Creative Writing for the Rhetoric Stage I & II

One-semester course with full-year option. A semester-long workshop for high school students dedicated to the crafts and techniques of prose and poetry. Students will identify and explore traditional and non-traditional literary forms while developing individual creative writing projects. Reading and writing assignments will illustrate matters of character, style, voice, diction, stanza, structure, metaphor, and meter. 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 door.

As stated above, the class is a workshop. Significant time will be spent critiquing work in class, and all students will be required to participate actively and thoughtfully. Any and all commentary, assuming it is fully explained, thoughtful, respectful, and intended to improve the overall achievement of the piece in question, will be welcome and encouraged.

Additionally, unless otherwise discussed and arranged, this is not a class that is designed to workshop preexisting material. Students will be expected to create new pieces which utilize the materials and concepts from class instruction.

Please note: This course may be taken individually in the fall or spring semester; a student may enroll in both Creative Writing for the Rhetoric Stage I in the fall and Creative Writing for the Rhetoric Stage II in the spring to fulfill the full-year option.




Because my student participated in the delayed class, I chose engagement in assignments. There is so much good stuff going on in Mr. Bauer's Creative Writing Class! First of all, the assignments week to week are structured to emphasize a different skill each week, which build on each other. Then, the students' work is peer-reviewed in the discussion boards. If your piece is not chosen that week, you can submit it to the Open Posting Board, where Mr. Bauer encourages peer-review posts by offering extra credit to the reviewing students. I also love that a few times, they have been asked to revisit a previous assignment and build on it with different requirements (i.e. take your First Person Narration, and continue the story but now in Third Person). The feedback from Mr. Bauer is extensive; I love it! You can tell he's invested in his students' work; he really gets into their stories, celebrates all their good stuff, and provides clear, constructive criticism. The "pièce de résistance" is the Class Final: a portfolio of all of their work, REVISED from all of the great feedback they received. This is my favorite part because truly learning to write (or anything really) comes from not only taking a stab at it, but by reviewing, re-reading, and revising your work. As I mentioned, my student is taking the delayed class, but I have watched a few of those class recordings, and the live class is where it's at! The students read their own pieces (building those presentation skills), and the live conversation is a great back-and-forth (practicing constructive criticism--both giving and receiving), with Mr. Bauer chiming in to keep the pace and offer suggestions and his insights on the pieces. My student has benefited greatly from this class, and truly enjoyed it. So much so, that they decided to wait to take Creative Writing II until next year, so they could take the live class. The reasoning behind it? So they could eek even more out of the class, to keep improving. - Parent Course Evaluation
My student loved this course. The assignments were so creative that she spent a lot of time just talking about and planning for her homework which is fun to hear and you don't hear from most other classes. I helped proof many of her assignments by mostly asking "how does this relate to what you are trying to convey" to help guide her rewriting sections so I had fun as well. So glad they touched on everything from writing a script to haikus! It was a good overview of the different types of writing along with the constant word limit imposed, really pushed the fact that when you do write, you rewrite then rewrite, etc. - Parent Course Evaluation
My kid doesn’t love English classes, in fact, he doesn’t even like them. But this one opened him up. He loved it. He was motivated and really learned a lot! -Parent Course Evaluation




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    Creative Writing for the Rhetoric Stage I & II Information




    • Example Syllabus
    • Class meets once per week for 50-55 minutes.
    • Class cap: 15 students.
    • Designed for grades 9-12.
    • High school students may be awarded .5 Language Arts credit upon completion of this course. 
    • Taught by Chris Bauer

    Course Materials




    • The instructor will provide all course materials.


    Expand for More Course Resources


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