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

American Indian Pictograph at Indian Cave State Park

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 over the next few days; and then I will work on this week's assignments.

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.

But more people need to take an active role in the discussions, to be sure.

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.

I wish all of you a good week.

This video comes from Election Night 2008, so do not get confused. I will add a new video over the next couple days.

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.

Greetings for Week Two

Welcome to Week Two

Hello Everyone,

We begin Week Two of the Creative Writing journey, as The Creative Writing Guide suggests about Creative Writing's process of discovery.

Here I talk (again) about Discussion Threads and this week's writing assignments, which will give you an opportunity to have a good time, to enjoy serious fun with, among other things, Haiku--for two of the seven, you will use two of these photographs to which we will return next week.

As always, take the time to read the notes and make use of our texts in your discussions--and surf around for interesting web sites that will add to our conversations.

Enjoy the still stunning weather, Bill