English Major, Writing Track

The Writing track includes a writing core with options from the Communication and Humanities areas to prepare writers for various writing vocations. 

Courses develop skills in professional writing:
·    media writing
·    feature writing
·    copy editing
·    technical writing

In addition, creative writing courses cover these genres: 
·    poetry
·    short fiction
·    novella and novel preparation for publication
·    one-act script for the stage
·    television and film writing

Students also learn about the publishing process and how to prepare works for publication. 

This track also requires students to fulfill a writing internship with a business, ministry, or organization so they have real-world experience preparing for a writing vocation.

Every business, organization, and ministry needs discerning readers and skilled writers/editors. Alumni have jobs as copywriters/editors (involving writing or editing marketing), communication specialists including a cornucopia of writing mediums, freelance writers (e.g., writing for American Bible Society or an accounting firm). Students have published novels, poems, and short stories. Creative writing also nurtures useful skills for inventive marketing approaches in business and ministry.

Students can participate in writing contests (fiction, poetry, essay) in the fall and spring semesters, read original writing at an open-mic coffeehouse, contribute as staff and/or publish in Evangel’s Epiphany fine arts magazine. 
 

English Writing Track Program Learning Outcomes:

1. Analyze a text competently for its structural elements and interpretive potentials—particularly in the categories of diction, imagery, figurative language, irony, setting, character, plot, narrative point of view, and genre characteristics.
2. Demonstrate high proficiency in using the protocols of standard written North American English.
3. Use pertinent research information effectively as necessary or advantageous within written or spoken discourse.
4. Demonstrate advanced skills of integrative and independent thinking in written and verbal expression.
5. Demonstrate the ability to hold contradictory ideas in mind during discussion by calmly considering others’ perspectives, asking productive questions, articulating respectful responses, and finding ways to synthesize others’ ideas with one’s own.
6. Discuss various ways in which the Christian faith is, has been, or can be in meaningful dialogue with literary texts of any kind.
7. Apply knowledge of history, culture, human nature, and a variety of literary-theoretical perspectives to analyze texts competently for their philosophical potentials and to discuss those findings in coherent interpretive discourse.
8. Produce mature writing in a variety of modes for various audiences and purposes, showing editorial ease in making textual adjustments for readability and rhetorical or literary effectiveness.