Course Detail

21/WI DEN-314-A
CREATIVE NONFICTION WKSH-ONL

Instructor: Bernstein-Machlay
Department: LIBERAL ARTS
Credits: 3   Instruction Method: ONLL
Status: OPEN

Creative nonfiction is a type of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to construct narratives that have their foundation in fact. Examples include: memoir, travelogue, the personal essay, and cultural observation. As opposed to journalism and technical writing, which are also based in fact, creative nonfiction projects a dramatic, literary framework onto everyday existence, rendering it enlightening and potentially meaningful to the reader. We will study examples of creative nonfiction in order to determine some of the structures and methods of this relatively open genre, and in turn, apply them to students’ own work. As a workshop class, the primary focus is student writing of manuscripts to be critiqued and improved. The class requires students to share their writing, questions, and opinions. As an online workshop class, we will interact almost entirely through the medium of Blackboard, posting work and responses weekly or bi-weekly. On a deeper level, we will consider the sometimes slippery nature of truth as it applies to this writing form, looking for consensus on the boundaries we can push, vs. those we must maintain in order for this genre to preserve its claim to authority.

Start Date: 2021-01-19 End Date: 2021-05-08
Meeting in: ONL
Room: ONLINE
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