San José State University Department of English and Comparative Literature ENGLISH 131: Writing Poetry, sec. 1 Fall 2015 Instructor: Prof. Alan Soldofsky Office Location: FO 106 Telephone: 408-924-4432 Email: [email protected] Office Hours: M, T, W 1:30 – 3:00 PM, Th PM by appointment Class Days/Time: M W 10:30 – 11:45 AM Classroom: Clark Hall 111 (Incubator Classroom) Prerequisites: ENGL 71: Introduction to Creative Writing (or equivalent); or instructor’s consent. Course Description Workshop in verse forms and poetic craft. Study of traditional and contemporary models. (May be repeated for credit.) Methods and Procedures • Students in this course will write and revise original poems, which class members will critique during the weekly in-class workshops. • Class will be divided into four student writing-groups whose members will post drafts of poems to Canvas for other members to discuss (on the Student Groups setting in Canvas). • Student Writing-Groups (one group per week) will have their members’ poems discussed in the weekly in-class workshop. • The workshop’s principal text will be class members’ original poems posted on our workshop’s Canvas and Blogger sites. • Verse forms and poetic craft will be taught through assigned readings from the required textbooks and from links to poems and commentary on the Internet. comprised of published poems, an online prosody workbook with commentaries and craft exercises, and links to poems and commentaries (sometimes including audio and video files of poets reading. English 131: Writing Poetry Fall 2015 Page 1 of 26 • The class will be divided into 4 student writing-groups (6 or 7 students per group) to discuss first/early drafts of poems. • Weekly in-class and online discussions of verse craft and prosody. See course calendar attached to the syllabus. • Students will produce a finished portfolio of at least 8 poems, which will be submitted to the instructor (in draft) at regular intervals during the semester (see Due Dates). • Poems read to be read in class will be listed in a PLAYLIST, and will be projected onto the main screen and Smartboards of the Incubator Classroom Digital Poetry Workshop USING CANVAS: The ENGL 131: Poetry Writing classroom site on Canvas will serve as the class homepage for organizing and distributing course materials. Links to published poems and student poems in draft will posted on the course Canvas site. Student poems in draft will be posted on the student Writing Group Discussion tool on Canvas. (You will only be able to view draft poems on Canvas by the group to which you are assigned.) The ENGL 131: Poetry Writing home page is found at: You should keep drafts and revisions of poems in your ePortfolio on Canvas. (To read more about how to set up an ePortfolio click here.) WORKSHOPPING POEMS ON BLOGGER: You will post poems to workshop (new and revised) on the ENGL 131 Blogger site. We will workshop students’ poems in a regular “batting order” determined by discussing work by one student writing group per week (see course calendar). We will use the high resolution LCD projector and interactive “Smart Board” technology in the Incubator Classroom to view poems and other materials posted on Canvas and on Blogger in class. The instructor will select which poems posted by Writing Group members will be discussed in class for in-class workshop. You are required to post comments on 2 student’s poems that have been added to the Blogger workshop site each week. Students are also required to reply to 2 comments that other members of the class or the instructor have posted on the Blogger workshop site. To be workshopped in a Wednesday class, a poem must be posted on Blogger by midnight the Friday before. If you do not post a poem by midnight Friday, your poem will not be workshopped the next week, and you will not receive credit for that week’s Workshop activity. Student Writing Groups The class will be divided into four Student Writing Groups. Each Student Writing Group will have its own Group Homepage and group site on the ENGL 131: Writing Poetry classroom site on Canvas. For instructions on how to view your Student Writing Group on Canvas click here. Each Student Writing Group will use the Discussions tool for posting and commenting on new or revised poems posted by the group’s members. English 131: Writing Poetry Fall 2015 Page 2 of 26 New Drafts of Poems: Discussion Requirements: Your Student Writing Group on Canvas is where you are to post for comments drafts of new poems and new revisions of poem you previously had critiqued. You are to comment at least once per week on the poems posted by other Group members. And you are to reply to at least one comment per week about poems posted by your Group members. This enlarges the