Re: [acornlive] 2001

Nessa O'Mahony (acornlive@dublinwriters.org)
Sun, 5 Nov 2000 09:55:12 -0000 

Hi Christopher

Lucky you - that's my idea of professional heaven, teaching a 
creative writing course in Rome.

My suggestion would be to try a series of games with them - 
sometimes people starting out think there is some strange 
mystique about writing - and that they, because they've never done 
it or come from different backgrounds, haven't got any creativity in 
them. Games - such as getting them to do some automatic writing 
for 5 minutes (this is when you start writing and don't let up, no 
pauses or even thinking for the set time) - it's a good way into the 
subconscious and let's them play with words. Another game would 
be to bring in some item (ideally something unusual and strange to 
touch) and hand it around to the class, asking them to keep their 
eyes shut and merely feel the object. Then you get them to 
describe it - using words, adjectives, sensations to describe what 
they can't identify. I've found that this works really well in 
workshops I've given, as it gets people to have fun as well as to 
learn the need to find unusual and new ways of describing the 
usual.

Pat Boran has a really good book called  The Portable Creative 
Writing Workshop which was published by Salmon in 1999 - that's 
got lot's of good ideas in it.

I'll come back with more ideas as they occur, but I really do envy 
you, Chris.

all the best

Nessa



From:           	"Christopher Neenan" <chneena@tin.it>
To:             	<acornlive@dublinwriters.org>
Subject:        	[acornlive] 2001
Date sent:      	Sun, 5 Nov 2000 09:54:13 +0100
Send reply to:  	acornlive@dublinwriters.org

> Next Spring semester I will be teaching a Creative Writing Course- -Poetry - at John Cabot University in Rome.  I'd love to have all the ideas possible from the Acorn/Dublin Writers community about how to help undergraduates from a wide variety of 'majors' (Political Science, Business, Arts, 
History, etc.) develop the skill, if not the 'inspiration'.
> 
> Best Roman wishes,
> Chris
> 



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