Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Upon completion of the course, students should be able to:
1. Continue to read a wide range of established poets, particularly American and contemporary poets, to learn techniques demonstrated in their work.
2. Employ the various techniques and elements of poetry such as imagery, metaphor, linebreaks, alliteration, assonance, and meter to write poems.
3. Use self-reflection and techniques for employing the imagination to generate new poems and then to revise the poems, using techniques for “re-entering” or “re-seeing” a piece of writing.

Outcomes for this course require working through multiple drafts of several pieces of writing with time to separate the acts of writing and revising; in addition, the reading outcomes require time to read, reread, reflect, respond, interpret, analyze, and evaluate. 

Upon completion of the course, students should be able to:

• Recognize the value and purpose and power of poetry and how it gives shape to human experience.

• Read poems by a wide variety of established poets, and be able to read them well. Students may give brief presentations on the poetry of established poets.

• Recognize the function of basic elements of poetry such as imagery, metaphor, line breaks, meter, lyric forms, alliteration and assonance, rhyme.

• Demonstrate ability at using images in writing their poems

• Demonstrate ability at using the concept of “the line” in writing their poems

• Use their understanding of the elements of poetry to critique others' poems constructively, and receive and use workshop criticism of their own poems.

• Use techniques for employing the imagination to generate poems.

• Develop an awareness of the oral nature of poetry.

• Understand that poetry is a plastic art and emerges through a process which includes revision: “the art is in the revision” (Picasso).

• Use techniques for “re-entering” or “re-seeing” a poem they’ve written

• Develop a sense of audience.

• Prepare and submit manuscripts for publication or performance.

Course Activities and Design

During the term students generally write nine or ten short poems and perhaps keep a reading notebook based upon the reading for the course. A third of the course is typically taken up by discussion of reading and presentation and practice of techniques. The remaining two-thirds of class time is typically creative writing workshop, in which students in large or small groups learn to read aloud and constructively evaluate each other's poems. Some instructors require anonymity while others prefer that all poems be signed. Students typically workshop poems both orally and in writing. All out-of-class writing is generally typed. Other activities may include listening and/or viewing recordings of poets reading their work and/or talking about the practice of poetry, guest poet visits or field trips to readings.  The instructor should spend approximately an hour of conference with each student outside of class.

Outcome Assessment Strategies

The final grade is determined by the appraisal of the student's poems and revisions and participation in and contribution to the workshop process. Regularity of attendance and meeting deadlines for poems and critiques are essential to this process and may figure in to the final grade. Students may be asked to demonstrate their understanding of poetics through journals, quizzes, exams or portfolios. Attendance policies may vary with the instructor: students missing a week's worth of class may not expect an A; those who miss two weeks may not pass the class. 

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues, Competencies, and Skills)

• abstraction

• accent

• alliteration

• allusion

• ambiguity

• American idiom

• anaphora

• Anglo Saxon

• archaic diction

• assonance

• audience

• blank verse

• clarity

• compression

• concision

• concrete images

• confessional poetry

• connotation

• cover letter

• denotation

• diction

• end rhyme

• extended metaphor

• figurative language

• form

• formal poetry

• free verse

• full rhyme

• image

• imagination

• internal rhyme

• irony

• Latinate

• line

• lyric poetry

• metaphor

• meter

• multiple submissions

• narrative poetry

• negative capability

• objective correlative

• paradox

• personae

• point of view

• pre and free writing

• revision

• rhythm

• scansion

• simile

• slant rhyme

• stanza

• symbolism

• tenor

• tension

• tone

• turns and leaps

• vehicle

• voice

Instructors new to the course should contact the campus creative writing chair, creative writing sub-SAC chair, Comp/Lit SAC chair, faculty department chair, or administrative support person for further information.