10200/30200. Beginning Fiction Workshop. This beginning-level fiction writing class uses a wide range of exercises and activities to help students discover their oral and written voices. Point of view, seeing-in-the-mind, gesture, audience, and other aspects of story are emphasized so that students can attempt to incorporate basic storytelling principles, forms, and techniques into their own writing. The major goals of the class are to guide students to discover and use the power of their individual voices, heighten their imaginative seeing and sense of imaginative options, and develop their overall sense for story structure and movement. Students select at least one of the assignments undertaken, rewrite it extensively, and attempt a complete story movement (short story or novel excerpt) of publishable quality.
10300/30300. Beginning Poetry Workshop. PQ: Consent of instructor. The principal texts for this workshop are those written by the students during the quarter, and class discussion centers on those works. In addition, several other texts may be examined, primarily to enable students to begin criticizing and editing their own works. This is a class in which everyone is free to experiment. The goals by the end of the quarter are that students have a clearer idea of what they want to be doing and how they want to be doing it.
10400/30400. Beginning Creative Nonfiction. PQ: Consent of instructor. In this course, students focus on the interaction between nonfiction and literary elements that constitute creative nonfiction through writing exercises and readings.
10500/30500. Beginning Playwriting. (=TAPS 26600) Writing is a physical activity. However, most writing uses limited amounts of body and mostly mind. This class is designed for students who want to try something new: risk moving around and getting a shove in an unpredictable direction. One half of the class is focused on writing from the body. Students spend the other part of the class preparing for a performance of the work that they have created by using the most basic instruments at their disposal: their bodies and their ideas. J. Magnus, B. O’Reilly.
12000/32000. Intermediate Fiction Workshop. PQ: Consent of instructor. The principal texts for this workshop consist of the students’ own writings, though outside texts augment student learning. Form, story, character, dialogue, aspects of style, and other elements of craft are discussed; careful attention is paid to the individual student’s voice as well as to the process of revision.
13000/33000. Intermediate Poetry Workshop. PQ: Consent of instructor.Principal texts for this workshop consist of the students’ own writings. Participation in discussions required.
14000/34000. Intermediate Creative Nonfiction. PQ: Consent of instructor. In this course, students focus on the interaction between nonfiction and literary elements that constitute creative nonfiction through writing exercises and readings. Participation in discussions required.
22100/42100. Advanced Fiction Workshop. PQ: Consent of instructor. In this course, students’ own writings are the primary texts for analyzing and developing the elements that constitute fiction. Outside readings illuminate particular issues related to students’ work.
23100/43100. Advanced Poetry Workshop. PQ: Consent of instructor and prior experience with poetry writing. The principal texts for this workshop consist of the students’ own writings. Participation in discussions required.
27101/47101. Beginning Screenwriting. (=TAPS 27311) This course introduces the basic elements of a literate screenplay, including format, exposition, characterization, dialog, voice-over, adaptation, and the vagaries of the three-act structure. Weekly meetings include a brief lecture period, screenings of scenes from selected films, extended discussion, and assorted readings of class assignments. Because this is primarily a writing class, students write a four- to five-page weekly assignment related to the script topic of the week. J. Petrakis. Autumn, Winter.
27105/47105. Theater and Performance Studies Colloquium. (=TAPS 29800) PQ: Consent of Director of Undergraduate Studies and Chair of Theater and Performance Studies Option. Required of fourth-year students who are majoring in TAPS. Creative Writing or MAPH students who are preparing theses for performance may participate with consent from their home department and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Students participate in both Autumn and Winter Quarters, but only register once. Autumn, Winter.