Fall 2005
English 523: Fiction Writing Workshop-The Short-Short
Story: Episodes & Flash Fiction
Professor John High
Mondays
6:10 to 8:30 pm
The Short-Short Story represents an exciting new form re-emerging
in contemporary writing. These 2-3 pages stories often combine
elements of poetry, parable, and performance writing within
the basic framework of fiction. Their sudden impact results
from both their brevity as well as their quick and potentially
explosive pacing. This is an intensive writing workshop in
which we will focus on the students' stories and process of
writing. We'll study the essential framework and craft of
fiction (character, setting, plot, point of view, etc.), while
exploring the still undefined territory of the short-short
genre. How can we craft our fictions to move with urgency,
immediacy, and surprise? Short, episodic writing requires
a vitality of voice, a sense of the sudden and unexpected
in plotting, and the mind's careful meditation on the subtle
nuances of events.
We'll look at ancient parables and mythic writings as well
as at what's being published now as a way to examine how contemporary
writers are experimenting with the form. We'll read texts
ranging from those of the ancient Sufi, Navajo, Eskimo, and
Egyptian parables to stories by Yasunari Kawabata, Jayne Anne
Phillips, Raymond Carver, Lydia Davis, Jamaica Kincaid, Jorge
Luis Borges, and Michael Ondaatje. The course will include
writing exercises to motivate and encourage students to more
fully ground themselves in the craft of the short-short story
as well as experiment with his or her imagination in a form
of writing open to innumerable approaches and merging paths.
Students will explore the possibility of episodic writing
in their own work without restrictions of genre jurisdiction.
Though the short-short implies brevity in form & structure,
students working on expansive short stories, plays, novels,
or novellas will be encouraged to interweave the craft of
episodic writing into their ongoing longer work. The goal
of the course includes completion of a portfolio of work,
and revised editions of texts for a class anthology, group
reading, & party.
English 524: Poetry Writing Workshop
Professor Lewis Warsh
Thursdays
6:10 to 8:30 pm
Each student will initiate what might be a long poem of
several pages or even a book-length poem. We'll discuss the
ways of accumulating data by direct observation and journal
writing, by reading the newspaper (which is a kind of daily
poem), and by sustaining a rhythm, a feeling, a theme. We'll
pay attention to ways of improvisation, how to translate daily
life into poetry, and how to use repetition and variation.
We'll use as models some of the great long poems of the last
century, most notably "Paterson" by William Carlos
Williams, and "The Skaters" by John Ashbery. Mostly
we'll look closely at each other's work, give each other feedback
and advice, and share each other's concerns regarding the
importance of poetry in the world.
English 526: Writing Media I: The Story
Professor Claire Goodman (Department of Media Arts)
Thursdays
6:00 to 8:50 pm
This cross-listed course is an introduction to the methods
and principles of great STORYTELLING in the media. It is the
cornerstone course for all forms of story: commercials, sitcoms,
movies, experimental shorts, even documentaries and photographic
essays. In the first half of the semester, by means of screenings
and discussion, students will learn to recognize and analyze
basic story elements such as narrative structure, character,
setting, plot, design, irony, and comedy. In the second half,
in workshop-style classes, students will work on creating
their own stories using these elements. Each student will
develop their own movie-short screenplay and treatment as
a final project. A professional screenwriter will be a guest
speaker at one of the classes. Requirements: access to a computer,
purchase of Final Draft writing software, and permission
of instructor to take the course.
English 527: Introduction to Grant Writing
Professor Marilyn Zlotnik
Wednesdays
6:10 to 8:30 pm
This course is designed to give students experience in the
research, planning, and writing skills involved in preparing
competitive grant proposals. The overall objective of the
course is to provide students with an overview of the art
and science of the grant writing process, including the style
of technical language used. The course will provide opportunities
for students to search out funding sources and fully develop
all of the major components of a grant proposal that is responsive
to funder requirements and priorities. Students will develop
a grant proposal that will be reviewed by peers in class and
by a panel of expert grant seekers. The course will include
direct instruction, class discussions, small group sessions,
Internet and field research, skill-building assignments, and
presentations.
About the Instructor: Marilyn Zlotnik has been with Metis
Associates, Inc., a New York City - headquartered research
and consulting firm, since l994. Currently Ms. Zlotnik holds
a dual appointment in the company, serving as the Director
of Program Planning and Grants Development and as a Managing
Senior Associate in the Division of Applied Research and Evaluation.
Ms. Zlotnik spearheads internal proposal development activities
to promote Metis' research and evaluation and information
technology services and directs the development of competitive
grant proposals for Metis clients, including public education
agencies, institutions of higher education, and community-based
organizations. Over the past ten years, these activities have
resulted in grant awards in excess of $120 million to support
the implementation of human services initiatives in a wide
array of program areas and settings, both in New York City
and across the country. In addition, Ms. Zlotnik has designed
and conducted training and technical assistance sessions in
the area of grantsmanship for over 15 years.
