English 9CE: Creative Expression in Writing

English 9CE: Creative Expression in Writing

3 Units, Spring 2018

Instructor: Mark Labowskie

Tuesdays and Thursdays: 4:30-6:20PM

Office: 209, Margaret Jacks Hall (Building 460)

E-mail: ffice hours: TBD

Course Description

Creative Expression in Writing is a writing class that explores daily creative practice. This quarter, you’ll be challenged to push your creative limits and to take risks in your work. Together we’ll explore how we can become more alert to the world and how, through language, we can respond in fresh ways to the events of our lives. As we imagine other realities and engage in a conversation with the long tradition of art, we’ll practice thinking flexibly and seeing opportunity in failure. In this class, you’ll be a member of a community of writers prepared to challenge and support oneanother as we navigate the process of creation.

This quarter, you’ll generate ideas that you will develop and shepherd through revision. The course offers opportunities for you to experiment with form and content and to develop a vocabulary with which to discuss your own work. Through close reading, writing exercises, collaborative projects, performance, workshops, and discussion, you’ll explore the role creativity plays in your own life.

Creative Expression in Writing fulfills Stanford’s Ways of Thinking/Ways of Doing Creative Expression Requirement: The ability to design, create, and perform—each enriches our lives in substantial and meaningful ways. Thinking creatively, giving expressive shape to ideas, and communicating those ideas with imagination and precision are not only indispensable to all artistic endeavors, they also represent broadly applicable skills that strengthen and enhance traditional academic pursuits, stimulate effective problem-solving, and foster originality and innovation in new areas.

Course Objectives for Creative Expression students:

• Explore your own potential and produce original creative projects.
• Engage in artistic collaboration and the creative reinterpretation of art made by others.
• Take creative risks beyond your comfort zones.
• Experience what it is like to make the unimagined possible and real.
• Appreciate how experimentation, failure, and revision can play a valuable role in the creation of successful and innovative works.
• Consider multiple and possibly divergent solutions to a problem.
• Explore the role of artistic expression in addressing issues that face society.

Required Materials

• Course reader: Copy Factory will be selling the readers both online and in class. The reader will cost approximately $30, and Copy Factory accepts Visa, MasterCard, and cash. You must have a hard copy of the course reader in your possession by the third class meeting. Please see the “Course Material Support” section on page 5 for information about assistance with the cost of textbooks.
• A notebook and folder reserved for this class alone.
• A printing budget and access to a printer. You will also need to print out and bring in various exercises and responses throughout the quarter.

Grading Breakdown

Class Participation (25%)

The success of a creative writing class depends on the active, sustained contribution of each member. I expect you to read the assigned stories, poems, and essays and to come to class prepared to discuss them. Participate in group projects and activities, try your best. Bring your journal to every class. Participation includes coming on time to every class (see below for attendance policies). It also includes your undivided attention when others are speaking and sharing. Because of this, no laptop or cell phone use is permitted in this class. The exception is for certain in-class writing activities, when you are allowed (but not required) to use your laptop (with WiFi turned off).

Writing Exercises (35%)

Over the course of this quarter, you will be writing a lot! This class is about building and sustaining a creative practice, and thus you’ll be generating a lot of raw material. To this end, you’ll be completing many written exercises, both in class and out. These exercises will include imitations, flash fiction, memoir, poetry, prose poems, and many other things. You will turn in your exercises typed. Some, but not all, of these exercises will receive feedback, either in the form of written comments by me, peer exchange, or small-group workshop. You will know, in advance, when you will be turning in pieces that will receive feedback—thus, you will be able to choose which pieces are most compelling to you. At the end of the quarter, you will turn in a final portfolio that includes revised work and a creative manifesto.

In addition to your typed exercises, you’ll also be keeping a daily journal, which will include observations, illustrations, thoughts, quotations, ideas, and anything else you might like to include. You’ll be encouraged to share something with us at the beginning of each class, so do bring your journal to every class meeting.

All assigned exercises must be typed and printed and turned in on time. Late exercises will go down half a grade for each day they are late. No work will be accepted by email.

Group Project (15%)

The Creative Expression Group Project. Presentations will take place in weeks 8 and 9. More on this in class.

Final Portfolio (15%)

You will compile a portfolio that you will upload to Canvas at a TBD date. More on this in class.

Creative Writing Program Readings Attendance (10%)

You are required to attend three creative writing or literary events over the course of the quarter and write a one-paragraph response to each. There are many readings and events sponsored by the Creative Writing Program/English department from which to choose. See the events calendar on the cw website: Please also sign up for the Creative Writing Events Listserve by going to and joining “cw-undergrad”. There are also many other acceptable arts events happening on campus and in the Bay Area at large—please check with me first if you’re planning to use a non-CW/English event as one of your readings. You will upload your paragraph responses to Canvas.

