English 101/102 —Writing and Critical Inquiry through Creative Nonfiction
(Sample Syllabus)
Course Goals and Objectives
This course is designed to approach critical inquiry through the lens of creative nonfiction, a
genre that examines conventions of voice, storytelling, persuasion, and audience. You will gain
competence with creative nonfiction's primary components: voice, point of view (POV), conflict,
figurative language, scene and exposition, stylistic choices and narrative arc. You will utilize
critical thinking and examination of literary texts as a model of written expression. As with any
composition course, you will learn to engage with college-level texts, conduct effective research,
understand genre, and give proper attribution when you use the work of others. You will learn to
use point of view and understand the constructedness of the “I” in your work.
This course is process-based and will involve maintaining a journal, revising drafts of your
essays, and giving as well as receiving and incorporating group feedback. With guidance from
the in-class exercises, workshops and discussion board, you will compose three personal essays
in different modes you will derive from the text, incorporating relevant experiences from your
lives and engaging questions of audience. At least one of your essays will also utilize targeted
research. You will find the appropriate form and voice for each piece of writing. You will also
write a brief ethnographic autobiography. Together, these four essays will comprise your final
portfolio of course work.
The required readings
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Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction, by Brenda Miller
and Suzanne Paola
A choice of sourcebook, such as Strunk & White’s Elements of Style, for doublechecking the conventions of literary writing and MLA style.
Various essays found on the web: URLs at the end of syllabus.
Course Requirements
 Two four-to -six page essays, from a subgenre of your choice chosen from our textbook,
one to be substantially revised for our final portfolio.
 One performative or mixed-media essay—a radio essay, a persuasive essay, blog, or
other as agreed with instructor (five pages) with a three-to-five minute oral presentation.
 One brief ethnographic autobiography.
 One of your essays will contain research, based on a research plan developed through
concepts in our text and expanded through in-class writing prompts, with attention to
proper source attribution.
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Regular work in four-person peer groups. In these peer groups, you will comment on
each other's drafts in class, bringing written feedback on one another’s essays to class
with you.
Class participation, which includes participation in whole-class discussion and workshops
groups, and Blackboard discussion sites.
Final portfolio to include all drafts and a final revision for either essay one or essay two, a
three-page ethnographic autobiography, a five-page performative or mixed media essay,
and a reflection on the course using quotes from your journal.
In-Class Writings
Freewriting in class, using specific writing prompts, gives you a chance to write without selfcensorship and to grapple, without worrying about audience for the moment, with specific
concepts, such as your life as historically situated, as sited in a particular place, your ideas in
relationship to other literary work that has been important to you, etc. Freewriting reinforces to
us that all writing is an art, and like all arts, it is created by the process that makes it. Visual
artists discover the world of their painting as they paint; writers understand what they want to
express as they write—which is why the root of the word “essay” is the French essai, to try or to
test.
Essays
Writing in this course will speak back to, understand, and synthesize the course materials as well
as create a source of expression for your life experiences and your research. We will draft essays
and revise toward creating works that contain coherent structure and organization—even when
that structure is experimental—and effective use of language. Your essays will also demonstrate
understanding of genre: you will be able to differentiate between the demands of a print and
performative essay, for instance, and between page-bound and digital writing. You will also
learn to understand revision as re-vision: not just correcting errors and substituting words, but reseeing the ideas of your essay in more nuanced and sophisticated form.
Workshop Days
Workshop, also called “peer review,” should not be understood as a mode of giving and
receiving critique, though that may be part of it, but as a way of learning, along with your peers,
how we function as writers and as readers. You will learn various modes of feedback, many of
which do not involve critique: generative feedback, descriptive feedback, micro and macro level
feedback, and more, and will learn to turn this trained eye on your own writing.
Copies
The class before you workshop with your small group, bring enough copies of the essay under
review for each group member, unless your group would like to arrange a deadline for e-mailing
each other assignments or posting on Blackboard. You also need to provide a copy to me. Prior
to the first workshop, will use our text to create awareness of types of feedback and develop
workshop procedures.
