3.0

Average Course Rating

This course explores the art and craft of the personal essay. Deriving from the French essayer, to attempt, students bring a sense of investigation to the characteristics, presence, and quality of ideas, cultural zeitgeist, and the human experience. Through personal narrative exploration, essayists write toward universal themes (family, loss, belonging, social justice) and experiment with modes and forms of creative nonfiction. Students will employ research, explore personal experience, and develop their own voice, style, and storytelling craft. Students will interrogate the self and the self in the world, shaping the “I” on the page. The course builds on material covered in Introduction to Fiction & Poetry and/or Introduction to Fiction & Nonfiction and will prepare students for advanced study. This readings-based course is also writing-intensive, including in-class exercises, brief creative posts, essay drafts, revisions, and workshop. Readings/models for the course include authors Seneca, Sei Shonagon, Michel de Montaigne, James Baldwin, Melissa Febos, Vivian Gornick, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, JoAnn Beard, Zadie Smith, Jia Tolentino, Mark Twain, and more.