February 5, 2009
Class Notes: Writers on Writing brings people together for writing, reading, conversation
Class title: English 285: Writers on Writing, taught by the UW creative writing faculty, led by Professor Richard Kenney, and Teaching Assistants Scott Provence and Sarah Erickson.
Description: This course is based on three elements that contribute to a writer’s work: writing, reading and conversation. Conversations about writing begin with lectures from a variety of writers. On Tuesdays, members of the creative writing faculty, including Linda Bierds, Shawn Wong and Pimone Triplett, speak to the assembled class. Discussion sections meet on Wednesdays. On Thursdays, young fiction and poetry writers speak and give readings of their work. These include poet Robert McNamara, fiction writer Cheryl Slean and poet Cody Walker. Guest lecturers have free rein over the content of their talks; Kenney simply asked them to speak about the most important things they know or what excites them most right now. Students come from a variety of scholastic backgrounds; many major in English or creative writing, but about half come from political science, engineering, international studies, music and more. They meet with teaching assistants in sections to discuss the lectures, share weekly writing assignments and recite poetry from memory.
Instructor’s views: “I wanted to set up a conversation where writers – my colleagues, who are spectacular – remember in public why they do what they do,” Kenney said. Because he wanted to give as many different kinds of students a chance to engage in the conversation, Kenney opened the class to all students. “English students are absolutely welcome, but we wanted engineering students and nursing students and Future Farmers of America to come and listen too, because literature is for all,” he said.
Kenney said the writers who give readings on Thursdays are “the future of the art.”
“These haven’t been ‘stand up, shut up and listen’ events,” he said. “They’ve absolutely been conversations where these young writers read what they do and talk about it.
“I want the writers to simply embody their own excitement. They’ve flung their lives at this art, and they’ve thought it was a pretty good gamble.”
Kenney said the point of the class is not for students to become master authors or poets, but rather to glean writing tips from guest speakers and try them out for themselves. “Most of the ideas that are being put forward by these professors are actually ideas they’ve found of practical use,” he said. “You can talk about ideas forever, but if you want to see the practical virtue they have, which is what they’re advertised to have, then you have to try them.”
Provence said some students have difficulty trying these new ideas, but the class is designed to ease their fears. “We’re not looking for perfection, we’re not looking for the right answer, and I think some students have struggled with that,” he said. “They have fears about grading or fears about getting it wrong and being off track with the rest of the class. We purposely designed these things to have space for students to explore something that we wouldn’t even expect. We’re open to tangents and to see where students’ interests take them.”
“What is education but conversation?” Kenney said. “Even if one person is using more of the air than the other. If I’m a professor, so I’m expected to or empowered to talk more perhaps than any individual student, nevertheless – if we’re not having some kind of meeting of the minds, then nothing’s happening.”
Unexpected experiences: “The class has been unnaturally responsive [to the lectures],” Kenney said. “They ask questions and seem to be right on board. I just got a note from Ann Pancake – she’s a fiction writer who read brilliantly a couple of weeks ago – I had sent her a note of thanks and she wrote back that she’d never been in front of such a large group that was so attentive.”
Provence was also surprised by students’ enthusiasm for the course. “It’s been nice for me to see some of the students take over,” he said. “In other classes I’ve TA’d for, I’ve always felt like the enforcer, driving all the discussions. I’ve been trying to keep really nice [Catalyst] GoPost discussion boards and a lot of these people have just been posting and starting their own conversations. It’s nice to see the conversations kind of run away with themselves.”
Erickson said the students’ academic diversity has helped contribute to the class’ success. “People can come at things from such different directions. I think that’s why we get so many good questions during lecture,” she said.
Kenney said the idea of leaving lecture content entirely up to the guest speakers turned out well, despite the lack of thematic organization a class would usually have. “We had to pretty much accept the days that [the speakers] had,” he said. “Nevertheless, oddly, weirdly, the one seems to build on the other. And threads, filaments of metaphorical connection, keep developing so that it seems as though we’re in the midst of a conversation that makes sense. What’s happening is the students are making sense of it as they go.”
Reading: The creative writing faculty lecturers assign a variety of readings related to their lectures, which are available in a course reader and online. Students are also asked to “fall in love” with at least one novel and three poems throughout the quarter. Kenney and the faculty lecturers compiled a list of novels they love for students to choose from, including Moby Dick, Wuthering Heights, Watt and The Lord of the Rings. Students must memorize and recite at least three poems from Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize, edited by John Hollander, which includes poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Assignments: The faculty lecturers assign pitches, or simple writing prompts, to students to help illustrate the major points of their lectures. One prompt was for students to write a piece of flash fiction – a very short story – modeled after four examples of flash fiction. Students post their work on the class Web site and discuss it in sections. Students also keep an observation log throughout the quarter. They post their observations online and discuss observation as a skill and as a building block for creative writing.
Student views: Freshman Brittany Ward, who is studying political science and drama, said this course has far surpassed her initial expectations. “We have had the opportunity to engage some of the most talented and distinguished faculty who have a great deal of advice for students,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I am also fond of the poetry recitations. I find that memorizing classical poems gives me the drive to understand and appreciate these literary masterpieces more in-depth.”
Alicia Walker, a junior English major with an emphasis in creative writing, wrote, “I have never been in a class that is so willing to participate and I always feel comfortable sharing my work because everyone is accepting and respectful of others.”
She also said she has seen the benefit of the class’ assignments. “The pitches we are assigned push me to experiment with different types of writing that I would usually never try,” she wrote. “One of our assignments throughout the quarter is to keep a log of pure observations, and having to do this seems to open the floodgates of imagination and creativity because it requires one to be more observant of every minute detail going on around you.”
Class Notes is an occasional column that describes interesting or unusual classes at the UW.
