Advanced Creative Program Overview
Arguably, creative writing is the ultimate course because it encompasses nearly all the skills needed for academic writing and promotes many more. Further, it is attached to the entire self and all aspects of life. For most people, creative writing is also more difficult. Yet the rewards are the highest and few regret the results. Yes, the benefits are innumerable, but how do you actually learn it?
The three most important sources for creative writing besides-- like everything else--the passion to attempt it, are imagination, life experience and others’ writing. This list is not in order of significance. However, there is no efficient way to teach imagination and, by definition, life experience is what is learned, undergone, endured and explored outside the classroom. Therefore, as we try to become better creative writers, we will expose ourselves to literature from the Americas east to Russia and Greece in order to not only be inspired by the sources, but to see how other masterpieces are created, how they differ from each other, how these stories can clarify our own feelings and experiences, and which techniques are used that we also can employ.
There are plenty of fantastic stories that do not fall neatly under the categories listed at the end of the paragraph (Like Camus’ Stranger or Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard), but in order to teach very important concepts, some reduction is necessary and the works chosen are of the highest level and display clearly the important concepts the students seek to understand. With a few exceptions, every class will have two examples of literature*. In addition to the main lesson, each class will have a secondary focus on one or several primary elements of creative writing: Plot (P) Character (C) Setting (S) Description (D) Theme and Symbolism (T).
Here’s a portfolio of what students who takes the program would have and the important people with whom they will be familiar. Curriculum For All 6 Semesters