Monday
ENG 550: Practice of Writing/CRN 40587
Professor Tenaya Darlington
This course is designed as an Introduction to the Writing Studies Program, and it allows students to explore a variety of genres while they explore career options within the writing/publishing world. Students will literally “walk in the shoes” of different writers, playing the role of columnist, reporter, editor, poet, and fiction writer. At the end of the course, students will reflect on these different roles and begin brainstorming a possible thesis project in one area. (Core Course)
Tuesday
ENG 673: Screen Writing/CRN 40590
Professor Tom Coyne
In this class, we will learn how to present story in a specific, challenging, and rewarding format that may be unknown to you, but the fundamentals of good screenwriting are the same as all good creative writing — detail, dialogue, character, voice, precision, and imagination. We will develop and locate our most cinema-ready narratives, and learn how to tell them via camera and microphone. We will read screenplays, write screenplays, and discuss the craft and conventions of professional screenwriting. We will study three-act structure and the fundamentals of dramatic storytelling, and we will look at a number of professional screenplays to guide our discussion of form and craft. Each member of the workshop will develop his or her own screen project from an initial concept/pitch to a full-length, feature screenplay. The class will also look at the business of screenwriting and discuss the overall development of screen projects. No screenwriting experience required. (Area III)
Wednesday
ENG 636: Writing as Empowerment/CRN 40589
Dr. Ann Green
In Writing and (as) Empowerment, we’ll explore how writing can be used as a tool, a method, and a means of empowerment. We’ll consider how the ability to tell one’s story can be empowering and what the risks of telling one’s own story are. We’ll also consider what an author might choose to leave out of her telling of a particular tale. Finally, we’ll research a story of empowerment and write our stories of empowerment. Each participant will complete two projects in different genres, including fiction, nonfiction, pedagogy, poetry, and academic prose. Lots of writing and intensive reading. (Area II)
Thursday
ENG 615: Road to Revolution in the 1960s/CRN 40588
Dr. Owen Gilman
A study of the American cultural scene during the 1960s with particular focus on the contribution of writers as agents of change in movements to break existing stereotypes and to challenge racial discrimination, gender discrimination, sexual repression, environmental degradation, and war. Writers may include: Jack Kerouac, Harper Lee, Rachel Carson, Nikki Giovanni, Eldridge Cleaver, Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Betty Freidan, and some Beat poets. Films were also consequential both in propelling and in reflecting revolutionary changes in American life through the 1960s. Several key films that may be considered include In the Heat of the Night, Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, and Easy Rider. (Area I)