MEETINGS
Tuesdays, 6-8:30pm in person in Dean Hall 104
DESCRIPTION
ENG 713 is, per the UHM General Catalog, an “[a]dvanced study in creative writing focused on thesis and dissertation projects.” In this iteration of the course, I have two primary goals: 1) to help you articulate where you come from as a writer and where you intend to go with your thesis or dissertation project; 2) to help you establish an artistic practice. In the first weeks of the semester, you will write a project proposal for your thesis or dissertation. You will also create an artist’s contract, with goals for your writing and reading for the term. Next, you will map a literary lineage that identifies and traces the artists, theories, methods, and techniques that are influencing this particular project. In an effort to expand your artistic mo’okū’auhau, I will guide you toward additional influences that might deepen, complicate, and further your knowledge. From this geneaology, you will then compose a bibliography of some 8-10 works that you have not yet read. In the next phase of the course, you will read a selection of works in your bibliography and write a variety of scholarly and creative annotations. (Scholarly annotations might be precursors to notes for an Area Exam list. Creative annotations can include emulations, experiments in style or voice, and other creative writing that responds technically to primary texts within the bibliography. I’ll give prompts for all of these!) From there, you will expand one or more of your creative annotations into completed work (stories, chapters, poems, essays) to receive feedback in small-group workshops. In the final weeks of the term, you will draft an artist’s statement OR a craft essay OR a critical introduction. We will also talk about the goals of a thesis or dissertation, as well as the afterlives of a manuscript, the road to publication, and the business of writing. Throughout, we will think about how community can support our practice and how to build, sustain, and care for that ‘upena of fellow artists.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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Establish a writing practice with discipline, rigor, and playfulness on the way to discovery and innovation.
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Establish a reading practice, one’s own literary genealogy, and learn how to become a better reader of your own work and the work of others through reflection, generative feedback/critique.
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Apply advanced research methods and/or creative writing techniques. Demonstrate written and oral ability to map, historicize, and contextualize one’s craft principles and critical perspective within specialized areas, literary traditions, and recent forms—thus engaging in conversation with one’s peers, students, and established writers and experts within their communities.
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Discover and engage in your language, style, and structure—one’s aesthetic and craft principles—to define your project’s themes, argument, and worldview.
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Develop sustained focus and exercise awareness on how to plan, draft, and revise a long-term creative project, meeting self-imposed deadlines while addressing programmatic pathways. Learn to reinforce and protect one’s long-term artistic vision. Engage in community building in the spirit of collaboration, advocacy, and solidarity toward an inviting and invigorating creative environment.