03.11.11: UPDATE

READING: For Monday's class session, please read Building Fiction, pages 95-110, and Best American Short Stories (2008), pages 134-144.

WRITING: Begin writing the rough draft of your short story. Your finished copy will need to be 10 pages, double-space in Times New Roman font.

CONFERENCES: Below is the current conference schedule. To reiterate, you not have to sign up for a conference, but if you would like my input on your story beforehand, these appointments will be your opportunity to receive feedback. To prepare for your conference I will need you to email me your mini-portfolio 48 hours before your time-slot if we're meeting before Spring Break. If you have scheduled a post-Spring Break conference, I will already have read through your mini-portfolio. If you have not scheduled a conference yet, but would like to, please email me ASAP and let me know what "OPEN" time-slot you would like; these will be filled in a first-come-first-served fashion.

	TUESDAY: 03/15	THURSDAY: 03/17
10:00AM	Mayme	OPEN
10:30AM	OPEN	Aaron
11:00AM	OPEN	Xin
11:30AM	OPEN	Morgan
12:00PM	OPEN	Trevor
12:30PM	OPEN	OPEN

5:15PM Taylor (Girl), Wednesday, 3/16

2:10PM Jessica, Thursday, 3/17; 2:40PM Rachel, Thursday, 3/17

	TUESDAY: 03/29	THURSDAY: 03/31
10:00AM	Nicole	Dottie
10:30AM	Tressa	Zach
11:00AM	OPEN	Austin
11:30AM	Jennifer	OPEN
12:00PM	OPEN	OPEN
12:30PM	Amber	Brad

UPDATE: SCHEDULE

Below is the revised schedule for the remainder of the Fiction Cycle for our course (Please read the post below this one for Friday's homework); I've included the daily homework assignments I will assign on those particular days, both reading and writing, so you can get a head-start on the material:

03.11.11: "Conflict in Fiction" and "Virgins" (Building Fiction, prompt 3 on page 94 will be assigned for homework during this class session. This is not today's homework; again, please see below post for that information.)

03.14.11: "Continuing Conflict" and "The King of Sentences"
03.16.11: "Endings in Fiction" and "Puppy"

03.18.11: Fiction Mini-Portfolios Due and "Quality of Life"

Your mini-portfolio will contain the following elements, specifically ordered in the below fashion:

1) Rough Draft of your short story.

2) Building Fiction, prompt 3 on page 94.

3) Building Fiction, prompts 1 and 2 on page 80 (3 total).

4) First-person and second-person openings (3 total).

5) Third-person openings (9 total).

6) Types of openings (9 total).

7) 2-3 page flash fiction piece that, loosely, will be the foundation for your short story.

03.21.11: SPRING BREAK, NO CLASS

03.23.11: SPRING BREAK, NO CLASS

03.25.11: SPRING BREAK, NO CLASS

03.28.11: Workshop
03.30.11: Workshop

04.01.11: Workshop

04.04.11: Workshop

04.06.11: Fiction Portfolio Due, begin Creative Non-Fiction Cycle
04.08.11: CLASS CANCELED
04.09.11: Michael Earl Craig and Christian Hawkey at The Drift Station (Saturday).

Also, I will be holding voluntary conferences on the below Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will have a sign up sheet with specific time-slots in Friday's class session. You do not need to schedule an appointment if you do not want to meet with me. But, if you would like to meet and you do not show up to your scheduled time, it will be considered an absence:

03.15.11: Tuesday Conferences

03.17.11: Thursday Conferences

03.29.11: Tuesday Conferences

03.31.11: Thursday Conferences

03.09.11: UPDATE

READING: For next class session, please read Best American Short Stories (2008), pages 72-84, and Building Fiction, pages 82-94.

WRITING: Complete prompts 1 and 2 on page 80 of Building Fiction for 3 different characters that will appear in the story you've been writing openings for. As such, you will have 3 different versions of both prompts 1 and 2.

03.07.11: UPDATE

READING: For Wednesday's class session, please read Building Fiction, pages 62-81. We won't be reading anything out of Best American Short Stories (2008) for next class, as we did not get a chance to discuss the previous story. Be prepared to discussing the opening, point-of-view, and character construction of "Galatea," though, for Wednesday.

WRITING: Re-write the opening of your story in as a first-person peripheral narrator, first-person (main) unreliable narrator, and second-person. These will be the last openings we develop for our stories and should give you a plethora of options to choose from.