Working in Place

I didn’t set out to be a freelancer, but Working In Place developed from Living In Place.

I intended to teach literature at a rural, liberal arts college during the school year and write fiction during the summer. Marriage and motherhood were not part of the picture, but plans change.

Two weeks after defending my dissertation on Jane Austen, I was managing a rural medical practice – my husband’s. During those years, I also delivered literature-based humanities courses for the Vermont Humanities Council. I still do.

These teaching gigs meant driving – as many as 30,000 miles a year – to bring programs to life-long learners in libraries, health care workers in hospitals, inmates in prisons, and parenting teens at family centers around the state.

There was a time I would drive any distance for work. That’s no longer true.

So I’m excited to announce that I will be teaching A Workshop in Narrative Non-Fiction at Marlboro College Graduate School in Brattleboro this fall. Brattleboro is only twelve miles from home, and the class meets in person only four Sunday afternoons; the rest takes place on-line.

This is a terrific use of technology. It allows both the students and me to spend more time writing than driving; the less time driving, the lower our carbon footprint. And yet – we’ll be meeting more than just once a month; we’ll be meeting weekly on-line. I’m looking forward to teaching while Living in Place.

Here are the details of the course. If you know anyone who might be interested, please pass this information along.

EDU630.F15

This writing course will teach the elements of good writing in all fields, including education, management, technology, science, social studies, history and literature. We will study methods of discourse, rhetorical strategies and argumentative logic while attending to diction, syntax and structure. We will also cover rules of evidence and citation, how to choose and control voice and point-of-view, and how to address different audiences in different formats. Students will be expected to draft a sustained piece of expository prose, to be presented to the class. These presentations will become the basis for learning the Critical Response Process, Liz Lerman’s multi-step, group system for giving and receiving useful feedback on creative works-in-progress.

 This 3-credit course will meet on four Sundays, from 12:30 to 6 (9/20, 10/11, 11/15, 12/13) at the Marlboro Graduate Center in Brattleboro, Vermont; all other work will take place on-line. Enrollment is limited to ten.

In class, we will model workshop methods that increase confidence, skills, and understanding of what makes writing good and the workshop method a positive learning environment. Students will complete all other work on-line.

We will write our hearts out, and we will have fun.

The workshop is open to educators across the curriculum and to writers beginning or already engaged in a work of narrative non-fiction.  If you or people you know are interested, they can register at https://www.marlboro.edu/admissions/graduate/application/cep/CEP, or contact me for more information.