Other Expectations/Policies

• Attendance: Due to the discussion-based nature of this class, attendance is absolutely critical. I take attendance at the beginning of every class. If you’re late, it’s up to you to remind me at the end of class to record your presence. You are allowed TWO absences for the quarter, so use them wisely. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to turn in, on time, whatever work is due that day; if you are dealing with a family or medical emergency, you can arrange an extension with me, but otherwise work is still due on the day of your absence (you can also, of course, hand it in earlier, if you know in advance you will be absent). For each absence after the second one, I will subtract 5 points from your final grade (i.e., a 90 becomes an 85).
• Lateness: If, after the first day, you are more than ten minutes late to class (or leave early without my prior permission) that will count as an absence. If there’s a valid reason why you may sometimes be late (i.e., a class immediately before or on the other side of campus), please let me know.
• Late Assignments: A late assignment drops half a grade each day it is late (i.e., a 90 becomes an 85).
• Office Hours and Conferences: Please come visit me during my office hours to discuss the course, your work, class readings, other books you’ve read, or writing and life in general. I am really eager to get to know all of you, and am happy to find other times for us to meet if my office hours don’t work with your schedule. I also strongly recommend you schedule an appointment to meet with me after your workshop. While these appointments aren’t required, they can be useful to you in debriefing post-workshop and forming a plan for revision.
• E-mail: E-mail is the best way to reach me. I check e-mail every day and respond as promptly as I am able. I will address all communications to your Stanford e-mail and expect you to check it daily.
• Formatting: All short writing exercises and stories should be double-spaced in 12-point easily-readable black font with full-size margins. (Your written critique letters, however, should be single spaced.) Use print, not web, formatting: indented paragraphs, no double line breaks between paragraphs. Include your name and the page number on every page of an assignment, and include the assignment number on the first page. Make sure you staple anything more than one page. Please spell-check and proofread all work. Failure to follow these guidelines will impact your grade.
• Electronic Devices: Again, no laptops or tablets present in class, except on lab day. Phones must be turned off or placed in vibrate mode.
• Plagiarism: The Board on Judicial Affairs says: “For purposes of the Stanford University Honor Code, plagiarism is defined as the use, without giving reasonable and appropriate credit to or acknowledging the author or source, of another person’s original work, whether such work is made up of code, formulas, ideas, language, research, strategies, writing or other form(s).” If you are in doubt about what constitutes plagiarism in the context of this course or a particular assignment, ask me.
• Lastly: Sex, death, illness, trauma, violence—these make up 99% of the literary canon. The material we consider in this course—both published work and student stories—will consistently engage with adult subject matter, and our conversations will have a frank and adult tenor. While I seek to foster a classroom environment that is characterized by mutual respect and empathy and tolerance for diverse viewpoints, I also want this to be a space in which we can speak candidly about a range of difficult subject matter. Please come speak with me if you ever start to have concerns about the classroom dynamic or tone. I may indicate in advance when a story contains particularly graphic content.

Students with Documented Disabilities

Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of AccessibleEducation (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, andprepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the OAE assoon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066,URL:

Honor Code

The Honor Code is the University's statement on academic integrity written by students in 1921. It articulates University expectations of studentsand faculty in establishing and maintaining the highest standards in academic work:

The Honor Code is an undertaking of the students, individually and collectively:

1. That they will not give or receive aid in examinations; that they will not give or receive unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation ofreports, or in any other work that is to be used by the instructor as the basis of grading.

2. That they will do their share and take an active part in seeing to it that others as well as themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the HonorCode.

3. The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its students by refraining from proctoring examinations and from takingunusual and unreasonable precautions to prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned above. Thefaculty will also avoid, as far as practicable,academic procedures that create temptations to violate the Honor Code.

4. While the faculty alone has the right and obligation to set academic requirements, the students and faculty will work together to establishoptimal conditions for honorable academic work.

Course Material Support

Stanford University and its faculty are committed to ensuring that all courses are financially accessible to all students. If you are an undergraduate who needs assistance with the cost of course textbooks, supplies, materials and/or fees, you are welcome to ask the Diversity & First-Gen Office for assistance by completing their questionnaire on course textbooks & supplies: by contacting Joseph Brown, the Associate Director of the Diversity and First-Gen Office (; Old Union Room 207). Dr. Brown is available to connect you with resources and support while ensuring your privacy.

Course Schedule

(subject to revision depending on final number of students and the needs of the class)

Week One (Tues 4/3 and Thurs 4/5)

Creativity and Creative Practice

What is creativity? What does it mean to develop and maintain a personal creative practice? How do we go about doing it?

