Syllabus

WRIT 2701

Writing Adventures

Instructor:  Richard Colby Email: richard.colby@du.edu Office: Anderson Academic Commons 380X Office Phone: 303-871-7702 Office Hours: by appt.

Overview

Travel writing captures and sometimes invents a place for an audience. We see it expressed in many different genres and purposes, from literary nonfiction, to travel guides, to online reviews. How best can we convey our experiences of a place as an outsider? What writing strategies are best for creating a narrative of our experiences and enticing an audience? In the recent pandemic, we have to rely on reflections of our travel while dreaming of the time when we can travel more freely again. But we have also discovered adventure even when confined to the local. This practical writing course will consist almost exclusively of on-location or participant observation writing exercises and peer and instructor feedback through an online blogging platform. This class is listed as online, but you will be expected to explore your local community, socially distanced and masked, of course (or have had recent travel experiences from which to draw on).

Writing Minor Goals

  1. Students will learn writing techniques and strategies, and they will gain practical experience writing for different audiences and purposes and in different genres.
  2. Students will understand differences in writing for creative, professional, academic, and civic situations.
  3. Students will learn origins, contexts, assumptions, and implications of different theories of and approaches to writing.
  4. Students will develop a portfolio of writings that will effectively represent their abilities to various constituencies.

WRIT 2701 Writing Adventures Outcomes

The expectation for this course is that you will come with an understanding of writing for different audiences and situations. In this course, you will practice these skills and develop new writing strategies in writing about travel, tourism, and place, and learn the following:
  • Demonstrate compelling writing strategies for public audiences.
  • Demonstrate writing in common genres of travel writing
  • Assess for compelling travel writing in different genres.
  • Compose effective feedback that is critical and constructive 

How will this class work?

This course is split into 10 modules. In each module, there will be Techniques, Samples, and a writing Assignment. The Techniques offer writing tips and skills that you can apply to all writing, across the whole term (and beyond this class). Samples consist of the type or genre of writing that the assignment is asking for. The Techniques and Samples are always voluntary, and you can read as many or as few as you want. You will never be quizzed on the reading. However, you will learn a lot from the Samples and Techniques. The last part of the module is the Assignment. The Assignment consists of your original writing and your comments on other assignments, which will be explained in each week’s Assignment page. The course website is a publicly accessible blog, and your writing has the potential for a wider audience. The ideal here is to produce some travel and tourism writing that appeals to an audience looking for more information on the topics you are writing about. You are expected to think like a writer and editor of the content of the website rather than as a passive student. In other words, we are all here to make the best travel writing possible, and the process will lead to a richer understanding of writing than if you just did a few exercises and had a test about the reading. To recap,
  1. Begin the week by editing your post from the previous week’s assignment
  2. Read the Samples and Techniques.
  3. Draft that week’s assignment.
  4. You post a draft of that Assignment on this course blog/website for the week on Wednesday
  5. You will receive an email on Thursday from me with your Editorial Review assignment
  6. You will be responsible for completing your Editorial Review by Friday
  7. You revise your post based on the Editorial Review for the following Monday.

Assignments

You will be given 8 travel writing assignments that represent some of the most common types of travel writing. You will be further responsible for “tagging” the articles with at least one of six tags at least once. Each assignment sheet will remind you of this, but in a nutshell, you have to tag each of your articles with either Advice, Food, Nature, Tourism, People, or Insight at least once. The assignments are as follows: 
  1. Review – You will write a review about a place or activity that you experienced for the first time and post it on Google Guides, Yelp, Tripadvisor, or another public forum.
  2. Listicle – a “Listicle” is a portmanteau of “list” and “article,” and it is a common type of online writing for the web because it is easy to scroll through, and presents its information in small bits: 16 Things to do in Venice, 15 Best Burgers in Brooklyn, or 15 Camping Mistakes.
  3. Travelogue – A travel narrative about an adventure to a place often told in linear time, like your first trip to Paris.
  4. Multimedia – You will compose a story about a place or travel using primarily media other than text, such as a YouTube video, audio slideshow, Infographic, or visual gallery using Instagram or similar app/site.
  5. Personal Story – Personal stories focus on how travel or a place changes the person. It is more about you than the place, but it is still travel writing.
  6. Information, marketing, and itineraries – You will have some choice in the specific genre features of this piece, but the idea is to “sell” a place to an audience. The place is the star in this assignment—the personal will not appear.
  7. How To – The How To is written for an audience looking to prepare for a trip or understand how to travel to a place.
  8. Feature – One of the most common types of travel writing is the feature. These will appear most frequently in travel magazines, newspapers, and blogs. They can include everything from the Journey to the Personal. The key to a feature is to discover an angle or unique perspective. You might spend all term trying to find an angle that you can use for your travels and might not really see it until you are writing the piece, so be patient.

