Telling a story is a compelling way to convey everything from bad news to great ideas. In your professional and personal life, you probably use stories to introduce yourself or explain the work you do, or to recruit and inspire your employees. In the workplace we use stories to ready staffs for changes in strategy, structure, and product line; a well-crafted story can can comfort a colleague, address an error, get a laugh, close a deal.
Stories are a powerful rhetorical tool. They also can form the basis of your future article, autobiography, or motivational book-providing a way for you to reach an audience beyond the workplace and put to broader use the wisdom of your experience.
This online course is intended for Penn alumni, particularly executives and professionals who would like to learn how to make the most of their stories not only in the workplace but on the page. The course will help you refine your skills as a writer and story-teller. We will focus on how to identify, develop, and shape your stories into an artful and compelling representation of your unique experiences.
Dr. Valerie Ross is Director of the Critical Writing
Program at Penn and teaches in the Department of English, specializing in biography. Prior to
becoming a professor, Ross was a senior management consultant and business writer, as well as
worked in various editorial capacities at Esquire, Wall Street Publications and The Cream City
Review literary quarterly.
6 weeks. $650. Open to Penn alumni and their family members.
February 2 through March 9
To register, contact critwrit@writing.upenn.edu
or phone 215-573-2729