Specific topics vary from semester to semester and include prosody, the novella form, the narrative poem, and metafiction. This course features study and practice in writing fiction, with attention to subtle aspects of character development, structure, story, point of view, figuration, tone, style, etc. Heavy emphasis is placed on group critiquing of students' work and on revising manuscripts, with the goal of producing a portfolio of professional quality contemporary fiction. This course features practice in writing poetry with emphasis on development of style. This is an advanced course in the theory and practice of poetry writing with seminar study of relevant contemporary materials and criticism of student work in class and conference.
Some seminars focus on literary theory and the application of literary criticism to texts.
This course prepares you to write your thesis, which ordinarily will be a novel or a collection of short stories or poems. In addition, you must complete an approved reading list, which you may also be tested on during the oral defense of your thesis. This course examines and evaluates current methods and strategies for teaching college writing. It emphasizes the classroom application of composition theory and research. Major topics include the composing process, invention, argumentation, the sentence and the paragraph, testing and evaluation, recent research in composition, reading and writing, composition and literature, and the psychology of composing.