U11 EComp 3013 Writing Horror Across the Globe

Fear is a universal human experience. Yet the majority of the horror landscape is focused on American/English voices and experiences. This course will explore the breadth and depth of diversity in the horror genre, focusing on authors from across the world and from traditionally underrepresented and marginalized backgrounds and cultures in the genre industry. Readings will span the globe and different mediums, from short stories to novels, manga to poetry. Students will develop their skills as writers of horror, focusing on researching other cultures and folklore, and how to write diverse characters and voices in a respectful manner.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, OLI

U11 EComp 304 Exposition

In this advanced composition course, students will craft thoughtful and stylistically engaging essays that explore St. Louis--its history, culture, politics, arts, industry, challenges, and opportunities. Our pieces will range from the formal and scholarly to the creative, experimental, and professional, allowing us to consider how audience and purpose shape our writing.  Students will engage in regular critique of their own and others' writing, with attention to issues such as organization, clarity, sentence structure, and tone. Prerequisite: Critical and Researched Writing (U11 203 or U11 203M).

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 305 Humans Reading & Writing Humans: Creative Writing for Healthcare Professionals

In "What To Do With Stories," Rita Charon, MD, PhD, describes narrative medicine as a "clinical practice fortified by narrative competence-the capacity to recognize, absorb, metabolize, interpret, and be moved by stories of illness;" this capacity enables healthcare providers to connect with patients "by hearing them out fully." This course seeks to introduce healthcare professionals to practices common in creative writing workshops-close reading, workshopping, reflective thinking-to inspire them develop new means of drawing out and being responsive to their patients' stories. Just as a reader close-reads a text, a healthcare provider close-reads a patient. To echo the conditions under which healthcare professionals often engage with patients-brief, intense encounters of sharp sensory stimulation marked by urgent needs, mixed signals, and/or high stakes-this class will focus on short literary fiction, a demanding and often enigmatic form that challenges assumptions about characters, resists formulaic plots, and requires readers to practice inference. The coursework will be organized around investigations of the major components of narrative-character, point of view, and plot-via a circuit of activities, namely, social reading; guided creative/reflective writing sequences; and the exchange of peer feedback. No previous creative writing coursework is required.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HUM, OLI

U11 EComp 310 Genre Writing

This course is a creative writing workshop dedicated to genre fiction. With a primary focus on the contemporary genre story, the course will cover new and classic science fiction, fantasy, crime writing, and much more. Through a series of readings and writing workshops, we will discuss the craft of genre writing from the traditional to the contemporary, including long-standing genre conventions, recent cross-genre trends, and the current role of genre fiction in the literary landscape. This course can count toward the major in English for day students.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 3120 Argumentation

This advanced writing course examines the strategies of argumentation, exploring such elements of argument as the enthymeme, the three appeals, claim types, and fallacies. Prerequisite: U11 203 or 203M.

Credit 3 units. Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 313 Creative Nonfiction

This is a workshop for students interested in writing creative nonfiction and the personal essay. We examine the narrative techniques that writers use to shape their life experiences and observations. Students experiment with different approaches to writing process and have opportunities to complete work in various modes, such as memoir and the lyrical essay. We will also read published nonfiction essays that illuminate various aspects of style and craft.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 3151 Nonfiction: Reading and Writing the Memoir

In this generative writing workshop, we study the techniques of creative writing through both reading and writing memoir with a particular interest in combining personal experience with an awareness of cultural and historical place. To this end, we will read a selection of global memoirs with an eye toward understanding the ways in which they demonstrate the intersection of storytelling and voice within cultural and historical contexts, and we will use these works as models for generating, workshopping, and revising our own memoirs.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HUM, OLI

U11 EComp 3153 Creative Nonfiction: Writing Ourselves, Writing the World

In this course, we will explore memoirs, essay collections, and individual articles in which the writers have merged their observations and research of the natural world with their own personal experiences or philosophical inquiries. We will consider biologist David George Haskell's The Forest Unseen alongside essay collections by nonfiction writer Amy Leach (Things that Are), fiction writer Michael Martone (The Flatness and Other Landscapes), and poet Mary Oliver (Long Life), as well as excerpts from books by Eula Biss, Bill Holm, Barbara Hurd, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Lawrence Weschler. From these writers, we will learn how one might offer a view of the self through the lens of environment, place, biography, history, and reflection. Each student will also work on a manuscript of similar variety from idea to finished product.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 316 Poetry Writing

