English, BA & English & Creative Writing, BA

When you major in English, you choose to specialize in either creative writing or literature. Both tracks in our English degree offer extensive critical thinking, research and writing opportunities.

Creative Writing Specialization

The Creative Writing program at Seattle University takes the stand that good readers make good writers. Rather than offering a stand-alone writing degree, the Seattle University English Department offers a literature-focused English major with a Creative Writing concentration in the belief that developing critical reading and analytical skills is essential to a writer’s evolution.

Emphasizing the craft of writing and the close reading of classic and contemporary texts, Seattle University’s Creative Writing program includes core English classes in British, American and ethnic literature. The program offers creative writing classes across genres including fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry and script writing as well as in special topics such as the graphic novel, science fiction, literary fiction, screenplay writing and others.

• Four-Year Program of Study
• Junior Transfer Program of Study

Literature Specialization

In the Literature track of the English major at Seattle University, we believe that the arts of language and the tools of literacy are necessary not only for self-understanding, self-expression, and self-realization, but for full participation in social, cultural, and political life.  

In our curriculum, you will grapple with some of the most interesting questions of literary and cultural history, engage profound and intractable questions of justice and value, and become thoughtful and active citizens of the university, nation and world. 

• Four-Year Program of Study
• Junior Transfer Program of Study

Seattle University undergraduate English students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a broad understanding of literatures in English and translation and appreciate the role that historical context plays in the creation and interpretation of literary works
• Engage questions of justice, value, spirituality, and meaning raised by literary texts
• Read, closely analyze, interpret, and produce texts in a variety of formats and genre 
• Draw from different critical perspectives and appreciate how differences in theoretical framework can produce multiple readings of a text
• Draw effectively from craft principles in more than one genre in order to create a variety of creative pieces
• Analyze the role that intersections among race, gender, class, sexuality, and/or national or global history play in literary studies
• Write and speak effectively for specific audiences and purposes in university, public, and professional life
• Conduct scholarly inquiry to produce literary research.
• Demonstrate the professional habits of creative writers: revision, workshopping, public reading, and submission for publication

The Writing Studies Minor develops your skills and versatility as a writer, furthering your success in your undergraduate courses and giving you a competitive edge in graduate school and the job market.

The Writing Studies Minor is appropriate for undergraduate students from a great variety of majors across our university, but particularly for students planning career paths in law, business, teaching, the arts, the nonprofit world or government.

To earn a minor degree, you’ll complete at least 30 credits in this area. Learn more about the offerings within the minor by reading these select course description.

Seattle University undergraduates with a minor in Writing Studies should be able to:

• Demonstrate a rhetorical understanding of the historical, analytic, critical, and ethical dynamics of written communication, its material and cultural contexts, and its ties to power.
• Produce effective writing in a variety of genres, for different purposes and audiences, incorporating an ethical use of language.
• Employ appropriate stylistic choices and mechanical correctness in order to produce compelling, rhetorically effective prose in a variety of genres.
• Prepare for future personal and professional writing contexts by producing and maintaining successful reflective, creative, and disciplinary documents in a professional portfolio.