Send your drafts to the group via email by the due date on the calendar. We’ll have 45 – 50 minutes for workshops, so we’ll have time to look closely, read passages aloud, talk about the big picture and specific details.

As you read, consider–and make notes–about the following:

• What is the situation? What’s the story? Could the story use refinining?
• Is the angle focused enough? Is it interesting? Did it make you think? How might it be sharpened?
• Structure: How would you describe it? Can you identify a moment when the structure takes a turn? Do you have any suggestions for restructuring?
• Characters: Are they compelling? Do they develop? Can you identify a moment that makes you think about a character in a new way?
• Language that stands out as particularly successful.
• Moments when you were confused or bored.
• Details you want to learn more about.
• First and last sentences: Does the opening sentence make you want to keep reading? Why or why not? Does the closing sentence make you want to keep thinking about the topic? Does it “land.” Does it provide closure or some kind of new opening? Does it offer a twist? Does it continue a significant thread in the piece and do something new with it?

In class:

• The writers will start us off by telling us what kind of feedback they want. One writer might want a set of targeted responses, help with very specific elements–for example, transitions; precision with verbs, adjectives, and adverbs; introductions and conclusions; sentence patterns; structure; description, analysis, or exposition. Another writer might want help with the concept or argument of the piece. Still another might want to hear unfiltered feedback–what’s working best and what needs work.
• Then each of the readers will name one of the piece’s main strengths–and give the writer an opportunity to respond or ask questions.
• After that, we’ll offer the kind of feedback the writer has asked for.
• Then we’ll have time for people to offer any feedback that hasn’t been articulated.
• Finally, as a group, we’ll make a list of tasks for revision.

After class:

• Send written feedback to each writer, based on your reading and the workshop description by the Sunday after that week’s session.

As you read, Abdurraqib’s “The Josephine Baker Monument Can Never Be Big Enough” (great title!), consider the prompts below. Baker was a real person who created a strong public persona. As Abdurraqib writes about her, he builds on these to create her character.

For class choose two sentences or passages to discuss below: 1. A moment when Abdurraqib uses a technique, or techniques, suggested by the prompts below to build his Josephine Baker character, and 2. A moment when Abdurraqib gives us a sense of his character as narrator.

Then, think about the prompts in relation to your own writing. What characters are you building? How will you make them memorable? We’ll work on character building in class. You won’t use all of these prompts so pick and choose, but consider at least five in advance. Your answers may not end up in the piece, but they will help you think about character development.

• Describe your character’s body language, with an eye toward to what it suggests about what may be unspoken.
• Describe your character’s speech patterns–or show them with some dialogue.
• Where was your character born? Where did your character grow up.
• Describe your character’s childhood home and current home.
• What’s strange or unique about your character?
• What might your character have in common with a lot of readers?
• Describe how a stranger perceives your character on a first encounter.
• Describe what people who .know your character say to each other about the character in general or a predicament the character faces.
• What does your character like to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner–and at what times?
• What are your character’s sleeping patterns?
• Describe some historical or cultural context that will give readers a sense of where a character fits in the world.
• What does your character keep secret? What does your character reveal?
• What was or is your character as a little kid? And in high school?
• Describe a moment that changed your character’s mind or life.
• What’s your character’s profession? Does your character enjoy that profession? Does your character have a side gig or dream in addition to the job?
• Describe what your character does to relax.
• What are some major relationships in your character’s life? Which ones matter to the story you’re telling? Which ones define your character’s sense of self?
• Describe your character’s feelings about sex and sexuality.
• Confront your character with a person in authority–a parent, doctor, detective, lawyer, politician, boss. Describe how the character responds.
• Has your character experienced significant loss?
• Describe what your character wants most. What will it take to get it, if getting it is possible.
• If you met this character at a party, what would the interaction be like?

Our reading for next week is a series of short texts from The People’s Tongue: Americans and the English Language. The idea of the anthology is that it collects texts that changed or invigorated American English—so very much in keeping with our conversation last week.

