Splash Biography

GABRIEL KALAL, English Language and Literature major

Major: English

College/Employer: UChicago

Year of Graduation: 2013

Brief Biographical Sketch:

I've been writing and studying poetry actively for the past five years. In that time, I published numerous pieces in "New Pennies," one of the top high school literary magazines in the country. I also published a few pieces in the University of Chicago's literary magazine "Sliced Bread." Two summers ago I was a counselor at Northern Illinois University's Creative Writing camp where I led workshops with high school students and helped them develop their own talents. Currently, I am working on improving my own writing by trying out new methods and taking any poetry class I can find!

Past Classes

(Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

A903: Creative Writing: Description in Cascade! Fall 2011 (Oct. 18, 2011)

In this class we will focus on the art of description. With description, we can draw our audience into a new world—a world that we have the complete power to create. Once there, our stories cease to be a series of letters on a page and start to become a reality to our readers. Whether describing a blossoming tree or the lines on an old woman’s face, we can use details to make our writing real. Honing our descriptive skills will turn our stories into art!

A734: Experimenting with Poetry in Cascade! Winter 2011 (Jan. 25, 2011)

When poets are writing poems, what are they trying to do? Why do they use poetic devices? Why is the structure so important? In this class, we will explore some of the tools that poets use to convey their messages, and how we can manipulate those tools to express different things to our readers. We will start each class by talking about a technique, then we will see how poets use it, and finally we will try to apply that technique to our own writing. In-class readings will range from sonnets to modern song lyrics. We will focus on techniques including figurative language, sound, line, and form.