Readings: “My Name,” Sandra Cisneros; “Contributor’s Note,” Michael Martone; “Brainsets and the Creative Process,” Shelley Carson

Week Two (Tues 4/10 and Thurs 4/12)

Becoming a Person on Whom Nothing is Lost

How is creativity a response to the world as it is? How can we become observers of both the internal world and the external? How can concrete language and specific, revealing details create an experience for the reader?

Readings: “Behind the Screen,” Joanne Beard; “A Story About the Body,” Robert Hass; excerpts from Making Comics, Scott McCloud; “No One’s a Mystery,” Elizabeth Tallent; a selection of haikus

Week Three (Tues 4/17 and Thurs 4/19)

The Land of the Figurative

How does writing transcend the actual? What’s the difference between what is “real” and what is “true”? How do we enter into the metaphorical world?

Readings: “Five Fingers of the Hand,” Aloysius Bertrand; “Hair,” Sandra Cisneros; “Michiko Dead,” Jack Gilbert; “The Mayor of the Sister City Speaks to the Chamber of Commerce in Klamath Falls, Oregon, on a Night in December, 1996,” Michael Marton; “Feared Drowned,” Sharon Olds; “Portrait in Georgia,” Jean Toomer

Week Four (Tues 4/24 and Thurs 4/26)

Accidents, Failure, & Playing with Form

What are we afraid of in our creative practices? How can accidents and failure be productive? How does trial and error with various forms strengthen our creative process?

Readings:

Failure

“Two Questions,” Lynda Barry; “A Gentleman’s C,” Padgett Powell

Forms

“Happy Endings,” Margaret Atwood; “Class Notes,” Lucas Cooper; “Letter to a Funeral Parlor” and “Jury Duty,” Lydia Davis; “Vectors: 36 Aphorism,” James Richardson; “I Can Speak!,” George Saunders; “Short Talks,” Anne Carson

Week Five (Tues 5/1 and Thurs 5/3)

Re-visioning & Collaboration

Re-visioning: How do we re-see our pieces to make productive changes? How can we develop a vocabulary to talk productively about our own drafts and the drafts of others? How can we complicate and develop our pieces, and push deeper into the mystery?

Collaboration: What are the pleasures of working collaboratively? How might we best structure an artistic collaboration over several weeks, and what does it feel like to work together in meetings we plan and sustain on our own? How is collaborative work different from the artistic work we do on our own, or in a classroom setting? How might we create a unique project that has imaginative, emotional, and intellectual meaning to all the members of our group?

5/1: Full-class meeting, Re-visioning

Readings: “Bone Hinge” drafts, Katie Williams

5/3: Small-group meetings, Collaboration

You will meet in small groups to work on your final project.

Week Six (Tues 5/8 and Thurs 5/10)

Word Games

How might “play” influence our creative work? How might rules offer us useful constraints?

Readings:

Abecedarian:

“Son of Mister Green Jeans,” Dinty Moore

Anagram:

“Nuclear,” “Overseas,” “Masculine,” Terrence Hayes; “I.e.,” Kevin McFadden

Palindrome:

“Doppelganger,” James Lindon; “Order,” Randall Mann

Sestinas:

“Sestina,” Elizabeth Bishop; “Chekhov: A Sestina,” Mark Strand; excerpt from The Notebooks of Anton Chekhov; Sestina spiral diagram, courtesy of Wikipedia

Triolets:

“Triolet,” G.K. Chesterton; “To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train,” Frances Cornford; “Triolet,” Sandra McPherson; “Triolet on a Line Apocryphally Attributed to Martin Luther,” A.E. Stallings; “Valentine,” Wendy Cope; “The Country Wife,” Dana Gioia; “Triolet for Late July,” Peter Kline

Week Seven (Tues 5/15 and Thurs 5/17)

Witness and Change

How does art comment on the larger world? Can art change the world? How does a reader’s/viewer’s experience of the work change the writer/artist?

Readings: “The Colonel,” Carolyn Forché; “The Dachau Shoe,” W.S. Merwin; “Carpathia,” Jesse Lee Kercheval

Week Eight (Tues 5/22 and Thurs 5/24)

Art and Conversation

How do written and visual arts intersect? How does multi- and cross-genre work change our relationship to our creative process?

Readings: “Musée des Beaux Arts,” W.H. Auden; excerpts from 100!Hundred!Demons!, Lynda Barry: “Introduction,” “Head Lice & My Worst Boyfriend,” “Common Scents”; “Mango, #61,” Richard Blanco; “Don’t Let That Horse…,” Lawrence Ferlinghetti; “Every Painting by Chagall,” Kay Ryan; “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” Rainer Maria Rilke; “This is Just to Say,” William Carlos Williams; “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams,” Kenneth Koch; excerpts from A Postcard Memoir, Lawrence Sutin