News of current students and alumni
Creative Writing Grading Guidelines:
The following is intended as a guide to course grading at UNCW for undergraduate writing students. While a grade of C is considered average campus-wide, the departmental expectation is that students in the major earn B’s; A’s will be reserved for truly outstanding work. Instructors will develop individual criteria for particular assignments.
• The A student handles language and grammar as if instinctively, though the student may have spent hard hours learning it. Attendance, for this student, is not an issue: he/she is extremely committed to being in class and will always make up missed assignments. The A student is an asset to the class and the instructor, questioning and probing toward a personal aesthetic. His/her work is uniformly arresting and, whatever its apprentice flaws, always contains something of original value. The A student may have abundant natural talents, but also simply works harder and more relentlessly with what he/she has. The result is work that is exciting and clearly more accomplished than that of even B students. The attitude of the A student is one of passionate commitment to writing.
• The B student is proficient with language and grammar. His/her work often has bright moments of true originality. All assignments are handed in on deadline, attendance is nearly perfect, and the student participates fully in workshop or other classroom activities. This student may or may not be highly talented but is making much of whatever talent he/she has. The student takes some chances in writing, and some of those chances pay off with rare and wonderful images, memorable characters, inspired situations, wonderful lines of dialogue, wise insights, beautiful language, etc. Work may be uneven but shows promise and direction.
• The C Student has some ability and routinely applies himself/herself but, compared to classmates and compared to a universal standard, with no noticeable distinction. Creative work graded C usually lacks luster and a strong voice, and may be disorganized or loosely organized, but will have a genuine structure and a purpose. The C student demonstrates a basic knowledge but not mastery of technique. The C student’s work over a semester may have highs canceled out by lows, or it may be a flat line when what is wanted is a rising curve of interests and performance.
• The D student’s work is often grammatically or syntactically incorrect. or creative work almost completely lacks originality, or the student has missed the equivalent of two weeks’ classes without being excused by instructor, or the student has failed in some assignments or scored below 70% on exams, quizzes, and other non-creative work in conjunction with any of the above. In general, the D student lacks ability and does not wholly make up for it with effort, has some ability but gives the course spotty effort and attention, and is not doing work of a caliber appropriate for a university student.
• The F student’s work is grammatically and/or syntactically incorrect in a serious way, and student has made no successful effort to remedy the problem. Standard editorial format is not observed, or creative work is completely unoriginal or plagiarized, or the student has missed one-third or more, of the class meetings (excused absences excepted), or the student has failed to hand in a significant portion of the assignments, or scored below 60% on exams, quizzes, and other non-creative work in conjunction with 1 or 2 above. In general an F student shows basic lack of interest and ability and should not be encouraged to further pursue Creative Writing study.
In the final year of coursework (at the time you take CRW 496), you will compile and revise a finished thesis manuscript of literary merit, overseen by the CRW 496 instructor and then reviewed by the general CRW faculty. The manuscript will be a collection of poems, stories, or essays; a single long poem, a long nonfiction narrative; a novella or portion of a novel; or in specifically approved instances, some combination of the aforementioned.
The BFA thesis must be introduced by a critical preface of 3-5 pages, in which you discuss your literary influences, citing the writers and works that have most significantly affected the form and content of your own work. Describe what you see as your aesthetic, both in the thesis and in your work as a whole, attempting to place your work within a historical context. Finally summarize the important aspects of your development as a writer over the course of your studies in the BFA program.
It is expected that the BFA thesis will be composed of work written and revised throughout the course of the student’s study; however, the thesis should not be viewed as a portfolio of one’s entire body of work, but rather as a representative sample of the strongest and most polished writing, as decided by the student together with the CRW 496 instructor and feedback from that workshop and previous workshops. Thesis work should involve an intensive focus on revision and the ability to make critical editing decisions, and the ability to distinguish the relative literary merits of one’s own work.
The BFA thesis should adhere to standard format and specifications for submitting writing for workshop or publication, typed on standard letter-size paper and carefully proofread for all mechanical, spelling, and punctuation errors. General guidelines for length are 15-25 pages in poetry, 6,000 to 10,000 words (usually 25-45 pages) in prose (in the form of chapters, stories, essays, or one long piece). These guidelines represent general parameters only; every thesis must meet with the approval of the CRW 496 instructor and the general faculty review.
BFA Thesis Format:
Two copies of the BFA thesis must be submitted, one to be returned to the student after review, and one to be kept for the Creative Writing Department files. Both copies should adhere to the following format.
The BFA thesis must be typed on standard letter-size white paper, using laser quality or ink-jet (not dot matrix) printer, electronic typewriter, or the equivalent. Font should be uniform (all one size) throughout the entire thesis, and should be 12-point Times New Roman, or 10-, 11- or 12-point Courier. Fiction and nonfiction should be double-spaced, and poetry should be double- or one-and-a-half-spaced. (Exceptions to this guideline may be made only with the permission of the CRW 496 instructor, for individual poems or excerpts of prose that require unique formatting.)
Margins for prose should be one inch all around, with the exception of the first page of a story or chapter, on which the text begins approximately halfway down the page. Pages should be numbered (not by hand) at either the top right or bottom center of the page. Do not include your name or the title of the piece in the header or footer; page numbers alone are sufficient.
