Satellite Academy High School Midtown
Course Outline: Creative Writing
Kami Lewis
English
Cycles III & IV (A Slot, 1 Credit)

Goals and Objectives:
The primary aim for this class is to encourage students to write articulately. By examining a variety of writing devices and structures, the students will be exposed to new ways of expressing themselves. Students who never thought they could write poetry will find that they can. Creative writing will give them an opportunity to locate and develop their own inner voices by providing them with an outlet for their frustration, joy, anger and fear. The techniques that they pick up in this class will easily transfer to and enhance their academic writing.

Skills/Mediums:
Students will master specific poetic structures, such as Haikus, Tankas, Cinquains and acrostics. They will also build up a vocabulary of literary devices like assonance, consonance and alliteration. They will be responsible for journal entries, short stories, poems and prose work. They will also become comfortable with peer revision and class critiques.

Students will hone skills in critical thinking, analysis, reading comprehension, cause and effect and the ability to read pieces from perspectives other than their own.

Assessments:
Weekly poetry assignments, classwork and writing exercises Class participation, the ability to apply new devices to their work Attendance, peer editing and verbalization of critiques in workshops

Materials:
Poems by various poets (Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Adelaide Crapsey, Maya Angelou, Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda, etc.) Selection of short stories by Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Tolkien

Standards:
This course addresses the following New York State Standards in English:
Standard 1: Language for Information & Understanding
Standard 2: Language for Literacy Response & Expression
Standard 4: Language for Social Interaction