BA in English, Writing (Teacher's Certification)

The Department of English is increasingly viewed as one of the pre-eminent departments at Loyola. For example, professors in the department swept the Faculty Excellence Awards, the first time a single department won all four awards in teaching, research, advising, and community service. Not surprisingly, the number of students majoring in English has grown so much over the past few years that we are approaching the department’s all-time record for majors. English faculty members have developed national and even international reputations for their creative and scholarly achievements, and our seniors are going on to some of the best graduate schools in the country.

Overview of Courses

In addition to a core set of foundational courses, you’ll choose writing and English electives to tailor the program to your interests. Here’s a sample of what you can expect to learn and do:

• Reading Poetry This course is an introduction to the basic tools needed to read and write about English and American poetry, including the concepts of genre, form, meter, figurative representation, and history.
• Writing Fiction This course focuses on the form and theory of short fiction writing. Structured as a workshop with one-on-one meetings with the instructor to critique student writing. Students read widely and analyze published short stories as well as peer work.
• Playwriting Workshop This course is a workshop examining the writing of plays as well as aspects of writing film scripts. In addition to writing dramatic exercises and plays, students read extensively and analyze examples of plays and films.
• Creative Nonfiction Workshop This advanced writing workshop asks students to read and write in a wide range of genres such as memoir, autobiography, narrative journalism, personal essay, travel and food writing, profiles, reviews, and science and nature writing. Students complete a portfolio of revised original short creative nonfiction.
• Internship: Editing and Publishing In this course students work on the editing and publication of the New Orleans Review, a nationally distributed literary journal published at Loyola since 1968. Students work with the editorial staff to produce an issue of the print journal and to maintain the journal’s website.