Three people reading out loud into a microphone from works placed on a music stand in front of them.
Writing

Curriculum & Courses

Graduate Curriculum Overview

WRIT 5001 Writing Workshop 

12  

WRIT 5500 Topics in Writing Seminar

12  

MFA 6009 Graduate Projects 

(minimum of 12 credits with writing advisors)

24  

Electives

Courses at the 3000 level or above. Art History courses must be at the 4000 level or above.

12  

Participation in four graduate critiques 

 

Inclusion in graduate publication or participation in the Graduate Exhibition or equivalent 

 

Completion of the thesis 

 

Total Credit Hours

60  

Students may elect internships to satisfy up to 6 hours of elective credit.

Degree Requirements and Specifications

  1. Completion schedule: Students have a maximum of four years to complete the degree (this includes time off for leaves-of-absence).
  2. Transfer credits: A minimum of 45 credit hours must be completed at SAIC. Up to 15 transfer credits may be requested at the time of application for admission and are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credit will be permitted after a student is admitted.
  3. Thesis requirement: During their final semester, students are required to submit a thesis of appropriate length in any genre.
  4. Exhibition requirements: MFAW students planning to participate in the Graduate Thesis Exhibition or Time Arts events are required to complete at least 6 studio credits by the end of the third semester AND to advise with a studio faculty member in their final semester.
  5. Studio space: Individual studio space is not provided automatically to students in the MFA in Writing; however, Writing students with a visual arts practice in addition to their writing may apply for a space through the Administrative Director, Graduate Division, at gradstudio@saic.edu.
  6. Graduate Projects: MFA 6009 Graduate Projects enrollments must be in increments of 3 credit hours. No more than two advisors and a total of 6 credit hours may be scheduled for a given semester. The number of credits earned by the student has no correlation with length or frequency of the advising sessions or to faculty assessment of student work.

Students may elect internships to satisfy up to 6 hours of elective credit.

Courses

Title Catalog Instructor Schedule

Description

This class serves as an entry into the historical, theoretical and practical concerns of creative writing as an art form in itself and as a vital element of interdisciplinary projects. We explore the possibilities of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and hybrid practices as writing for the page, as well as for performance, sound, installation, and image-based pieces. Students are assigned reading and writing exercises, and discuss each other's writing in workshop or small critique sessions.

Class Number

2111

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 808

Description

This class serves as an entry into the historical, theoretical and practical concerns of creative writing as an art form in itself and as a vital element of interdisciplinary projects. We explore the possibilities of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and hybrid practices as writing for the page, as well as for performance, sound, installation, and image-based pieces. Students are assigned reading and writing exercises, and discuss each other's writing in workshop or small critique sessions.

Class Number

2112

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 808

Description

This class serves as an entry into the historical, theoretical and practical concerns of creative writing as an art form in itself and as a vital element of interdisciplinary projects. We explore the possibilities of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and hybrid practices as writing for the page, as well as for performance, sound, installation, and image-based pieces. Students are assigned reading and writing exercises, and discuss each other's writing in workshop or small critique sessions.

Class Number

2116

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 808

Description

This class serves as an entry into the historical, theoretical and practical concerns of creative writing as an art form in itself and as a vital element of interdisciplinary projects. We explore the possibilities of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and hybrid practices as writing for the page, as well as for performance, sound, installation, and image-based pieces. Students are assigned reading and writing exercises, and discuss each other's writing in workshop or small critique sessions.

Class Number

2126

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 808

Description

Student work is the primary focus of this workshop, along with analysis of short stories with a wide variety of themes and styles. Students learn and practice elements of the craft of writing short fiction, such as the development of form, story, character, dialogue, and style. In-class workshop sessions offer a means of acquiring skills for critical analysis of one?s own writing and that of others, as well as attendant strategies for the process of revision. Readings may include stories by Hawthorne, Poe, Crane, James, Woolf, Mansfield, Faulkner, Kafka, Hemingway, Singer, Borges, O?Connor, Barthelme, Paley, as well as contemporary practitioners.

Class Number

2114

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Description

Please see topic description for specific descriptions.

Class Number

2117

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Description

True re-vision is an active process of 'seeing again,' of discovering what each draft reveals to its author. As memoirist and poet Patricia Hampl notes, it?s a matter of paying attention to ?what it wants, not what I want?. With this in mind, students writing across the genres will have an opportunity to explore and integrate a variety of re-vision methods that encourage multiple permutations of at least two different workshop submissions. In addition to responding to each other?s work, students will be asked to present on their revision method as demonstrated in a piece completed for this class. To prepare a solid foundation, we will examine annotated drafts of a single work by selected published writers. Readings to come from Robert Olen Butler, Elizabeth Bishop, Pam Houston, Susan Neville, Pablo Medina, among others.

