Adult Education Creative Writing

Major Topics and Concepts:

• Effectively stimulate your creativity by using established methods such as freewriting, brainstorming, translitics, and writers’ journals.
• Demonstrate awareness of the characteristics of a poem, short story, novel, play or screenplay, novel, and creative nonfiction.
• Begin to understand the creative process and how it is often spontaneous and not logically considered.
• Explain why a poem or short story achieves the effects it does through specific word choice.
• Create a piece of writing that is not just factual but also expresses your own personal feelings on a subject.
• Explain the difference between stereotypes and archetypes, as well as how to avoid the use of stereotypes while using archetypes as the basis for characters.
• Explain how to create characters that are consistent and believable.
• Explain how to fit a character into a plot, as well as how to allow that character to inform plot.
• Describe the seven basic plot types and explain how to use unique versions of these in your own writing.
• Explain the importance of setting, as well as how to narrow the setting down to its most important features.
• Explain the importance of point of view.
• Read poetry closely and interpret the poet’s intentions.
• Define imagery and demonstrate an understanding of the effect it creates in a poem.
• Utilize images in your own creative writing.
• Define personification and demonstrate an understanding of the effect it creates in a poem.
• Define simile and metaphor and explain the difference between the two.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the different effects created by simile and metaphor.
• Create your own simple and effective similes and metaphors.
• Recognize and notate the rhyming scheme of a poem.
• Recognize when a poem has and does not have a specific rhyming scheme.
• Recognize some of the different types of rhyme including perfect rhyme and alliteration.
• Explain why a writer chooses to repeat certain sounds or words.
• Explain how rhythm is created and how to notate the rhythm of a poem.
• Use both rhythm and rhyme to create your own desired effects.
• Demonstrate the use of poetic techniques in prose writing, and narrative techniques in poetry.
• Assess the assumptions a writer makes about their readership.
• Assess who the writer chooses to exclude from their writing.
• Describe your ideal reader.
• Describe the reader’s expectations for various forms of fiction and creative non-fiction.
• Alter your style and tone according to your intended readership.
• Identify a writer’s individual “voice.”
• Identify a writer’s style and its unique characteristics.
• Imitate the styles of various writers.
• Synthesize various influences in order to create a unique style.
• Make choices about the voice that is appropriate for your writing.
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of other writers.
• Identify your own strengths and weaknesses as a writer.
• Describe the different types of editing and the differences among them.
• Assess the effectiveness of the various elements of a piece of writing, including its plot, characterization, themes, atmosphere, language, and use of literary techniques.
• Assess the overall success of a piece of writing when all of these elements are put together.
• Examine and improve the word choice in a piece of writing and avoid clichés.
• Explain when fact-checking is necessary and how to check the facts of a piece.
• Examine your own work critically using editing techniques.
• Be an effective participant in a creative writing workshop.
• Make constructive, relevant, and qualified comments.
• Frame comments so that they are productive.
• Organize your thoughts in effective note form to give to your peers.
• Explain comments on your own work and learn from them.
• Publish your own work in print or online form.