ENG 610: Mondays, 6-830 pm (SAKAM D102)
Prof. Joseph Han
ENG 610 explores five major elements in the field of CW: practice, workshop, pedagogy, performance, and the writing life. Grounding ourselves in where we are writing now, who we come from and claim, this course will support graduate students in broadening their intentions and establishing specific goals in relation to writing, teaching, publishing, and community engagement. What kind of work must we do for our writing, so we may realize and carry out the work our writing can do in the world? We will consider the way these elements of CW help us better understand how we might grow as writers and teachers of writing. Throughout the term, students will be asked to reflect on this central question: what is our calling in our writing lives, and how must we activate and transform our role as writers in a CW program, in Hawaiʻi currently, and across our own communities?
Students will identify the writers, scholars, techniques, and methods guiding their current trajectory while identifying what new inspiration and research might deepen, complicate, or further their knowledge and ideas for future projects, whether thesis or dissertation. Situating our writing assignments and discussions will be readings by authors who engage in both critical and creative writing, Kanaka Maoli and local writers, and those who’ve come from the UHM CW program throughout its history. One salient question is what lineages, practices, and writing traditions have shaped our current learning and writing environment, and thus how might these examples elucidate what we might carry on or how we might turn in new directions? Throughout the term, we will read across genres, from fiction and poetry to nonfiction and hybrid works, making this course of interest to a wide range of student writing backgrounds and interests while also encouraging students to write across various forms.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Foundational knowledge of creative writing history, theories, and pedagogies
- Understanding and development of creative writing craft techniques in fiction, creative nonfiction, and/or poetry
- Ability to analyze and articulate why they write and how they construct that writing and for whom
- Ability to contextualize their own creative writing within broader artistic and scholarly conversations
- Practice independent research, including the integration of primary and secondary sources with creative skills
- Engage in and foster a writing community
POSSIBLE COURSE TEXTS (subject to change. Prof. Han will provide updates a week prior to class instruction)
Kai Gaspar, Ulu
Alicia Upano, Everything to the Sea
Excerpts/readings will be available as PDFs on Lamakū