The Writer's Workshop: Imitating Your Way to Better Writing

The Writer's Workshop takes an approach to teaching writing that is new only because it is so old. Today, rhetoric and composition typically proceed by ignoring what was done for 2,500 years in Western education. Gregory Roper, on the other hand, helps students learn to write in the way the great writers of the past themselves learned: by carefully imitating masters of the craft, including Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Charles Dickens, Sojourner Truth, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. By living in their workshops and apprenticing to these and other masters, apprentice writers--like apprentice musicians, painters, and blacksmiths of the past--will rapidly improve the complexity of their art and discover their own native voices. Interspersed into chapters full of sound practical advice and challenging assignments are reflections on Great Ideas from "Realism and Impressionism" to "Nominalism and Modern Science." Perfect for the college or even high school writing classroom--as well as a marvelous book for homeschoolers and others who would like to improve their own writing--The Writer's Workshop is a fine practical guide, and Dr. Roper a friendly yet demanding teacher-mentor.

About the Author :
Gregory L. Roper is based in Irving, Texas, (University of Dallas) and from July 1st 2007 will be working in Rome, Italy. Roper is an English professor and director of the Writing Program at the University of Dallas, has taught courses in composition, literature, and various genres of writing at the University of Virginia, Ripon College, and Northwest Missouri State University. A medievalist by training, Dr. Roper has published on penitential manuals and their influence on late-medieval literature, including the Gawain poet and Chaucer, and has written poetry and prose for such general-interest magazines as First Things. His degrees come from the University of Dallas and the University of Virginia.

Review :
"Gregory Roper shows that, for serious young writers, imitation can be the sincerest path to achievement." --Tracy Lee Simmons, author of Climbing Parnassus "The Writer's Workshop . . . is a complete-in-one-volume workshop instruction guide that can assist anyone from a home-schooled student, to a novice novelist, to a beginning playwright, to an aspiring poet to write more effectively, fluently, engagingly, and successfully. Simply stated, [it] should be on the supplemental reading list of anyone wanting to successfully express themselves through the written word and should be considered a core acquisition for personal, professional, academic, and community library Writing Reference Studies collections." -- Midwest Book Review "Roper, director of the writing program at the University of Dallas, helps highly motivated students in high school and up learn to write the way that great writers of the past themselves learned: by imitating masters of the craft, including Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. Part I lays the groundwork for crucial skills in any writing, such as description and definition, with examples from classic works. Part II runs students through a modified mini-trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric, three of the seven liberal arts that formed the basis of medieval university study). Students learn the voice of logical distinction and counterarguments from imitating Thomas Aquinas. They are then led to complex persuasive writing through Cicero's Pro Archia. Chapters include assignments and reflections on Great Ideas." --Book News