Creative Writing
Mrs. Dougherty
Fall
Purpose and Goals: The goal of this senior elective course is to combine all of the elements of your past English work and to let you have fun with them, while also giving you a culminating academic experience that will prepare you for future endeavors. One of the goals of a creative writing course is to inspire group support and commitment within the classroom, an invaluable tool in school and in the world. The class is designed to foster better student expression, stimulate imagination, clarify thinking, enhance critical awareness, further explore the value of reading and writing, and to help students read and write better.
Students who participate in the course will have the opportunity to produce a publishable piece of writing, which will be submitted to available writing contests and scholarship programs. Student work will also appear in a course-end creative writing catalogue, which will be designed and developed by the students so that they can see their final products in print and share them with their families, peers, and the community at large.
Curriculum:
Unit One Exploring Poetry: Analysis and Use of Tone and Imagery: How does one use tone and imagery to create an authentic, affective experience?
Unit Two The Children’s Book: Analysis and Creation of Theme: How does one create meaning in creative text?
Unit Three The Short Story: Analysis and Development of Setting and Character: How do characters and setting support meaning in a creative text?
Unit Four The Play: Analysis and Development of Dialogue and Symbols: How is character developed through dialogue and meaning enhanced throughsymbolization?
Expectations: This class is an elective, but is also designed to enhance your problem solving, analytical, and writing skills. So while we will have some fun things to do and many group critiques, this is also a course that requires a strong work ethic, diligence, and an immense amount of personal effort. Rarely will you be told what to write about. This takes your accountability to a new level, one most of you should get used to if you are not already.
Assigned Work Policy: All work is expected to be ready for submission on the date it is due. Work will not be accepted more than three days late and at 10 points per day. Anything later will not be accepted and will count as a zero. Work may also be rejected entirely if it is of poor quality.
Creative Writing Syllabus:
Week One:
Theme for English B Poems
Reader's Theatre
Reiser's "The Need for Quality Description"
"The Eagle" Tennyson
"The Hawk in the Rain" Hughes
Week Two: Images in Poetry
Prepare Oral Poetry Presentations
"Meeting at Night" Robert Browning
"After Apple Picking" Robert Frost
"Where Children Live" Naomi Shihab Nye
"The Convergence of the Twain" Thomas Hardy
"The Forge" Seamus Heany
Image Clusters
Image Cluster Poems
Week Three
Cluster Poem Reader's Theatre
Begin Metaphor Poems
"Wind and Window Flower" Robert Frost
"Those Winter Sundays" Hayden
"I Felt a Funeral in my Brain" Emily Dickinson
"Metaphors" Sylvia Plath
Writer's Workshop
Metaphor Poem
Week Four
Personification Poems
"Mirror" Sylvia Plath
"Train" Emily Dickinson
Writer's Workshop
Reader's Theatre
Week Five
Tone Analysis
"The Tyger" and "The Lamb"
"The Beating" and "The Whipping"
"Daddy" and "Daddy"
Final Poetry Project Workshop/Portfolio
Week Six
Begin the Children's Story
Introduction
Book Analysis of Characters, Plots, Themes
Weeks Seven - Nine
Writer's Workshop and Illustration
Authentic Assessment of Children's Book at Elementary School
Week Ten
Discuss "Fundamentals of the Short Story" William Alan Rieser
Read "The Tell-Tale Heart" Poe
"The Shaping of Character" and Exercises
"Hunters in the Snow" and Questions Tobias Wolf
Week Eleven
Exercises in Character Shaping
"The Inner Lives of Characters"
Read "A Jury of Her Peers" Susan Glaspell
Read "Sweat" Zora Neale Hurston
Exercises in Character Development
Week Twelve
Setting Development exercises
Read "To Build a Fire" Jack London
Setting as Character
"The Yellow Wallpaper" Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Weeks Thirteen-Fifteen
Short Story Drafting
Editing Writer's Workshop
Reader's Theatre
Week Sixteen
Begin The Play
A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams
Focus on Dialogue and Symbols
Week Seventeen
Play Writing Activities for Character and Dialogue
Week Eighteen - Nineteen
Play Writing Workshop
Week Twenty
"Acting Out"
Final Portfolios Due
Mrs. Dougherty
Fall
Purpose and Goals: The goal of this senior elective course is to combine all of the elements of your past English work and to let you have fun with them, while also giving you a culminating academic experience that will prepare you for future endeavors. One of the goals of a creative writing course is to inspire group support and commitment within the classroom, an invaluable tool in school and in the world. The class is designed to foster better student expression, stimulate imagination, clarify thinking, enhance critical awareness, further explore the value of reading and writing, and to help students read and write better.