Class Number

2115

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Description

This writing workshop's point of departure is a creative response to Charles and Ray Eames' influential film Powers of Ten and George Perec's essay Species of Spaces. In Powers of Ten, the Eames' explore humankind's scale in a progression of images in powers of ten as seen from an individual cell to Earth's position in the galaxy. In a similar fashion, Perec examines increasingly greater scales of experience––from a blank piece of paper to the world and outer space. Using these concepts of scales of magnification, we write fiction and poetry about an imaginary universe of our own devising––from the outer limits of space to life on a microscopic scale. We examine contemporary micro-nations, science fiction, the natural world, and other sources as exemplar and inspiration.

Class Number

2128

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 808

Description

We will work with the storytelling monologue and more, using as models: Ira Glass's This American Life, NPR's Stories on Stage, and podcasts like Mysteries Abound. We will take pieces from the idea and notebook stage through revision and rehearsal and finally to the recording stage. In other words, you will complete a piece for the radio--and it will be fun.

Class Number

2129

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Description

In this generative seminar we examine the materials, forms and structures of books as they have developed historically and cross-culturally, and their influence on the fields of contemporary artists’ books, small-press publishing, and related literary and studio practices. We explore and construct models of pamphlet, side stitch, accordion, codex and case bindings as means to develop both practical craft skills and conceptual acuity. Weekly exercises and tutorials attend to the application of these skills to individual or collective projects. Field trips to local archives, such as the Joan Flasch Artists’ Books Collection, the Ryerson Library and the Newberry Library augment our study. Coursework includes completion of weekly exercises, an annotated bibliography of historic and contemporary artist book references, and a final project. This course requires commitment to an asynchronous studio practice that utilizes the Writing Program's BookLab outside of class time.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: WRIT 1102 or WRIT 2040 or permission of the instructor.

Class Number

2120

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 808

Description

This class invites students to explore various relationships between science and poetry, two domains that, perhaps counterintuitively, often draw from each other to revitalize themselves. As poets and creative writers, we’ll use, misuse, and borrow from science in our poems. We’ll approach poems like science experiments and aim to enter an “experimental attitude.” From a practical point of view, we’ll try to write poems that incorporate the language of science to freshen their own language or to expand the realm of poetic diction. Furthermore, we’ll work with tropes and procedural experiments that may result in revelation, discovery, and surprise. Readings may include work by Aimé Césaire, Kimiko Hahn, Ed Roberson, Dean Young, Joyelle Mcsweeney, and Will Alexander. Students can expect to work on a semester-long 'experiment,' to write several poems, give a class presentation on their work, and complete a final portfolio.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: WRIT 1102 or WRIT 2040 or permission of the instructor.

Class Number

2123

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Description

Course topics vary by term and instructor. See topic description for more information.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: WRIT 1102 or WRIT 2040 or permission of the instructor.

Class Number

2127

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 808

Description

Gen Sem: Electronic Writing Writing in the twenty-first century is computational, writes literary critic N. Katherine Hayles. She explains that while this is true of any work that uses digital software as its production environment before being output to print, it is particularly evident in works of electronic literature that are designed to be encountered on the computer screen. The practitioner of electronic writing is an author who combines human language and computer code to create new kinds of literary experience. Works of electronic literature can exceed the possibilities of print in their scale, dynamic variability, visual and temporal qualities, and attentiveness to the reader. The environment of the network (internet) also provides new opportunities for collaboration and sampling of found material. In this writing studio, we will survey varied forms of electronic literature including interactive hypertext/hypermedia, multi-user environments, codeworks, e-poetry, writing for virtual reality, and text-driven digital performance. Students engage the potential of computational literature by creating original works using a variety of web-based programming languages taught in the weekly sessions. No previous programming experience is required.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: WRIT 1102 or WRIT 2040 or permission of the instructor.

Class Number

2226

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

MacLean 402

Description

This course is about learning from land and nature and creating work in response to such “readings.” We’ll read texts as well, including work by adrienne maree brown, Kobo Abe, and Amy Leach. The course includes two field trips, one to a prairie and one to Chicago’s southeast side, crisscrossed with wetlands, towns, landfills, agriculture, a bike park, an auto plant, and the world’s second largest intermodal hub. Students will write a series of short assignments in the first third of the class, refine a piece during the second third, and present final projects in the final third. We’ll be reading texts, listening to audio stories, and going into the world to create work related to the city’s built environment, green lands, and blue waters.

