How this Class Works

Fri, Aug 25

This course relies four main pedagogical approaches, which guide how the syllabus is structured and how each class is planned. These four approaches build upon and reinforce each other, creating a feedback dynamic in which learning in one mode drives learning in another.

• Close Reading
• Experiential Learning
• Peer to Peer Learning
• Building Blocks

By close reading, we mean paying close attention to text. This might seem obvious, but in fact most people skim and scan, taking in words and groups of words at a rapid pace, gathering the general meaning of a paragraph or a page without attending closely to what each word is actually doing, what each sentence is actually saying. In this class, we'll read closely, parsing syntax and punctuation and diction, becoming better readers in the process -- and more importantly, becoming better, more sensitive, and more attentive writers.

Reading and writing is at the core of what we'll be doing, but experiential learning is about getting away from the page and outside of the box. Experiential learning means uses all of our senses, writing in nature, playing with language, and talking to people. 

Some of the people we'll talk to may be interview subjects for our stories. Other people will be our peers in class. We can (and often do) learn as much from our fellow students as we can from our teachers, and this course relies on small group workshops, discussions, and peer feedback to facilitate the kind of learning we can do with each other. 

But we won't be bringing steaming-fresh first drafts into workshop. We'll be workshopping thought-out, developed stories, which come after workshopping pitches, outlines, and other scaffolding as we build our stories up, piece by piece, from idea to structure to final draft. We put our stories together piece by piece, over time, and in so doing we not only make better stories, but by focusing on each stage of the process, we learn and internalize specific, cumulative writing skills.