Students who participate in the course will have the opportunity to produce a publishable piece of writing, which will be submitted to available writing contests and scholarship programs. Student work will also appear in a course-end creative writing catalogue, which will be designed and developed by the students so that they can see their final products in print and share them with their families, peers, and the community at large.
Curriculum:
Unit One Exploring Poetry: Analysis and Use of Tone and Imagery: How does one use tone and imagery to create an authentic, affective experience?
Unit Two The Children’s Book: Analysis and Creation of Theme: How does one create meaning in creative text?
Unit Three The Short Story: Analysis and Development of Setting and Character: How do characters and setting support meaning in a creative text?
Unit Four The Play: Analysis and Development of Dialogue and Symbols: How is character developed through dialogue and meaning enhanced throughsymbolization?
Expectations: This class is an elective, but is also designed to enhance your problem solving, analytical, and writing skills. So while we will have some fun things to do and many group critiques, this is also a course that requires a strong work ethic, diligence, and an immense amount of personal effort. Rarely will you be told what to write about. This takes your accountability to a new level, one most of you should get used to if you are not already.
Assigned Work Policy: All work is expected to be ready for submission on the date it is due. Work will not be accepted more than three days late and at 10 points per day. Anything later will not be accepted and will count as a zero. Work may also be rejected entirely if it is of poor quality.
Creative Writing Syllabus:
Week One:
Theme for English B Poems
Reader's Theatre
Reiser's "The Need for Quality Description"
"The Eagle" Tennyson
"The Hawk in the Rain" Hughes
Week Two: Images in Poetry
Prepare Oral Poetry Presentations
"Meeting at Night" Robert Browning
"After Apple Picking" Robert Frost
"Where Children Live" Naomi Shihab Nye
"The Convergence of the Twain" Thomas Hardy
"The Forge" Seamus Heany
Image Clusters
Image Cluster Poems
Week Three
Cluster Poem Reader's Theatre
Begin Metaphor Poems
"Wind and Window Flower" Robert Frost
"Those Winter Sundays" Hayden
"I Felt a Funeral in my Brain" Emily Dickinson
"Metaphors" Sylvia Plath
Writer's Workshop
Metaphor Poem
Week Four
Personification Poems
"Mirror" Sylvia Plath
"Train" Emily Dickinson
Writer's Workshop
Reader's Theatre
Week Five
Tone Analysis
"The Tyger" and "The Lamb"
"The Beating" and "The Whipping"
"Daddy" and "Daddy"
Final Poetry Project Workshop/Portfolio
Week Six
Begin the Children's Story
Introduction
Book Analysis of Characters, Plots, Themes
Weeks Seven - Nine
Writer's Workshop and Illustration
Authentic Assessment of Children's Book at Elementary School
Week Ten
Discuss "Fundamentals of the Short Story" William Alan Rieser
Read "The Tell-Tale Heart" Poe
"The Shaping of Character" and Exercises
"Hunters in the Snow" and Questions Tobias Wolf
Week Eleven
Exercises in Character Shaping
"The Inner Lives of Characters"
Read "A Jury of Her Peers" Susan Glaspell
Read "Sweat" Zora Neale Hurston
Exercises in Character Development
Week Twelve
Setting Development exercises
Read "To Build a Fire" Jack London
Setting as Character
"The Yellow Wallpaper" Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Weeks Thirteen-Fifteen
Short Story Drafting
Editing Writer's Workshop
Reader's Theatre
Week Sixteen
Begin The Play
A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams
Focus on Dialogue and Symbols
Week Seventeen
Play Writing Activities for Character and Dialogue
Week Eighteen - Nineteen
Play Writing Workshop
Week Twenty
"Acting Out"
Final Portfolios Due