Everything comes together in the Capstone. You will draft a complete story, narrative essay, or memoir of 8–15 pages. With the advice of your peer readers, you will revise, rewrite, and complete it. The skills you’ve learned of plotting, setting, physical description, characterization, and stylistic clarity and innovation will culminate in an original work of art all your own. We’ll discuss the steps that professional writers take to bring their work into the public world. Along the way you’ll learn the patient habits of revision that make up the writer’s life.
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Approx. 13 heures pour terminer
Recommandé : 7 weeks of study, 3-5 hours/week...
Anglais
Sous-titres : Anglais
Programme du cours : ce que vous apprendrez dans ce cours
Semaine
1
24 minutes pour terminer
Introduction to the Capstone and Gathering Materials
This week we lay out the agenda of the Capstone—seven weeks of structured work in which you’ll proceed from your accumulated notes and exercises to a finished piece: Your Story. We discuss the upcoming sequence of critiques of your fellow students’s work and you assemble the materials for your first draft.
Having gathered all your scraps, notes, research, exercises into one place, you now get moving on the first draft. Through interviews with Jaimy Gordon and Amy Bloom, we discuss composition strategies—the different ways different writers have approached the blank page and how they get moving toward a coherent whole.
Compose, compose, compose. This week is devoted completely to pushing through that crucial deadline: finishing your first draft by the end of the week. As you compose, you’ll get some advice from successful Wesleyan alumni writers who have gone from where you are to published books out there in the world.
Now that you’ve finished your first draft, it’s time to get ready for the first big peer review. This week we’ll talk about how to give good critique, and we’ll present a sample story and sample workshop. At the end of the week, you’ll write critiques of three of your fellow students’ work while they are busy critiquing yours.
Some of the critiques you’ve received will seem immediately right, some more challenging, some may seem averse to your goals. This week we discuss the “Dear Workshop” Letter: a way of settling your thoughts and making decisions about what to do with all that sometimes conflicting advice as you proceed toward the final draft. We also take a moment to do a shorter critique focused more closely on the word-level decisions that you and your fellow-writers have made. You’ll perform a “sanding revision” on a single page of three of your fellow writers’ stories—you’ll report to the writer all the places her language or punctuation could use clarifying, and, just as important, where they’re already working at their best.
Debriefing Example: What The Conversation Looks Like12 min
What Is Sanding?1 min
Sanding Demonstration20 min
Milestone for This Week: Sanding Submission3 min
1 lectures
Manuscript for Sanding Demonstration10 min
Semaine
6
1 heures pour terminer
Rewriting and Publication
If the theme of Week Three was Compose, compose, compose, this week’s theme is Revise, rewrite; revise, rewrite. We’ll discuss different ways of reading and approaching your draft to catch the action and the language and the characterization from different angles. Through a conversation with Brando Skyhorse, we’ll also take a moment to discuss what to do after the class if you hope some day soon to publish your work.
By the end of this week, you will finish the final version of your story. We’ll discuss ways of continuing the creative momentum that’s brought you this far—whether through writers’ groups or conferences, or just through a daily writing practice. Once you turn in the final version of your piece, you’ll perform final critiques of the stories of three of your fellow writers and will likewise receive their evaluations of your work. Congratulations: you will have completed the Specialization.
ont commencé une nouvelle carrière après avoir terminé ce cours
59%
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22%
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Meilleurs avis pour Capstone: Your Story
par AM•Oct 25th 2018
It was challenging and inspiring, one of the best courses I have taken. I took my writing to new places and learned quite a lot : ) Thank you so much for the opportunity and platform for learning.
par PM•Jul 7th 2017
This has been a wonderful opportunity and journey, one of learning how to tap into innate skills of creativity, inspiration and penmanship. Thank you.
At Wesleyan, distinguished scholar-teachers work closely with students, taking advantage of fluidity among disciplines to explore the world with a variety of tools. The university seeks to build a diverse, energetic community of students, faculty, and staff who think critically and creatively and who value independence of mind and generosity of spirit.
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À propos du Spécialisation Rédaction créative
This Specialization covers elements of three major creative writing genres: short story, narrative essay, and memoir. You will master the techniques that good writers use to compose a bracing story, populated with memorable characters in an interesting setting, written in a fresh descriptive style. You will analyze and constructively evaluate peer writing. In the Capstone, you will draft, rewrite, and complete a substantial original story in the genre of your choosing.
Our courses are designed for anyone from the aspiring short story writer to established novelist. Whether you have a finished novel sitting on your desk calling for a fresh look or have had the germ of an idea for a decade, this Specialization gives you tools to achieve your goal. Through 4 courses focused on a key aspect of writing, and taken in any order you choose, you will develop a stronger ability to not only refine your writing, but critique writing in general and find inspiration in the works you are already reading.
Thanks to our sponsors, upon completion of their first assignment, learners in each course will receive up to an 80% discount from Write-Bros and a 30% discount off their first purchase from Scrivener to use on their writing software. Additionally, learners who complete an assignment will receive 30% off membership at the online writing community Scribophile. For more information about our partners, see the FAQ below....
Foire Aux Questions
Quand aurai-je accès aux vidéos de cours et aux devoirs ?
Une fois que vous êtes inscrit(e) pour un Certificat, vous pouvez accéder à toutes les vidéos de cours, et à tous les quiz et exercices de programmation (le cas échéant). Vous pouvez soumettre des devoirs à examiner par vos pairs et en examiner vous-même uniquement après le début de votre session. Si vous préférez explorer le cours sans l'acheter, vous ne serez peut-être pas en mesure d'accéder à certains devoirs.
À quoi ai-je droit si je m'abonne à cette Spécialisation ?
Lorsque vous vous inscrivez au cours, vous bénéficiez d'un accès à tous les cours de la Spécialisation, et vous obtenez un Certificat lorsque vous avez réussi. Votre Certificat électronique est alors ajouté à votre page Accomplissements. À partir de cette page, vous pouvez imprimer votre Certificat ou l'ajouter à votre profil LinkedIn. Si vous souhaitez seulement lire et visualiser le contenu du cours, vous pouvez accéder gratuitement au cours en tant qu'auditeur libre.