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Principles of Critical Reasoning

This course is designed to give you significant practice analyzing and constructing arguments for yourself. The ability to offer good arguments and assess bad ones is especially important at this moment, where arguments (some good and some bad) saturate our digital and online environment.

Young Adult Novel I

The young adult novel is one of the fastest-growing and exciting genres in publishing today. With complex young characters, realistic dialogue and gripping prose, readers young and old can't get enough of these novels. In a supportive and inspiring environment, you explore the elements of a YA novel's plot, character, language, setting and voice—all enhanced by in-depth lectures, discussions, manuscript workshopping and generative writing exercises. Also covered is the current marketplace for young adult fiction and how to query agents. You leave the class with a completed first chapter and a rough outline of your entire book, as well as the tools to continue writing on your own.

Poetry III

In this advanced workshop, you choose a specific project (for example, linked sequences of poems, such as prose or sonnets or a deep examination of imagery and/or metaphor) upon which to focus throughout the duration of the term. Through the exploration of your chosen area of study, you tap into deeper levels of poetics to apply to your own writing, learn to identify and strengthen your work's formal aspects, and refine your individual voice. You complete weekly writing and reading assignments specifically tailored to your project; reading assignments include both poems and essays on poetics. During weekly workshops, you are responsible for bringing in a new poem and have the opportunity to discuss your work through a lens specific to your chosen project.

Poetry I

What is a poem and how does it differ from prose? What sources can you, the beginning poet, look to for ideas and inspiration? How can you encourage a raw unfinished poem to become a thing of power and beauty? This course provides a series of enjoyable and illuminating exercises to expand your imagination and introduce you to the complex issues of craft and revision in an accessible way. Of value to those who have never written as well as those with some experience who seek new direction and feedback.

Gay Men's Writing Workshop: A Literary Approach to Writing About Gay Life

This course is designed for students who want to examine gay men’s lives in fiction and nonfiction. Discussions will include basic milestones that have defined much of gay life, such as coming out, sex, partnership and the AIDS crisis. We will explore what messages writing about gay men’s lives brings to those outside our experience, as well as ways we can communicate across this divide. Students will read and discuss the best examples of gay fiction/nonfiction in order to integrate their qualities into our own work, striving to say something new and fresh in a very crowded and well-established field. By the end of the course, students will have written three works of fiction and nonfiction and completed a substantial revision of one of those pieces.

Personal Essay III

Designed for those familiar with the personal essay form and who are already convinced of its unique power to reach the masses, this advanced workshop focuses on revising existing works, analyzing current markets and trends and submitting for publication. You establish yourself as a professional by completing hands-on assignments rooted in the real world, participating in extensive peer review and receiving practical support.

Memoir and Personal Essay Two-Saturday Workshop

Everyone has a story (and often many stories) to tell, whether your life has been a wild ride or a quiet stroll. This course is designed for those interested in learning more about the similarities and differences between the two forms and how to explore and shape your stories. Through exercises, prompts and workshop, you begin work on several stories; you may develop some of these into longer pieces, while others may simply get your creative juices flowing. Because both personal essay and memoir call upon the writer to dig deep and hover patiently over the material of memory, this weekend's worth of writing and exploration gives you tools for staying the course long after the actual class has finished.

Creative Alchemy: Finding and Writing Life Stories You Were Meant to Tell

This course is for anyone who has a story from "real life" that needs to be told. Sometimes your story is about a person, place, thing or some concealed part of yourself; a remembered time or event; or even something that will happen as you give account to its unfolding. Over the span of this course, you identify this element of your story's core fascination and acquire the skills to tell it, including researching and interviewing techniques, cultivating your own unique writing voice and constructing your story into a combination of episodes that advance and present it to best dramatic and imaginative effect. Finally, you investigate possible venues where each story might most effectively be presented.

Write a Novel in 10 Weeks

In this fast-paced, fun, and exhilarating novel writing course, you do the unthinkable: write a novel in ten weeks from start to finish. Tapping into the rich material inside your subconscious, you do mini exercises in class that form the plot, characters, setting, genre and structure of your very own work of fiction. At home, you write three pages a day to complete your manuscript. This is a class for beginners and seasoned writers alike. All that is required is discipline, determination and commitment.

Intensive Revision

After all the work of getting through a first draft, little seems so barbaric as the slashing and burning of entire characters and scenes—but making such vulgar literary sacrifices can enable the writer to unearth the heart of conflict and character, find focus in each scene and harness the best story s/he can offer. In this workshop, participants undertake two rigorous revisions, sticking with a draft all the way through to its best potential. By considering various elements of storytelling and developing dexterity with an assortment of narrative tools and techniques, students should finish the class with a story that’s really on course to being done.

Travel Writing

Travel writing has been imaginatively transporting readers for centuries and remains one of the most robust areas of publishing. This course guides you to elevate the mere travelogue or guidebook entry into a thoughtful, well-crafted piece of literature as you study elements of theme, structure, dialogue, descriptive language and tone in the works of some of the most lauded travel writers. You apply what you've learned in weekly writing exercises that are developed into at least one fully realized essay by course's end. You learn how to conduct research, take field notes and tackle the unique challenges and ethical questions that face travel writers, as well as look at various publishing venues and career opportunities for new travel writers. The course goal is to fully develop one polished travel essay (600-3,000 words) and generate material for future essays.

