JR Fenn
[email protected]
Welles 218C
Office Hours: Mondays, 3-4
and by appointment
RANGE
ENGL 305/307: Advanced Creative Nonfiction
M 4:30-7:50, Welles 119
Course Description: The aim of this class is to increase the range of the writer
through practice writing in a variety of nonfiction modes. Through model
readings in memoir, reportage, profile, biomythography, lyric journalism, the
long essay, and more, we will identify the characteristics of some of creative
nonfiction’s subgenres and emulate them in our own writing in order to
experiment with the relationship between form and content and push our
writing projects into new territory. We will also discuss and hone craft
elements that cut across the readings at hand, including crafting a narrative
persona, setting scenes, incorporating research, and choosing sentence
styles.
Learning Outcomes:
• Students will demonstrate the ability to read closely by highlighting
specific passages within the texts and identifying the narrative
strategies employed, as well as by generating questions, claims, and
support to present in discussion and written assignments.
• Students will discuss creative nonfiction correctly, utilizing the genre’s
lexicon.
• Students will write clear, coherent, and concise creative nonfiction
works that follow the conventions of Standard English and illustrate
their understanding of the genre.
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•
Students will strengthen their writing skills and develop their creative
work through revision.
Workshop: You will each have three full-class workshops this semester. At
least one of these workshops—probably the third—must represent a
substantial revision or expansion of a piece discussed in a previous full-class
workshop. I encourage you to develop your exercises into workshop pieces.
You are required to bring printed copies of your piece to be
workshopped to distribute in class the week before your workshop. If
you do not provide 18 printed copies for the class members a week ahead of
time, you forfeit your workshop. Please keep in mind the number of drafts you
will need to circulate in terms of how you manage your print quota over the
semester. There is a print shop in the basement of Welles and you can save
money by printing there if you prepare in advance. If you do not present a
draft to be workshopped at the appointed time, you will lose twenty points
from your final portfolio grade. For the first workshop, I’d like you to aim for a
piece of around 5-10 pages; for the second, around 10-15 pages; for the
third, around 15 pages. If you would like to deviate from these benchmarks
please talk with me. All workshop pieces must be in Times 12-point font
with standard margins and page numbers. Most importantly, they must
be double-spaced.
Peer Response: End comments for the pieces being workshopped on a
Monday are due the Sunday before workshop by noon in a folder on
myCourses. Please bring the hard copy of the author’s piece to class with
your marginal comments to hand back in person at the end of the workshop.
Please also print your end comment and attach it to the draft, so that you may
refer to it during workshop and make additions/comments as needed. You will
then pass the printed end comment back to the author. Thanks to Prof.
Kristen Gentry for this explanation of the feedback letter:
Each student will read the work and provide written feedback in the form of a
letter (at least one full double-spaced page in 12pt. Times New Roman font) to
the writer which includes their interpretation of the piece with supporting
examples from the text, explanations of at least two of the work’s strengths, at
least four questions the draft raises and the writer should consider during
revision regarding clarity, purpose, and the development of emerging conflict
and themes. Keep the questions neutral. As “Liz Lerman’s Critical Response
Process” clarifies: “Questions are neutral when they do not have an opinion
couched in them. For example, if you are discussing the lighting of a scene,
“Why was it so dark?” is not a neutral question. “What ideas guided your
choices about lighting?” is. To offer another example, “Why did you drop the
narrator’s brother’s character after the first two scenes?” is not neutral. “What
were your intentions for including the narrator’s brother in the piece?” is. Each
question should be followed by a reason why the reader is asking it. Neutrality
should be maintained in this explanation. For example, a student who posed
the question about the narrator’s brother would be losing that neutrality with
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the following comment: “He’s in the first two scenes, but he’s not relevant to
the narrator’s change at the end. It just seems like he was in the first scenes
because he was there. I think you should cut him.” Instead, the student should
write something like this: “The brother is in the first two scenes of the memoir,
which made me think he was playing an important role in the essay, but his
absence in the essay’s latter half leaves me unsure of his purpose.”
Portfolio: You will not receive a grade until the end of this class. Your writing
will be assessed via a portfolio submitted at the semester’s close. This allows
you to feel free to experiment and take risks with your writing over the course
of the term. Only the final portfolio will receive a grade. Late portfolios will be
penalized by 1/3 of a letter grade for each 24-hour period they are late. Please
make sure to keep all of your comments from me on all of the writing you do
during the semester so that you can include relevant commented drafts in
your portfolio. I will give you the formal portfolio assignment as the class
progresses. For now, know that you are aiming for a twenty-page portfolio that
will ideally be comprised of one fully developed and honed piece; two
separate pieces may also be acceptable.