This course is an open-level poetry workshop for writers interested in exploring the craft of poetry. We will discuss uses of imagery, language, and rhythm in the context of creating experience and meaning in poetic form. Students will share original work--often generated from class activities and exercises--for discussion with the class. This course can count toward the major in English for day students.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 317 Fiction Writing: The Moral of the Story: Writing Fiction about Ethics, Philosophy, and Morality

Why do stories matter? How do stories help us grow? How do they challenge us? And how do they help us explore issues and ideas both new and old? This course is a fiction writing workshop with a focus on stories that deal in complex and meaningful ways with the world we live in. We read, write, and discuss stories that complicate the way we think and open new doors for considering what we believe, value, desire, and fear. In addition to reading a diverse group of authors with varying perspectives and styles, including queer writers, Latinx writers, and writers of color, our main goals are to write and share new original fiction writing and to discuss how elements of craft can help reveal the issues and ideas that our stories explore.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 3171 Long-Form Fiction Writing: The Short Novel and the Long Short Story

This course will explore the process of writing longer-form narratives, building on the knowledge of the craft and structure of the short story gained in Fiction Writing. We will introduce and practice strategies for plotting, researching, and developing story ideas into feasible long-term projects, rather than producing a finished full-length manuscript. We will read and analyze short novels and long short stories across multiple genres and styles. The diverse range of texts include novels by Michael Ondaatje, Jenny Offill, James Baldwin, Anne Carson and Danielle Dutton, as well as short stories by Kelly Link, Leo Tolstoy, Alice Munro and Franz Kafka. Prerequisite: U11 317 Fiction Writing.

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 317K Fiction Writing: Young Adult Fiction

This is a workshop in writing in the wildly popular genre of Young Adult fiction. Through readings in a variety of recent YA novels, we'll discover how the pros negotiate the particular challenges (and joys) of writing for this age group; through a series of coordinated writing exercises, we'll practice crafting the building blocks of the solid YA story/novel (plot, character, setting, etc.); then, through workshop discussion, students will draft and submit their own YA story or novel sample chapter(s) for constructive response and critique. Writers of all (or no!) levels of prior practice or accomplishment are invited.

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 317M Fiction Writing

Online version of the course U11 317. In this course, students will write, learn how to read like a writer, and write some more. Our focus will be on short fiction, and our approach will be to explore the stages linking inspiration to the final (or nearly final) draft -- in other words, we will explore how to find a story idea and how to grow it. The course will be run as a virtual workshop, which means that students will be actively engaged in meaningful online discussions about their classmates' original works-in-progress, and they will make their own compositions available for such discussions. Students will also be prompted -- via regular weekly reading responses and writing exercises -- to examine common craft-of-fiction elements, from the basic building blocks of stories such as details, characters, and dialogue to more slippery units of narrative design such as scene, summary, point of view, and theme. Along the way, we will also read a range of published short stories, from classics to works by contemporary masters.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 318 Fiction Seminar

This course is designed to introduce students to the craft of horror writing. Horror is a very popular genre in both literature and film, dating back to Gothic literature in England. Readings and writing activities will focus on three units of horror as outlined in The Dark Descent and will span the last 100 years of the genre, consisting of several short stories and two novels, offering students a foundation in the many different stories published in the horror genre. Academic texts and writing exercises will discuss what makes a horror story work and will help to build students' "toolboxes" when writing horror, with a focus on plot, character development, emotional, and tension building.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 321 Advanced Writing

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 322 Writing Historical Fiction

This course is for writers working on short stories or novels of all genres. We will focus on preparing fiction for publication, presentation to an agent, or as part of an application portfolio for an MFA program or grant. Through assigned readings, craft discussions, and workshopping, we will hone the writer's craft. Additionally, we learn about the current literary marketplace, including magazines, small presses, self-publication and literary agencies. Each student will receive evaluation from the instructor as well as critique from fellow students.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 323 The Art of the Personal Essay

In this course we will study the structures, techniques, and boundaries of the personal essay in which the writer is observer, participant, and storyteller. We will examine traditional and experimental forms of the personal essay, as well as essays that discuss the craft of this genre of writing. We will use these works as models and guides for generating, workshopping, and revising our own personal essays.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 324 Writing for Public Speaking

A course in organizational communications drawing upon the "means of persuasion" from classical rhetoric to PowerPoint. Practice in writing, speaking, and listening in the various formats: paper, oral presentations, and Internet. Comparative analysis of what works best with varying topics, situations, audiences, and purposes. Prerequisite: U11 203 or 203M.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 327 Writing The Short-Short Story and Ten-Minute Play

