CWR to return to application

Introductory poetry, screenwriting, translation and creative nonfiction workshops, which were open-enrollment this year, will return to an application policy for the Fall 2012 semester, according to an email sent out to students by Creative Writing Program Director Susan Wheeler.

However, the program’s more flexible application will make previous writing experience less important for students hoping to take an introductory course, Wheeler said. For all beginning workshops except for fiction writing, students may either submit a sample of prior work in the genre (which the previous application required) or a brief statement explaining their interest in the course. Introductory fiction courses will still require a writing sample of two to four pages of past fiction writing.

Under open enrollment, these creative writing courses were in high demand.

Even if the department had doubled the number of beginning workshops available, it would still not have come close to meeting the demand, Wheeler said in an email to The Daily Princetonian. Numerous students interested in creative writing, including many looking toward the creative writing certificate who needed a minimum number of courses, could not enroll in the classes. Wheeler added that they were unable to keep waiting lists.

She added that the University has been very supportive of the growing Creative Writing Program but said that the program currently does not have the capacity to meet the extremely high demand.

With this new application, she said, the department hopes to encourage students from various backgrounds and experience levels to take these courses while still ensuring that dedicated writers are able to enroll in the classes they need.

“We truly believe that a mix of students is helpful in any beginning workshop,” Wheeler wrote. “In the past, though, we were fairly confident that truly talented and already-committed writers generally had opportunities to be admitted and to enroll, and this year, we had confirmation over and over that many of these [students] had been shut out of the SCORE enrollment system. So the flexible application will allow us to balance the mix a bit more.”

And, in addition to these issues of operational practicality, the open-enrollment system had an impact on class environment.

The old application picked students based on experience and made for a certain kind of class, where everybody is already interested in the topic, according to English and creative writing professor James Richardson, who teaches introductory poetry.

The non-application system, he explained, allows more beginners to take these courses, but the flaw is that students are picked randomly, and people passionate about poetry are being shut out. He did add, though, that the weakness of the application system is that students need to have written poetry before.

“It is certainly true that in the two classes I’ve had, I have had to proceed differently because some students have never written poetry before, and I have enjoyed them a lot,” he said. “But we should do a little selecting. I have heard students complain that [the selection process] is just two clicks.”

Sravanthi Kadali ’14, who has taken three classes under the application policy and one by open-enrollment, said that her class filled up almost instantly on SCORE. “After experiencing both systems, I think that there are merits to having a system based on application. The people who ended up taking the open-enrollment classes were just the people who clicked the fastest.”

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Other students who have also noted the differences in classroom environment said they were not opposed to the Creative Writing Program’s decision to reinstate the application.

“I have always taken fiction courses in the Creative Writing Program, and they have been high quality classes with great, dedicated instructors,” Cameron White ’14 said. “But I have friends who have had poetry courses without the application component. They said it was fun but that it was also a mixed bag in terms of commitment to the course, whereas I have not noticed that in fiction courses.”

John Shakespear ’12 offered a similar opinion.

“I think that the decision has more to do with the student interest level than it has to do with making sure that it’s exclusive and that the people in the classes are really good writers,” he said. “A lot of people, my friends included, take creative classes because it’s an easy class ... Maybe the professors in the department noticed the change in the atmosphere this year.”

Lillian Li ’13 said she thought the new application was a good change.

“I feel that [the new application] is a good gauge for commitment, without there being any issue about talent or skill,” she said in an email.