Interdisciplinary Writing: Storytelling and the Personal Essay

There’s nothing like a great story to get a great idea across.

And in our message-dense world, thought innovators must explain our new and challenging ideas clearly and compellingly. A Fairhaven student who wants to shape the future will need to make a cogent argument – and tell a great story.

This course is a creative writing craft/workshop, in which students incorporate the art of storytelling to write creative nonfiction, in researched personal essays based on their own interests, or on their work in their individualized majors or courses of study. You will learn to report your findings in creative and compelling new ways that could work as or inform pieces of long-form journalism, nonfiction book chapters, podcasts, or some other new or not yet imagined form.

In this first course in the sequence, we will work primarily in researched personal essay, and will study exemplars of the form, as well as strategies for basic argument, logic, and critical reading and thinking. We will then use the creative writing workshop as an essential tool to sharpen our ability to explain, support, illustrate, and illuminate our ideas through persuasive storytelling in personal essay.

Expected work: regular reading and written responses, 1-2 major creative works, oral and written critique of classmates’ work, and regular attendance. 

Texts: Readings will be provided. Students will provide hard copies of their work for classmates.