In this class we will concentrate on the short forms of microfiction and ten-minute plays, exploring what kinds of stories we can tell in a short space. We will examine a variety of creative writing techniques, including character development, conflict, voice, story arc, setting, images, and especially dialogue. The heart of this class is workshop, but we will read aloud and study models and examples in each genre.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 330 The Art of Nature and Travel Writing

In this creative nonfiction course, students will discover the art of the essay in the realm of nature and travel writing and will write their own personally voiced narratives in which "place" plays a central role. Whether your journeys take you up the road, around the world, or more deeply into an environment you have experienced over time, attending to the sensory details, landscape, culture, and history of a place provides rich material for exploration. We will read and discuss essays by some of the many great writers who have worked in this genre, including traditionally underrepresented voices. Through an active learning approach, students will generate and share new work and provide each other feedback in a supportive, collaborative workshop setting. The writers we will focus on range from Rebecca Solnit, James Baldwin, Rahawa Haile, Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, Terry Tempest Williams, and Pico Iyer, to Colson Whitehead, Leslie Jamison, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Patricia Hampl, and Ryan Knighton.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 331 Technical Writing

For those whose professions require them to present complex information precisely, logically, and efficiently. Examination of the audiences for technical writing and effective methods of organizing information to meet their needs. Variety of formats: letters, memos, trip reports, progress reports, proposals, and informal reports. Prerequisite: U11 203 or 203M.

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 332 Introduction to Screenwriting

In this screenwriting class students will learn the various components necessary for writing a motion picture screenplay. Students will conceive and write the first act of a full-length screenplay, complete a full-length story synopsis, and complete a few in-class and take-home exercises. During weekly table reads, students will read and critique each other's work. We also will view and evaluate films, and analyze excerpts from successful movie screenplays, looking closely at the elements of plot and structure, character, dialogue, theme, genre, style, and format. Previous screenwriting experience is not required.
Same as U18 Film 332

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 3321 Advanced Screenwriting

This course is intended for students who have already taken FMS 332: "Introduction to Screenwriting" at the U College ( or a comparable introductory course elsewhere). Building on past experiences, students will continue their work in the craft of screenwriting by expanding their knowledge about screenwriting techniques. Students will complete Act II ( Approx. 45-50 pages) & Act III (Approx. 20 pages) of the feature length script they began in the introductory course. Topics and reading will include advanced plot structure, genre conventions, story archetypes, sequencing, POV, adaptions, short & independent film, query letters, and script pitches. In particular, script rewriting will be explored. This course will not count towards requirements in the FMS major or minor.
Same as U18 Film 3321

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 337 The Long Form

This course is a seminar and workshop for students interested in writing novels, memoirs, reportage, or collections (short stories, essays, or poems). We will study published works for techniques used to create a narrative, thematic, and/or technical arc. We will workshop our own writings, with the goal of understanding their places within a larger work, from proposing and outlining a full-length manuscript to sculpting an anchor piece for the larger work. Prerequisite: a 300-level writing course or instructor's permission.

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 338 Writing Adventure and Creating Action

This course will study and practice the techniques necessary to write active and adventurous prose, both fiction and nonfiction. Topics include writing mechanics and style with the goal of mastering the diction and syntax of action while avoiding cliché or melodrama. We also examine broader craft elements such as pacing, scenes, setting, character development, adventure archetypes, suspense, and voice. Readings include adventure writers such as Elizabeth Gilbert, Ernest Hemingway, Pam Houston, Jon Krakauer, Herman Melville, Kira Salak, Gary Shteyngart, Cheryl Strayed, Mark Twain, and Jules Verne. Students will complete exercises and three stories of varying lengths, with at least one in each mode, to be shared in a workshop setting.

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 339 Masters of Fantasy Writing

As one of the most commonly read genres of literature, fantasy offers its readers an escape from the everyday mundane into worlds where anything is possible. For writers of fantasy, the genre is a space where no topic is off limits and where they can let their imaginations run wild. This course explores the craft of fantasy writing and the many worlds an author can create, with a focus on the short story and novella form. Weekly readings of novellas and short stories will span the masters of fantasy literature, including Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, Ursula K. LeGuin, Anne McCaffrey and many more. Academic texts and writing exercises will build on students' "writing toolboxes," with a focus on emotion, dialogue, and description. Our goals are to explore the modern trends in fantasy and what makes successful fantasy literature; to understand the different process and style of writing a short story versus a novella in fantasy; to be able to develop an idea into a polished draft of a fantasy short story or the beginnings of a novella; and to improve the workshopping skills crucial to the development and revision process in creative writing.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 340 The Magazine Feature: Idea to Finished Product

