14 June 2005
Initial Plan for Returning WarriorsÕ Creative Writing Seminar (CWS)
Purpose of CWS: Creative writing workshops have been used by veteransÕ groups in other locations to provide a positive creative outlet for the energy, angst, and stress that often clouds veteransÕ lives. I have designed this CWS with that goal in mind: to provide the basic tools for marines and sailors who choose to do so to use creative writing as a positive outlet for their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. This CWS is not designed as a counseling tool.
Support Requirements:
Proposed Format and Time Requirements: Six-week cycle. Two hours per week. If lunchtime is best time, then one hour twice a week, say Tuesday and Friday, but I am flexible on meeting time and day. If an evening CWS is deemed more suitable, then CWS would meet once a week for two hours. The first hour will begin with a short reading (approximately ten minutes) from a creative work on war. The books I will use for reading are Tim OÕBrienÕs The Things They Carried, Anthony SwoffordÕs Jarhead, Ernest HemingwayÕs A Farewell to Arms, and some poetry from Vietnam veterans. Following the reading, the first hour each week will provide instruction on writing creatively. A short writing exercise will be assigned for discussion during the second hour (second meeting) of the week. I have attached a breakdown of what I propose for instruction each week.
CWS Goal: The six-week goal is to open the participantsÕ minds to the potential of using writing as an act of meaning making and as a process of self-discovery. At the end of the six weeks, I hope those participants who want to continue exploring writing might have a start on what it is they want to write, and perhaps find others like themselves to act as critique-partners. A regularly meeting writersÕ group might emerge. Some participants may find that writing about war experience lessens some of its power to control them and their futures. The CWS might prove an effective program template for other military bases to use.
Proposed Six Week Cycle for Returning Warriors Creative Writing Workshop
First Hour (Tuesday): 1) Reading from The Things They Carried (Fiction)
2) a. Discussion on Writing as an Act of Meaning Making
b. How to develop timelines and outlines
3) Brief discussion of how workshops function; Writing Assignment for
Friday: One paragraph. Assign Week 2 writing exercise.
Second Hour: Discuss and demonstrate how to critique othersÕ work using the paragraph writing assignments. Assign participants in pods of three. Exchange email addresses. Assign writing assignment for next week, which will be emailed on Monday to pod-members to read and critique for discussion on second Friday.
First Hour: 1) Reading from Jarhead (Nonfiction)
2) Discussion: Writing Descriptively
3) Assign Week 3 writing exercise
Second Hour: Pods workshop writing assignments
First Hour: 1) Reading from A Farewell to Arms (Fiction)
2) Discussion: Building Suspense
3) Assign Week 4 writing exercise
Second Hour: Pods workshop writing assignments
First Hour: 1) Poetry selections
2) Discussion: Writing for a Reader Ð Techniques of Creative Writing
3) Assign Week 5 writing exercise
Second Hour: Pods workshop writing assignments
First Hour: 1) Reading from Jarhead (Nonfiction)
2) Discussion: Screenwriting
3) Assign Week 6 writing exercise
Second Hour: Pods workshop writing assignments
First Hour: 1) Reading from The Things They Carried (Fiction)
2) Discussion: Reading Your Life as Text
Second Hour: Readings from participantsÕ works in progress
Teaching References:
Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer
Word Painting, A Guide to Writing More Descriptively by Rebecca McClanahan
The Art of Fiction by David Lodge
Screenplay by Syd Field
PerrineÕs Sound and Sense, An Introduction to Poetry; Arp and Johnson, editors