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Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing—Fiction
The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing—Fiction program is designed to help you develop your fiction writing ability. You are expected to produce quality work throughout your course of study and to have completed a publishable book-length manuscript upon graduation. In addition to Story Workshop® fiction and prose forms classes, the program offers a wide range of elective writing courses, including courses in Young Adult Fiction, Science Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Freelance Applications of Fiction Writing Training, Story and Script, Playwriting, and Critical Reading and Writing classes that offer unique approaches to the study of the reading and writing processes of famous writers.
Candidates for the Master of Fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing—Fiction must complete 45 units of study, including 21-24 semester hours of writing courses (a six-hour emphasis may be elected in screenwriting, playwriting, or practice teaching), 9-12 semester hours of electives in Critical Reading and Writing courses, 3 semester hours of a graduate thesis development course, or equivalent, and 6 semester hours of graduate thesis (200 + pages).
Master of Arts in The Teaching of Writing
Frequently Master of Arts candidates in The Teaching of Writing program are employed teachers who want to develop their writing and teaching ability; others are newcomers to the field of teaching. The teaching of writing is of growing importance. The program prepares you to teach both expository and fiction writing at the college and secondary levels. You explore the close relationship between your teaching ability and the development of your writing. The Story Workshop® method is a uniquely successful approach to the teaching of writing, preparing you with specific and flexible techniques in composition, creative writing, remediation, and tutorial and writing laboratories.
Degree candidates develop a two-part thesis, one in fiction and one in pedagogy. Many of our faculty have published articles concerned with various aspects of the teaching of writing in such publications as College English and Research on Composing, and have given presentations at numerous professional organizations’ annual meetings, including Conference on College Composition and Communication and the Modern Language Association. Candidates for the Master of Arts degree in The Teaching of Writing must complete 39 units of study, including 18 semester hours of writing courses, 9 semester hours of practice teaching and tutoring, 3 semester hours of Survey of Methods and Research in the Teaching of writing, or equivalent, 3 semester hours of electives in Language Issues in the Classroom, Sociolinguistics, or a similar course, and 3 semester hours of a two-part graduate thesis (one part fiction, one part pedagogical research).
Combined Program
The Combined Program requires completion of all requirements for the 39-hour M.A. in the Teaching of Writing, plus 9 additional hours of fiction writing workshops (including the Thesis Development course or equivalent), 9 hours of Critical Reading and Writing courses, and 6 additional hours of thesis (finishing 200+ pages of a book-length creative thesis), for a total of 63 hours. The combined degree is attractive to students who have an interest both in teaching writing and in intensively developing their own fiction.
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