ENG 307 · Spring 2026
Required text: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. All stories on Google Classroom.
Our companion text for the semester. Lamott writes about writing the way a good friend talks — honest, funny, and unsparing. Bring it to every class.
All available on Google Classroom (GC). Read before the class they're assigned.
Week 2 First person narration at its most unreliable and electric. A narrator who knows more than he should, telling you less than he could.
Week 2 Third person that gets so close it feels like first. Three characters, three voices, one event.
Week 2 The iceberg theory in action. Almost entirely dialogue. Everything that matters is underneath what's said.
Week 3 Second person and nonlinear time. Language shapes thought — and the structure of the story proves it. (Became the film Arrival.)
Week 3 Voice as power, voice as inheritance. One sentence, one page, a whole world.
Week 3 From Jesus' Son. Narrative movement through chaos. The plot doesn't arc — it stumbles forward.
Week 3 Flash fiction. A parrot speaks to humanity. Form as argument.
Week 4 Character revealed through actions and contradictions. Tense as a craft tool.
Supplementary The speculative as a vehicle for real emotion. Voice, world-building, and the tension between wildness and assimilation.
Supplementary Power, desire, and resistance inside an institution.
Supplementary Family, loss, and home. The opening of Love Medicine.
Supplementary Story, memory, and what we owe each other.
Supplementary A boy watches the world storm around him.
Supplementary Flash fiction. An entire life in two paragraphs.
Essays and excerpts on the practice of writing.
Week 3 Plot is not what happens but the logic of what happens. Structure as meaning.
Used in Weeks 5 and 13.
Week 5 Read the story, then read the critique. This is what a good workshop letter looks like.
Week 5 A second model. Compare the two critique letters — what makes one useful?
Week 13 Draft and published version side by side. See what revision actually looks like — not fixing typos, but rethinking the story.
"In order to be able to write well you must read well. Jorge Luis Borges described himself as 'first and foremost a reader.'"— Course Philosophy
"The good piece of writing startles the reader back into Life."
— Joy Williams