ENG 320 Writing Workshop in Autobiography: An Eye on the Self

3 hours 

The focus in this workshop is students’ own autobiographical writing. Clear voice and purpose evolve more naturally when subject matter draws nearest to familiar material, and source material for this course will be the most familiar yet often most slippery of subjects: their lives. In this course, students will learn to produce the sophisticated writing that, like the best autobiography/memoir, demonstrates mastery of a disciplined craft that demands both the closeness to reexamine and reveal and the distance to shape and refine a piece of writing into a smooth narrative arc. Students will also read the autobiographical writing of both professional writers and classmates to develop skills in critical analysis of this craft.