To prepare, Ask ChatGPT to give you a detailed history of etymology of a word or phrase that’s significant for your project for this course; then ask Google Bard to do the same; then just Google “etymology of hip hop” or whatever the word or phrase is. Bring all these to class.

We’ll do a hands-on, generative workshop from there.

Example of an Associational Nonsense Writing Warm-Up

tease teaser teased eased erased based biased biasing singsingsingsingsong gong bangagong alongalongalong analog offline albums needles gridless girdle bird gridlessgirdlebirg song analogsong deathofautotune offline online seesaw see saw see saw seeing being travesty generating code mashup rearrange derange code lode erode restore storage storing words in storage rearrange left lane do-it-yourself code-it sew sow see sew see sow see sowing seeds of love tears for fears source text unconscious mind unconscious internet unconscious collective undoing unfolding underneath underwear tear tears cry cry cry don’t cry don’t say don’t cry lie sigh bribe bridle unbridle de-bridle brindle brindle brindle rescind mix and blend risk and send say it say it say it don’t say it unsay it re-say it play it like a record analog analogy analogize apologize reorganize disorganize size eyes size of eyes wide eyes sensaround sense sensory senstiivity senses on defense senses on offense size of eyes confirm or deny lie lay lain laid lied dyed died color recolor decolor color code.

• For five minutes, try out a an associational nonsense warm-up.
• Open ChatGPT: Type in a sentence or two from your own work
  • Ask ChatGPT to rearrange the words, even if they’re nonsensical
  • Ask the bot to give you five variations on the sentence
  • Prompt it to create repetition
  • Choose a variation and, again, ask it to put the words in a new order and then give you five variations.
  • Do this same activity with another sentence or two.
• Write down any words or phrases you find interesting from what you’ve generated so far. Then, take those words and use them to write a sentence or sentences.
• Take a look at the paragraph you took your original sentence from. How might you revise or reimagine it based on the experimenting you’ve just done.

• Why does the subject matter to you?
• Why might it matter to others?
• Do you have a sense of the style or voice you want to write in?
• What other writers inspire you?
• How might AI help you with the project?

• What are you curious about?
• What seems promising or interesting?
• What questions do you have?
• Can you think of any sources that might help with the project?

Again, with your comments, feel free to address other questions.

This article by Salena Sampson Anderson really interesting–finding new metaphors for AI as a way of finding new ways to think about AI.

This is the abstract:

Using Vauhni Vara’s “Ghosts” as a model, prompt ChatGPT (or other AI platform, say Google’s Bard)  to tell a “true” story it cannot know.

1. Write a prompt instructing the bot to finish a story from your own life based on a few details.
2. Read what it delivers and then expand and refine your prompt.
3. Repeat several times, offering more detail and more poetic or lyrical or experimental language each time–with the goal of getting the bot to produce some off-kilter or interesting language and some ways of thinking about the story you want to tell.
4. As you advance through the iterations of your story, start to think about Vivian Gornick’s “situation” and “story.” Is a situation coming into focus; can you imagine the story taking shape as “the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer; the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say.”
5. Then, cut and paste into a document and mark some interesting moments: turns of phrase, distinctive language, narrative elements, of ways of thinking about the story you might use in your own writing.

I’ve decided to scrap the presentations and have you all do practice readings instead. We’ll start this week, with a pretty easy one.

For Wednesday, choose a paragraph or two from Adrienne LaFrance’s “A Defense of Humanity in the Age of AI.” Read it aloud several times, so you memorize some of the language and cadences.

You’ll read your chosen passages in class, and we’ll talk about what you’re doing well and what you might practice more. Remember, reading well means connecting with an audience. You can do that in many ways. You might be exuberant or funny, or you may be more subdued. The key is for the audience to experience you as a compelling human, communicating–rather than a talking head reading at them.

See the Requirements page for details on the other two readings you’ll do this semester.

See the calendar for your reading dates.