Class Number

2113

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Description

Open to anyone working in long fictional narrative form (novel, novella, epic poem, etc). While the primary reading is work written by members of the class, the course will also attend to questions of process--that of writing a novel (novella, etc), but also the act of reading one as it's being written, keeping in mind the issues that sometimes arise in beginning and sustaining work on a long narrative in an environment of regular critique. In some ways the class is meant to intervene in the usual modes of (institutional) critique-- not to dismiss them outright, but rather to foreground an awareness of them. How, for example, does writing a novel/long narrative in an academic institution differ from writing one outside it? What are some of the implicit assumptions about writing- and reading- a novel in this context? Given that, in this setting, writing a novel is at least a partially public process, how can a writer make the best use of that process? We will read three or four short novels, in addition to student work, including: GEOMETRIC REGIONAL NOVEL by Gert Jonke, THE PASSION ACCORDING TO GH by Clarice Lispector and THE PASSPORT by Herta Muller.

Class Number

2118

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Description

Writing workshops meet once a week for three-hour sessions and focus primarily on the work of students enrolled in the program, although published works will often be examined as well. Workshop sections vary in focus, emphasizing single genre, mixed genre, or new forms. Please see the Degree Course Schedule for current offerings. Students enroll in one writing workshop each semester.

Class Number

2119

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Description

In this workshop you will explore the notion of form and discover how, by writing in various verse structures, you may excavate fresh terrain in your work. How is the conflict between flight and confinement built into a form? What happens when a contemporary poet, such as Terrance Hayes, chooses a fourteen-line Italian sonnet adapted by the poets of the English Renaissance? Students will experiment with traditional verse structures such as villanelles, ghazals and sonnets and play with newly-invented forms such as the Golden Shovel. Readings from a wide range of poets from the 20th and 21st centuries will include Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Agha Shahid Ali, Joy Harjo, Natasha Trethewey, Kimiko Hahn, Terrance Hayes, and Layli Long Soldier. Each week you will write a new poem which will be discussed in the workshop. For the final class, you will present at least six pieces you have written during the course of the semester. This class welcomes students exploring any genre.

Class Number

2124

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 808

Description

In this workshop, we pair canonized or classical works with those that are marginalized or experimental, such as: Jean Racine's Phaedra (1677) / Sarah Kane's Phaedra's Love (1996); Richard Strauss' Elektra (1903) / Frank Miller's Elektra Natchios (from Daredevil #168, 1981); Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party (1964) / Belarus Free Theater's Being Harold Pinter (2009); Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959) / James Scruggs' Disposable Men (2005); Moliere's High Brow Ladies (1659) / 5 Lesbian Brothers' Secretaries (1994); Maria Irene Fornes' Fefu and Her Friends (1977) / Caridad Svich's Twelve Ophelias (2008). We work with both classical conventions and experimental techniques, including adaptation, devising, abject space, tragedy/comedy/romance, and structure vs. plot to generate our responses. All genres and interdisciplinary practices welcome.

Class Number

2125

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 808

Description

This course is about writing at the crossroads of cultural criticism, creative nonfiction, memoir, fiction and poetry. It is designed for visual scholars looking to expand their mode of critique and for creative writers interested in cultural criticism. The seminar is conducted largely as a writing critique workshop, and much of the time in class is spent discussing student work in progress. At different points throughout the semester we also discuss the writing strategies of diverse contemporary authors. Readings for the course vary, but have included texts by authors such as Maggie Nelson, Claudia Rankine, T Fleischmann, Kate Zambreno, Kathleen Stewart, Carol Mavor, Saidiya Hartman, and Wayne Koestenbaum. Students in the class will present work in progress in a writing workshop twice, help to lead the discussion of an assigned reading once, give formal commentary on student work twice, and complete a polished piece of writing for the end of the semester.

Class Number

2315

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

MacLean 111

Description

We are accustomed to thinking of fiction as emanating, first, as “voice,” i.e. as a formalization of oral language, almost instinctive, and easily available. In truth, for the writer to rely primarily on first impulse is also to discover how exceptionally limited “instinct” is to the construction of a longer work: the novel. While narrative voice is critical, the novel must often rely on multiple techniques of structure, point of view and pacing to sustain the reader’s (and writer's) curiosity, challenging their interest. In fact, the novel's architecture, like a rite of courtship, coyly unfolds and withholds plot, illuminates then complicates character, and radically subverts time and space. For anyone considering writing a novel, this course explores diverse techniques of narrative structure employed by contemporary English language novelists. Writers we're likely to read are: Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains of The Day), Uzodinma Iweala (Beasts of No Nation), James Welch (Winter in the Blood), Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge), Alison Bechdel (Fun House: a Tragicomic) Julian Barnes (Flaubert’s Parrot) & Charles Johnson (Middle Passage). Accompanying mimetic writing exercises will focus on options for structuring short or long fictions. These will inform your completion of a novel chapter, presented in two alternating structures.

Class Number

2121

Credits

3

Department

Writing

Location

Lakeview - 803

Take the Next Step

Visit the graduate admissions website or contact the graduate admissions office at 312.629.6100, 800.232.7242 or gradmiss@saic.edu.