ENG 251, Writing in Literary Studies, fills the writing in the major requirement for English (Literature) majors. This course explores the purpose and craft of writing about literature, refining the ability to recognize and communicate pattern and meaning in texts and culture. The course fosters the writing and research skills necessary for advanced literary study, including the Senior Seminar in Literature, and for participation in larger conversations in the field. Through major writing projects and peer workshops, students practice a variety of approaches to writing and research, while also expanding methods of writing for a variety of audiences.

The English Writing Major prepares students to write in multiple genres, including fiction, poetry, journalism, nonfiction, and dramatic writing, as well as analytical prose such as interpretive essays and essays on craft. In writing workshops, students assist and critique one another as they develop their own writing. In the senior year, majors create a senior thesis in a particular genre accompanied by an artist's statement that serves as an introduction to their work.

By the end of senior year students should:

• have ample experience in writing in at least three of the following genres: poetry, fiction, journalism, creative nonfiction, playwriting, or screenwriting
• begin to master a particular genre of creative writing or journalism
• be adept at critiquing peers' work to assist their fellow writers and improve their own revisions
• write clear, precise prose--both creative and analytical
• write convincingly about the art of creative writing--how it is made and why it endures.

In addition to developing their craft in specific writing genres, writing majors learn to write analytically about their discipline. Building on the writing done in first-year seminar and the sophomore W class, students take English 349: Form and Genre, a literature class taught by creative writers, in which they engage in modeling exercises and analyze narrative structure, story and poetic forms, and creative techniques employed by master writers. In this class, students write papers that break down and synthesize their craft, examining how stories and poems are made, and how various effects are created. After their initial exposure to poetry, fiction, and dramatic writing and/or nonfiction in English 149, Introduction to Creative Writing, students take three 300-level genre courses in the writing workshop model. Majors also take one of five Reading Literature courses and three additional literature courses (or two literature and one hybrid literature/writing course or journalism course), where they write interpretative, scholarly papers about the texts they read and/or work on craft. Finally, in senior year, as part of their capstone seminar, students compose an artist's statement (a thoughtful summary of their ideas about writing in general and their own writing in particular) and a project of significant length in the genre of their choice. Students will fulfill the writing in the major requirement when they successively complete senior seminar.

• One Literature course (at any level)
• ENG 149
• ENG 349

Two 300-level writing workshops (from): ENG 232, ENG 301, ENG 302, ENG 311, ENG 312, ENG 321, ENG 322, ENG 331, ENG 332, ENG 341, ENG 342, ENG 343

With permission of the department and associate chair, a course in a related department could count towards one of the minor requirements.