ENGL 400-02 - Poetry Thesis

Upper Division

During the spring semester of the second year each MFA candidate is required to pursue a tutorial course of study under the direction of an assigned faculty writer in the student’s genre. Through this tutorial, the student performs the revision necessary to turn two years of writing into a coherent, polished creative thesis: a collection of essays, poems, or short stories; a novel, a memoir, or other work of nonfiction. Students meet with their thesis director several times during the semester to confer on the following aspects of the thesis: final revision and editing of individual pieces to be included in the manuscript, selection and arrangement of material, and coherence of the work as a whole. The student takes an oral examination with the thesis director and second reader in order to assess the student’s knowledge of contemporary literary aesthetics and how they relate to the student’s work. Upon satisfactory completion of the thesis and the oral exam, the thesis director and second reader approve the thesis.

Course credits: 0