Creative Writing | Academic Requirements | Courses | Faculty
The Creative Writing Program: Courses
Lower level (freshman): CWR 1000–1999
Lower level (sophomore): CWR 2000–2999
Upper level (junior): CWR 3000–3999
Upper level (senior): CWR 4000–4999
Poetic Techniques
CWR 1000 / 4 credits / Spring
Introduces the essentials of poetry writing, including poetic form and forms (traditional and unconventional), line structures and rhythms, figures of speech, and other elements of rhetoric, voice, and subject matter. Regular writing exercises are the heart of the course, emphasizing problems to solve and techniques to master. Reading and study of important poetic models accompanies the poetry writing. Students produce a portfolio of original poems by the end of the semester. This course is a prerequisite for all subsequent poetry writing courses.
Prerequisite: Submit a writing sample (including poetry) and permission of instructor
Introduction to Creative Writing
CWR 1010 / 3 credits / Spring
This introductory course in creative writing allows students to explore various genres. Poetry, the short story, and memoir are among the forms discussed. Students should be prepared to write, revise, and share portions of their work with other members of the class, and to read a selection of works by contemporary authors.
Narrative Techniques
CWR 1100 / 4 credits / Fall
An introduction to the fundamental aspects of fiction writing, including dialogue, plot, point of view, character development, detail, and voice. Starting from a series of writing exercises and analyses of published stories, students explore the techniques involved in creating effective fiction, using these as a springboard to complete a short story. This course is a prerequisite for all subsequent fiction writing courses.
Prerequisite: Submit a writing sample and permission of instructor
Poetry Writing I
CWR 2400 / 4 credits / Fall
Students begin to study and practice poetic strategies, producing a poem per week in response to assigned exercises. Students also develop skills in critiquing by commenting on each others’ work and by reading and discussing the work of established poets.
Prerequisite: CWR 1000 or permission of instructor
Fiction Writing I
CWR 2500 / 4 credits / Fall
While continuing to explore narrative strategies, students write and submit several short stories during the semester. Students also learn the fundamentals of critiquing as they discuss their work and that of published writers.
Prerequisite: CWR 1100
Travel Writing
CWR 3100 / 4 credits / Fall
Drawing on students’ personal experiences of travel as well as readings in fiction and nonfiction, this course explores the ways in which travel informs writing. Class time is divided between discussions of the students’ own work and published selections that represent various aspects of travel, from the “voyage” itself to “being there” and “remembering” place, character, and events.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Writing and Reading the Region
CWR 3105 / 4 credits / Summer (offered in France)
Using the city of Hyères and selected readings related to the region, students explore the contexts and their responses through writing. Students meet at various locations, from castles and ruins to a local café, and receive writing assignments that draw on place and setting. Each week, students select one of their on-the-spot works to revise and develop into a short piece of fiction for submission. Emphasis is on capturing the nuances of one’s surroundings and experiences of these surroundings, and on how to use setting as a main “character” in writing.
Writing and the Unconscious
CWR 3120 / 4 credits / Alternate years
To stimulate each student writer’s psychological resources, this course investigates theories (e.g., those of Freud and Lacan) that attempt to account for the origin of symbols and metaphors, thematic resonances of the “family romance,” and uses of the irrational in the production of art.
Prerequisite: CWR 2400 or CWR 2500, and permission of instructor
The Art of the Novella
CWR 3200 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
What makes the novella work? What power does the form offer that the short story and longer novel do not? Is there a subject matter best suited to such brevity? Students examine these questions through close reading of works by new and established writers (e.g., James, Conrad, Moore), and begin to structure and write their own novella.
Prerequisite: CWR 2500 or equivalent
Editing and Production Workshop
CWR 3205 / 4 credits / Spring
From the editorial stage to design, production, and marketing, this course gives students hands-on experience working with the Creative Writing Program’s literary magazine, “Italics Mine.”
Constructing Truths: The Personal Essay
CWR 3210 / 4 credits / Spring
Students are guided through the classical questions of form and style, the building materials of the personal essay, through reading and writing assignments. Students examine the elements that convince the reader of the truth of their tales and explore how to confront their own experiences creatively. Readings are various, but with a focus on the 20th-century essay in English.
The Screenplay
CWR 3325 Go to Cinema Studies Courses for description.
Prerequisite: CWR 3400 or CWR 3500, and permission of instructor
Poetry Writing II
CWR 3400 / 4 credits / Spring
This course assumes that students have a good command of basic poetic craft. Writing assignments put increased emphasis on students’ own work, though there are still exercises to guide the workshop, as well as study and discussion of poetry by established writers.
Prerequisite: CWR 2400 or permission of instructor
The Importance of Tone in Constructing a Poem
CWR 3430 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
How does a poet’s attitude or stance towards her or his subject create tone or voice in a poem? In this workshop, students read and analyze a range of poetry to understand the linguistic and syntactic underpinnings of tone, including its relationship to line break and simile. Poets include Louise Gluck, Marie Howe, Billy Collins, Tony Hoagland, Jane Kenyon, Brenda Hillman, Eamon Grennan, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, and T.S. Eliot.
Prerequisite: CWR 2400 and permission of instructor
Fiction Writing II
CWR 3500 / 4 credits / Spring
This course assumes a working knowledge of the craft. Students write and discuss short stories or chapters from a novel in progress, and continue to refine their critiquing skills through discussion of their own work as well as published stories. Revision of submitted work is an important component of this course.
Prerequisite: CWR 2500
Advanced Seminar in Fiction Writing
CWR 4510 / 4 credits / Fall
Taught by a well-published writer-in-residence. Students work intensively on revising and editing their own work and each other’s fiction, as well as on critiquing published stories and novels. The course also familiarizes students with the professional writer’s market and the submission process, in order to encourage each student to prepare at least one story for possible publication.
Prerequisite: CWR 3500
Advanced Seminar in Poetry Writing
CWR 4511 / 4 credits / Spring
Advanced students with practiced skills in poetry writing and criticism work to produce poems of publishable stature. Students should be able to assume full responsibility for their creative process in this course.
Prerequisite: CWR 3400
Durst Creative Writing Master Class
CWR 4700 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly, Fall)
This advanced course in creative writing, taught by eminent writers/poets, is made possible through the generosity and support of the Royal and Shirley Durst Chair in Literature. It satisfies the requirement for the advanced seminar (CWR 4510 or CWR 4511) in the genre (fiction or poetry) in which it is offered.
Corequisite: CWR 4700.01
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor (submit writing sample)
Durst Creative Writing Master Class Discussion
CWR 4700.01 / 1 credit
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Corequisite: CWR 4700
Senior Colloquium in Creative Writing
CWR 4890 / 2 credits / Every semester
As a required supplement to individual work on senior projects, students meet together weekly with members of the Creative Writing Board of Study to discuss each other’s work.
Corequisite: CWR 4990
Prerequisite: CWR 4510 or 4511
Senior Project in Creative Writing
CWR 4990 / 4 credits per semester / Every semester
The senior project in creative writing is the final step in the program, to be undertaken after all other requirements have been completed. Sponsored by an instructor in the program, the final product is either a work of fiction or a collection of poems. Each student meets weekly with her or his sponsor. Students register for the senior project for two semesters (8 credits total).
Corequisite: CWR 4890
Prerequisite: CWR 4510 or 4511
Updated Mar. 12, 2008