Alt Workshop Models

Please splice, remix, and propose your own alt workshop models. Plan ahead when you wish to do an alt workshop because some of these use different timelines and may require you to turn your story in early.

The Author Interview

• Instead of letters, your readers prepare a list of questions about your story and its choices (character, world, structure, etc.).
• You sit at the front of the room and field questions, answering only those you wish to. You're not obligated to justify anything; you can say “I don't know yet“ or “I'd rather hear your theories.”
• Together, you and your classmates use the questions to surface your intentions, your uncertainties, and places where what's on the page diverges from what you meant—material you can take back into revision.

The Reverse Author Interview

• In the reverse author interview, your peers collectively act as “the author” of the story, and you interview them about your work.
• You may ask them to explain their craft decisions, clarify the story's world, tell you what first inspired the piece, etc.

The Roleplay

• Your peers form an improv troupe and briefly take on roles drawn from your story. They act out your dialogue and improvise short scenes—missing moments, offstage conversations, future or past encounters, a character “support group”—to surface hidden motivations, tensions, and world rules.
• Afterward, everyone drops out of character to discuss what the improv revealed, giving the author concrete material and questions to take back into revision.

The Literary Artifact

• We treat your story as if it were an established part of the canon.
• Instead of workshop letters, your readers outline an interpretation of your story: thesis statement, three pieces of textual evidence, and analysis. You may assign an arena of inquiry or give them free rein.
• In class, peers present and debate their arguments in a mini-seminar.

Work-in-Progress Presentation

• On the day you hand out your story, you give a 5–10 minute presentation about your story, explaining your narrative strategies and goals and directing readers to dimensions of the story you would especially like feedback on.
• Your presentation could also include an “assignment” for our workshop letters—something analytical or creative you would like us to include, as in the Prompt-Shop, below.
• When we gather, you can facilitate the workshop conversation, ask me to facilitate as usual, or assign that role to a classmate.

I Already Know How To Fix It!

• At the start of workshop, you give a 5–10 minute presentation in which you briefly assess your draft and outline your plans for revision.
• Then the workshop proceeds as usual but with your peers considering your proposals as well as your draft.

The Sneak Peek

• The workshop gives you their marked-up manuscripts and letters a couple days before workshop.
• You read everything, formulate questions, and brainstorm potential ideas for revision.
• You and I meet and discuss your reactions.
• In workshop, you lead the discussion by asking questions and proposing various ideas for revision for the workshop to ponder and game out.

The MasterDoc Metashop

• We all use OneDrive and Microsoft Word comment bubbles to annotate the same copy of the story online several days before class.
• The workshop writes letters reflecting not just on the story but also on one another's margin comments and brings these second-level takes to the in-class conversation.

The Prompt-Shop

• You assign a creative or analytic exercise in place of the workshop letter. For example, ask us to:

• Cut the story to 1000 words.
• Drag the paragraphs into our own order.
• Propose a b-plot to be woven through the story.
• Respond to the story in another form or medium: collage, poem, song, letter, drawing, map, engineering diagram, thematic index.
• Color code where the story advances action, character, emotion, world-building, or any analytic categories of your choosing.

The Debate

• You turn in your story with a cover sheet listing 3–4 critiques of your own and assigning your classmates into two teams. One team will argue that the critiques are legitimate and must be addressed and suggest how. The other team will argue that the story is perfect as is and explain why.
• Classmates use their letters to prepare for their assigned role in the debate and don't worry about what they “really” think.

SentenceFest

• We prepare for the workshop as usual, but discuss the story only on the sentence level, line by line, page by page.
• All global praise and critique must be couched in conversation about particular sentences.

Potluck

• Rather than discuss your work directly, classmates bring something to share that was inspired by your piece. This can be a journal entry they wrote about their own lives, a letter they wrote their sister, a song they were reminded of, a trail guide to the place they imagined the story to be set, a lasagna they were inspired to make…. You can set the parameters.
• The conversation takes the form of a show-and-tell where we articulate our response to your story by sharing our offerings.

Positive Bombardment

• In their annotations, letters, and conversation, your classmates may only make positive comments about the story.
• Positive comments, wisely described, can contain ample guidance for revision (do more like this, extend this effect) and for future work.

The Treatment

• Each reader writes a one-page treatment for how they would adapt your story into a movie: what they see as the core premise, the main beats, the logline, and the ending. They might also consider shooting locations, casting, soundtrack, etc.
• The treatment must identify what they'd keep, cut, and expand from the current draft (characters, subplots, scenes, images) in order to make the film work.
• In workshop, we compare treatments to see where readers agree/disagree about the story's emotional and narrative engines. We consider what this reveals about your draft's current center of gravity.