Journal
Creative nonfiction and critical inquiry are process-based, reflective forms of writing that are
concerned with how and why, as well as in what direction, our assumptions, beliefs, notions and
concepts tend. You should buy yourself an inexpensive, sturdy journal in which to keep regular
musings on notions of genre, aesthetics, performance versus print, how you define yourself as a
writer, arguments and ideas raised by our model essay reading, ethics in nonfiction writing, and
much more. Journal entries should be at least two hand-written pages. Please bring your journal
to each class, to help jump-start class discussion.
Discussion Board
Once a week I will post a question on our Blackboard discussion board that has arisen in class
that week, but not been comprehensively addressed. You are required to post on Blackboard at
least every other week, with a substantial (one-page) meditation on the question at hand.
Grading
Essays: 25% of grade. Each essay assignment will have a handout sheet of grading criteria,
which will include effectiveness of expression, understanding of audience, understanding of
conventions and research effectiveness.
Revision, particularly as demonstrated in final portfolio: 30% of grade. I will assess your
understanding of revision and willingness to revise by observing the type and quantity of
changes made from first draft to final draft. Specific criteria will be outlined in a final portfolio
grading rubric.
Remainder of final portfolio: 10% of grade. I will give you a rubric for items covered by your
final class reflection. Generally speaking, your class reflection should give a comprehensive
overview of the writing and learning process of this course, what individual assignments and
model essays meant to you, problems and questions you grappled with, how you understand
genre, research processes and more.
Attendance and participation: 25% of grade. Regular participation in class discussion is
essential. Part of your participation grade includes keeping up with your journal, which I will
often ask you to use to respond to questions in class. Regular, timely Blackboard posting also
counts as part of your participation grade. Attendance, of course, is mandatory. Please contact
me if you are kept from class by illness or other emergency.
Workshops: 10% of grade. Workshop participation is so important I grade it separately from
regular class participation. You must come to class on workshop days with comments written on
your classmates’ essays, prepared to talk through your sense of what is going on, in literary
terms, in their drafts. I will collect this at the start of the class period occasionally, to spot-check.
Week One
First class: introductions. What is college-level writing? What is creative nonfiction and how
does it fit in with critical inquiry?
Second class: Read Miller & Paola, “The Tradition of the Personal Essay.” Class members, go to
Brevity’s website (www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/) and choose an essay that fits into one of
the forms outlined in the chapter: memoir, humor, meditative essay, New Journalism, etc.
Choose one essay from each category to look at in class. Journal: reflect on essay styles.
Week Two
Read, from Miller & Paola, “The Basics of Good Writing in Any Form,” and Jo Ann Beard,
“The Fourth State of Matter” (available on the web). Ideas on how to generate first drafts.
Discussion on scene versus exposition and concrete versus abstract language. In-class writing
using prompt 2 or 3 at the end of the chapter. Journal: reflect on Beard essay.
Read, from Miller & Paola, Miller, “A Braided Heart.” In class: define the argument of this
essay. Examine how it creates an authentic voice. In class writing on a meaningful food, and the
metaphoric possibilities of how it is prepared. Prepare to draft essay one, choosing a subgenre
from the “Personal Essay” chapter. Journal: continue reflecting on this essay.
Week Three
Assign workshop groups. Read, from Miller & Paola, “The Body of Memory,” Barbara Ellen
Sorenson, “Ghost Flower and Wind (available on the web).” In-class writing on earliest memory,
from our text. Journal: reflect on your thought process as you prepare to draft your first personal
essay.
Read, from Miller & Paola, “’Taking Place’: Writing the Physical World,” and Paul Kingsnoth,
“Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist” (available on the web). Freewrite about a time
when your reaction to nature was paradoxical. Bring copies of your rough draft for small group
workshop next class. Journal: continue to reflect on the meaning of “place” to you and places
you define as yours.
Week Four
Small group workshop day. Read, from Miller & Paola, “Sharing Your Work: The Writing
Group and Workshop.” The first part of class will be used to define types of workshop feedback
and establish a peer review process. Use your journal to reflect on what you have learned from
this process and any frustrations you’ve encountered.
Read, from Miller & Paola, “Gathering the Threads of History” and “Writing the Larger World.”
