Week Eight Greetings and Announcements

Congratulations: We reach the term's conclusion.

Give the fifteen-minute video a listen, for I talk about the term's conclusion, which occurs for us on Sunday, December 21 (which, yes, previous notes have confused with Saturday--right date, but the wrong day of the week, which happens sometimes when I upgrade each year).

Review the material here about the Short Story and the Final Project. You will get comments back on the Memoir/Creative Nonfiction and, I hope, some of the formal short stories.

I go very gentle on the Fun With Words and the very short stories with which you played last week, Nanofiction and Hyperfiction.

As the video indicates, on the Discussion Thread Two, you should become the critics for your fellow writers, offering them helpful commentary for potential revisions--think in terms what I have written to you over the past seven weeks.

Just reading the stories by your fellow writers will inspire your imagination.

You have worked hard this term, and I appreciate your efforts.

Enjoy a productive week and a most excellent vacation, and look forward to seeing many of you again in Spring 2009.

Go well, Bill

G

Week Seven Greetings

Hello Everyone,

I offer a fifteen-minute discussion about the final two weeks, sort of a focused pep talk.

Look over the weekly announcements carefully for this and last week, for you want to get all the dates straight. Last week's Writing Assignment offers a schedule for the final two weeks, which include this week's fiction essay and the final project.

And this week's assignment explains the basic ins and outs of experiments with Hyper- and Nano-fiction; you can have a lot of fruitful fun with these exercises in control--and with humor, to be sure.

Check out the links to various short stories, from "A & P" by John Updike to "Boys and Girls" by Alice Munro.

You will have a good deal of production fun this week.

Enjoy, Bill

Week Six Arrives

Week Six Greetings

Hello Everyone,

We enter the final three weeks of the term! And as always in these courses, matters move swiftly.

This week's writing assignment lists three of your remaining writing projects, the "fun with words" fiction, a short story, and your last effort, another piece of Creative Nonfiction, memoir writing, or a short story. so read the instructions.

Sometime this week, you also want to turn in your short memoir, and I will soon get to the Poetry Projects.

Read carefully this week's announcement for some important dates.

And check out this link that tells you about the college's Creative Writing Contest and the possibility of getting published in the Sifting Sands that the English Club will publish in the spring.

Just contact me if you have questions--but do not hesitate to send in some material.

Enjoy this week that might well include some snow.

As the following picture indicates, I enjoyed Thanksgiving with my daughter, who obviously takes after her mother!

Go well, Bill

Week Five Begins

Greetings for Week Five

This week, you enter into a new area, Creative Nonfiction, and continue work on your previous endeavors. And everything you have practiced these past four works comes into play over the final weeks of the course.

So continue to hone this craft, for the results from your efforts will continue to develop long after this class ends.

All the reading and writing you have done over the past four weeks serve to make you all the more appreciative of this week's readings, from N. Scott Momaday to Langston Hughes. And the experiences you have considered over the past weeks will aid you with this week's writing assignmentt.

As the class notes suggest, Creative Nonfiction makes considerable use of the poetic devices, from simile to the senses, with which you have practiced these past weeks.

I wish you a productive week and a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday.

Hello Week Four

Greetings for Week Four

Hello Everyone,

Well, we reach by the end of the week the half-way mark in the class. Keep plugging along, for I certainly will.

As usual, you have three Discussion Threads this week; make sure that you pay close attention to those first two, for you must respond to each of the two. Thread Three is for your enjoyment and sharing.

Read carefully the class writing assignment, the special link for Prose Poems, and the notes for the chapter; all three play a role in your Poetry Project due in two weeks.

I will get Week Two and, I hope, part of Week Three back to you over the next few days.

Everything you accomplish these first weeks will come into play over the second half of the term.

Enjoy a productive week, Bill

Week Three Greetings

Greetings for Week Three

Blue Jay

How quickly this class moves along always stuns me. At any rate, we enter Week Three, which includes some excellent readings and writing assignments that I hope will challenge you. Make sure to look closely, as always, over the class notes.

I have enjoyed very much reading your first assignment and will have everything that I have received back by Monday evening. Take the time to do a revision, for my comments push each writer in a direction taken from their individual work--but feel free always to move in a different direction: work on the spirit of my comments.

This class, though terribly compressed, is one of my favorites, so continue to work with enthusiasm. I am very pleased with the group of folks who respond with energy to the discussion threads, and I hope you will find this week's threads of interest.

Once again, you have images to work with, this time in the context of a William Carlos Williams poem. I hope, too, that you will incorporate some of the Derek Walcott material into this week's discussion. See this week's announcements for other links.

Scrolling down from this post, you will find some "graphic" information about making hyperlinks; push yourself to find material on the Internet to add to our discussions--the Internet offers a wealth of wonderful sites to expand our class.

In this particular post, I talk about this week's assignments but also spend time talking about revisions for the writing assignments from Week One.

As I note in the announcement for this week, on Wednesday, I leave for Louisiana for a Foreign Film Conference in Baton Rouge; I will be in e-mail touch.

I wish all of you a good week.

Tufted Titmouse

Creating a Hyperlink

Creating a Hyperlink on Blackboard

Just click on the following images and follow the instructions on how to add a hyperlink to your e-mail messages.