Portuguese Writing Workshop

Objectives

To improve the written skills in Portuguese.

To increase the in-depth knowledge of the Portuguese language.

To understand the reciprocal influence of reading and writing.

To understand and to experience some techniques in creative writing.

To spot an author’s influence on another.

To develop the ability to produce autonomous texts.

To unleash individual creativity skills.

Program

1. Reading well: taste, style and influence.
2. Fostering creativity: stimuli and routines.
3. On writing: to show or to tell?
4. Writing conventions: punctuation, textual economy, capital letters, italics, the use of commas in POrtuguese and in English, the numbers.
5. Motivations for writing:
5.1. Words based on words
5.2. Sentences based on numbers
5.3. Paragrapghs based on objects
5.4. Slogans based on images.
5.5. Chronicles based on days
5.6. Dialogues based on emotions
5.7. Narrative texts based on poems.
6. The five senses – how to use them for creative writing purposes.
7. Places and spaces of reading and writing
8. Designing characters and the structure of the traditional short story
9. Translation tachniques from English into Portuguese.
10. The essentials of literary criticism: the abstract, interpreting, arguing.
11. Rewriting rites.

Teaching Methodologies

Due to the practical nature of the CU, classes consist of reading and writing sessions, in the classroom context, always preceded by theoretical considerations on the themes and the types of texts that re being written or analysed. When required, exercises for triggering creativity will also take place. Each writing activity will be done after a previous acquaintance with a model text which will serve as an example for what will be done by each student. After writing, students will read and assess the colleagues’ texts. The whole class will indulge in rerwriting activities untilan adequate final version is achieved.

Bibliography

Belsey, Catherine, A prática crítica, Lisboa: Edições 70, 1982.

Bloom, Harold,  A Angústia da influência, (trad. port. Miguel Tamen), Lisboa: Cotovia 1991.

Idem, Génio (tradução portuguesa de Cristina Rodriguez e Artur Guerra), Lisboa: Temas e Debates – Círculo de Leitores, 2014.

Manguel, Alberto, Uma história da leitura, Lisboa: Editorial Presença, 2010.

Nash, Christopher (ed.), Narrative in Culture. The Uses of Storytelling in the Sciences, Philosophy, and Literature, London & New York: Routledge, 1994, 4ª ed. [1990].

Reis, Carlos, Construção da leitura, Coimbra: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Científica, 1982.

Reis, Carlos; Lopes, Ana Cristina Lopes (coord.), Dicionário de Narratologia, Coimbra: Almedina, 1987.

Yagleski, Robert P., The Essentials of Writing – Ten Core Concepts, New York: Cengage Learning, 2015.

Zinsser, William, On Writing Well, New York: Harper, 1988.