number of student poems which are read by peers. Digital Device Policy: Students are encouraged to bring laptops and tablets to use in class, but are restricted from reading Facebook and non-class related email during class meetings. The IC (CL 111) has MacBooks and new PC’s available to use in the classroom, loaded with software used in the IC. Course Focus: “Stand-Up Poetry” “Stand Up Poems” are works especially suited for oral presentation. The term was coined to describe the kind of vernacular poetry that became popular at Southern California readings in the 1980s. Characteristics important to Stand Up Poetry are: humor, performability, accessibility, natural language, a strong individual voice, direct revelation of emotion, and enthusiastic inclusion of commonplace subject matter and popular culture. These are poems meant to be enjoyed either on the page or on stage—and that “stand up” even after they’ve become familiar to readers and audiences. Even before poet Allen Ginsberg launched a literary and cultural revolution with the reading of his poem “Howl” in San Francisco’s Six Gallery in October 1955, poets were composing their poems to be read out loud in public. Since the 1950s, the poetry reading increasingly has become a popular alternative form of “publication.” The San Francisco Bay area especially became well-known as a location where poetry readings and performances flourished in coffee houses, bookstores, theaters, and even bars as an important cultural form—and as entertainment. A poem read aloud can potentially move audiences both intellectually and emotionally. But for the poem to work both aloud and on the page, it must be carefully crafted. Class members are required to write at least 2 poems during the semester intended for oral or digital video or audio performance as well as to be read on the page. With the prevalence and ease of using digital technology and social media, you might make a YouTube video of yourself reading or performing your poem to share with class members in order to better workshop the poem. Course Writing Requirements • Complete a final portfolio containing at least 8 poems in their finished versions by the end of the semester. English 131: Writing Poetry Fall 2015 Page 3 of 26 • Post a minimum of 4 of your poems on the workshop’s Blogger site for class members to discuss and the instructor’s critique. • Revise at least 4 of your poems in response to their being discussed in the in-class workshop, by your writing group, or critiqued by the instructor. • Comment on drafts and revisions of poems by other class members posted on the workshop’s Blogger and Google sites. The minimum requirement is to post at least one comment per poem submitted by members of your own small group. If you meet this requirement, you also may be eligible to submit additional poems or projects for extra credit. • Have a minimum of 4 poems workshopped during class meetings (see your group’s rotation schedule). Workshop discussions will be led by the instructor (and visiting guest poets). • Complete at least one poem in a fixed metrical pattern, and/or one poem in a fixed rhymed or non-rhymed form. • Complete notes on the weekly reading assignments on poetic craft. Closely read and comment on at least two poems from the readings per week. • Complete weekly assigned workbook assignments and prosody exercises. IN-CLASS PRESENTATION OF A POEM(S) FROM THE STAND UP POETRY ANTHOLOGY Present in-class a close reading and appreciation of a poem(s) from the Stand Up Poetry anthology. The presentation/close reading will be given by a team of two students at a time. Students will include in their presentation the text of the poem as a word file or PDF that can be projected in the classroom; any PowerPoint slides to focus on particular passages; audio or video of the poet reading or performing the poem(s). Analyze the poem(s) you plan to present in terms of the five powers of poetry: Image, Diction, Voice, Structure, and Implication. Include brief bibliographic information about the poet on whom you are presenting. Learning Outcomes (SLO’s) Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: Student Learning Outcomes: Skills/Knowledge Acquired: Activities: SLO 1: Read closely in a 1. Recognize various 1. Based upon close reading variety of forms, styles, elements of poetic craft— and analysis, comment on structures, and modes, and including elements of student poems posted on the articulate the value of close prosody (in free verse and workshops’s Blogger and reading in the study of formal verse)—and how Google sites, offering creative writing (poetry). these elements contribute to critical comments, praise, a poem’s purpose and interpretation, and revision effects, at the level of suggestions.