Creative Writing (BA)

• Critical thinking: originality and appreciation of nuance

• Interpretation: history, theory and criticism

• Literacy: reading, intertextuality and cosmopolitanism

• Style: rhetoric, genre and audience

Students in the English & Creative Writing Department may, with department head approval, complete more than one major and/or minor in the department. Students may double-count a maximum of 28 semester hours toward another major in the department.

Students in English & Creative Writing study literature from four different perspectives: as creative writers, readers, editor-entrepreneurs, and professional writers. Foundational courses taken by students in the first and second years show how literary history, literary theory, and literary diversity are integral to formal concerns and to emerging digital contexts. These provide a common learning experience. After the foundational courses, English-Literature and English-Secondary Education majors take advanced seminars in literary history and theory; English-Publishing & Editing majors take advanced courses in literary criticism and professional skills; Creative Writing majors take advanced writing workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; and Professional and Civic Writing majors take advanced courses in grant, community, and democratic writing. Coursework in each major is completed through a capstone experience. English-Literature and English-Secondary Education majors pursue an independent research project; English-Publishing & Editing majors take a course in which they reflect on the cultural, political, and commercial functions of publishing; Creative Writing majors prepare a portfolio of their original work; and Professional and Civic Writing majors participate in a class that prepares job application materials and considers the connections between political and workplace writing.