Exercises: Every week you will have an exercise due. These exercises
respond to prompts that ask you to adopt and practice elements of the model
and craft readings for the week. Please bring two printed copies of your
exercise to class—one to mini-workshop with your peers, and one to give to
me. Exercises should not be shorter than one double-spaced page and
should not exceed two double-spaced pages in Times New Roman 12point font with standard margins. I won’t read exercises that do not follow
this format.
Participation: Workshops rely on the full participation of all members. You are
required to read your peers’ work with care and to comment thoroughly. Your
presence in workshop is an essential component in the creation of a literary
community. More than one absence over the course of the semester will
adversely affect your final grade. Lateness of more than fifteen minutes
qualifies as an absence, as does leaving class early. If you are sleeping,
texting, etc. I will assume you have better things to do and ask you to leave.
This will count as an absence. The participation grade also includes your
written responses to peers’ drafts, submitted in a timely manner (late
responses will not count toward the participation grade, though I encourage
you to send them to your peers). The participation grade also includes your
attendance at the three literary readings, your blog post and presentation, and
your group presentation.
Literary Readings: You are required to attend three literary readings this
semester. Please see the details in the syllabus below and mark your
calendars.
Advanced Creative Nonfiction: Range
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Blog: Every week, each of you will post a BRIEF reading response on the Fact
versus Nonfiction blog at sunygeneseoenglish.org. You will post three
sentences about the nonfiction reading for the week and three sentences
about the craft reading for the week. Please do not exceed this length; you
may save longer comments for class discussion. Each of you will also be
responsible for ONE longer post during the semester. Please choose a week
that interests you and focus your post on that creative nonfiction subgenre.
You may find an additional piece in that subgenre to review (feel free to ask
me for recommendations in advance), or you may identify a source-based
controversy within that subgenre and give an account of the controversy—as
well as your take on it—on the blog. When I say source-based, I mean that
you need to refer to others’ writing about the controversy about which you’re
weighing in, ideally providing a link your readers can follow for further
discussion. I’ll ask you to speak about your post to the class. Blog posts are
due the Sunday before class meets, by noon. I’d also like each of you to
respond to someone else’s post at least once during the semester.
Group presentation: You will have a group presentation on New Media
essays. Details will follow.
Assessment
Exercises
Participation
Final portfolio
10%
20%
70%
Readings: I will provide a course reader with the relevant essays and craft
readings. I encourage you to purchase the books that look most interesting to
you on the syllabus. You are required to purchase Clutch Fleischmann’s
Syzygy, Beauty, Kate Daloz’s We Are As Gods, and Nicole Walker and
Margot Singer’s Bending Genre. Ryan Van Meter’s If You Knew Then What
I Know Now is a gorgeous book just published by Sarabande Press that might
look good on your bookshelf alongside such classics as Audre Lorde’s Zami:
A New Spelling of My Name and Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman
Warrior (all of our readings from these non-bolded works, though, I will
provide in our course reader). I also recommend that you purchase the book
by the other visiting writer this semester, Idra Novey’s Ways to Disappear
(note that this is a work of fiction). Highly recommended craft readings are Joy
Castro’s Family Trouble and Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir (the latter we will
not be reading from, as it was recently assigned in an Advanced CNF class
here at Geneseo, but it’s a great book!). You can order all of these from any
good online bookstore.
Accommodation: SUNY Geneseo will make reasonable accommodations for
persons with documented physical, emotional, or learning disabilities.
Accommodations will also be made for medical conditions related to
pregnancy or parenting. As early as possible in the semester students
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should contact the Director in the Office of Disability Services (Tabitha
Buggie-Hunt, 105D Erwin, [email protected], (585) 245-5112) and their
faculty to discuss needed accommodation.
Gender: Gender is a non-binary social construct and for this reason my policy
is to invite you to tell me your names on the first day of class, rather than
calling roll. If you would like me to use pronouns other than the ones your
name suggests I invite you to communicate your chosen pronouns in person,
by email, or in whatever way is comfortable for you.
