Back to course description The CD provides fourteen lessons. Each lesson culminates in one of three types of final writing assignments. - 4 short pieces (approximately 250 words)
- 5 essay drafts (500-750 words)
Exercises in "thinking outside of the box" help students discover that there are other aspects of language beside the literal meaning of words. Final Writing Assignment: Experiment with anthropomorphism. Exercises demonstrating the importance of evocative sensory detail in description, especially details evoking the lesser used senses of smell, taste, and touch. Final Writing Assignment: Poem focusing on sensory description of a place. Exercises demonstrate organic form (the interaction of content and form), the use of descriptive and metaphoric imagery, and appropriate use of diction and syntax. Final Writing Assignment: Revise 6 sentences to make them elegant, and write a paragraph for each revision explaining the revision choices. Exercises demonstrate how to recognize a persona's convincing voice and consistent psychology, as well as a method for developing a persona. Final Writing Assignment: Describe an event in the voice of a persona.
Exercises demonstrate a composing process, a method for choosing significant actions to include in a narrative, and tricks for avoiding narrative gumption traps (editing traps, nothing to say traps, too much to say traps). Final Writing Assignment: Narrate in chronological order how you got into the Writing Series. Exercises demonstrate freewriting, expanding prewriting through free association, and culling prewriting for significant themes. Develops the poem from Lesson 2 into an essay. Final Writing Assignment: Write an essay that describes a significant place. Exercises demonstrate how to research the meaning of the student's name, how the student's name was chosen, and how others feel about the student's name, as well as how to identify significant aspects of research. Final Writing Assignment: Combine fact and feeling in a research essay about your name. Exercises demonstrate the use of cause-and-effect to analyze events, how to avoid the post hoc, ergo propter hoc logical fallacy, and the difference between cause-and-effect and process analysis. Final Writing Assignment: Write an essay about a major turning point in your life. Exercises demonstrate how to find and make explicit evaluation standards, how to choose an audience and a persona appropriate for that audience, and how to match evaluation standards of the audience and persona. Final Writing Assignment: Write an evaluation of this course.
Exercises demonstrate the use of outlines after the first draft, how to choose a narrative's best starting point, and how to create a catchy title. Final Writing Assignment: Revise your draft narrative from Lesson 3 beginning either in the middle (in media res) or at the end (framed narrative). Also, comment on the instructor's comments about the outline made after the first draft. Exercises demonstrate the use of figurative language in sentence-level revision, the use of alliteration and consonance in paragraph-level revision, and the use of thematic images to restructure the essay. Final Writing Assignment: Revise the descriptive essay from Lesson 5. Exercises demonstrate effective use of sentence fragments, how repetition and parallelism create emphasis, and how to add excitement and action through the judicious use of vivid verbs and dialogue. Final Writing Assignment: Revise the essay from Lesson 9 about your name, this time using fragments, repetition and parallelism, and vivid action for emphasis. Exercises demonstrate: checking for unity, coherence, and proportion; dialoguing with the instructor in drama-script format about decisions involving the Lesson 10 draft; using implicit and explicit transitions; omitting needless prepositions. Final Writing Assignment: Revise the draft of your cause-and-effect your essay from Lesson 10. Exercises use the Lesson 7 draft to expand a persona scenario, then outline it after the first draft, edit for succinctness, and finally structure the draft for significance, testing for unity, coherence, and proportion. Final Writing Assignment: Revise the draft of your built-out persona scenario to a narrative.
Lesson 1:
Freeing the Writer | | Lesson 2:
The Power of Detail | 
| Lesson 5:
Turning Poetry Into Prose |
| Lesson 8:
Polishing Your Prose | Lesson 3:
The Craft of Composing |
| Lesson 6:
Revising for Unity | | Lesson 4:
Elegant Sentences | | Lesson 7:
Creating a Persona |
| Lesson 13:
(Re)Shaping Your Writing | | Lesson 9:
Reflecting on Research |
| Lesson 11:
Punching Up Your Writing | | Lesson 10:
Analyzing Events |
| Lesson 12:
Revising: Strategies & Tactics | | Lesson 14:
Writing an Evaluation | |
Back to course description | 
