Irvine Valley College

Online Creative Writing Workshop

Writing 10 - Introduction to Creative Writing

Spring 2012 - Ticket # 64580

Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, Instructor

Week 6:  Filled with the Light of Truth -

Filled with the Light of Truth

The Theme of your writing leads to a "Greater Truth" - be sure you want to own it! 

1.  Online Lecture for Week 6

2.  Assigned Reading:  William Wordsworth's INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

Your assigned reading for this week brings us back to first causes.  One of the poems which has delighted readers for two centuries is William Wordsworth's INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.  Most of us know the words to this so well that we rarely think about the theme, or the "greater truth."  It's about flowers, or youth, or something.  I would like you to read this poem with new eyes, now, noting first who the narrator is and what age he must be in the narrative persona.  I'd like you to look at the setting, too.  And the style.  And, finally, re-assess the theme, using the writing tools you have been honing in this class.  

3.  Weekly Writing Exercise 

Writers do not agree much on when the "theme" or the greater truth needs to appear in the process of writing a story or poem.  Some writers know from the beginning that they are going to explore a certain idea.  Others discover what they really want to say in the act of writing.  But almost all writers agree (at least privately) that they have a point - that there was a compelling idea, message, emotion, mood that they wanted to get across in a particular work.  Sometimes the "theme" they identify is not the one that congeals with readers, though!  First, read the model exercise in Exercises6.  Then, for this exercise, I want you to identify one emotion or idea (abstract) and write a concrete short piece that makes the abstract into a concrete image.  

4.  Be sure you are signed up on the Formal Workshop Schedule. 

  About Your Class // Class Syllabus // Workshop Pieces // Weekly Writing Exercises // Lecture Notes //  Reading List // Recommended Reading // Assignments // Grading Policies // Contact Your Instructor // Announcements // Discussion

Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, your Instructor, is a Professor of English in the School of Humanities and Languages

Irvine Valley College, Irvine, California