2018-2019 Graduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
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MFA 510 - Inventive Writing Practicum
The pedagogical core of the St. Joseph’s Writer’s Foundry education, this course studies and practices the forms and modes of rhetoric upon which all literature depends. Writers work with their instructor to publically apply the five essential skills that every writer can practice: writing prolifically–at will and on command; identifying, selecting and writing from whole structures; making observations based on close reading of text and separating them from inferences and opinion; writing both abstractly and concretely, rewriting not as correction but as discovery.
There are two parts to this approach to writing, the prolific and the structured, and the class will demonstrate through practice how both emerge through each other. In addition, each week the class introduces and reviews specific craft topics including: rhythm, tenses, person, tone, meter and other prosodic devices, rhetorical forms, symbol, metaphor, physical description, dramatic dialogue, narrative, humor, motive, aim, province, & archetype, and how to engage them all in rewriting & revision.
Readings and discussions are focused to provide companionable reference to other parts of the program.
15 evening sessions 3 credits
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