About the Workshop Discussions
Goals
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To notice everything that is wonderful about the writing.
To notice everything in the writing that seems ordinary, ho-hum, or cliché,
everything that seems flat or not attention-getting.
To help each other see what promises are latent in the writing.
To help each other get ideas about how to bring out this promise.
To help each other get ideas about the theme or meaning of the work.
To help each other get ideas about how to bring this theme or meaning forward.
To help the writer imagine how to make this piece amazing: how to turn the piece
into something so miraculously original only one person in the world could ever
have written it; how to make every line and sentence do something new and
interesting; how to make writing that will, in short, blow people away.
Procedure
1. Go to the module for the week and look for the Workshop discussion assignment.
You’ll find your group there.
2. Submit your Weekly Writing Assignment to the group by 9am Monday. You may
paste it in from Word, or you can attach in .doc or .rtf. (.doc is preferable to .docx,
as many people do not have .docx or have to go through an extra conversion
process to read it.)
3. Read your group members’ work.
4. Compose comments about each person’s work, and submit them to the group.
Initial posts commenting on each piece are due by 9pm Wednesday.
5. Listen to my commentary and reply to it, saying how you agree or disagree.
6. Be thoughtful and generous with your comments. Remember that we all feel
tender about our own writing, but we also want to make our writing better. We
want our work to be both appreciated for what it is and encouraged to become
what it so far is not.
7. Make your comments very specific: “I’m confused about who you are talking
about in line 3,” rather than “This poem is confusing.”
8. Reply to the comments about each piece: Do you agree, disagree? Do you have a
different idea about the point under discussion? Does one person’s comment
make you think of another suggestion or observation?
9. Each week, I will contribute detailed comments on one piece in each group.
Everyone in the group can use these comments to help think of what to comment
on and how. You can also try applying my comments on your group-mates' work
to your own work. It may be applicable. Everyone will have a turn to receive
these comments by the end of the quarter.
10. The writer may ask questions of the group, but may not defend or explain.
11. Thank your group members for their time and help.
12. The workshop ends midnight Friday.
Grading: 10 points
You earn the full ten points when:
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You submit your work on time and begin reading and commenting promptly.
Your initial comment on each piece is due by 9pm Wednesday. Replies due
by midnight Friday.
You make at least one original post and one reply for all the pieces in your group.
You listen to and reply to my critique, saying specifically where you agree with it
and where you disagree.
Your comments show that you have read your group’s work carefully, and are
considering all the elements of craft and technique that have come up in the class
so far. Your comments should make suggestions at many levels: both the
individual word-level and at the level of theme and idea. Help each other deepen
your work. Make imaginative suggestions.
You follow the instructions and prompts in these guidelines (see below).
Those who post their work and receive feedback without giving feedback to
others will not only receive 0 points, but will have 10 points subtracted from
their grade. If you do not plan on commenting, please do not submit anything
for others to comment on. Non-participants waste other group members'
time.
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Discussion Prompts
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With both poetry and fiction, it's useful begin by identifying the basics of who,
what where when: What’s going on in the piece? Who are the characters? Who is
the speaker? Where and when does it take place? What happens in it? Is it clear?
Is there disagreement or confusion about what is happening?
Showing vs. telling: Where does it “show” with sensory detail, and where does it
“tell,” with explanation? (Showing: “She felt as if she was spinning up in the air,
unable to breathe.” Telling: “She felt confused.”
Following the assignment: Does it use the permissions and parameters of the
assignment prompt? Help think about how the piece could follow the assignment
more closely, or about what is gained by diverging from the assignment.
Economy of language: Can things be said more concisely, more strongly, more
vividly? Does every word count?
For poems in form: If the assignment is a formal poem (with requirements such as
a specific rhyme pattern or line length or meter), how closely does it meet the
requirements of the form? Are there words that seem present only for the purpose
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of fulfilling the form? How does the form serve this poem? How does it not serve
this poem?
Originality: Where does the language seem a little dull, a little clichéd, or perhaps
just ordinary? What here sounds new, creative, as if it could be said by this author
only, no one else? What seems like it might have been said by any writer?
Theme: What are the underlying issues of this piece? How might a revision bring
these issues forward?
Possibility: What might want to be developed further? What lines or stanzas or
scenes might follow from this?
To have a successful workshop discussion
1. Make time for this workshop assignment. It should take a half-hour or more to
critique each piece, and it might take more. Do not rush. Spend time reading each
piece over and over.
2. Post on time and respond promptly.
3. Listen to my critique, and use it to help you find yours: Do you agree with me?
Disagree with me? Have something to add to what I've said?
4. Ask questions: If you are unsure what to comment on, ask the writer what they
are most interested in hearing feedback about. If you aren't getting the kind of
feedback you want, ask your group members specific questions.
5. "Bad" and "I don't like this" are not allowed. Your comments must always be
precise and specific, so if something about the piece disturbs you, explain what it
is and say why you think you responded as you did, as this may help the writer
revise to reach a broader audience, if that's what they want to do. However, saying
"I don't like it" is about you, not about the writing, and so is not useful for
workshop purposes. As with the reading discussions, "I like it" can be a useful
response as long as you follow that up with what, specifically, you like, and why.
The more we notice about what's working well, the better.
6. Be sensitive to your responses as you read, and articulate those responses: If a
particular part interests you or makes you curious, let the writer know. If you feel
particularly alive or quiet or even blah as you read a particular word or phrase, let
the writer know. No one needs specialized knowledge to give this kind of
feedback; it just takes practice to become conscious of the multitudes of responses
that take place in the reading brain. And then it takes more practice to articulate
these responses.
7. Discuss in a spirit of experimentation: This is the forum in which we play with
ideas and experiment. Offer speculations and ideas for writing experiments, for
example, "What if you changed the title to the phrase at the end of the first
paragraph?" "What if instead you started with the image at the end?" "What if you
omitted the first sentence and instead started with your second sentence?" Your
suggestions will neither be right nor wrong, but they will help the writer get ideas
for how to make their piece fully become what it wants to be.
Responsibilities
Readers are responsible for reading carefully and thoughtfully, and for making their
comments as observations rather than as evaluations. That is: “I noticed that the fourth
line has three stresses in it, not four,” rather than “The fourth line is wrong.” “I notice a
shift in the point of view at the end of the third paragraph,” rather than “Fix your point of
view.” If something you read is disturbing or seems awkwardly written, you should be
honest about your reactions: “This makes me queasy,” rather than “This is too
disgusting.” “The typos are distracting me from your meaning,” rather than “Why didn’t
you use spellcheck, you fool?”
Authors are responsible for listening quietly and absorbing everything, not defending or
arguing. While you may feel your readers are misunderstanding you or being shoddy
readers, it is nevertheless your job, during the discussion, to pretend that the readers are
right in what they say about your work. Treat the comments as suggestions for useful
experiments: What would happen if you took that suggestion? Ultimately, what you do
with the feedback is up to you.
The instructor: In addition to my specific feedback to one piece per group, I will check
in with your discussions periodically to see how they’re going, and will contribute if I
think you’re getting off-track. You are always welcome to e-mail me through the course
site and ask me to chime in if you want my take on a subject that has come up.