Instructor: Dr. Steve Cirrone
Doc’s Office: RS322
Phone/Voice Mail: 916-650-2608
Email: cirrons@scc.losrios.edu
Class Location:
WELCOME TO CREATIVE WRITING!
OVERVIEW
This course will utilize literary interpretation and workshop activities to hone your
creative impulses. We will spend an equal amount of time on poetry, fiction and drama.
Develop your unique voice and write inspired!
REQUIRED TEXTS and MATERIALS
All required readings are found ONLINE and
MUST be printed out and brought to class on the
date(s) indicated on your syllabus.
A Folder with Pockets
Paper, Pens
ASSIGNMENTS and EVALUATION CRITERIA
By semester’s end, you will be responsible for turning in a portfolio containing five
original poems and two original short stories (one in first person, one in third person).
The portfolio will also include a 2-3 page self-evaluation of your overall progress, two
typed peer evaluations (one for each genre of original work), and copies of the two typed
evaluations you have written for one or more of your peers. Your final grade will reflect
your work over the course of the semester as submitted in your creative writing portfolio.
I will collect your portfolio during the last week of class and conduct portfolio review
during that time period.
NOTE THE FOLLOWING:
NO LATE PAPERS OR ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE ACCEPTED WITHOUT
VALID MEDICAL EXCUSE (ie: documented hospitalization) OR DIRE
EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES (is: death of parent, sibling, spouse—a dead
pet, a speeding ticket or anything resulting from illegal activity is not an excuse to
hand in late work)
 ALL ASSIGNMENTS MUST BE TYPED, DOUBLE SPACED
 ALL ASSIGNMENTS MUST BE DONE
 COME TO CLASS ON TIME
 NO CEL PHONES, PAGERS or BEEPERS PLEASE
 ALL ATTEMPTS WILL BE MADE TO HELP STUDENTS WITH
LEARNING DISABILITIES. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO LET ME
KNOW IF YOU HAVE A LEARNING DISABILITY AS CLOSE TO THE
START OF THE COURSE AS POSSIBLE.
 IF YOU MISS CLASS, YOU MUST FIND OUT ABOUT AND MAKE UP
MISSED WORK
Classmate Name and Number:
_______________________________________________
Classmate Name and Number:
_______________________________________________
 ALL ASSIGNMENTS DUE BY DATE INDICATED BELOW
 THREE CONSECUTIVE ABSENCES WITHIN THE FIRST THREE WEEKS
OF CLASS RESULTS IN AUTOMATIC DROP
 IF YOUR ABSENCES EXCEED SIX, YOU MAY BE DROPPED FROM THE
COURSE OR RECEIVE AN “F” FOR THE CLASS IF AFTER DROP DATE
 IF YOU WISH TO DROP THIS COURSE, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
TO DO SO
SPECIAL NOTE ON PLAGIARISM AND ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: As it is
defined in the SCC Student Code of Conduct, Plagiarism is representing the work of
someone else as your own and submitting it for any purpose. Plagiarism includes the
following:



Incorporating the ideas, works, sentences, paragraphs, or parts of another person's
writings, without giving appropriate credit, and representing the product as your
own work.
Representing another's artistic/scholarly work as your own.
Submitting a paper purchased from a research or term paper service.
Depending on the seriousness of the infraction, the following may occur as a result of the
academic dishonesty:




Receive a failing grade on the test or paper.
Have a course grade lowered.
Receive an "F" in the course.
Be placed on disciplinary probation or suspension, or be expelled.
