Fall 1994; Wednesdays, 2:00 - 5:00

Randy Harris

Hagey Hall 247, x5362
Home phone (Milton): (905) 876-3972
E-mail: raha@watarts
Hours: Tuesdays, 1:00-2:30; Wednesdays, 9:00-10:30; or whenever you can catch me.

This course is a creative, non-fiction writing class, organized around style and structured according to the well-worn rhetorical notion of imitation. You will read various examples of professional writing ("writing you get paid for") and write imitations of them.

You will also (forgive the Yoda-like tones) be on a search for your own voice, mostly by way of sampling other people's voices, including each other’s. The major end-product will be a piece in a distinctive style of your own, meant for publication.

Brunt, Mean Business
Kael, Movie Love
Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Kinko's Notes Package

The Canadian Writers Guide (11th edition)

Discussion, Peer Review Continuous 20%
Writing Assignments Weekly 20%
Periodical analysis (oral) 19 October 20%
Feature Story 14 December 40%

Rules of the game

No late assignments will be accepted,
no extensions will be granted, and
no incompletes will be awarded, without very strong reasons.
complete all assignments to within 10% of the assigned length, providing a word count with each assignment;
have all readings done before class, and
be prepared to discuss them.

Discussion

I will evaluate your participation in class discussions by the familiar criteria: quantity and quality. Several relevant and helpful contributions per class will earn you an A+; regular silence and/or absenteeism will earn you an F-; contributions falling betwixt the twain will be graded betwixtly.

You will evaluate each other’s peer review contributions, which means you need to submit a memo on the last day of class commenting on and grading the people who have reviewed your work and discussed it with you. Depending on the number of peer review sessions we have time and opportunity for, this grade will comprise somewhere between 25% and 50% of your discussion grade (i.e., somewhere between 5% and 10% of your overall grade).

Treat them as a job: do them, and you get paid; not, and not. There will be no grade assigned to any of them individually. If you hand in all of them, you will get twenty unalloyed percentage points toward your final grade. Miss one, and you will get fifteen, alloyed, percentage points. Miss two or more, you get zero for this component of the course.

I will evaluate the oral periodical analysis, partially on presentation style, but largely on the breadth and depth of your analysis: in particular, what are the features of a typical article in the periodical.

Write a good article, get a good mark.

If you sell an article written as part of the course, or sign a publishing contract related to work done in the course, any time before the grades are due, and you have completed all course assignments, I will, given appropriate proof, file a grade of A+ for you.