Grading

Assignment %
Module 1 – Intro 5
Review 10
Listicle 10
Travelogue 10
Multimedia 10
Personal Story 10
Information 10
How To 10
Feature 20
Module 10 – Reflection 5

Grading Criteria

To earn full credit on each module, you are required to do the following:
  • Complete each assignment by the due date.
  • Complete the editorial review comment you have been assigned by the due date
  • Complete revisions for the assignment by the due date.
  • Write compelling and informative pieces that show attention to each assignment’s criteria.
  • Write about topics that you can tag with the 6 tags by the end of the term.
Each module will have a techniques section that points to tips, skills, tricks, and samples of good writing. I expect you to think about, experiment, and possibly integrate that information into your writing. What you should endeavor to do is write compelling and informative pieces that will appeal to popular audiences looking to understand the place or topic you are writing for.

Policies

The Course Website and Privacy

As a student enrolled in this class, you are protected by FERPA, and you have the right to not publically disclose your name as a student registered for the class on the course website or any other public forum in which you are asked to write. If you would like to use an alias for your work in the class, you are free to do so as long as that alias is communicated to me. If you would like to use your actual name, but restrict some of your content to only members of the class, then you can use the “restrict to Contributor” option when you want to post. Also, note that your work will be kept on the website indefinitely unless you notify me that you would like it hidden or removed after the course is completed.

Online Participation

According to federal guidelines, each hour of class time should have 2 hours of homework. While some of your professors might fill that time, some do not, and it can lead to some confusion. A hundred pages of reading takes about two hours, but rarely would a professor assign 800 pages of reading a week. For the purposes of this class, I’ve planned for it to take about 8-10 hours a week. Take the extra hours engaged in your own learning process (reflecting, journaling, travelling, reading for fun, playing video games). I expect you to spend the following time on the tasks each week:
  • 2 hours reading Samples and Techniques
  • 6 hours writing/researching/revising Assignments
  • 2 hours reviewing your peers’ Assignments
Some of you will do the Sample/Technique reading quicker, some slower. Some of you will tear through an assignment in an hour and wonder what would ever take somebody 6 hours (usually it is thinking, false starts, coffee, a walk, a bad first draft, and a really bad second draft). This is not meant as a judgement or competition. I’m just letting you know how I planned the course. Sure, I could write a review in 10 minutes, but I also have to set aside time to go to a new place, take notes, and get a sense of it. On the other hand, it would take me 10-12 hours to invent, draft, revise, and revise again a decent Feature not counting the travel and time spent there. Because this course is entirely online, our interactions and the learning tasks will take place in the course blog/website.  Each week, you will have required tasks to complete within a learning module.  If you follow the modules, then you should achieve full credit for the course. I understand that life sometimes gets in the way of school obligations.  Please let me know if you are having trouble.  I’m here to support your learning, and I am more than willing to work with you if you let me know what is going on.  However, completing the course is ultimately your responsibility, so if you go a week or more without participating or emailing me, I will encourage you to drop the course. It is your responsibility to communicate your situation to me as I cannot drop you from the course.  If you just stop turning in work, you will receive an F in the course.

Late Work

All work must be turned in on-time. I will not accept late work unless you have made a previous arrangement with me.

Lost Work

You are responsible for maintaining a copy of each draft of your work. While the course website is designed to be reliable, there is always a possibility that things can get messed up.  Please keep copies of your work on a flash drive or cloud storage (Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Dropbox).  It is your responsibility to maintain your work.

Submitting Work

All assignments should be “published” on the course blog/website by the due date for each.

Plagiarism

There are many types of plagiarism and each has negative consequences on learning.  It is my expectation from the beginning that you are responsible for your own work, that you collaborate fairly, and that you give credit where credit is due.  More on the DU Student Honor Code can be found at http://www.du.edu/ccs/

ADA Statement

The University of Denver is committed to equal access and participation for all persons, including those with disabilities.  Appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities are provided on an individualized, collaborative, and flexible basis.  However, it is the responsibility of students with disabilities to request accommodations after first contacting Disability Services, working with them to determine appropriate accommodations.  Contact DSP if you require accommodations: http://www.du.edu/studentlife/disability/ or phone 303.871.2278.