This course will explore the process of conceiving, reporting, drafting, revising, and placing a magazine feature story. We will read exemplary long-form magazine journalism - sometimes called literary journalism or narrative nonfiction - with an eye to process and craft. How do we find stories? What is the relationship between reporting and the published piece? How do we shed new light on common themes and approach storytelling in innovative ways? During the term, each student will develop a feature profile: securing a subject, devising a reporting strategy, incorporating research, and ultimately, exploring voice, theme, and structure through multiple drafts. The course will include literary analysis and discussion, writing exercises, workshop-style discussion of student work, and will prepare interested students to pitch their stories for publication.

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 357 Writing Creatively for Magazine and Online Publication

This course is a writing workshop focused on a wide variety of nonfiction for both print and online venues. We will read and discuss forms of writing such as magazine feature stories, short- and long-form narrative reporting, informative personal and opinion writing, and much more. Our goal will be to produce smart, entertaining writing that can gain a reader's interest and inform readers at the same time. Whether you are interested in publishing magazine features or more informal, personal writing online, we will study and practice how to use research, storytelling, and your own original voice to make topics both fascinating and easy to read. Students will design and write their own projects, write and share a variety of short exercises, and workshop material from the class. We will also read a wide variety of published writing from different publishing venues and platforms. The course will provide a positive, engaging space for you to improve your writing skills and produce polished, high quality writing of your own.

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 358 Multi-media Storytelling for Creative Writers

Storytelling in the 21st century is increasingly a digitized endeavor, with creators adapting their work to engage readers who seek material via electronic devices. These complimentary formats may include embedded images, graphics, maps, audio or music recordings, videos, animations, twitter feeds, blog posts, and social media profiles. With an emphasis on writing fiction or nonfiction prose that can be accompanied by such media, this hybrid online course will explore and practice the many forms and techniques of transmedia storytelling. Students will propose, design, draft, and present a single transmedia narrative spanning a variety of formats. No advanced computer skills, equipment, or software are required.

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 371 Narrative Structure and Story Development

Credit 3 units.

U11 EComp 400 Independent Study

Credit variable, maximum 3 units.

U11 EComp 4012 Workshop in Composition: Adapting Writing Center Pedagogy to Elementary School

A collaborative workshop for elementary school teachers, facilitated by the Director of Washington University's Writing Center. Members will learn the art of one-to-one writing instruction and explore ways of adapting this pedagogical model to their elementary school setting. Bi-weekly journal, literary memoir and theory-into-practice project required. By permission only.

Credit 1 unit.

U11 EComp 4500 Fundamentals of Novel Writing

This course is for students seriously interested in the art and process of writing novel length fiction, including both Genre Fiction and Literary Fiction. The course will explore the process of developing a story idea, fleshing out the world the story is set in, creating full three dimensional characters, plotting stories, and developing writing habits necessary to complete a full-length novel. Students will complete the "90-day Novel" approach created by Alan Watt and are expected to write the first third of a first draft novel by the end of the semester, approximately 20k words or 80 pages. While students will write their novels individually, they will present outlines to the class and participate in regular discussion with classmates and the instructor to ensure the process moves along smoothly. Readings will revolve around improving the students' writing skills and the early stages of novel writing, as well as examples of published novels. Class time will be spent building the toolkit necessary to prepare and sustain writing a full-length novel. Writing exercises will allow students to spend time practicing the lessons as well as working on their novels. Students should enter the course with an idea for a novel they'd like to write and be ready to commit to daily writing in order to accomplish the goal of a third of a novel by the end of the semester. Prerequisite: At least one class in creative writing, preferably fiction or nonfiction

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U11 EComp 494 Voices in Action

What sparks and sustains people's movements for social justice? This history and creative-writing course explores the contexts and expressions of 20th century and contemporary protest movements, ranging from labor, civil rights, the Vietnam War, ethnic people and women's movements, to contemporary social and environmental justice movements. We will explore speeches, manifestos, visual and oral texts, songs, and poetry to consider how dissent is voiced in response to specific social contexts and historic events. We will consider the role of personal expression in enacting democracy, focusing on poetry that helps articulate what is at stake in the protest movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will examine how language moves people, raising awareness of the facts and felt experiences of injustice, helping to fuel social movements and "call forth a public" to make change. Assignments include a mix of historical analysis, ethnographic and participatory work, creative writing, and reflection.
Same as U89 AMCS 494

Credit 3 units. UColl: ACF, ACH, ACS, HUM