Writing Out of Your Life

Writing out of your life can be a process of self-revelation, a way of discerning the pattern of your life even while you're in the midst of living it. Whether you want to write a memoir or transmute your life into fiction or poetry, this workshop helps you mine the rich vein of material that is yours alone. The focus of this workshop is on production and encouragement, rather than editing and critiquing. Using a combination of weekly prompts and assignments, instructor feedback, and group interaction, you write a series of autobiographical narratives. For both beginners and seasoned writers who want to get in touch with their personal voice.

Speculative Fiction and Magical Realism

Reality is frequently inaccurate. Why not accurately depict that? This workshop is dedicated to kick-starting your imagination with the help of visualization and acting exercises, Oulipo writing prompts, and other creative techniques. We take a leap beyond the ordinary with examples on how to craft an engaging alternate reality, flesh out an enthralling non-human character, or dream up an unforgettable story line in space. At the end of 10 weeks, you have a better grip on how to apply creative writing techniques designed to help you think outside the box for your own speculative fiction story.

Write a Novel in a Month in the Style of NaNoWriMo

Write a novel in a month! Is it possible? Over the 20 years the class has been offered at UCLA Extension, over 500 writers have participated and an astounding 86% of them has written a complete first draft of their novels. The challenge of the class is to write an entire draft of a 50,000-word novel over the 30 days of November using the techniques of the late National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Before launching into one of the wildest writing experiences ever, you meet twice with the instructor and classmates to develop the essential strategies you need to complete your novel draft. Then, for the next five weeks of this "write-shop," you write with the instructor offering writing exercises and tips designed to generate material and move your draft along, word-by-word, to the 50,000-word goal. At the eighth meeting, we discuss the next steps in moving you toward publication and have a class reading, just like a published author would. Our last two classes are workshops to get you started on the revision process. You come out of the course with a draft of your novel, a start in revising, and the tools to decide where to go from there. Come prepared with writing materials.

Story Structure for the Novel

Many aspiring novelists write with the hope that inspiration will come. The result is time wasted on a flabby novel with no clear shape and a sagging pace. On the other hand, story structure gives your novel a skeleton; it forms the bones of your story. And just as adding flesh and clothing to a body makes that body more unique, so does any creative addition the writer makes to his or her basic structure. This course teaches you how to build that skeleton, from a solid premise line to building the moral argument of your novel. You ensure that your novel has what story structure guru John Truby calls the "seven key steps," and you learn how reversals and reveals, as well as character wants and needs, can drive your story to a satisfying conclusion. Exercises are worksheets which focus on structural elements such as character ghosts, story world and more. By the end of the course, you have in hand a six-page synopsis that works.

Voice and Movement for the Screen Actor

This holistic approach to movement, voice, and speech aims at liberating and enhancing the performer's natural capacity for moving, sounding and speaking as applied to performance on camera. Using techniques developed by Alexander, Spolin, and Sills, learn to feel the way the human body naturally functions when it is free of adverse conditioning. Exercises in posture and breathing, tonal quality, pitch range, projection and body characterization lead to enhanced character portrayal, emotional truth, and increased energy and mental alertness. You experiment with vocal and body energies, discover numerous choices in communicating text, and find new ways of tapping into the imagination and soul of a character.

Improvisation Techniques for the Actor: A Course in Spontaneity

Gain experiential understanding of improvisational acting and develop a strong improvisational perspective essential to scripted work. Through theater games and improvised scenes, develop tools to make you more trusting of your own impulses and more generous with your fellow actors. Learn to go for active choices to play at the top of your intelligence and at the service of the scene. Actors also experience that the best comedy comes out of listening and responding honestly, not "going for jokes."

Stanislavski and the Modern Actor

Constantin Stanislavski, master teacher, director, and author of An Actor Prepares (1936), revolutionized the way actors access the internal life of a character. He is the father of acting technique, the primary source for every process that followed. The dynamics of every great performance are rooted in his work. To build a skillset from Stanislavski is to build an artistry that evolves with the demands of the profession. Every actor who sustains a lasting career has found themselves in the seat of a Stanislavski class. To work with great directors and A-list actors, you must gain fluency in the language and principles he established. Each week brings a different focus, drawing from the work of Stanislavski and his four disciples, Stella Adler, Michael Chekhov, Sanford Meisner, and Lee Strasberg. This course will bring you a series of breakthroughs: emotional range, imagination, focus and concentration, building multilayered characters, genre, managing fear, making strong choices, understanding what instinctive acting truly is, improvisation, scene work, and a newfound depth and freedom in your craft. Scene material drawn from both contemporary and classic American theatre: Lorraine Hansberry, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Lynn Nottage, Eugene O’Neill, Sarah Ruhl, John Patrick Shanley, Sam Shepard, Diana Son, Tennessee Williams, and more.

Introduction to Adobe Premiere

Adobe Premiere Pro is used by professionals across the spectrum of filmed entertainment, including feature films, music videos and documentaries. You learn how to use this powerful program, from simple editing techniques to more complex compositing, layering, tilting, motion graphics and sound design. Instruction includes illustrated lectures, demonstrations, discussion and class projects. Topics include starting a project, organization and subclipping, timeline and basic editing tools, editing audio, video effects, color correction and grading, titles and motion, exporting and posting online.

Directing Workshop II: Storytelling

In the second part of the Directing Workshop series, participants complete short narrative films using their own digital video camera. Focusing on storytelling, instruction teaches participants how to apply the principles and essential elements of dramatic structure and character development to the filmmaking principles explored in X 476.95 Directing Workshop I: Composition and Movement. Through increasingly complex filmmaking assignments, participants discover how to combine key elements, such as casting, working with actors, shot selection, sync-sound, and music to communicate the themes, conflict, and story arcs that create compelling narrative for a visual medium. Student work is screened and critiqued by the instructor and class.