- Spring 2022
Syllabus Description:
384, M and W. 1:30-2:50. To be determined: whether the course will be conducted in person or via Zoom.
Intermediate Prose.
Purchase Life Is Short/Art Is Shorter: In Praise of Brevity (Shields & Cooperman) from UBS.
Participation counts; it will affect your grade. However, please don’t comment just to comment. Try to contribute judiciously, effectively, thoughtfully, and generously.
dshields@davidshields.com; www.davidshields.com
Office hours: by appointment; set up via email or by texting me. We can talk by phone or via Zoom.
Class Zoom Link: https://washington.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUvd-qhqzguHtfmSUr7tz78tzNx9EHFM93g
In class, students will read aloud their work and critique one another’s work. That is the core focus of the course.
This is not a course in fiction or nonfiction. This is a course in prose composition. In how to write. You can write whatever you want: prose-poem, essay, fiction, hybrid work.
Questions? Concerns? Requests? Suggestions?
We will discuss the following longer stories and essays in this course: Mary Robison, “Pretty Ice”; Tim Parks, “Adultery”; Leonard Michaels, “In the Fifties”; Wayne Koestenbaum, “My Eighties”; S.L. Wisenberg, “Brunch”; Dinty Moore, “Son of Mr. Green Jeans”; Rick Moody, “Primary Sources”; George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant”; Lauren Slater, “One Nation, Under the Weather”; Amy Hempel, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried”; Leonard Michaels, “Murderers”; Jonathan Safran Foer, “A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease”; Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”; Donald Barthelme, “The School”’; George Saunders, “Adams”; Annie Dillard, “This Is the Life.”
March 28. Intro to course.
March 30. Discuss Robison and Parks.
April 4. Discuss Michaels, Koestenbaum, Wisenberg.
April 6. Discuss Moore, Moody.
April 11. Discuss Orwell, Slater.
April 13. Discuss Hempel, Michaels, Foer.
April 18. Discuss Chopin, Barthelme, Saunders.
April 20. Discuss Dillard.
April 25. First essay or story or chapter or prose-poem due (5-8 pages).
April 27 We will critique these in class.
May 2. Same.
May 4. Same.
May 9. Same.
May 11. Same.
May 16. 2nd essay or story or chapter or prose-poem due (5-8 pages).
May 18. We will critique these in class.
May 23. Same.
May 25. Same.
May 30 Memorial Day holiday
June 1. Same.
June 10. End of exam week: final portfolios due: final essay or story or chapter or prose (can be a full-scale revision).