Creative Writing
Semester Two
2014-2015
Corey McCartney
WHS English
Room 230
425.408.7450
www.nsd.org/cmccartney
cmccartney@nsd.org
“I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.”
—Ray Bradbury
Description
Creative Writing draws on skills and imagination to convey meaning through language.
This class will read and write within genres of fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose
while exploring various forms of each. You will analyze literature for authorial choices and
literary devices in order to understand the craft of writing. You will apply new choices and
devices to your own writing, learning technique through trying it out. You will collaborate
routinely through writers’ workshops as you share stories and feedback with other
writers. By the end of our semester, you will have read and written all sorts of writing,
with a final 30-page portfolio of your own best original work to show for it.
“Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life.”
—Hunter S. Thompson
Schedule*
A typical week in Creative Writing will consist of the following:
Block: Introduction of new skill
Wednesday: Practice activity of that new skill
Thursday: Writing day (in library or on mobile labs)
Friday: Writers’ Workshop (Small groups)
February (Fiction Emphasis)
Defining “creative writing,” “literature,” and “story”
Project: Flash Fiction
Introduction to Writers Workshop & editing technique
Basics of narrative arc, structure and sequencing
Basics of characterization
Basics of narrative mode
Project: Children’s Literature
Texts: Various Saint-Exupery, Sendak, Silverstein, etc.
Film: Various author interviews
March (Nonfiction Emphasis)
Creating imagery
Sensory detail
Figurative language
Tone & mood
Project: Nature Writing
Texts: Various Markham, Abbey, Krakauer, Duncan, Steinbeck, etc.
Films: Selected scenes from Into the Wild, Sweetgrass. Adventures at the End of the World
April (Characterization Emphasis)
Point-of View
Memoir
* First half portfolio due (15 pages)
Portfolio presentations
Texts: Various Orion Magazine, etc.
Film: Stranger than Fiction
May (Poetry Emphasis)
Bantu, Haiku and Renga
Villanelle
Concrete Poetry
Presentation/Speech Skills
Project: Poetry Collection
Project: Lyrical Analysis
Film: Dead Poets Society or other TBA
June (Film Analysis)
Project: Student-Choice Film Analysis Essay
Full Portfolio Due (30 pages)
Writing Presentations
Films: Finding Forrester, Analysis Film TBA
*Schedule neither exhaustive nor inflexible
“It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.”
—Jack Kerouac
Essentials
Organized Creative Writing folder/section of binder.
Planner
Composition notebook
Reliable, accessible means of storing electronic documents at home and school (e.g.
Google Drive, USB drive or email)
o Pens and pencils in multiple colors
o Turnitin.com account: www.turnitin.com
Period 2 Course ID: 9431951 Password: owls
Period 3 Course ID: 9431961 Password: owls
o
o
o
o
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
—Ernest Hemingway
Assessment
“Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all,
give it now.”
—Annie Dillard
Proportions
Classwork (e.g. writers workshop, skills activities, freewrites, notebook): 50%
Portfolio (i.e. 30 pages original work): 50%
Grading Scale
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD+
D
F
100–93%
92–90
89–87
86–83
82–80
79–77
76–73
72–70
69–67
66–60
59–0
+
100%

75
+
90
0
50
4.0-3.8
3.7-3.4
3.3-3.1
3.0-2.8
2.7-2.4
2.3-2.1
2.0-1.8
1.7-1.4
1.3-1.1
1.0+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
(Based on collegeboard.com)
“Write while the heat is in you. … The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron
which has cooled to burn a hole with.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Deadlines
If you fail to meet a deadline on an assignment, then it likely means one of a couple
different scenarios. (1) You have been absent, and you will be given the number of days
absent as the number of days to make up all missed work for full credit. One exception to
this is for in-class participation, which occurs in class only (e.g. seminar, puppy). An
absence during an in-class participation assignment will result in an alternate assignment
will be assigned. (2) You have not been absent, and 10% will be subtracted from the grade
of the late assignment for each class day that it is late. No assignment will lose more than
50% of its earned score, no matter how late it is submitted.
“Writers are always selling somebody out.”
—Joan Didion
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the act of taking another’s work or idea and submitting it as one’s own.
Plagiarism is a serious offense and will result in receiving no credit for that assignment
and contact with home. Collaboration and plagiarism are different things. If you are ever
unsure of what constitutes plagiarism, just ask.
“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large
in his works.”
—Virginia Woolf
Attendance & Tardiness
Arriving less than 10 minutes late is marked as tardy.
Arriving more than 10 minutes late is marked as absent.
Unexcused absences will receive a phone call home from the WHS attendance desk.
Attendance errors are resolved by the student collecting the appropriate form at the
attendance desk, getting the teacher’s signature, and returning it to the attendance desk.
Regarding school attendance policies, see WHS Handbook.
“All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies. Such is the basic goodwill contract
made the moment we pick up a work of fiction.”
—Steve Almond
Rule #1: ________________________________________________________________________________________
Rule #2:_________________________________________________________________________________________
Classroom Principles
The most vibrant classroom culture is one in which each student takes full responsibility
for oneself through constant awareness and self-monitoring, with occasional helpful
feedback from peers and teacher. Some essential rules will be established at the beginning
of our class, and additional rules will be dispensed and enforced as is necessary to fully
protect the emotional, intellectual, and physical well being of all class members. Rules are
limitations, and progress will be hindered by having too many of them in our class. It is a
shared goal of all class members, then, to always act responsibly, respectfully, and keep
additional rules unnecessary. This is a classroom of shared inquiry -- a safe environment
for reading, writing, speaking, listening and exploring.
Creative Writing is a special class. I expect we will be sharing much more with one another
than most other classes. I also expect this semester to be many things: challenging,
rewarding, exciting, and meaningful, among them. I look forward to it, and trust you do as
well.
Sincerely,
Corey McCartney