Minor in Writing

An introductory course and workshop in creative writing, with a focus on poetry and short stories though other forms are welcome and encouraged. It is intended for students who have not had another course in creative writing at the college level but who have an interest in imaginative writing and who may be writing on their own without formal discussion or review of their work. This course is also the prerequisite for the minor in Creative Writing.  A prerequisite to ENG 270, ENG 271, ENG 272, ENG 273, and ENG 274
Prerequisite: Take FYWS-125

This course introduces students to the techniques and methods of literary research.
Prerequisite: Take FYS or FYWS 125

This course explores the connections between our natural environment and the diverse ways we communicate our ideas, perceptions, and feelings about that environment. Writers work to discover a rhetorical stance and voice that effectively evokes the natural world in prose.
Prerequisite: Take FYS or FYWS 125

A course that explores the art of journal writing and journaling.
Prerequisite: Take FYS 125 or FYWS 125

From the colloquial to the informal to the formal, this course examines the development of writing voice and explores the stylistic and rhetorical choices writers make to communicate meaning and knowledge.
Prerequisite: Take FYS-125 or FYWS-125 and ENG 253

Prerequisite: Take FYS or FYWS 125

Students learn the techniques of writing plays through reading and extensive writing assignments.
Prerequisite: Take FYS or FYWS 125

Non-academic essay writing on various topics.
Prerequisite: Take FYS-125, FYWS-125, ENG-253

This course explores the rhetorical strategies and stylistic choices that writers make when writing experimental fiction. This class stresses refining your style and finding/re-finding your voice. Knowing your audience is key to writing successful fiction. You'll determine the audience you'll write for each piece, and you'll discover/re-discover the rhetorical strategies appropriate to that audience. In this class you'll spend time reading and analyzing the works of professional writers as you develop writing, revising, and editorial skills. These skills you'll use when you write your own work and to critique the work of your classmates in Break-out Confab/Partners meetings when you're not in class, and during the Writer's Workshop in class. This course emphasizes the connections between active reading, composing, and substantial, creative revision. Furthermore, this course seeks to prepare you for graduate work in literature or writing, for positions in publishing and writing, and writing for corporations and businesses.
Prerequisite: Take FYWS-125, ENG-253

Course description varies each time the course is offered.
Prerequisite: Take FYS 125 or FYWS 125

In Digital Magazine Writing, students will engage with the various forms of writing that exist across online publishing. Students will learn to differentiate between digital media platforms and identify ways to engage with an online audience for a specific topic. In addition, students will learn the process of digital publishing, from crafting a concise pitch to learning strategies to make their writing reach their desired audience. At the conclusion of the semester, students will have crafted a digital writing portfolio that can be shared with a target audience and potential employers.
Prerequisite: Take ENG-253, FYWS-125

This course teaches students how to write creatively in response to narratives about illness, trauma, suffering, and healing.
Prerequisite: Take FYS or FYWS 125

An introductory course and workshop on the history and craft of the short story. The first part of the course is comprised of reading and using interpretive techniques for close reading of both canonical and new canonical versions of the short story. In the second part of the course, students will write a short story using some of the strategies and techniques of the short stories read in the first part of the course.
Prerequisite: Take ENG-253 and FYWS-125

An examination of fiction as a form of social and ideological critique and the society that provided the backdrop from which the fiction emerged. The course also examines the interconnection between embodied experience and political agency with particular emphasis on diasporic groups, working class, and women. Students will have an opportunity to create their own form of social fiction using new media technologies.

A course in writing very short narratives: flash fiction, prose poetry, prosetry, sudden fiction, micro-writing, and postcard stories. This is not traditional fiction writing or the writing of short stories. This is a literary form related to narrative poetry, fables, and writing that defines or describes "moments." It provides an additional avenue of literary experiment for students currently writing in more traditional forms. Workshop atmosphere allows peer interaction and frequent student/instructor consultation.

A seminar in the writing of poetry. The course includes various readings about poetry and its writing as well as background readings of contemporary American and world poetry. Discussion of student work will be the focus of the seminar. Workshop atmosphere allows peer interaction and frequent student/instructor consultation.

This course introduces students to pedagogical approaches to teaching writing in Secondary Education.
Prerequisite: Take ENG-253, FYWS-125

This is a creative writing course designed to introduce students to creative nonfiction, including the sub-genres of memoir, food, nature, and essays of place and narrative journalism.
Prerequisite: Take FYWS-125, ENG-253

The purpose of this course is to develop students' understanding of strategies of effective writing. It focuses on helping students learn to provide audience-and situation-based feedback on writing in ways that can help us grow as writers, readers, and critical thinkers. Through readings, activities, and assignments, we will discuss how to provide guidance, feedback, and encouragement and how to learn strategies for helping students from every discipline to: start and complete assignments, become more aware of strategies for improving their writing (and thinking about writing), and build their own confidence as writers. Students who complete this course will be able to tutor in Sacred Heart's Peer Writing Lab.
Prerequisite: Take FYWS-125

This course is designed to enhance the publishing experience of the student by providing opportunities to work as a writing and editor for the SHU online/digital Literary Magazine. The goals and responsibilities of each of the editors include recruiting material for publication, contacting students (writers, artists, photographers), meeting deadlines for selecting work, selecting materials to publish, copy writing, proofreading through the various stages of the project, layout and design of the editor's assigned section.
Prerequisite: Take ENG-253

Students will engage in the process of writing a full-length play.
Prerequisite: Take ENG-253, ENG-256

This course is intended principally for students in the fiction writing track of the Creative Writing minor. Students in this course will develop mastery in their chosen form-short story or novel. This course enables students to work toward a booklength, publishable manuscript. Students will also learn how to write a query letter and search for markets to publish their work.