Creative Writing at Capilano University - SPRING 2009

English 100-14 & 15 Academic Writing Strategies (for Creative Writing)– Reg Johanson
This section of English 100 is designed specifically for Creative Writing students and is a required course for students in the Creative Writing Degree program. It meets for 90 minutes once a week for the fall and spring semesters. This composition class will introduce the genres and strategies that are required of creative writers working in academic situations and contexts with a focus on expository and persuasive forms such as research essays, book reviews, paratext (blurbs, bios, acknowledgements), project descriptions and grant proposals. In addition to each others work, our reading will include a survey of contemporary literary journals. These journals will provide the raw data for the year's study. What can we say about the practices, values and concerns of these "discursive communities"?

Required Texts:
A variety of literary journals, TBA.
Course pack available in bookstore.


English 190-01 Creative Writing I – Reg Johanson
This course introduces students to the cunning of fiction and poetry through reading and writing. Students learn to become critical of their own work and that of others. Students write a variety of assignments intended to open up the horizon of their writing to innovation and experimentation and are encouraged to leave the past behind. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 190 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies- Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for the Degree program students.

Required Texts:
TBA

English 191-01 & 02 Creative Writing II – Ryan Knighton
In English 191 we will continue to develop our skills as writers by asking how writing can be made, not what it might mean. Specifically, we will further engage with questions of poetry, microfiction, and so-called creative non-fiction, as directed by their form and history. Our workshops, however, are neither roundtable editing sessions, nor, worse, copyediting boot camps. Rather, we will share draft examples of our own work in order to further our discussions, to expose new questions, and to seek the effects of craft. Some case examples from published works may be provided in class, but our own writing will serve as the primary texts. So will Stephen king’s memoir, On Writing, which is pretty damned fine. By the final class, students should have at least one reworked submission of writing ready for a magazine or periodical. To that end, we will survey some of the nuts-and-bolts of pitching and publishing, too.

Required Texts:
King, Stephen. On Writing. S&S.


English 290-01 Creative Writing: Letter and Line – Reg Johanson
This course focuses on “documentary” poetry and poetics. Our starting point is Kaia Sand’s challenge, “why leave journalism to journalists, news to news services?”. We study the various ways in which poets can use, co-opt, subvert, and challenge the media, the ways in which we can “document” contemporary issues and struggles, and how our work can respond to a “social command”.

Required Texts:
TBA


English 292-01 Creative Writing: Children’s Literature – Crystal Hurdle
Experience an intensive workshop in writing literature for children of various ages. Examine and practice the art of writing for children by exploring a range of different strategies and techniques: identify narrative structure, myth, character development, levels of diction, voice, etc. Discover voices and forms for your writing and express your ideas in styles appropriate for children’s interests at different ages, from picture books and nonsense rhymes for children to young adult novels in verse. In developing your own projects, become a successor to J. K. Rowling!

Required Texts:
Ellis, Sarah From Reader to Writer
Ellis, Deborah. The Breadwinnner
New, William. Dream Helmet
Porter, Pamela. The Crazy Man
Print Pack with assorted readings