“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” asked E.M. Forster, in a statement that opens syllabi almost as often as “Since the dawn of mankind” opens student papers. Forster’s comment suggests that writing upends the common-sense relationship between thought and language, in which you have an idea, then find the “right” words for it. Plainly, many accomplished writers experience the process of writing as a mystery. And yet the culture of the university (as well as the demands of most white-collar jobs) urges us to get some sort of a handle, intellectually and personally, on that process.

This course invites you to reflect on your own process as writers and thinkers, and on other people’s processes, and what these say about the different functions of writing and writers in different places and times. On the further assumption that you never know a thing half as well as when you are forced to help someone else do it, this course also invites you, as a culmination of your reflections on your own process, to assist others with theirs. To do so, the course will partner with the Prison Creative Arts Project's Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing, a yearly anthology of work by inmates in Michigan prisons. This journal, produced by students and community volunteers, offers concrete and individualized feedback to each of the hundreds of writers whose work is rejected each year; you will have the opportunity to exemplify and complete your learning in this course by taking on a few such rejected manuscripts themselves.