Read Albert Einstein, “The World as I See It” (web). In-class writing on your own “world as I
see it” (from prompts at the end of “Larger World”). Continue this reflection in your journal.
Week Five
Read, from Miller & Paola, Paola, “The Hazing of Swans.” Idea generation for essay number
two. In-class reflection on larger social, cultural issues your life intersects with. Scientific fact
freewrite (prompt at the end of “Larger World”). Use your journal to expand your ideas.
Read, from Miller & Paola, “Using Research to Expand Your Perspective.” Tentatively choose a
topic for Essay Two, relying on the last two weeks of reading, and use the first prompt to
generate a list of avenues for research. Get together in small groups to brainstorm research plans.
To enhance your understanding of yourself as a socially constructed character in your essay,
write an ethnographic self-portrait, as defined by the text, in class or in your journal. Continue to
polish this self-portrait to submit with your final portfolio.
Week Six
Begin exploring ideas for performative essay. Read, from Miller & Paola, “Playing with Form:
The Lyric Essay and Mixed Media” and A. Papatya Bucak’s “I Cannot Explain My Fear” and
S.J. Sindu’s “SR-9” (available on the web). Bring five copies of Essay Two for small group
workshop during the next class. Append to this essay a brief (one page or less) “research history”
of how you conducted research for this essay, using the correct terminology as derived from our
text—print research, primary sources, immersion, etc. Use your journal to explore ideas for a
performative essay.
Read, from Miller & Paola, “Writing Online: Hypertext and Social Media.” Reading will be a
selection of blog posts, available on Blackboard, as well as Shelley Jackson’s “My Body: A
Wunderkammer” (available on the web). In-class drafting of a radio essay, blog post, graphic
memoir, or hypermedia piece.
Week Seven
Performing of performative essays, either by presenting or screening them. After presenting their
work, students will answer questions about their process.
Continuation of performative essays.
Week Eight
Read “Writing the Arts,” from Miller & Paola, and John Nelson, “Brolga the Dancing Crane
Girl” (available on the web). In-class freewriting in response to a slide show of painting and
sculpture. Continue the response in your journal. Turn in a revised draft of either Essay One or
Essay Two.
Literacy or reading narratives. Bring a literary work to class—a poem, a play, a novel, or an
essay—that has special meaning to you. It can be what Miller & Paola define as a “mentor text”
or a “tormentor text.” You will grapple with understanding the arguments, assumptions and
aesthetic choices of that text in creating a coherent response, using sophisticated
comparing/contrasting through formal choices, imagery, and action as well as meditation. In
class, we will work at speaking back to this work. Continue the response in your journal.
Week Nine
Read, from Miller & Paola, “The Writing Process & Revision.” Bring your second draft of either
Essay One or Essay Two to work on in class, using the “Three Quick Fixes,” “Search and
Destroy,” “The Punch” and other techniques for revision from our text.
Bring copies of your 3rd draft of the essay you are revising to class for your small group
workshop next week.
Week Ten
Workshopping revisions of your essay, with half class workshops (ten student workshop groups).
Continue workshopping revisions.
Week Eleven
Read, from Miller & Paola, “Publishing Your Creative Nonfiction” and “Epilogue.” Discussion
of the historical value of our writing and the publishing scene for creative nonfiction.
Wrap-up. In-class writing comparing your first-day’s responses to questions of academic writing,
creative nonfiction and genre distinctions to your thoughts at present.
URLs:
Beard, “The Fourth State of Matter”
(http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1996/06/24/1996_06_24_080_TNY_CARDS_000376447)
Sorenson, “Ghost Flower and Wind” (http://www.drunkenboat.com/) Note: to come.
Kingsnoth, “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist”
(http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6599/)
Einstein, “The World As I See It” (http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/essay.htm)
Bucak, “I Cannot Explain My Fear”
(http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/past%20issues/brev26hotcold/bucak_fear.html)
Sindu, “SR-9” (http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/pastissuestwo/brev38/Sindu38.html)
Jackson, “My Body” (http://www.altx.com/thebody/)
Nelson, “Brolga the Dancing Crane Girl” (http://shenandoahliterary.org/612/brolga-the-dancingcrane-girl/)