Practical for combining with other majors, the Writing Studies Minor gives you a foundational experience in creative and/or professional writing and then opens upper division coursework that you can choose from academic, creative, and professional writing areas. In addition to academic, professional, and creative writing, course avilable to minors include practicum experiences in publishing and tutor training.
Professional writing centers on the hands-on training in writing and speaking for diverse fields, including journalism, new media, marketing, business, and entrepreneurship.
To get started on this curricular track, start with WRI 30 (Intro to Professional Writing) and/or WRI 90 (Intersections). WRI 130 (Topics in Professional Writing) is a good place to join other professional writers in topics that change wiht each new offering. To fill out your minor, you can mix and match other upper division writing courses, including repeating WRI 130 as its topics change. Note that you can take WRI 30 and WRI 90 simultaneously or in any sequence you want -- you can take WRI 90 before WRI 30 or vice-versa. Note that once you take WRI 130, you can conitnue into WRI 155 -- the Seminar in Professional Wriitng.
Creative writing focuses on harnessing your imagination to manipulate the experience of diverse readers of poetry, fiction, drama, screenplays, imaginative essays, and similar works.
For this curricular track, you’ll take WRI 25 (Introduction to Creative Writing) and WRI 90 (Intersections of Creative and Professional Writing). Then, sign up for a course in the WRI 125 set of courses, whcih include courses in more speccific reative genres like poetry (WRI 125A), fiction (WRI 125B), Creative Non-fiction (WRI 125C), or drama (WRI 125D).. In addition, once you've taken a topics course in the WRI 125-series, WRI 150 (Seminar in Creative Writing) becomes a good pinnacle course to creatively delve into more interdisciplinary or specific areas of creative writing. Note that you can repeat WRI 125 for upper-division credit as topics change. Similar to the Professional Writing track, WRI 25 and WRI 90 can be taken simultaneously or in any sequence.
If you are a transfer student or are coming later to the writing minor, a broad-based style study option is encouraged.
For this track, you choose one lower division course (WRI 25, WRI 30, or WRI 90) and four upper division courses.
If you are unsure of a track for your minor, a good place to start is WRI 90 (Intersections of Creative and Professional Writing) as this course allows you still to choose a narrower track later.
