FAQs

CWL 300-325 are creative writing workshops, usually focused on a single genre like fiction or poetry. Workshops generally involve submission and discussion of students' original work. A "submission" is when you circulate your writing assignment to the other students and your professor ahead of time. Everyone reads your work and writes comments on it to prepare for class, so that, together, they can critique your work. Don't worry! Critiques are constructive, structured discussions, not open season on tearing the work down. Some workshops might be generative, with lots of writing prompts. Others might focus more on revision, with take-home writing assignments. It all depends on the professor and the topic (see below). Students must take the prerequisite, CWL 202, prior to enrolling in 300-level writing workshops. 

All of our course numbers, from CWL 202 to the 300-level writing workshops to the "read like a writer" courses (CWL 330-340) are broadly defined. To figure out what's really going on in a particular section during a particular semester, you need to look at its topic. Then you can decide whether that course will further your aims as an artist. The creative writing program circulates and posts the list of upcoming topics prior to the registration period. 

Since topics and professors change each semester, our courses are repeatable for credit. That means a student devoted to poetry, for example, can take CWL 310, Forms of Poetry, multiple times, each semester of it will be unique, and all of those credits will count toward the major or minor. Minors may choose to specialize or to sample a variety of genres. Majors, who are required to take some courses outside their genre, will tend to specialize as they approach their senior project. But with this freedom to take any combination of workshops within the CWL 300-325 range, you can build your own BFA.