Final Course Guidelines and Assignments

Tuesday, December 6, 2005:

In-class fiction open mic.

Thursday, December 8, 2005:

In-class fiction open mic, part II.

I'll also be returning your stories with comments today, and administering in-class evaluations.

VERY important!! Your final creative writing porfolio will be due on Tuesday, December 13, by 5:00 p.m. Please turn your portfolio in to my mailbox in Dakota Hall 226, or if the office is closed, slide it under my office door in Dakota Hall 207. Make sure to include a self-addressed, stamped envelope with adequate postage if you'd like your portfolio mailed back to you after grades have been posted to WebAdvisor. Your portfolio should include the following: (1) Rough draft versions of the three formal poetry assignments and full-length short story with my comments; (2) Revised, final versions of these pieces; and (3) 250-word process pieces for EACH of these sets of assignments/revisions in which you discuss your revision process and assess how the piece has developed/evolved as a result of revising. You will be graded on the thoughtfulness, care, effort, and overall improvement of your revisions.

Important!! Don't forget to turn in your Writerly Immersion Paper #2 along with your final portfolio on Tuesday, December 13. Guidelines for the paper can be found in the post just below.

This will be your last week of blogging! Since we aren't doing in-class exercises or readings, your first two blogs can be freestyle blogs of your choice. Your third blog will be a memoir pormpt, as usual, and so here is your final memoir prompt of the semester (for blogs due on Sunday, December 11):

Write about your first kiss. Maybe it was with a friend, just practicing. Maybe it was with somebody you were afraid of more than you were in love with. Maybe it was a stolen kiss. Maybe you did the stealing. What were the circumstances leading up to the kiss? Or, start with the kiss and describe what happened after.

Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions or concerns, and I'll be glad to help! And good luck with the home stretch!

Quiz Reminder and Guidelines for Writerly Immersion Paper #2

Important!! Don't forget to bring in your completed take-home quizzes to class on Tuesday, December 6!!!

Guidelines for Writerly Immersion Paper #2:

Please write a 3-4 page comparison and contrast paper that compares and contrasts two literary journals.

One of the literary journals should be the VLP 2005 Literary Magazine (available for purchase from the English Department secretary, Melanie Westin, Dakota Hall 212, if you didn't purchase one already at the start of the semester). If, for some pressing reason, you would prefer to replace the VLP 2005 Literary Magazine with an alternate print journal, I will be open to discussing this with you.

The second literary journal can be either another print literary journal or an electronic literary journal. Click on the Porta Del Sol link below for an excellent guide/listing of electronic journals and print magazines. (Scroll down past the WebDelSol editor interviews). Electronic journals listed here have a direct link to the online journal, and you can check to see if our library carries subscriptions to any print journals that sound interesting to you.

Porta Del Sol

Please make sure cite appropriately using MLA format as needed.

Papers will be due on Tuesday, December 13, 2005, by 5:00 p.m. (either in my mailbox in Dakota Hall 212, or at my office/under my office door in Dakota Hall 207) along with the Final Creative Writing Portfolio.