Sample Syllabi

English 366-18213
Fall Semester, 1997
TR 10:00 - 11:50; 3312 Brown Hall

Darren DeFrain
Office: 714 Sprau
Phone: 387-2596 ext. 1
Office Hours: TR 9:00 - 10:00 & by appt.

Most people don't realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else. -- Katherine Anne Porter
Since most of you, presumably, will not leave this class to pursue careers as writers, and since those of you who choose to become writers will need the best possible tools of the craft, this workshop will focus on making you good readers and critics as well as improving your creative writing.

Every class period (at least for the first couple of months) we will begin by discussing a story or essay on craft by an accomplished writer. You need to come to class prepared to contribute to this discussion, failure to do so will result in your grade turning meteoric. We will also discuss two works by your fellow students. These works should be typed, double-spaced short stories or short shorts and should be complete drafts (meaning, though they will not be finished, they should be free of elementary editing errors). You will need to provide enough copies of this story for me and each of your classmates the class period before the story is to be workshopped. There should be enough time for everyone to submit at least four stories to be workshopped.

The story will then be discussed in class, so come to class prepared to contribute to this discussion as well. The author whose story is being workshopped will remain silent during the workshop and will have a chance to ask questions or make any comments after we have finished critiquing her/his story. You do not need to respond to individual criticism unless you feel it would be beneficial for the class to further discuss some aspect of your story. I expect all criticism to be honest, insightful, penetrating, direct, frank, well-intentioned, sincere, and useful. Don't pull any punches, but don't throw any either. By examining one another's work closely I hope you will become better readers and writers. Workshop is not intended to be a forum for fault-finding or quick fixes, merely an ongoing discussion of issues relating to craft.

We will be focusing solely on literary fiction this semester. While some of you may be interested in writing in other genres (science fiction always seems popular, mystery, romance even), the idea here is that if you can understand and work within the demands of literary fiction, the demands of genre fiction should come easier as well. If you want to write in these genres this semester that is fine, but I would like the workshop to focus principly on how well your stories succeed in light of basic literary concerns (ie character development, plot, story, setting, etc.). If you find that you are particularly interested in genre fiction, see me as soon as possible and we will find a mutually satisfying collection for your report.

Grading:
Most of your grade will be based on participation. 50% based on your grade will be based on in-class participation/ discussions/ written comments on your peer's stories/ etc. 25% of your grade will be based on the work you have revised in your final portfolio. This will be submitted at the end of the semester and will include extensive revisions of at least two of your stories.

25% of your grade will be based on a five page critical review of a book from the recommended reading list. This will be due at the beginning of the last class meeting before the Thanksgiving break. I will discuss the details of this assignment later in the semester and will try to pair each student with an author whose work, in some way, reflects their own. If you wish to review a contemporary collection of short fiction not on the list you must see me first. Failure to solicit my approval for this assignment will result in a failing grade.

Attendance:
Since this class relies heavily on your participation (as a writer and a critic), I will be strictly enforcing the standard attendance policy at Western Michigan University. 1-3 absences should not harm your grade. Each additional absence will result in at least a one half grade drop. This includes excused absences. Eight or more absences, regardless of what tropical disease your dog picked up, is automatic failure. If you think you have trouble getting to class, or might have trouble getting to class this semester, you'd better rethink your schedule. Coming to class late more than once in a blue moon will also hurt your grade. If, and I can't believe this would really happen, you should miss a class, the extra copies of the stories will be left in a box outside my office door. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO HAVE THE STORIES AND THE ASSIGNMENT FOR EACH CLASS AND TO COME TO CLASS PREPARED! Be here prepared and on time. In spite of all this nasty business, this class should be fun.

Required Text:
The Peregrine Reader, Weber State University & $10 COPY CARD

Recommended Texts:
John Dufresne The Way Water Enters Stone
Debra Monroe A Wild, Cold State
Dagoberto Gilb The Magic of Blood
Ron Carlson The Hotel Eden
Thom Jones The Pugilist at Rest
Darrell Spencer Our Secret's Out
Mario Vargas Llosa The Cubs and Other Stories
Antonya Nelson Family Terrorists
Alice Munro The Lives of Girls and Women

Some quotes for discussion:

People are always asking me if writing can be taught. My answer is, 'No -- I don't think writing can be taught.' But on the other hand, if I were a young writer and convinced of my talent, I could do a lot worse than to attend a really good college workshop -- for one reason only. Any writer, and especially the talented writer, needs an audience. The more immediate that audience is, the better for him because it stimulates him in his work; he gets a better view of himself and running criticism. -- Truman Capote

[Writing is like splitting wood.] Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block. -- Annie Dillard

In most good short stories, it is the character's personality that creates the action of the story. In most of these stories, I feel that the writer has thought of some action and then scrounged up a character to perform it. You will usually be more successful if you start the other way around. If you start with a real personality, a real character, then something is bound to happen. -- Flannery O'Connor

In writing short stories -- as in writing novels -- take one thing at a time. (For some writers, this advice I'm giving may best apply to a first draft; for others, it may hinder the flow at first but be useful when the time for revision comes.) Treat a short passage of description as a complete unit and make one small unit as perfect as you can; then turn to the next unit -- a passage of dialogue, say - and make that as perfect as you can. Move to larger units, the individual scenes that together make up the plot, and work each scene until it sparkles. -- John Gardner

You have to assume that the act of writing is the most important of all. If you start worrying about people's feelings, then you get nowhere at all. -- Norman Mailer

