CREATIVE WRITING 1 & 2

Creative Writing 1 taken only in the first semester, teaches students the art of imaginative fiction writing.  Over the course of the first semester, students learn how to use words and sentences to create imaginary worlds filled with interesting characters, settings, and exciting plots and conflicts.  Beginning with how writers use words, phrases and sentences to create meaning, students advance to learning how to create interesting and believable characters, writing descriptive imagery, creating plots and conflicts that generate tension and reader interest.  The semester ends with a focus on how to structure a short or long narrative through exposition, incentive moment, conflict and rising tension, crafting a strong climax, and then resolving their story.  In the process, students will read a variety of authors and genres serving as models for developing narratives, structuring a work, and literary devices and style.  Students may choose to learn to write in a favorite genre or in a variety of genres.  The course ends with a unit on how authors are published and what they can do to start publishing their own works of fiction

Creative Writing 2 taken only in the second semester, teaches students the art of literary nonfiction with practical application to college and career writing, as well as freelance writing and publishing.  Students begin with the literary nonfiction genres of memoir and the personal essay, learning the rhetorical and writing styles used in nonfiction writing.  The course then shifts to academic and career writing in areas such as in the sciences, social sciences, business, journalism, etc. The course ends with students learning the important elements of successful writing for college and in their careers or sidelines: those of researching, outlining, drafting, editing, revising, and polishing an original piece of writing.  Following this is a study of how to publish works of nonfiction.  (Students who have also taken Creative Writing 1 may focus on applying these steps to an original work of fiction).