Minor in Creative Writing

The minor in Creative Writing offers undergraduates the opportunity to explore and experiment with creative textual production in a variety of genres, including poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, screenwriting, and multimedia genres.

Learning Outcomes

Students who complete the minor in Creative Writing will be able to:

• Recognize the features of creative textual genres and write into (and against) those genres with a consciousness of the work by others that has preceded them in a given genre.
• Demonstrate understanding of the relationship between audience, purpose, genre, and style in crafting effective creative texts.
• Workshop creative texts and offer effective feedback to other writers.
• Develop critical and analytical skills through advanced courses in selected genres.

Requirements

The minor in Creative Writing consists of six courses.

All courses are four units each, unless noted.

• One course in introduction to creative writing:
  • CAS EN 202 Introduction to Creative Writing (AEX)
    or
  • equivalent coursework/workshop completed elsewhere (e.g., summer study) and submission of a writing sample for placement purposes
• Three creative writing courses, chosen from the following:
  • CAS CI 495 Modes of Independent Filmmaking
  • CAS EN 304 Writing of Poetry
  • CAS EN 305 Writing of Fiction
  • CAS EN 306 Introduction to Playwriting
  • CAS EN 403 Advanced Writing of Poetry
  • CAS EN 405 Advanced Writing of Fiction
  • CAS EN 502 Reading and Writing Literary Nonfiction
  • CAS EN 509 Writing the Social/Political Play
  • CAS EN 510 Writing of Short Plays
  • CAS EN 519 Drama in Theory and Practice 2: Experiments in Character and Form
  • CAS EN 520 Drama in Theory and Practice 3: Adaptation and the Theatre
  • CFA TH 227 Dramatic Writing 1: Autobiography (3 units)
  • CFA TH 228 Dramatic Writing 2: Adaptation (3 units)
  • CFA TH 303 Playwriting 1 (3 units)
  • COM FT 310 Storytelling for Film and Television
  • COM FT 411 Screenwriting 1 (Prereq: COM FT 310)
  • COM FT 430 Producing the Short Script (Prereq: COM FT 310)
  • COM FT 522 Writing Television Situation Comedy Scripts (Prereq: COM FT 310)
• Two electives, one of which must be an English course (CAS EN), chosen from the following:
  • CAS AN 533 Exploring Ethnographic Genres
  • CAS CC 320 Extended Multimedia Encounters with Core Texts
  • CAS CI 101 History of Global Cinema 1
  • CAS CI 102 History of Global Cinema 2
  • CAS CL 224 Greek Drama in Translation
  • CAS CL 229 Roman Comedy
  • CAS EN 176/CI 200 Intro to Film and Media Aesthetics
  • CAS EN 329 Film Genres & Movements
  • CAS EN 345 Nineteenth-Century American Fiction
  • CAS EN 347 Topics in Contemporary Global Fiction
  • CAS EN 349 Contemporary American Fiction
  • CAS EN 354 The Poetry of War
  • CAS EN 356 Drama and Performance 1945–Present
  • CAS EN 361 Auteurs at Work
  • CAS EN 363 Shakespeare 1
  • CAS EN 364 Shakespeare 2
  • CAS EN 373 Detective Fiction
  • CAS EN 398 Global Shakespeares
  • CAS EN 481 Performative Text and Design
  • CAS EN 500 Henry James
  • CAS EN 542 The Rise of the Novel
  • CAS EN 546 The Modern American Novel
  • CAS EN 548 Joyce and After
  • CAS EN 556 Faulkner and After
  • CAS EN 569 Film and Media Theory
  • CAS LI 314 Italian Theater Workshop
  • CAS RN 400 Writing Religion
  • CFA TH 405 Classical Theatre Through a Contemporary Lens
  • CFA TH 406 Contemporary Theatre