creative writer education

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the 12 best creative writing colleges and programs.

College Info

Finding a dedicated creative writing program at a school you're excited about can be a real challenge, and that's even before you start worrying about getting in. Nonetheless, there are some great options. In order to help you find the best school for you, this list rounds up some of the best colleges for creative writing in the United States .

The Best Creative Writing Programs: Ranking Criteria

You should never take college rankings as absolute truth —not even the very official-seeming US News ones. Instead, use these kinds of lists as a jumping-off place for your own exploration of colleges. Pay attention not just to what the rankings are but to how the rankings are determined.

To help with that, I'll explain how I came up with this highly unscientific list of great creative writing colleges. I started by narrowing my search down to schools that offered a specific creative writing major. (If you don't see a school you were expecting, it's likely because they only have a minor.)

In ranking the schools, I considered five major criteria:

• #1: MFA Ranking —If a school has a great graduate creative writing program, it means you'll be taught by those same professors and the excellent graduate students they attract. Schools with strong MFA programs are also more likely to have solid alumni networks and internship opportunities. However, many schools with great undergrad programs do not offer MFAs, in which case I simply focused on the other four options.
• #2: General School Reputation —The vast majority of your classes won't be in creative writing, so it's important that other parts of the school, especially the English department, are great as well.
• #3: Extracurricular Opportunities —One of the key advantages of majoring in creative writing is that it can provide access to writing opportunities outside the classroom, so I took what kind of internship programs, author readings, and literary magazines the school offers into consideration.
• #4: Diversity of Class Options —I gave extra points to schools with a variety of genre options and specific, interesting classes.
• #5: Alumni/Prestige —This last criterion is a bit more subjective: is the school known for turning out good writers? Certainly it's less important than what kind of education you'll actually get, but having a brand-name degree (so to speak) can be helpful.

The Best Creative Writing Schools

Now, let's get to the good stuff: the list of schools! The exact numbering is always arguable, so look at it as a general trend from absolutely amazing to still super great, rather than fixating on why one school is ranked #3 and another is ranked #4.

#1: Northwestern University

Northwestern's undergrad creative writing program boasts acclaimed professors and an unparalleled track record of turning out successful writers (including Divergent author Veronica Roth and short-story writer Karen Russell).

Outside the classroom, you can work on the student-run literary journal, intern at a publication in nearby Chicago, or submit to the Department of English's yearly writing competition . The university is also home to a top journalism program , so if you want to try your hand at nonfiction as well, you'll have plenty of opportunities to do so.

#2: Columbia University

Like Northwestern, Columbia is home to both a world-class creative writing program and a top journalism school (plus one of the best English departments in the country), so you have a wide range of writing-related course options. Columbia also benefits from its location in New York City, which is bursting at the seams with publishing houses, literary journals, and talented authors.

#3: University of Iowa

The University of Iowa's big draw is the infrastructure of its graduate Writers' Workshop, which is often considered the best MFA program in the country.

As an English and Creative Writing major here, you'll take classes from great young writers and established professors alike, and get to choose from a wide range of topics. This major provides transferable skills important for a liberal arts major with a creative focus. You'll also have access to the university's impressive literary community, including frequent readings, writing prizes and scholarships, and the acclaimed literary journal The Iowa Review .

#4: Emory University

Emory is renowned for its dedicated undergrad creative writing program , which draws the very best visiting scholars and writers. Students here have the chance to attend intimate question-and-answer sessions with award-winning authors, study a range of genres, compete for writing awards and scholarships, and work closely with an adviser to complete an honors project.

#5: Oberlin College

A small liberal arts school in Ohio, Oberlin offers very different advantages than the schools above do. You'll have fewer opportunities to pursue writing in the surrounding city, but the quality of the teachers and the range of courses might make up for that. Moreover, it boasts just as impressive alumni, including actress and writer Lena Dunham.

#6: Hamilton College

Hamilton is another small college, located in upstate New York. It's known for giving students the freedom to pursue their interests and the support to help them explore topics in real depth, both inside and outside the classroom. Hamilton's creative writing program takes full advantage with small classes and lots of opportunities to intern and publish; it also has one of the best writing centers in the country.

#7: Brown University

Brown's Literary Arts program offers one of the top MFAs in the US as well as an undergraduate major . For the major, you must take four creative writing workshops and six reading-intensive courses, which span an array of departments and topics, from music and literature to Middle East studies and Egyptology.

#8: Washington University in St. Louis

Washington University has an excellent creative writing MFA program, lots of super specific class options, and a number of scholarships specifically earmarked for creative writing students. This school’s undergraduate English program also offers a concentration in creative writing that allows students to specialize in a specific genre: poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. If you’re interested in exploring your potential in a specific writing genre, Washington University could be a great pick for you.

#9: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT might not be a school you generally associate with writing, but it actually has an excellent program that offers courses in digital media and science writing, as well as creative writing, and provides plenty of guidance on how graduates can navigate the tricky job market.

Not to mention the school is located in Cambridge, a haven for book lovers and writers of all kinds. Though it probably isn’t a good fit for students who hate science, MIT is a great place for aspiring writers who want to build writing skills that are marketable in a wide range of industries.

#10: University of Michigan

University of Michigan is one of the best state universities in the country and has a top-notch MFA program. This school’s undergrad creative writing sub-concentration requires students to submit applications for admittance to advanced creative writing courses. These applications give students crucial practice in both building a writing portfolio and articulating their interest in creative writing to an audience who will evaluate their work. If you're looking to attend a big school with a great creative writing major, this is a fantastic choice.

