The following are general types of activities using Modern Literature Collection materials. See these past assignment sheets for specific examples. Note: while most of the assignment sheets specify being for poetry or fiction classes, they are adaptable to any genre, including creative nonfiction.

Revisions - Find at least three changes (additions, subtractions, margin notes, etc.) made to the text and describe them. How do the changes affect the work overall? Would you have made the same changes? Different ones? -How are this author’s/poet’s revision process different or the same as yours? How might you apply their process to yours?

Ekphrasis - Choose an object (typically an item that belonged to a writer) that resonates with you in some way and write a story/scene/poem based upon or in response to or featuring that object.

Chapbooks / materials toward books – choose a chapbook or a handful of chapbooks or a set of drafts and proofs toward a book to evaluate sequencing choice or choices. Reflect how this will inform your choices for inclusion, exclusion and sequencing in a final chapbook assignment.

Scavenger hunt – using a worksheet with a set of questions, find and write down information and/or inspiration in photographs, cassette tapes, postcards, correspondence, drafts, books, ephemera, personal items, etc. belonging to a writer or writers.

Artist and fine-press books – choose a book or a small number of books to reflect upon how the physical format interacts with the text. How does it reinterpret or enhance a well-known piece of literature, or push the boundaries of what a book can be? Are the artist and writer the same or is it collaborative? Does the format detract from the text instead of enhancing it? Imagine ways you might present your poetry or prose unconventionally and without conventional limitations—what form would your book or object take, what materials would you use, and how would the text interact with that form and materials?

Drafts workshop – each small group gets one (transcribed) draft of a poem or prose passage and discusses strengths and weaknesses of individual lines and as a whole. Read respective drafts to class and have larger discussion about small group opinions, and what the class thinks is the order of draft composition and why. Reveal order and have each student pick another set of drafts to work on individually to similarly track changes and write short paper about it.

In addition to reviewing the sample class worksheets, getting to know what authors we have is another good place to start. Some of the most important ones are profiled in our Selected Authors and Their Collections Research Guide. You can find a complete list of authors in our collections on the main Modern Literature Collection page, and browse manuscript collections with our indexes by format and genre.

Some assignments could be enhanced using our existing online digital collections, such as:

• Connecting Contexts: The Modern Literature Collection and The Letters of Samuel Beckett
• “If you could finish it…” : Beckett’s Revisions and Autotranslations
• James Merrill Digital Archive: Materials for The Book of Ephraim
• James Merrill: Life and Archive
• Joy Williams: Honored Guest
• Modern Literature Collection: The First 50 Years
• River Styx: Liberating the Spoken Word
• Wherein I Am: Highlights from the Aaron Coleman Papers
• William H. Gass: The Soul Inside the Sentence

Contact Joel Minor, curator of the Modern Literature Collection, if you have questions about class visits or special collections resources. Email spec@wumail.wustl.edu to schedule an appointment to look at materials yourself, or to book a class visit.