) determine which forms and methods maximize the development of those concerns and inquiries; and, 3) openly evaluate other bodies of work to analyze the development of theme therein.

In order to accomplish those three objectives (particularly the last) the student will be supplied with a sampling of a particular artist’s body of work and will engage in a semester-long dialogue with that body of work. Students will be provided with the artist’s work at the start of the semester and will navigate, strangle, dissect, and coddle the body of work over the next sixteen weeks.

As always, a primary goal of the course will be to demystify the creative process and expand student awareness of the written arts; as such, please leave any and all preconceived notions about creative writing at the proverbial door.

Prerequisite: Creative Writing for the Rhetoric Stage I.