Summer 2019 Creative Writing in Rome

Credits

12 UW Quarter Credits

Courses

ENGL 363: Roaming Rome: Rome from the Ground Up (5 Credits)

Roam Rome as you study its literature, art, architecture, archaeology, history, and culture. This course will take you out into the streets to see first-hand the founding and flourishing of the Roman empire and literature through archaeological sites, the great art of Western Civilization through Rome's countless museums, and the birth and rise of the Catholic church. Each day's walking tour and site visit will form the basis for that day's creative writing prompt.

Learning goals include:
The learning goals of this course are to deepen student understanding of Roman, Italian, Classical, and expat literature and art; architecture; history; and culture and to demonstrate how this art undergirds modern, post-modern and contemporary American and European literature (including the literature that the students are creating). The goals of this course will be assessed by tracking student participation in daily activities and by evaluating two student talks on Roman art, architecture, history, and/or culture.

This course may count as an English major elective in the Creative Writing or Language and Literature Pathways. Students may seek a pre-1900 upon faculty approval which must occur prior to arrival in Rome. 

ENGL 493: Writing Rome: Creative Writing Conference (5 Credits)

Rome from a writer's perspective: what can we carry away, and what carries us? Notebooks in hand, we'll test those questions in reading, writing, and conversation. We'll consider what it means to be an artist by walking the cobbles daily and filling our writer's sketchbook what what we see, hear, smell, feel, and think, and so, in literary terms, sack the city at the center of the world.

Learning goals include:
The learning goals of this class include learning how to experience the world as a writer by noting daily observations of the world in a writing journal and learning how to use daily observations to open lines of inquiry. Students will also practice transforming daily “sensory” observations of the world into literary forms like poems, short stories, and short creative nonfiction. Goals will be assessed by tracking student participation in daily site visits, listening to daily observations/writing in “workshop”, and by evaluating final student portfolios. 

 This course can be tailored to meet appropriate Creative Writing requirements and may also count as a creative writing elective for English Language and Literature majors. Note: Only 5 credits (total) of creative writing coursework applies toward the language and literature option for English majors.

ENGL 395: Reading Rome (2 Credits)

Read, discuss, and study works from some of Rome’s great poets, writers, and historians across the ages. Includes a particular emphasis on American, German, and British writers of the Grand Tour and the Romantic period who traveled to Rome. Works will be studied with the intent to unpack them and borrow their secrets for our own writing.

Learning goals include:
The learning goals of this course are to deepen student understanding of Rome’s great poets, writers, and historians (native and expat), and to understand how these mentor texts might provide options, strategies, and forms for our own writing. The goals of this course will be assessed by tracking student participation in evening discussion groups and by evaluating student presentations on Rome’s poets, writers, and/or historians.