ENGLISH CW400 – SYLLABUS M/W – 9 to10:20am—DR CIRRONE
January 23: Introductions/Overview/Expectations
Lecture/Day focus in bold
“Readings for which you are responsible”
(for poetry, try www.poetry.org or place “Famous Poetry” or the title of the work
in your web browser)
(for short stories/fiction, place the title of the work in your web browser)
28:
POETRY SECTION BEGINS
Forma Classica: Sonnet, Villanelle, Quatrains, Ballad
Shakespeare Sonnets 18, 29, 116, 130
Frost “Design”
Dylan Thomas “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”
William Blake “The Tyger”
John Keats “La Belle Dame sans Merci”
30:
Sounds like Rhyme to Me: Rhyme, Sound, Voice
Lord Alfred Tennyson “The Lady of Shallot”
TS Eliot “The Love Song of Sir Alfred Prufrock”
Edgar Allan Poe “Bells,” “Annabel Lee”
February 4: Pictures Worth a Thousand Words: Imagery
Christopher Marlowe “Hero and Leander” (first sestiad only)
Samuel Coleridge “Kubla Khan”
William Carlos Williams “The Red Wheelbarrow,” “This is Just to Say”
Ezra Pound “In a Station,” “Meditation,” “Salutation,” “Sestina: Alta Forte”
Amy Lowell “Before the Altar, “Apples of Hesperides, “The Road to Avignon,”
“Azure and Gold”
6:
MUSIC to Inspire You
11:
POETRY WORKSHOP—Fixed Form
13:
POETRY WORKSHOP—Free Form
18:
OFF
20:
ORIGINAL RECITATIONS
FOUR POEMS DUE TO ME FOR REVIEW: TWO FIXED, TWO FREE
25:
Thematic Focus: Icarus
Auden “Musee des Beaux Arts”
Anne Sexton “To a friend whose work has come to triumph”
William Carlos Williams “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”
Muriel Rukeyser “Waiting for Icarus”
DMT “I, Icarus”
27:
Dramatically Speaking: The Dramatic Monologue
Robert Browning “Porphyria’s Lover,” “My Last Duchess”
March 3: POETRY WORKSHOP
5:
POETRY WORKSHOP—Dramatic Monologue or Thematic Reponse
10:
FICTION SECTION BEGINS
Our Stories, Ourselves: The First Person Narrative and Point of View
Steve Cirrone “Clepto-patra,” “The Changeling” (Handouts)
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE DUE TO ME FOR REVIEW
12:
Getting Somewhere: The Intersection of Plot, Setting and Character
Nathaniel Hawthorne “The Minister’s Black Veil”
Edgar Allan Poe “Masque of the Red Death”
William Faulkner “A Rose for Emily”
SPRING BREAK MARCH 17-23!!!
March 24: What You Say?: The Purpose of Dialogue in Fiction
Guy de Maupassant “The Devil”
Anton Chekov “The Man in a Case”
Katherine Mansfield “The Stranger”
26:
Nice Threads: Style, Tone and Voice
Virginia Woolf “A Haunted House”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez “Eva is Inside Her Cat”
Shirley Jackson “The Lottery”
31:
FICTION WORKSHOP
April 2: FICTION WORKSHOP
7:
FICTION WORKSHOP
9:
ORIGINAL FICTION DUE TO ME FOR REVIEW—1st Person
14:
Thematic Focus: Short Sci-Fi
HG Wells “The Star”
Arthur Clarke “The Star”
Ursula LeGuin “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas”
16:
Author Spotlight: CLASS CHOICE
21:
FICTION WORKSHOP
23:
FICTION WORKSHOP
28:
FICTION WORKSHOP
30:
ORIGINAL FICTION DUE TO ME FOR REVIEW—3rd Person
May 5: Poetry and Fiction on the Stage
Steve Cirrone The Tragedy of Doctor Gnosis
(copies of this text are available directly through me)
7:
The Tragedy of Doctor Gnosis, continued
Preparing the Portfolio
12: IN-CLASS PORTFOLIO REVIEW
14: IN-CLASS PORTFOILIO REVIEW
If there are Other Days in May that Class Meets, such as during Finals Week, They
will be Devoted to Either Portfolio Review or Individual Meetings with Students
Please Note: The Instructor reserves the right to modify this syllabus at his discretion.