CREATIVE NONFICTION

Course Objectives:

• Gaining familiarity with the various genres of creative nonfiction.
• Expanding critical reading skills by reading both published and peers’ work and gaining an understanding of their influence on society.
• writing creative essays using conventions of nonfiction such as descriptive imagery and figurative language
• Developing skills of revision and proofreading

Course Content:

Creative non-fiction is a genre which gives the writer the opportunity to intertwine “truth”- telling and fiction to produce literary nonfiction works in various forms. This course will allow the students to uncover the breadth and the variety of the genre through reading and eventually practice writing in the forms that fit them the best. In addition to this practice of reading and writing, the course will direct students’ attention on the ethical and philosophical questions surrounding “truth”- telling related to how nonfiction constructs identities and communities shaped by gender, race, culture, religion and location as well as how nonfiction reveals the paradoxical nature of human experience. Finally, the course will include workshops to develop creative reading and writing through feedback and peer review.

The course will involve studying

• Personal narratives in memoirs
• Personal narratives in podcasts and audio recordings.
• Documentaries
• Literary journalism