In writing, you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but first you have to create the sow's ear.
Your first draft is the sow's ear. -- Charles Parnell

The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him. -- Rachel Carson

Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man. -- E.B. White

If you try to nail anything down, in the novel, either it kills the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail ... Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. -- D.H. Lawrence

I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times -- once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say. Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one's fiction wants him to say. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing: "The men and things of today are wont to lie fairer and truer in tomorrow's meadow," Henry Thoreau said. -- Bernard Malamud


Other recommended texts, not ordered but usually available (try Michigan News, John Rollins Books, Barnes & Noble, etc.):

Antonya Nelson In the Land of Men
Charles D'Ambrosio The Point
David Foster Wallace Girl With Curious Hair
Amy Hempel Reasons to Live
Mark Richard The Ice at the Bottom of the World
Stuart Dybek The Coast of Chicago
Robert Olen Butler A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
Richard Ford Rock Springs
Breece DJ Pancake The Collected Stories of ...
Sherman Alexie The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Reg McKnight The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas
Yasunari Kawabata The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories
Alice Munro Selected Stories
Deborah Eisenberg All Around Atlantis
Elizabeth McCracken Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry?

** This is, naturally, only a partial listing of what's available in contemporary short fiction. The works on this list should serve to get you poking around your favorite bookstore. If you have other works to recommend, please see me.

English 307 - Fall 1998
Literature in Our Lives: Contemporary World Lit.
MW 3:00 - 4:15 pm
3318 Brown Hall

Darren DeFrain 387-2596
714 Sprau
Office Hours M 2:00-3:00 pm

This class is designed to introduce you to a variety of works of contemporary world literature and to let you examine these works in light of each other and in light of your own culture and society. Our primary area of interest in these texts will be the family dynamic and the ways in which family struggles are portrayed in the works of other cultures. In addition I will try to bring in related works from other media (films, taped readings, etc.) to help you better achieve these objectives.

THIS IS NOT A LECTURE CLASS. To succeed in this class you need to read and to discuss what you have read. If you don't think you can keep up with the reading, or you don't feel like you'll be able to contribute thoughtful and useful ideas, maybe this isn't the class for you.

I fully expect you to keep up with the readings, come to class prepared to discuss the works you have read, and to turn in all assignments on time (when necessary -- neatly typed in MLA format). If you must miss class, for any reason, it is your responsibility to find out what you have missed and keep up with the reading. While this is a large class, I expect you to be in class on time and prepared to engage in thoughtful, fascinating discussions. Being late to class will cause your grade to drop. Attending class like the proverbial fly on the wall will cause your grade to drop. Missing more than two classes will cause your grade to drop. There are no excused absences.

Grading will be as follows: There will be five examinations worth 10% of your grade each for a total of 50%. You will give two presentations on the Szymborska and Heineman poems worth 10% each. The 3-5 page final assignment will be worth 15%. And the final examination will also be worth 15%.

Required Texts:
Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
Roddy Doyle, The Commitments
The Heineman Anthology of African Women Poets
Wislawa Szymborska, View with a Grain of Sand
Athol Fugard, Master Harold and the Boys... (hand-out)
Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
Mario Vargas Llosa, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Art Speigelman, Maus I&II
Yasunari Kawabata, House of the Sleeping Beauties
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Calendar:
Wed. Sept. 02 -- Introduction to class, Alice Munro handout. Discuss Munro handout. Begin reading Esquivel novel.

ADD/DROP CLOSES SEPT. 04.

Mon. Sept. 07 -- LABOR DAY. NO CLASS. STAY HOME AND READ.

Wed. Sept. 09 -- Discuss Esquivel novel.

Mon. Sept. 14 -- Film. Continue discussion. Begin reading Llosa novel.

Wed. Sept. 16 -- Discuss Llosa novel.

Mon. Sept. 21 -- Continue Llosa discussion. EXAM 1. Sign up for Heineman poetry presentations.

Wed. Sept. 23 -- Poetry presentations/Discussion.

Mon. Sept. 28 -- Poetry presentations/Discussion. EXAM 2/Memorization. Begin reading Doyle novel.

Wed. Sept. 30 -- Discuss Doyle novel.

Mon. Oct. 05 -- Film. Continue Doyle discussion. Begin reading Carey novel.

Wed. Oct. 07 -- Discuss Carey novel.

Mon. Oct. 12 -- Discuss Carey novel.

Wed. Oct. 14 -- Film. Begin reading Atwood novel.

Mon. Oct. 19 -- EXAM 3. Discuss Atwood novel.

Wed. Oct. 21 -- Discuss Atwood novel.

Mon. Oct. 26 -- Film.

Wed. Oct. 28 -- EXAM 4. Begin reading Spiegelman books.

Mon. Nov. 02 -- Discuss Spiegelman books.

Wed. Nov. 04 -- Discuss Spiegelman books. Begin reading Szymborska book. Sign up for Syzmborska presentations.

Mon. Nov. 09 -- Szymborska presentations.

Wed. Nov. 11 -- Szymborksa presentations. Hand out final assignment.

Mon. Nov. 16 -- Catch up day. Fugard handout.

Wed. Nov. 18 -- Fugard play. Discuss Fugard play.

Mon. Nov. 23 -- Discuss Fugard play. Begin reading Kawabata.

Wed. Nov. 25 -- Thanksgiving Holiday

Mon. Nov. 30 -- EXAM 5.

Wed. Dec. 02 -- Discuss Kawabata. Final Assignment Due.

Wed. Dec. 09  -- Final Exam (12:30 - 2:30 pm)

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