Creative Writing in the Community
Student, Jason Glassburn, and Heritage Retirement Village
resident, Dorothy Clock, enjoy each other's company at the public reading at
the Cornerstone Center for the Arts, April 2007.
Eng 409: Creative Writing in the Community is a required
course for creative writing undergraduate majors taught by creative writing
professor Barbara
Bogue. The objectives of
the course include the enrichment of the creative writing major's education
in the art forms of fiction, literary nonfiction, or poetry through
engagement with others in the local community, through the scholarly study
of fiction, of poetry, and of excerpts from Paul Loeb's Soul of a Citizen:
Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time; and through the use of critical
and creative examinations of both their own work and the collaborative
pieces created for the course. Directors of the five involved agencies
(Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware County, Heritage Retirement Village, Hillcroft Services, Inc., Motivate Our Minds, and VSA arts of Indiana at
Hillcroft Services, Inc.) give presentations to the class at the beginning
of the semester. Students then choose their writing partners from the
respective agencies and, after initial visits to become acquainted, they
begin transcribing particular events or situations described to them by
their collaborators. These stories have given students an opportunity
to learn about themselves as well as about others to become more productive
citizens of both the academic and local communities.
A public reading of the original collaborative works is held
at Cornerstone Center for the Arts that is attended by the participants and
members of the local and academic communities. A release of publication
reception is held at the E.B. Ball Center where the collection of creative
works titled Writing Out of the Margins is distributed to
participants and their families, as well as to faculty and administration
officials.
Creative Writing in the Community '08
Creative Writing in the Community '07
Creative Writing in the Community '06