English 636: The Radical Decade--British Literature in
the l930s
Professor Bernard Schweizer
Tuesdays
6:10 to 8:00 pm
Through the lens of literature, this course will explore
the dramatic developments of the l930s, as England (and much
of the rest of the world) slithered from exuberance (the 'Roaring
Twenties'), to depression (economic and otherwise), to total
crisis (World War II). We will read a representative cross-section
of l930s literature (poetry, travel writing, essay, short
story, and novel) to study how the predominant cultural and
political forces of the time--notably the rise of totalitarianism
abroad, ideological polarization at home in England, the global
economic slump, and the Spanish Civil War--impacted on the
period's literary production. Some of the questions that will
focus our reading are: How do British writers of the period
engage their readers to take sides on vital political and
social issues? What is the role of Modernism in this time
of crisis? Do men and women interpret the thirties condition
differently? And what is the relationship between politics
and art anyway? At a time when the world was seemingly coming
apart at the seams, and reality may have seemed as strange,
if not stranger, than fiction, Britain's men and women grappled
in fascinating ways with this difficult and yet stimulating
condition. Texts: W.H. Auden, poems; Katherine Burdekin, Swastika
Night (l937); Graham Greene, It's a Battlefield
(1934); Storm Jameson, Company Parade (1934; George
Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (l937); Evelyn Waugh,
Vile Bodies (1930); Rebecca West, "The Abiding
Vision" (1935); Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas
(l938); and selections taken from Women's Poetry of the
l930s.
English 641: Literacy & Basic Writing
Professor Xiao-Ming Li
Tuesdays
6:10 to 8:00 pm
In this course, we will examine whom we teach and what we
teach in basic writing courses, i.e. who are basic writers?
And what is literacy? Based on the understanding of those
two issues, we will discuss how to teach basic writers what
we claim to teach. To answer the question of whom, we will
read Shirley Brice Heath and Shondel Nero, whose studies of
basic writers, the latter of students at LIU in particular,
provide useful templates for our own ethnographic or case
studies. For the question on literacy, we will read such influential
educators as E.D. Hirsch, Paulo Freire, and Patricia Bizzell.
To ponder the last question of how, we will examine models
such as the Pittsburg model (Batholomae and Petrosky) and
the Amherst model (Robert Varnum), and those described by
Mina Shaughnessay and Geneva Smitherman in their well celebrated
books. A Sourcebook for Basic Writing Teachers edited
by Theresa Enos will be used as a companion book for all discussions.
Participants of the class will keep a reading journal to "think
aloud" all reading assignments. Each will also engage
in a semester-long project to study one of the three key issues
proposed above. The project will culminate in a paper of 10-15
pages, which should 1) synthesize and evaluate the readings
pertinent to the issue; 2) analyze one basic writer's written
texts throughout the semester in the context of the writer's
life experience; and 3) propose concrete methodology tailored
to this particular basic writer.
English 646: Individual & Small Group Writing Instruction
Professor Mary Hallet
Mondays
6:10 to 8:00 pm
In this course, students will examine the theory and practice
of individual and small group writing instruction. We will
examine a range of strategies for working with students one-on-one
in tutoring, facilitating small group workshops in the writing
classroom, and designing effective small group student/teacher
conferences. We will locate our work within various theoretical
and historical contexts. The course will focus on the following:
structuring sessions and establishing priorities; assessing,
diagnosing, and responding to student writing; eliciting generative
critique among students; strategies for intervention, planning,
drafting, revising, proofreading, and editing; helping students
help each other with grammatical and mechanical concerns;
working with ESL students; attending to interpersonal dynamics
and cultural and ethnic differences in one-on-one and small
group interactions.
Classes will be conducted as seminars/workshops so that all
students have the opportunity to participate not only in class
presentations, but also in small group conferencing and workshopping
among themselves. Writing will include weekly responses to
reading, and a final written project, based on topics of interest
that arise during the semester. Possible texts (complete or
selections from): Lindermann, A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers;
Meyer and Smith, The Practical Tutor; Spielberg, Across
Property Lines: Textual Ownership in Writing Groups; Flynn
and King, Dynamics of the Writing Conference: Social and
Cognitive Interactions.
English 649: Nineteenth Century British Horror Fiction
Professor Louis Parascandola
Wednesdays
6:10 to 8:00 pm
This course will explore the growth of the gothic (horror)
novel during the nineteenth century. This period saw the rapid
development of the sciences and social sciences, which often
legitimized (while at the same questioning) the prevailing
Divine, social and political hierarchies. The works discussed
in this course, including Frankenstein, Wuthering
Heights, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
Dracula, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, all examine
the uneasy tension between rebellion and following the established
order which marks the beginning of the modern sensibility.
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