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ENCW - English Major: Creative Writing Emphasis

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Program Title

English: Creative Writing

Program Type

Major

Degree Designation

BA

Department(s)

Program Description

Major effective prior to 2011

Modifications Made to Curriculum: Fall 2013, Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

As English majors, students read widelyengaging with many kinds of texts from multiple periods, geographical areas, genres, and literary traditions. Within the major, students choose a specific emphasis (program, program, or program) as their focus and develop their skills and knowledge through in-depth exploration within that emphasis.  Through the major, students develop flexibility of thought, attentiveness to language, an ability to engage with the world around them, and to understand difference (gender, race, class, ability, religion, nation), capacities which they may apply in almost any area of study or employment after college.  Upon completion of the major, students will particularly demonstrate the following:

Close Reading: In their reading of a text, students demonstrate attentiveness to language, technique, structure, cultural/historical reference, and forms and genres.

Range of Approaches: Students use critical frameworks to open texts in different ways.

Historicizing: Students analyze texts in relation to the historical period and culture in which they were produced.

Writing: Students write clearly and flexibly, using writing to develop and express ideas, to construct narratives, to connect with multiple audiences, and as a tool for thinking.

Information Literacy: Students can find, evaluate, and engage with sources using disciplinary research tools.

Synthesizing: In creating their own arguments, students draw on a variety of texts, scholars, and/or theories and place them into conversation with each other.

Advanced Placement (AP) Examinations

A student receiving a 4 or 5 on the English Language and Composition examinations may apply that to satisfy one writing intensive course. AP credit may not be applied to the major or minor in English literature, nor may it be used to fulfill the general education requirement in literature. See the Registrar's Office website for more information about AP credits.

Requisites

There is one English major with three different paths a student can choose one to complete. Below are the requirements for the Creative Writing path. Click the following links to view the requirements for the program and the program.

Requirements for the Major (44 credits)


All English majors must complete the required courses listed below and select one emphasis for their major: Literature, Creative Writing, or Writing and Communications.

I. Required Courses (16 credits)

Complete one of the following:

  • course - Western Literature II

  • course - Gender and Literature

  • course - African American Literature

  • course - Literary Analysis

Complete both of the following:

  • course - Writing in the Discipline of English

  • course - Senior Capstone

And one Seminar chosen from the following*:

  • course - Advanced Pre-1900 Literary Studies: Seminar

  • course - Major Pre-1900 Author: Seminar

  • course - Advanced Literary Studies, Post-1900: Seminar

  • course - Major Author, Post-1900: Seminar

II. Creative Writing Emphasis

A. Literature Electives (3 courses)*

Complete 12 credits; at least 4 credits must be at the upper-level.

  • course - Western Literature I

  • course - Western Literature II

  • course - Gender and Literature

  • course - Literature of Disability

  • course - African American Literature

  • course - Indigenous Environments: Literature and Film

  • course - US Multi-Ethnic Literature

  • course - Topics in Literary Studies

  • course - Introduction to Film Analysis

  • course - Introduction to Media Studies

  • course - Intermediate Selected Topics in Literature

  • course - American Prose

  • course - Environmental Writing and Eco-Criticism

  • course - Nature Writing

  • course - Literature of the Holocaust

  • course - Graphic Lit and Environment

  • course - Genre Fiction

  • course - Contemporary Transnational Cinema

  • course - Film History and Theory

  • course - Literary Translation

  • course - History and Structure of the English Language

  • course - History of Rhetoric

  • course - The Medieval Period: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - The Renaissance: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course- 19th-Century British Literature: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - 20th-Century British Literature: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - American Literature Pre-1900: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - American Literature Post-1900: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - Anglophone Literature Post-1900: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - Shakespeare

  • course - Independent Study in English

  • course - Advanced Topics in Literary Study

  • course - Gender and American Literature

  • course - Gender and Contemporary Anglophone Literature

  • course - Sexuality and Gender in 19th-Century Literature and Culture

  • course - Advanced Studies in Ethnic American Literature

  • course - Writers on Writing

  • course - Essays, Letters, Memoirs, and Meditations: Reading Nonfiction Prose

  • course - Food, Justice, and U.S. Literature

  • course - Environmental Justice Literature

  • course - The Global City in Modern and Contemporary Fiction

  • course - Human Rights in Literature and Film

  • course - Old English

  • course - Thinking about Genre through Film

  • course - Cinema and Social Justice

  • course - Filming American Feminisms

  • course - Gender and Film

  • course - Cinema and the Critique of Capitalism

  • course - Theories of Authorship

  • course - Medieval or Renaissance Literature: Advanced Studies

  • course - British Literature of the 18th and 19th Centuries: Advanced Studies

  • course - British Literature Post-1900: Advanced studies

  • course - American Literature Pre-1900: Advanced Studies

  • course - American Literature Post-1900: Advanced Studies

  • course - Transatlantic Literature: Advanced Studies

  • course - Anglophone Literature Post-1900: Advanced Studies

  • course - The Novel in the 20th Century/Modernism and Postmodernism

  • course - Topics in Literary and Critical Theory

  • course - Marx, Nietzsche, Freud

  • course - Law and Literature

  • course - Intensive Reading of a Single Text Pre-1900

  • course - Intensive Reading of a Single Text Post 1900

  • course - British Political Drama

  • course - Studies in British Literature: London Literature

  • course - Immersive Research in English

B. Writing Workshops (4 courses)

Complete 16 credits of upper-level writing workshops.

  • course - Creative Nonfiction Workshop

  • course - Nonfiction Writing Workshop: Articles

  • course - Short Fiction Workshop

  • course - Poetry Workshop

  • course - Advanced Fiction Workshop

  • course - Advanced Poetry Workshop

  • course - Theories of Authorship


*Pre-1900

At least one course in the major (seminar or elective) must include consideration of texts written before 1900.

  • course - Western Literature I

  • course - History and Structure of the English Language

  • course - History of Rhetoric

  • course - The Medieval Period: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - The Renaissance: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - 19th-Century British Literature: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course- 20th-Century British Literature: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - American Literature Pre-1900: Mapping the Anglo-American Literary Tradition

  • course - Shakespeare

  • course - Sexuality and Gender in 19th-Century Literature and Culture

  • course - Old English

  • course - Community Literacy and Public Rhetoric in the Archives

  • course - Medieval or Renaissance Literature: Advanced Studies

  • course - British Literature of the 18th and 19th Centuries: Advanced Studies

  • course - American Literature Pre-1900: Advanced Studies

  • course - Marx, Nietzsche, Freud

  • course - Law and Literature

  • course - Intensive Reading of a Single Text Pre-1900

  • course - Advanced Pre-1900 Literary Studies: Seminar

  • course - Major Pre-1900 Author: Seminar