7000024 - Writing your own Story
Course Description
What is your story? What is a personal essay that only you could write? In what voice will you write that story? What writing container can best bring shape to this story of your life?
Join this intensive writing course, where we will develop strategies to write our own stories, the stories of our lives. Through a combination of discussions, workshopping, lectures, readings, and writing exercises, you will learn about and practice applying literary tools and techniques from creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry to memoir writing. We will experiment with different elements of craft (including the journey of a story, narrative voice, literary structures, and the revision process) and consider the implicit challenges and ethical implications of writing memoir.
Upon completion of the course, you will have a written portfolio that includes a character sketch, place-based reflection, and personal essay. While this course is not focused on planning out a book-length memoir or autobiography, the skills you develop in the course can be applied to a longer manuscript.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
- Respond to a variety of readings from published authors to investigate personal essays and memoir as a genre
- Explain different approaches to the journey of a personal essay and apply one to your own writing
- Incorporate various literary devices, including dialogue, description, character development, imagery, sound, and rhythm, into your personal essays
- Participate in substantive discussions of personal essays and approaches to form and style to share your learnings with other students and learn from others
- Engage in a writing practice with other writers to experiment with your writing style and your role as a narrator
- Provide supportive feedback to others and demonstrate the application of feedback provided through workshopping your work
- Identify the implicit challenges inherent in writing true stories and the ethics of personal essays
- Demonstrate the use of personal essay and techniques in your own writing by creating and revising a portfolio of writing
Course Topics
- What Is Memoir? What Is Personal Essay? What Is Your Story?
- Who Is Telling Your Story and Who Is in Your Story?: Writing Self and Character
- Where Does Your Story Take Place?: Writing Setting, Nature, and Home
- How Will You Tell Your Story?: Working with Form
- What If You Don’t Know?: Working with Time, Memory, and Research
- The Revision Process – Tools from Fiction: Characterization, Dialogue, Plot
- The Revision Process – Tools from Poetry: Sound, Rhythm, Imagery, Tone
- Writing Celebration, Publishing, and the Writing Life
Additional Requirements
- This course is intended for adult learners who are at least 18 years of age.
- There are no prerequisites for this course.
- You may take this as an individual course.
- You do not have to register in the Creative Writing Certificate to take this course.
Assessment
| Assessment Item | Weight |
|---|---|
| Participation | 20% |
| Character Sketch | 10% |
| Place-based Reflection | 10% |
| Personal Essay | 25% |
| Final Portfolio | 35% |
| Total | 100% |
Please note the course assessment is subject to change.
Sponsoring Partner
School of English and Theatre Studies, College of Arts
Applies Towards the Following Certificates
- Creative Writing Certificate : Electives
Technical Requirements
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*Course details are subject to change.