From Brian Kiteley’s excellent book The 3A.M. Epiphany, you’ll find this exercise useful.
Reflecting on your writing
Contrast the research you did while working on the last two essay assignments. How did differences in the assignments change the way you worked on each of them? Which was more difficult? Why? Which of the classroom activities gave you the greatest understanding of the assignment? Was the textbook more or less useful in understanding the assignment than our discussions in class? Why?
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Examples of prose poems
From Great American Prose Poems, an anthology edited by David Lehman, here are some samples.
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Example villanelles and sonnets
See this PDF for interesting examples of villanelles. Here are some sonnets.
Sestina
You
used
to
love
me
well.
Well,
you–
me–
used
love
to . . .
to . . .
well . . .
love.
You
used
me.
Me,
too,
used . . .
well . . .
you.
Love,
love
me.
You,
too
well
used,
used
love
well.
Me,
too.
You!
You used
to love
me well.
Ciara Shuttleworth
Hobo at Heart
by Nyx Hunt
I wake up to a train whistle sounding outside my bedroom window. It is the darkest part of a cold autumn night. I wish I were away with the train. I can feel the cool breeze blowing through the open door of the boxcar I would sit in; taste the tangy night air in the back of my throat. I can feel the power of thousands of pounds of steel barreling down the endless track to destinations unknown; see the twinkling lights of small towns in the distance as we blaze by. Adventure awaits me in my dreams.
6S
Nyx Hunt is a mom and a wife, who loves to go on wild adventures in her dreams.
Disgusted
by Joanna M. Weston
She’s being taken to court for hanging her laundry on the washing line. She’s trying to save the planet while her neighbour’s thoughts are, apparently, prurient. He says pillowcases and towels flapping in an easterly wind are “disgusting,” too lascivious to be seen. When she hangs jeans and tees he, behind closed drapes, looks for her underwear. Sheets and diapers she feels are innocent beyond belief. He sees conception flaunted in the public view.
6S
Joanna M. Weston has been publishing poetry, reviews, and short stories in anthologies and journals for twenty years.
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English 2250 workshopping
This PDF contains the first set of poems we’ll workshop this semester. They’re in the order I received them. This is the second set of poems. Here is the third.
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English 4420 and characterization
Based on what you know so far, address these questions:
- How do your characters act in the face of opposition/desires that contrast with their own? Do they plan, try to persuade, seek to escape, take physical action, for example?
- Describe three events that your central character remembers and that influence his or her current actions.
- Who has power (physical, emotional, etc.) over whom and why? What’s the source of the power? How is it being used? Which actions express that power? Which actions lead to shifts in that power?
- What actions by which characters show relationships at risk rather than overt/obvious conflict?
- What flaws does your character have?
- What mistake could one of your characters make? What might cause the mistake? What might follow from it? How might it influence other characters?
- How might this character be in conflict with him or herself?
- What dilemmas might this character face?
- List scenes you currently feel you’ll need to write. Which actions should you summarize?
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Continuing toward characterization: Setting
I found this exercise useful when trying to create characters. From Alice LaPlante’s Method and Madness, here is the PDF.
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Collected stories from English 2250
This PDF contains the stories students in English 2250 in Fall 2011 wished to share with each other. They are in the order they were given to me. Enjoy.
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2250 fragments
Remember, you need to bring an electronic version of your notes on these fragments. I suggest using the fiction criteria on the course syllabus in the writing of your notes.
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Brown’s Wieland, exploration, and doubt
From Richard Gray’s A History of American Literature: “Brown is exploring the two prevailing systems of thought in early America: respectively, the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the mysticism of Christianity. He is also casting both into doubt” (97-98).
What evidence might Gray use to support the idea that Brown casts doubt on both Enlightenment thinking and Christian mysticism? Cite specific examples from Wieland.
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Metaphor by Metaphor 