ENGL& 236 Creative Writing I

5 credits

This course provides students with a multi-genre introduction to the principles and techniques used in creative writing. Students will read contemporary examples of short fiction, poetry, and short plays/screenplays to understand more clearly how different writers employ specific techniques and will write their own original works. Students will “workshop” their stories, poems, and plays to provide regular feedback on their classmates’ work, analyzing and comparing how different literary structures and strategies are used in each genre.

This course meets the Humanities general education distribution requirement.

Prerequisites: ENGL 99 (or placement into ENGL& 101 or higher)

Course Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the course students will be able to:

Explore idea-generating techniques and genre conventions to develop stories, poems, and plays/screenplays.
Identify and employ writing techniques in fiction, poetry, and plays/screenplays, such as:
- Theme
- Plot, story, and pacing
- Showing rather than telling
- Description, images, and sound
- Developing scenes
- Creating believable characters
- Creating and sustaining tension
- Creating a particular tone, mood, and voice
- Structure and form
- Dialogue and dialect
- Use of persona, character, and point of view
- Integration of symbols
- Figurative language and repetition
- Syntax and diction
Collaborate to improve writing through the process of constructive criticism, revision, and self-assessment.
Demonstrate effective writing process/productive and sustainable writing habits

General Education Distribution Area Outcomes
Students who successfully complete courses in the Humanities distribution area will be able to:

Discuss and explain methods of creative expression, social interaction, and aesthetic considerations employed by individuals and societies
Employ methods of intellectual and creative inquiry central to the selected Humanities course of study, using the vocabulary, concepts, historical perspectives and materials common to the chosen area
Dependent on the Humanities area selected, interpret specific artifacts from art, film, history, language, literature, philosophy, religious thought, or narrative form and develop one’s own viewpoint or artifact using the techniques common to that area

Total Hours: 50 Theory (Lecture) Hours: 50