Schedule of Classes
Monday, January 23rd —Personal Essay
Primary Reading: Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”
Craft Reading: Phillip Lopate, “On the Necessity of Turning Oneself into
a Character”
Exercise: Read Priscilla Long’s “Writing into Structure” and do
the exercise with the Ackerman micro-essay. In writing your
micro-essay, try to keep Lopate’s ideas about the first-person
character in mind. Make some conscious decisions about the
voice of your first-person character, and execute those decisions
on the page.
*Please bring two printed copies of your exercise to class for a minifeedback session. Please do this EVERY week.
Workshop: 1, 2, 3, 4
Monday, January 30th—Memoir, Scene
Primary Reading: Ryan Van Meter, “Lake Effect” and “Discovery,” from
If You Knew Then What I Know Now
Craft Reading: Adam Hochschild, “Reconstructing Scenes”
Exercise: Do the scene questionnaire activity (you can keep going with
your exercise from last week or start something new) and then
write a two-page scene in which you condense the most
important details from the questionnaire into the scene. Keep
Hochschild’s tips in mind as you write. Strive to create a rich
sensory world like those in Van Meter’s pieces.
Workshop: 5, 6, 7, 8
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Monday, February 6th—Reportage
Primary Reading: Kate Daloz, We Are As Gods
Craft Reading: Philip Gerard, “The Art of Creative Research”
Exercise: Interview a family member about some significant
event in their past. Call them on Skype or speakerphone and
record the conversation on Garageband. Then transcribe the
entire interview. Write a two-page version of the story with your
family member as the main character (i.e., for Daloz, not “my
mother,” but “Judy”). Do some contextual research into the
zeitgeist of the time if you can. Please bring the transcribed
interview to class to turn in to me with your two-page exercise
(you only need one copy of the transcription, for me).
Workshop: 9, 10, 11, 12
GENESEO LITERARY FORUM
Friday, February 10th: Kate Daloz Reading, 6 p.m., Doty 300
(Tower Room)
Monday, February 13th—Memoir, Character
Primary Reading: Mary Karr, excerpts from The Liars’ Club
Craft Reading: Vivian Gornick, excerpt from The Situation and the
Story
Exercise: Write about a character who looms large in your past.
Limit yourself to writing about this character in a single scene
where his/her/their actions define them. Do not allow yourself to
speculate about this character’s intention—let their actions
speak for themselves. Make sure that you also write a strong Icharacter in this scene, and allow the I-character to also be
defined mostly in terms of action, though there is some room for
reflection in the scene and also from a reporting narrator. Make
sure both your character and your I-character have bodies—
physical details that we can see in some respect.
Workshop: 13, 14, 15, 16
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Monday, February 20th—Hybrid Forms
Primary Reading: B.J. Hollars, “50 Ways of Looking at Tornadoes”
Craft Reading: Margot Singer, “On Scaffolding, Hermit Crabs, and the
Real False Document,” from Bending Genre
Exercise: Go to Lexis Nexis and do a search in popular sources (not
academic sources) about an odd or arcane object or event with
which you have some intimate connection. Find as many
factoids about your object or event as possible. The exercise is
to write “Seven/Three/Whatever Ways of Looking at [your object
of interest],” not to exceed two pages.
Workshop: 1, 2, 3, 4
Monday, February 27th—Memoir, Conflict
Primary Reading: Vivian Gornick, excerpt from Fierce Attachments
Craft Reading: Joy Castro, introduction to Family Trouble
Exercise: Write a scene in which you explore the inception, the
keeping, or the effects of a family secret. Please do not write a
scene about the revelation of a family secret. Make an effort to
stay in scene, telescoping out to tell where you need to do so.
Go deeper into “layers of honesty,” as Castro suggests. Don’t
worry about the people you are writing about ever reading this
piece. Allow yourself to write as though this will never be
published or be circulated outside of our class.
Workshop: 5, 6
GENESEO LITERARY FORUM
Monday, February 27th: Idra Novey, 6 p.m., MCU Ballroom
Monday, March 6th —The Braided Essay
Primary Reading: Steven Church, “I’m Just Getting to the Disturbing
Part”
Craft Reading: Barrie Jean Borich, “Autogeographies,” from Bending
Genre
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Exercise: Divide a paper into two columns. On the left, brainstorm
significant experiences you’ve had (experiences that involve you
going somewhere and doing something, as when Church visits
the lake in this essay). In the righthand column, brainstorm even
more significant or fundamental experiences the item in the first
column brings to mind. Choose the pairing that offers the most
potential for bringing you to greater insight about yourself. Write
a scene from one of the columns and use that scene to
introduce a second scene from the other column. Make sure to
use thick description combined with brief “telling” moments that
allow us to grasp the larger significance of these experiences—
that is, what you’ve learned about yourself by writing about
them.
