[Cwgrad-announcements] (no subject)

[Mary Copeland]

I thought I would share my thoughts regarding courses we are required to
take outside the Creative Writing Dept., i.e. English Seminars - I know some
of you are working on an intro for new MFA's for next year.

 

While it is true some English professors will allow you to write a
"creative" piece instead of an academic paper for English seminars, I would
like to suggest that some of you might consider taking up the challenge of
writing an academic piece for whatever English seminar you choose.  I
believe we are required to take these classes for a reason-to stretch our
range, and hopefully be more prepared should we enter the teaching field.
After all, many of us are going to need some sort of income while we
continue to write.  

 

That said, I'm sure there are some professors that are more helpful in this
area than others.  Speaking from experience, I took Dr. Steven Axelrod's
English Seminar on "The Poetry of Grief and Sadness in the Cold War Era."
It was informative, and opened my eyes to new works and new ways of thinking
about poetry.  He was also very helpful and supportive and gave a lot of
input into my academic paper and put me at ease, even though I was in a
class with several Ph.D. candidates (who often seemed to speak in a
different language :-)  ).  If you feel you simply can't do it, then of
course, approach your professor about writing a creative work - but we
certainly get a lot of that in our workshops and other classes, don't we?  I
encourage everyone to challenge themselves and make the most of your time
here at UCR.  It goes by all too fast.

 

Mary Copeland

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/cwgrad-announcements/attachments/20070510/2c52aafe/attachment.html