English Writing Minors Before Summer 2025

Writing Minor Requirements

The Writing Minor is designed to provide students with concentrated study of and practice
in writing, language, and rhetoric. The minor is most appropriate for students entering
writing-intensive careers such as journalism, business, marketing, law, publishing, editing,
education, and public relations or for students interested in enhancing their writing, analytic, and communication skills.

*Note: Although it is possible to count one creative writing course toward the minor, this is not a creative writing minor.

Requirements:

25 total credit hours of which:
15 credits (of the total 25) must be at the 300-level or above
15 credits must come from approved list of courses in academic, professional, and creative writing
10 credits must come from approved list of courses in theory, history, and design
No more than five credits may be counted from Creative Writing or from courses outside the English department. ENGL 295 and 491 may not be applied to the minor.

Curriculum:

Academic, Professional, and Creative Writing (15 credits)
other writing courses considered by petition

ENGL 281 Intermediate Expository Writing
ENGL 282 Intermediate Multimodal Composition
*ENGL 283 Beginning Verse Writing
*ENGL 284 Beginning Short Story Writing
*ENGL 285 Writers on Writing

ENGL 288 Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing

ENGL 296 Critical Literacy in the Natural Sciences

ENGL 297 Intermediate Interdisciplinary Writing – Humanities
ENGL 298 Intermediate Interdisciplinary Writing - Social Sciences
ENGL 299 Intermediate Interdisciplinary Writing - Natural Sciences
ENGL 381 Advanced Expository Writing
ENGL 382 Special Topics in Multimodal Composition

ENGL 388 Professional and Technical Writing

ENGL 481 Special Studies in Expository Writing
*COM 359 Writing for Mass Media
*COM 362 Community Journalism (News Lab)
*COM 459 Narrative Journalism
*COM 460 Special Reporting Topics
*COM 464 Writing with Voice

Theory, History, and Design (10 credits)

ENGL 206 Rhetoric in Everyday Life
ENGL 270 Language and Society
ENGL 306 Introduction to Rhetoric
ENGL 369 Research Methods in Language and Rhetoric
ENGL 370 English Language Study
ENGL 372 World Englishes
ENGL 373 History of the English Language
ENGL 374 The Language of Literature
ENGL 375 Rhetorical Genre Theory and Practice
ENGL 471 Theory and Practice of Teaching Writing
ENGL 472 Language Learning
ENGL 473 Current Developments in English Studies
ENGL 478 Language and Social Policy
ENGL 479 Language Variation and Language Policy in North America

*A maximum of five credits may be applied from Creative Writing or from classes
outside the English department.

15 credits must be taken in residence at the UW.

Courses and Advising

Please visit the Humanities Academic Services Center to discuss a minor and your options for courses, as well as English-related internships, potential careers or other post-graduation plans, or areas of focus within your minor, such as language & rhetoric, expository or creative writing, genre studies, historical literary periods, literary theory & criticism, cultural studies, multicultural literature, literary modernism/postmodernism, gender studies, etc.

You can find detailed course descriptions for each quarter posted to our quarterly course offerings. These will provide you with information about teaching faculty, themes, texts, etc.

You may also want to look at what qualities the Writing Minor is designed to help you practice and the goals that the writing minor has in mind for students.

Staying Connected

We hope you'll consider yourself part of the UW's English Department community. Please feel free to subscribe yourself to the English e-mail list, "like" us on Facebook, and seek assistance from our department at any time.