Workshop: 7, 8, 9, 10
Monday, March 13th-Friday March 17th: Spring Break
Monday, March 20th—Lyric Journalism
Primary Reading: Kathryn Waring, “Appendix” and Annie Dillard,
excerpt from An American Childhood
Craft reading: John D’Agata from “2003” in coursepack and Lawrence
Sutin, “Don't Let Those Damn Genres Ever Cross You Again!”
from Bending Genre
Exercise: Visit a place you have never been before—ideally a
place that interests you because of some vital connection you
have with it. It could be a town; a scientific lab; a historical site; a
natural formation; a particular community; or more—it should be
a place with good potential for concrete particulars/sensory
details. Copy the sentence-level moves Dillard makes in An
American Childhood to capture a sense of this place, what
happened/happens there, and its significance to you. (Please
note that it would be a good idea to do this exercise
DURING Spring Break.)
Workshop: 11, 12, 13, 14
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Monday, March 27th—The Long Essay
Primary Reading: Clutch Fleischmann, Syzygy, Beauty
Secondary Reading: Clutch Fleischmann, “Ill-Fit the World,” in Bending
Genre
Exercise: Choose your favorite fragment in Syzygy, Beauty and
write your own fragment in response. Allow yourself to continue
writing fragments, up to five pages. Let the leaps between the
fragments be associative, chronological, thematic, whatever
works. Go back and choose the most powerful fragments, or the
ones that hang together or offer interesting tensions with one
another. Assemble these into a two-page essay of fragments.
Workshop: 15, 16, 1, 2
Monday, April 3rd—Biomythography
Primary Reading: Excerpt from Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of
My Name and Maxine Hong Kingston’s “No Name Woman” from
The Woman Warrior
Craft Readings: Faith Adiele, “Writing the Black Family Home” and Bich
Minh Nguyen, “The Bad Asian Daughter”
Exercise: Write a two-page scene from your own “biomythography,”
where family stories, cultural myths, and personal experiences
mingle.
Workshop: 3, 4, 5, 6
Monday, April 10th—The Profile
Primary Reading: Jo Ann Beard, “Werner”
Craft Reading: Margot Singer, “On Convention,” in Bending Genre
Exercise: Find someone (not a family member) who has had an
extraordinary experience. Interview them about this experience.
Write a two-page scene from the experience, mimicking the
style of and the level of detail in Beard’s piece.
Workshop: 7, 8, 9, 10
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Monday, April 17th—The Cultural Essay
Primary Reading: Gloria Anzaldúa, “La Conciencia de la Mestiza”
Craft Reading: David Lazar, “Queering the Essay,” in Bending Genre
Exercise: Write your own two-page cultural essay. You can take
Anzaldúa’s essay as a model, seeking some aspect of your own
hybrid identity as the source of your exploration of some mixed
part of your own consciousness. We’re all part something and
part something else. Allow yourself to explore your own
variegations—the multitudes within you—and their relationship
to the cultures within which you have lived.
Workshop: 11, 12, 13, 14
Monday, April 24th—Revision
Primary Reading: “Editing of Raymond Carver”
Craft Reading: Susan Bell, “Revisioning the Great Gatsby” and Kalish,
“Self-Editing”
Exercise: Do a Lish-style editing job on one of your own pieces.
Cut about 70% of your own words in an effort to make the piece
more minimalist and full of silences/subtext. Remember what
Hemingway said—imagine that the paragraph you cut from your
piece might be the best paragraph in someone else’s. Bring in a
one to two-page piece that results from this editing process.
Workshop: 15, 16
Tuesday, April 25th: Great Day
Monday, May 1st: Last Class—The New Media Essay
Primary Reading: Video or radio essays found in groups; 10-minute
presentations
Craft Reading: John Bresland, “On the Origins of the Video Essay” and
Jeff Porter, “Essay on the Radio Essay”
Exercise: Create a short (less than one-minute) video or radio
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essay of your own. You can use your laptop to create a video
essay (you might have iVideo on your machine or you can use
the ones in the computer lab). To record a radio essay, use
Garageband (again on your Mac or in the computer lab—there
is also a recording studio in Milne you can use to record and
edit. Contact Steve Dresbach for training and to book the
recording appointment). Bring your computers to class in order
to mini-workshop these pieces.
Monday, May 8th: Final Portfolios Due