English Dept. Offers Creative Writing Emphasis

Southwestern Adventist University now offers a new type of study for English majors: a writing emphasis.   Along with regular English classes, it will also focus on creative writing.

“The new writing emphasis will fill a niche, not only for students interested in writing, but for the whole Seventh-day Adventist community,” says Dr. Renard Doneskey, chair of the English department. “There is nothing like what we are doing here anywhere else in the Adventist college system.”

Dr. Renard Doneskey

This writing emphasis is different than most others because it focuses on creative writing, rather than journalistic writing.  Southwestern is doing more than adding a few communication courses to the English major.  Four brand new creative writing classes have been created specifically for this emphasis.

These new classes are narrative writing, essay and opinion writing, poetry writing, and drama writing.  They will all be taught at a junior level.

Every English major with a writing emphasis must either choose to take three out of four creative writing classes, or two out of four creative writing classes plus a senior project.

The senior project would require a student to work closely with a professor to produce a major writing sample.  This writing sample must be suitable for and prepared for publication.  It will be worth three hours of college credit.

“I hope that by strengthening the program it will grow,” says Doneskey. “I’m not talking about adding more classes. Rather, when enough people get interested in the program, it will feed off of itself.  It will be increasingly good.”

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