Emily Gallman

Dr. Senasi

ENG 390.001

4 May 2024

Final: Curriculum Proposal

History:

To Dr. Jim May, director of the Creative Writing Department

And Dr. Elizabeth Harper, chair of the English Department,

As you both know, I am a graduating student of the Creative Writing Department here at

Mercer University. You may also remember the old curriculum and the fairly recent changes you

have made to it. As a reminder the biggest change was removing the “tracks” of fiction, poetry,

and drama. It is also important to note some of the courses have been removed from the required

list in lieu of some new courses. While I believe removing some of these courses was a mistake –

such as Public Writing – I do believe you are headed in the right direction with some. For

example, it was the right decision to only require contemporary classes instead of both modern

and contemporary because the contemporary better serves the writers.

However, there has been little attention paid to drama or screenplay writers. Most of the

classes for this original track are offered every once in a while, not near as consistently enough

for those that want to take this discipline. By only focusing on fiction or poetry, we are ignoring

a whole subsection of writing that many people are interested in. Some may not even know we

offer these courses; I know I didn’t originally know this was a route I could take until too late.
Even with the updated curriculum, there is still less attention placed on the drama writers, with

more of the attention still going towards fiction and poetry.

Many people already doubt the validity of getting a degree in creative writing, why add to

this doubt by not including more diverse modes of writing – such as technical or public writing

as other majors include. We have recently included a certificate in Public Writing which is a

great step, but more modes need to be added to this. Public Writing is an important part of

humanities discourse which will help with the doubt being placed on students studying creative

writing like myself, yet more certificates like this need to be in place to give students a concrete

thing to say they are working towards achieving for the non-humanities people.

Another issue with the Creative Writing major: the major curriculum is way too small.

There is so much to writing a novel or poem or even a screenplay that I feel is not being

considered enough when creating this curriculum. We need more information and courses on

different elements of writing that will help improve all writers. More workshops are necessary

for diverse responses from a ranging audience and smaller workshop spaces will help foster

closer relationships with our fellow writers so they feel more comfortable sharing their drafts and

working together to create the best possible poem/short story/drama they can.

In conclusion, there is much being done to increase the validity of the Creative Writing

Department at Mercer, yet there is still more that needs to be accomplished. We are slowly

improving as a department, but much more can happen to improve the overall quality of the

Creative Writing Department. Below you’ll find my ideas for changing the curriculum that I

believe will help with some of these aforementioned problems. At your leisure, please consider

some of these points and consider implementing these ideas down the road to help future

students who wish to pursue a degree in something they love.

Curriculum Proposal:

While there have been big strides to improve this department, the main thing I’m

proposing is the inclusion of more teaching of general writing. I believe there should be more

classes on the crafting of stories in the fiction discipline. For example, a course focused

specifically on how to flesh out a strong character, or how to develop an interesting plot. As it

stands currently, the professors have to teach an almost crash course in these ideas, assuming that

the students have a previous understanding of these ideas. While this may be true in most cases, I

think stronger writers would be formed if we spent more time on these basics. In spending more

time on specific advice and ideas for forming these strong characters that are the building blocks

of fiction writing, we create stronger stories for both fiction and drama writing.

In keeping with the same idea for poetry, there needs to be more courses on poetics. For

example, give a specific class that focuses on different forms and what they offer the poem.

Again, these are briefly taught in different classes, but in having a specific class that focuses on

explaining these, we build stronger poets. I know I personally tend to write in free verse most of

the time, but I am currently trying to grow my own self by finding new forms. However, if there

was a course on this, I could’ve been practicing this for longer.

Another change that needs to be implemented is the inclusion of more crossover in

disciplines. The current requirement is only one crossover discipline. For example, if someone

takes both fiction courses – short story and long story – they only have to take one course in

poetry. Yes, it is true that people have room to take more crossover if they wish, I believe it needs

to be required for more. While all writing is different and people specialize in different writings,

I believe that it is important for a writer to stretch their writer’s muscles and try their hand at

other types of writing. Most authors, like Tiphanie Yanique – the Sam’s Chair professor of this
past year – write both fiction and poetry. It also strengthens the writers’ everyday writing because

they are able to draw on different ideas in different contexts – poetic ideas in works of fiction are

always satisfying to me. Plus, it gives writers the chance to explore outside of their comfort zone,

allowing for the writer to maybe discover they like another discipline better – for example,

screenplays.

Another big problem I see within the current curriculum is the lack of drama writing.

Despite being a special track in the past curriculum, it has fallen off even more. The only

available courses are cross listed with Media Studies and Theatre. While that does make sense, it

is also unfortunate that these courses are not available on their own as often as they should be.

While it is true that most people don’t think of drama/screenplay writing that often, many people

are still interested in the idea of it. I, for one, would have loved the opportunity to take a

screenwriting class, it just was never offered during the two years I was taking major classes nor

was it on my radar as a class available to me in the Creative Writing Department. I was, at one

point, a media studies minor and one of my media studies professors was actually the one to tell

me that screenwriting was a course available at Mercer. Had I known sooner, I would have loved

to take it.

Another suggestion along this same line of thought: include some courses in technical

writing. As a graduating student looking for jobs, I have found a demand for technical writers,

yet I have no idea what they entail or how to go about technical writing. While this may be more

of a communications department area, we could at least cross list a course or two in how to do

technical writing. This gives writers the opportunity to see a high demand job that they can

accomplish outside of graduation. We have a public writing certificate, why not include a

technical writing certificate as well?

 Creative Writers need a Creative Writing course in Author Studies, not just require it for

English majors. In having a course focusing on an author, the writers can break down the stylistic

choices the author makes instead of analyzing the book as we do now in our regular Author

Study course. This will also allow the student to see what they are learning in a real-world

context that also allows them to learn stylistic choices they otherwise may not have stumbled

upon themselves. These Author Study courses could include all three of the main disciplines in

different courses: an Author Study on say Toni Morrison for fiction, a different course focusing

on Elizabeth Bishop as the poet study, and a course about Dororthy Hughes for the screenplay

study. These authors could be interchanged over the years, but these were just some examples

from the classes I have taken that I would personally love to study more.

I will admit, I do have an idealized view of what I want to see in this department that I

love so much; however, I do know that not everything is achievable because of the lack of

Creative Writing professors. While, yes, some of the English department is qualified to teach

some of the required courses for the English requirements, like the contemporary fiction, poetry,

or drama, I do still believe that we need more Creative Writing professors in order to provide

more classes more regularly. Currently, only the two poetry and two fiction classes are

guaranteed to be offered once every year. Every other course is occasionally or every two years.

In conclusion, the Creative Writing Department at Mercer has made wondrous strides in

creating a stronger writing program, yet there is still more that needs to be done. In keeping with

some of these ideas – offering more courses in the basics, giving more notice to drama writing

for those who want it but may not realize it exists, and having more faculty in general – we can

improve this department even further.