English 225 Creative Writing
English 225 Creative Writing
Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course
Common Course ID: English 225: Creative Writing
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait
Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a Creative Writing course for undergraduate students by Professor Scott Starr at California Maritime Academy. The open textbook provides examples of short fiction for discussion in the classroom and ideas for the students’ original work. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to significantly reduce the cost of materials. Most students access the open resources through a web browser.
Course Title and Number - English 225 Creative Writing
Brief Description of course highlights: English 225-1 (1305) is an introduction to creative writing, with an emphasis on aesthetics and self-expression rather than on publication. Mini- lectures define the elements of successful fiction and poetry; focused exercises provide practice in these elements; published models are examined for technique and structure. Credit varies depending on the amount of work accomplished by the student and the number of classes attended. The course meets a humanities elective requirement. This course is open to all majors who have successfully completed English Composition. The demographics of the class are representative of the CSUM student body and include all majors. The diverse interests of the individual students make for lively discussions and unexpected connections. The excitement of presenting an original work is contagious.
Student population: This course is open to all majors who have successfully completed English Composition. The demographics of the class are representative of the CSUM student body and include all majors. The diverse interests of the individual students make for lively discussions and unexpected connections. The excitement of presenting an original work is contagious.
Learning or student outcomes: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to write and speak effective, undergraduate-level prose in English, with emphasis on mechanics, organization and the rhetorical situation. They will be able to effectively translate original thoughts to critical and creative thinking and expression, and be able to apply these skills flexibly to new situations.
Key challenges faced and how resolved: The challenges of the course mostly revolve around logistics and scheduling. For a student to present a story, the other participants need to both arrive in a timely fashion and be prepared to discuss the work. A best practice is to require written feedback on the story at the beginning of the discussion and award points accordingly. This practice also provides a tangible structure regarding grading.
Textbook or OER/Low cost Title:
Brief Description: These free online Literary Journals publish original works of fiction from primarily American authors. It is not uncommon for these authors to also publish in print magazines such as The New Yorker or The Atlantic. The featured writers illustrate what is both contemporary and possible within the art form. As students are encouraged to find their own writing voice, examples of diverse authorship provide key material for insights and lively classroom discussions. These resources are vast and have extensive archives, so there are opportunities to me to choose stories that illustrate a particular theme, perspective or approach, and the students can browse a wide variety and are encouraged to make discoveries and present them to the class.
The free resources (Narrative Magazine and American Short Fiction) are accessed online through the following sites:
Authors: The Governing Board Chair of Narrative Magazine is Katie Dickson. The Editors of American Short Fiction are Rebecca Markovits and Adeena Reitberger.
Student access: Student Access is through any web browser – the materials listed above are free for all..
Supplemental resources: The resources are to provide the basis of a class discussion. Study guides and additional resources are not necessary. .
Cost Savings: Although I still use a traditional textbook, the addition of the free resources allowed me to eliminate two previously used textbooks and replace them with a significantly less expensive option. This change resulted in an 80% reduction in student costs
License: The Free resources listed above are openly licensed and available at no cost for educational purposes.
OER/Low Cost Adoption Process
Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. My primary goal in using the free resources was to reduce the cost of education to students. However, a second benefit is that the Literary Magazines provide a very large collection of examples from which to draw.
As Creative Writing is a very specific type of Humanities course, I used my personal experience with online journals to narrow the free resources down to these two websites.
How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? The expensive textbooks I replaced are very good, but as they are print resources, they are still quite limited in the number of examples for class exploration. If students discover an author or style within the website, they may explore additional works with no barrier.
Sharing Best Practices: An online “textbook” is not actually ideal for the creative writing workshop, as doing the work and receiving feedback are the primary modes of learning. There are many additional free resources in the online Literary Journal space, as well as free video interviews with famous authors describing their writing process. Every instructor can assemble a personal approach to the workshop and craft the semester according to the students in the room.
Scott Starr
Adjunct Faculty - Department of Communication
California State University, Maritime 
Please describe the courses you teach. I teach English Composition, Ethics, Critical Thinking, Creative Writing, Public Speaking and a variety of special topics within the Humanities. I primarily encourage students to engage with the world through their own experiences and to explore how the Humanistic tradition may inform or broaden their own critical and creative viewpoints. I foster a learning environment of patience while promoting both rigor and deep reflection.