Creative Writing

Assessment of Creative Writing

 

The creative-writing emphasis at Utah State University’s Department of English is quite new, having been established in academic year 2005-2006. The emphasis modeled its curriculum primarily on the existing literary studies emphasis and has attracted approximately 50 majors. Because this is the first year of the creative-writing emphasis, the creative-writing committee considers this assessment report a preliminary document, because we are continuing to investigate additional assessment procedures and will implement one new procedure (exit interviews) in 2006-2007. Our reviews of assessment plans, as well as assessment itself, will be an annual procedure. We will continue to look closely at the literary studies program in terms of emulating successful data-gathering, assessment and implementation of changes.

 

The committee has reviewed its first information-set (student reflection essays on their USU creative-writing experience, written in our first capstone class). We will use this information-set to begin discussions of: 1) strengths and weaknesses in the existing creative-writing major; 2) development of curricular changes to address identified weaknesses; and 3) refinement and correlation of existing course objectives with student experiences, expectations and needs.