Students currently enrolled in Washington University’s writing program offered words of praise for the faculty, the course material and the philosophy behind the program.
Undergraduates in writing workshops present their writing and receive feedback and criticism from their peers and instructors. These courses, also offered through the University College for credit, cover material from drama to short stories.
“My experience with the creative writing program at Wash. U. has been really positive,” senior Kari Lombard, a writing minor, said. “I’ve had fantastic fiction writing instructors—professors and grad students—who have inspired me to experiment.”
But as writing courses place great emphasis on the workshop process, Lombard said she sometimes finds some fault with the workshop-centered discussions. In workshops, the instructor and students typically discuss the writer’s piece without vocal interaction with the composer of the piece.
“I wish they [the workshops] involved more interaction with the writer. I think most effective way to grow as a writer is to dialogue with others about your writing,” Lombard said.
Lombard, however, said that on the whole she highly values her experience in the program, especially in the course Introduction to Playwriting.
“Unexpectedly… [playwriting] stretched my creativity, restructured the way I define a narrative and changed my writing process for the better,” she said.
Amy Bailey, a graduate student in the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in writing program, praised the University’s support for fiction writers.
“In Wash. U.’s fiction program, everyone who is admitted is offered the same funding. When word of a contest, new publication or fellowship comes along, our teachers encourage everyone to submit work,” Bailey said. “Most importantly, in our workshop, each story is treated with the same amount of respect.”
According to Bailey, the writing program also encourages significant freedom in terms of the content and style of writing among undergraduate and graduate students.
“The culture innoculates itself against the notion that there’s a single ideal of style or content we should all strive to achieve. The diversity of voices here, and the care with which that diversity is safeguarded—both in the admissions and workshop processes—is one of the most exciting aspects of our program,” Bailey said.
The University also offers a Master’s degree in literature and history, an MFA in writing and a Ph.D. in English and American literature.
Professors Kellie Wells, Kathryn Davis and Marshall Klimasewiski lead MFA workshops, in which first- and second-year MFA students participate during all four semesters of the program. These MFA students teach undergraduate writers for most writing courses, with some of them teaching the mandatory freshman course Writing 1.
Writing 1, however, remains a course separate from the material of the courses in the English department and the Writing program.
“Whether or not students need Writing 1, the English department is not involved in the design of the content and the syllabus of that course. It’s college-wide, serves students of all disciplines and is no longer a literature-based course,” Chair of the English Department Vincent Sherry said.
Sophomore Alex Mancall said she enjoyed having a graduate student teach her Writing 1 section.
“She was young enough to relate to me, but also had the expertise to tell me how to improve,” Mancall said.
There's nothing a careful reader needs to know about how a writer thinks a story needs to be told--e.g., what that writer thinks is sufficient in terms of characterization, setting, plot or structure--that cannot be gleaned from the work. The opportunity to sit and listen in silence while a roomful of careful critical readers discusses what they made of the work is, in my opinion, the best way for beginning writers to see firsthand the ways their writing will be received by readers. I don't write to or for the workshop, and I don't encourage my students to do that either. But I do urge them to pay attention to places where the class dwelt unproductively on ambiguous or extraneous material. In my own experience, those are some of the most enduring lessons of workshops, and if I'd had the chance to cut in and explain myself, I might never have learned the discipline to excise that sort of material. Also, I wish the reporter had made note of the fact that this practice is not exclusive to Wash U's writing program, but ubiquitous--so much so that I don't know anyone who has ever had any other experience at any other program at the MFA or undergraduate level--and in ten years of workshops at three universities, I myself have only participated in a single one where the author was permitted and even invited to discuss their work along with the class discussion. Two things are significant about that experience. The first is that it was in fact at WashU, last year. We tried that experiment because our workshop leader was curious about whether it might be productive. The second thing is that, with very few exceptions, the authors chose overwhelmingly to stay out of the conversations, even when given the opportunity, and I believe that was at least in part for the reasons above. I also wish that the reporter had included some material about the other half of the graduate program, our superb poetry program and its faculty, or had included mention of the two readings we've had in the last week, one for our undergraduate students and one for the first-year graduate students. Finally, although, to the best of my knowledge, no current MFA students ever teach Writing I, we second-year students do generally teach in our genres, fiction and poetry. I think any discussion of how enriching graduate students find this MFA program must include mention of the privilege of teaching WashU undergrads. My students are generous, brave, and hard-working writers and readers, and teaching them has been by far the most rewarding part of my time here.