2024-2025 Undergraduate Catalog

Writing Minor

Requirements

The minor in Writing requires the completion of 18 credits in writing courses offered by the Department of Languages and Literature. All Writing Minor students must take ENG 253.

Required Course for the Writing Minor

ENG 253Introduction to Creative Writing

3

Courses that fulfill that requirement are:

Select three courses (15 credits) from the list below:
ENG 237Nature Writing

3

ENG 250Journal Writing

3

ENG 252Developing A Writing Voice

3

ENG 256Playwriting

3

ENG 257Art of the Non-Academic Essay

3

ENG 259Special Topics in Writing

3

ENG 264Digital Writing for Magazines

3

ENG 265Creative Writing: Health and Healing

3

ENG 270Short Story Writing

3

ENG 271Writing Social Fiction

3

ENG 272Writing Flash Fiction

3

ENG 273Poetry Writing

3

ENG 274Teaching Writing in Secondary Education

3

ENG 275Creative Nonfiction

3

ENG 356Playwriting II

3

ENG 359Studies in Writing: Special Topics

3

ENG 371Advanced Poetry Writing I

3

ENG 372Advanced Poetry Writing II

3

ENG 373Independent Study: Poetry

3

ENG 374Independent Study: Fiction

3

ENG 376Advanced Short Story Writing

3

Total Credit Hours:15

The minor offers tracks in writing prose and poetry. Courses in both tracks help students explore what it means to be a practicing poet and fiction writer. Those courses also benefit students in any field—nursing, criminal justice, education, marketing, communication and media studies, and throughout the humanities and the sciences—who have an interest in learning how to write more clearly and persuasively because writers learn how writing can be used to express meaning and to convince and engage a reader. These are essential skills for all professions.

Students study with published writers on the faculty who are actively working as poets and fiction writers. Those faculty members provide practical and hands-on learning experiences in seminars and workshops where students learn how aesthetic texts are created in fact and not only in theory. The minor also collaborates with the University’s SHU in Dingle programs, providing an important study abroad opportunity.

The minor in Writing is a strong addition to the University’s traditions in the visual, musical, and performing arts and affirms the University’s commitment to making possible a full range of opportunities for undergraduates to engage in all avenues of artistic expression.