Creative Writing Teaching Ideas

It wasn't my most sleep-filled night; my spouse is fighting off a cold, and if we had a dedicated guest room, I might have moved into it.  But we don't, so I was up in the middle of the night.  Happily, I got two poetry submissions completed--well, they'll be completed once I print them at the office.  Publication can be part of our annual review, but we won't be punished if publication doesn't happen, as long as we're doing other things.

Yesterday I tried having us read the Jennifer Egan PowerPoint that is a chapter (and a stand-alone short story) in A Visit from the Goon Squad.  It doesn't work as well as I had hoped.  It's hard to read on the classroom screen.  But I was impressed that my Creative Writing students stayed with it.  I decided to let them write the Daily Writing on their own, so that they could refer back to the PowerPoint.

I want to tuck this idea away for my 102 classes next term for those days when I need to be away.  We could look at it together one day, and I could give them the writing assignment for the day when I'm not there.  That way, I could be sure that students had actually looked through the whole thing.

I also had them read the article from The New York Times about a new version of The Wizard of Oz (gift article here).  The reviewer wrestled with whether or not it's even the same movie:  showing it in the venue of The Sphere, which has the movie shown on the inner walls of the sphere, distorts the movie, which has been shortened.  The writing assignment is to address whether or not the PowerPoint is or is not a short story, in the style of this review.  We shall see how it turns out.

As I was walking to my car, I thought about next semester, when I'll be teaching an Advanced Creative Writing class.  I thought about teaching adaptations, specifically Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, both the original novel and the graphic novel.  Do I really want to teach something that I love so much?

This morning, I had different thoughts.  Could I have the students do some sort of adaptation of their own, an adaptation of a work they already love?  The course description is broad enough that we could go in any number of directions.  Hopefully the students will have some ideas about what they'd like to accomplish.

I would also love to see them adapt some of their own work.  Egan talked about writing a short story one way and then trying a different approach--changing the format or having the focus be on a different character or changing the point of view.  Could Advanced Creative Writing students do the same thing?

But those are thoughts for another day, later this year.  Today I need to make a quick grocery store run to get cold meds for my spouse and the makings for chicken and dumplings.  I will be up the hill most of today and tomorrow at the Crafts for Christmas retreat.

How lucky am I?  Two wonderful retreats in two weeks--just one of the many benefits of not living in South Florida anymore.

And yes, I did have my spouse do a Covid test last night before going out to dinner with retreat friends, just to be sure.  As we were waiting for results, I thought about the current state of affairs with public health and felt sad.  How much longer will we have Covid tests?  Under current "guidance," I am now too young to get the updated vaccine.  Sigh.

Another thing to add to my to do list:  get a flu shot before they become more restricted or banned.  Another to do list item for another day, but not as far away a day as the planning of Spring 2026 classes.