Creative Writing Summer School

2-15 August 2015

Study at one of the world's leading universities

About the Creative Writing Summer School

    This programme is for those wishing to develop their existing creative writing skills, either for eventual professional use, or out of personal interest.Workshop courses take place twice a day.In a series of plenary(全体出席的)lectures (each morning, and on some evenings), novelists, poets and writers of creative non-fiction discuss their own work and the art of writing.Plenary lectures are designed to expand students' understanding of their own creative options.Students will expected to complete daily writing tasks outside classroom hours; the resulting work will form the primary focus of the workshops.

What will I be studying?

    Workshop courses focus on practical writing skills and critical reflection; there are specialist options in fiction; creative non-fiction and poetry, and writing for stage and screen, as well as a more broadly-based writing course.

Who can apply?

    The programme is open to university students, literature teachers, professionals and those with other life experience; gap-year students preparing for university may also apply (students must be accompanied by a parent/ guardian if under 18 when the programme starts).Participants must also meet the language requirements specific to this programme and will be asked to provide a 300-400 word piece explaining their reasons for applying.

Who will be teaching me?

    Courses are taught by a combination of published writers associated with the School of Continuing Education, Peking University and by guest subject specialists from beyond the university.

Where will I stay?

    Participants can stay in the School of Continuing Education, Peking University, close to the teaching sites and city Coventry.

How do I apply?

    You can download an application form or apply online.

    Find out more: www.sce.pku.edu.cn

    I recently posted a picture on Facebook from the movie Mad Max, a film where two groups race through the desert in steam punk vehicles, and wrote, “Actual picture of my way to work today.” It was meant to be a joke because of the sandstorms in Beijing, but one of my friends from back home thought it was real.

    I couldn't imagine how they could think that is actually what China is like. China has so many more conveniences and advantages than the West, and many of my friends agree. “I don't know how I will be able to deal when I go back home,” said a friend who is about to end her gap year in Beijing. “I've become so spoiled in China.

    China seems to be leading the way in innovation and convenience for daily life. Back home I could never shop, pull out my phone and scan a QR code to pay.

    There have been rumors of starting bike sharing in my hometown for years with little success while bike sharing suddenly appeared in Beijing overnight. I just step outside and scan a code, and I am on my way.

    Going out to eat with a group of friends back home was troublesome for both the group and the servers. Splitting checks and swiping (刷) 10 different cards or making change for each person in the group can be a pain. But with China's WeChat, you can quickly send your friends your part of the bill.

The list goes on...

    When I first arrived in Beijing, I was dead set on leaving in a month. That month has come and gone. Now, when someone asks me when I'm coming back, I think to myself, “Who knows?”

    While my friends think I'm riding through the desert on a motorbike, I am actually taking a “Didi” for what is the equivalent of $5 in the US.

    With all the conveniences and technology here, I may never want too go back.

    Norman Garmezy, a development psychologist at the University of Minnesota, met thousands of children in his four decades of research. A nine-year-old boy in particular stuck with him. He has an alcoholic mother and an absent father. But each day he would walk in to school with a smile on his face. He wanted to make sure that "no one would feel pity for him and no one would know his mother's incompetence.” The boy exhibited a quality Garmezy identified as “resilience”.

    Resilience presents a challenge for psychologists. People who are lucky enough to never experience any sort of adversity (逆境) won't know how resilient they are. It's only when they're faced with obstacles, stress, and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it, comes out. Some give in and some conquer.

    Garmezy's work opened the door to the study of the elements that could enable an individual's success despite the challenges they faced. His research indicated that some elements had to do with luck, but quite large set of elements was psychological, and had to do with how the children responded to the environment. The resilient children had what psychologists call an “internal lens of control(内控点)”. They believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as the arrangers of their own fates.

    Ceorge Bonanno has been studying resilience for years at Columbia University's Teachers College. He found that some people are far better than others at dealing with adversity. This difference might come from perception(认知) whether they think of an event as traumatic(创伤), or as an opportunity to learn and grow. “Stressful” or “traumatic” events themselves don't have much predictive power when it comes to life outcomes. "Exposure to potentially traumatic events does not predict later functioning,” Bonanno said. "It's only predictive if there's a negative response.” In other words, living through adversity doesn't guarantee that you'll suffer going forward.

The good news is that positive perception can be taught. "We can make ourselves more or less easily hurt by how we think about things," Bonanno said. In research at Columbia, the neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has shown that teaching people to think of adversity in different ways--to reframe it in positive terms when the initial response is negative, or in a less emotional way when the initial response is emotionally “hot”—changes how they experience and react to the adversity.

    In many parts of the world, there are four seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. In the U.S., there are only three: football, basketball and baseball. If you want to know what season it is, just have a look at what people are playing.

    For many people in the U.S., sports are not just for fun. They're almost a religion. Thousands of sports fans buy expensive tickets to watch their favourite teams and athletes play in person. Other fans watch the games at home. The most devoted sports buffs never miss a game. Many a wife becomes a “sports widow (寡妇)” during her husband's favorite season.

    America's devotion to athletics has created a new class of wealthy people: professional athletes. Sports stars often receive million -dollar salaries. Some even make big money appearing in advertisements for soft drinks, shoes and even toiletries (化妆品).

    Sports are an important part of Americans' culture. Throughout their school life, Americans learn to play many sports. All students take physical education classes in school. Some try out for the school teams, while others join school sports leagues. Athletic events at universities attract scores of fans and benefit the whole community.

    In a recent series of experiments at the University of California, researchers studied toddlers' thinking about winners and losers, bullies (欺凌) and victims.

    In the first experiment, toddlers (学步儿童) watched a scene in which two puppets (木偶) had conflicting goals: One was crossing a stage from right to left, and the other from left to right. The puppets met in the middle and stopped. Eventually one puppet bowed down and moved aside, letting the other one pass by. Then researchers asked the toddlers which puppet they liked. The result: 20 out of 23 toddlers picked the higher-status puppet — the one that did not bow or move aside. It seems that individuals can gain status for being dominant (占优势的) and toddlers like winners better than losers.

    But then researchers had another question: Do toddlers like winners no matter how they win? So, researchers did another experiment very similar to the one described above. But this time, the conflict ended because one puppet knocked the other down and out of the way. Now when the toddlers were asked who they liked, the results were different: Only 4 out of 23 children liked the winner.

    These data suggest that children already love a winner by the age of 21-31 months. This does not necessarily mean that the preference is inborn: 21 months is enough time to learn a lot of things. But if a preference for winners is something we learn, we appear to learn it quite early.

    Even more interesting, the preference for winners is not absolute. Children in our study did not like a winner who knocked a competitor down. This suggests that already by the age of 21-31 months, children's liking for winners is balanced with other social concerns, including perhaps a general preference for nice or helpful people over aggressive ones.

    In a time when the news is full of stories of public figures who celebrate winning at all costs, these results give us much confidence. Humans understand dominance, but we also expect strong individuals to guide, protect and help others. This feels like good news.

Critical thinking is the process of carefully and systematically analyzing problems to find ways to solve them. It involves identifying several possible solutions and then logically evaluating each one, comparing them to one another, and then selecting the one that you conclude is the most promising

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A. Sign up for science classes, for example.

B. Choose a lesson that benefits your critical thinking.

C. The ability to think critically is a valuable soft skill in the job market.

D. But more importantly, they want ones who can solve them effectively.

E. We all need some critical thinking skills living in this challenging world.

F. For example, before going out, learn about each means of transportation.

G. However, rushing to make a decision is less productive than using critical thinking.