Last night was the first class of the Creative Writing Workshop I am teaching this summer. It is 4 hours long, which is a bit daunting. It was an odd but interesting group. Predictably, the older women were the most willing and cooperative students. The older men were shopping for one thing or another that this class could not offer. One was an Indian gentleman who had no clue what a workshop was; he was looking for a class to help him improve his writing on the job. The idea of writing poems was simply ridiculous to him, so he dropped. The younger men weren't really interested in doing writing so much as in getting credit for not doing much, so they dropped too.
After reading Williams' autobiographical narrative, "The Use of Force," I gave them an hour to begin working on their own narrative about an experience involving at least two people in which they similarly learned something about themselves they weren't necessarily happy to find out. That's when the guys left. Unfortunately, I lost one really good woman who was thinking of adding too. Perhaps an hour is too long for such an exercise, but I was trying to fill that 4 hours. Once they begin turning in work for discussion, that will no doubt be simpler and I can decrease the amount of in-class writing they do.
9 comments:
Yippee--first night!
Maybe try slowing down. Teach description and narration in smaller bites. Perhaps a short how-to lecture, followed by an exercise in which they list words that describe something mysterious you bring in a bag (a watermelon, an electrical extension cord, something common but also suggestive). In small groups, they exchange their words. Then, a freewrite in which they write a 3-sentence description of the thing, followed by another how-to-lecture in which you draw a story from an object (not the object they are working with). Then, invite them to freewrite for 15 minutes on a story that they draw from the object they described. I could go on and on. I love this stuff!
Thanks Lou. I don't know what possessed me! I know this stuff from teaching developmental writing! I guess the whole new class thing threw me. I will bring my bag o' crap, as my son calls this sort of thing, and do this exercise.
By the way, I tried to write my own narrative about a harrowing early experience I had and found that I could not remember it. Oh, I knew what happened alright, but I had no sense memories, what I needed to draw on to write about it. They were gone. I was about 5 when it happened, so maybe that isn't surprising, but I tried to bring them up, like my cat trying to get out a particularly large hairball. Not much success.
Glad to hear your update on the first night. I agree with Lou - shorter bits.
I am glad to see the class is a go.
I'm glad that you're working alongside with them. I've done that in the last year or so -and shared my work (failures and successes) and it seems to help. Plus, I'm writing again.
Sorry I haven't been around - first mud, then family.
I was concerned about you and I'm glad to hear you and the family are okay. I hope it doesn't rain for a while. At least there isn't a heck of a lot to burn during fire season, anyhow.
By the way, I heard you were going to the Read in Berkeley. Talk to Richard, if you see him. He tends to isolate and make himself kind of prickly.
Just to tell you... I wrote the story I was trying to remember, but had to create most of the details, so I guess that despite the truth of the event in itself, it's fiction in other respects.
I like some things about it, but feel I've backed away from the heart of the incident, perhaps unable to deal with it as yet. I don't really know how, being rather new to writing this sort of thing.
Neitehr of us will be at the Big Read. Andrew was going to go but recent events have wiped us both out - and so - we're home, together, which is about as nice as it can get. Really.
I see what you mean. I'd have done the same.
I lost one of the students who turned in something to the workshop because I didn't put the thing up on Blackboard in the right format. She had a fit. It was not deliberate; it's my first time doing anything like that.
Robinka,
I can't find the workshop question you asked me--send again? Life is a little too full of email!
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