#11: Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins is another school that's known more for engineering than it is for writing, but, like MIT, it has a dedicated writing program. As a major here, you must take not only courses in prose, poetry, and literature, but also classes on topics such as philosophy and history.

#12: Colorado College

Colorado College is a small liberal arts school known for its block plan , which allows students to focus on one class per three-and-a-half-week block. The creative writing track of the English major includes a sequence of four writing workshops and also requires students to attend every reading of the Visiting Writers Series.

Bonus School: New York University

I didn't include NYU in the main list because it doesn't have a dedicated creative writing major, but it's a great school for aspiring writers nonetheless, offering one of the most impressive creative writing faculties in the country and all the benefits of a Manhattan location.

How To Pick the Best Creative Writing School for You

Just because Northwestern is a great school for creative writing doesn't mean you should set your heart on going there. (The football fans are completely terrifying, for one thing.) So where should you go then?

Here are some questions to ask yourself when looking at creative writing programs to help you determine the best school for you:

Does It Have Courses You're Interested In?

Look at the course offerings and see whether they interest you. While you can't predict exactly what classes you'll love, you want to avoid a mismatch where what you want to study and what the program offers are completely different. For example, if you want to write sonnets but the school focuses more on teaching fiction, it probably won't be a great fit for you.

Also, don't forget to look at the English courses and creative writing workshops! In most programs, you'll be taking a lot of these, too.

What Opportunities Are There To Pursue Writing Outside of Class?

I touched on this idea in the criteria section, but it's important enough that I want to reiterate it here. Some of the best writing experience you can get is found outside the classroom, so see what kind of writing-related extracurriculars a school has before committing to it.

Great options include getting involved with the campus newspaper, working on the school's literary journal, or interning at the university press.

Who Will Be Teaching You?

Who are the professors? What kind of work have they published? Check teacher ratings on Rate My Professors (but make sure to read the actual reviews—and always take them with a grain of salt).

If you're looking at a big school, there's a good chance that a lot of your teachers will be graduate students. But that's not necessarily a bad thing: a lot of the best teachers I had in college were graduate students. Just take into consideration what kind of graduate program the school has. If there's a great creative writing MFA program, then the graduate students are likely to be better writers and more engaged teachers.

What Are the Alumni Doing Now?

If you have a sense of what you want to do after you graduate, see if any alumni of the program are pursuing that type of career. The stronger the alumni network is, the more connections you'll have when it comes time to get a job.

What About the Rest of the School?

Don't pick a school for which you like the creative writing program but dread everything else about it. Most of your time will be spent doing other things, whether hanging out in the dorms, exploring off campus, or fulfilling general education requirements.

Many schools require you to apply to the creative writing major, so make doubly sure you'll be happy with your choice even if you aren't accepted to the program.

What's Next?

Are you sure a creative writing major is the right fit for you? Read our post on the pros and cons of the major to help you decide what path to take in college.

For more general advice about choosing a college, check out our complete guide to finding the right school for you. Some major factors to consider include deciding whether you're interested in a small college or a big university , an in-state or out-of-state institution , and a public or private school .

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What to Know About Creative Writing Degrees

Many creative writing degree recipients pursue careers as authors while others work as copywriters or ghostwriters.

Tips on Creative Writing Degrees

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Prospective writing students should think about their goals and figure out if a creative writing degree will help them achieve those goals.

Many people see something magical in a beautiful work of art, and artists of all kinds often take pride in their craftsmanship. Creative writers say they find fulfillment in the writing process.

"I believe that making art is a human need, and so to get to do that is amazing," says Andrea Lawlor, an author who this year received a Whiting Award – a national $50,000 prize that recognizes 10 excellent emerging authors each year – and who is also the Clara Willis Phillips Assistant Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.

"We all are seeing more and more of the way that writing can help us understand perspectives we don't share," says Lawlor, whose recent novel "Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl" addresses the issue of gender identity.

"Writing can help us cope with hard situations," Lawlor says. "We can find people who we have something in common with even if there's nobody around us who shares our experience through writing. It's a really powerful tool for connection and social change and understanding."

Creative writing faculty, many of whom are acclaimed published authors, say that people are well-suited toward degrees in creative writing if they are highly verbal and enjoy expressing themselves.

"Creative imaginative types who have stories burning inside them and who gravitate toward stories and language might want to pursue a degree in creative writing," Jessica Bane Robert, who teaches Introduction to Creative Writing at Clark University in Massachusetts, wrote in an email. "Through formal study you will hone your voice, gain confidence, find a support system for what can otherwise be a lonely endeavor."

Read the guide below to gain more insight into what it means to pursue a creative writing education, how writing impacts society and whether it is prudent to invest in a creative writing degree. Learn about the difference between degree-based and non-degree creative writing programs, how to craft a solid application to a top-notch creative writing program and how to figure out which program is the best fit.

Why Creative Writing Matters and Reasons to Study It

Creative writers say a common misconception about their job is that their work is frivolous and impractical, but they emphasize that creative writing is an extremely effective way to convey messages that are hard to share in any other way.

Kelly Caldwell, dean of faculty at Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City, says prospective writing students are often discouraged from taking writing courses because of concerns about whether a writing life is somehow unattainable or "unrealistic."

Although creative writers are sometimes unable to financially support themselves entirely on the basis of their creative projects, Caldwell says, they often juggle that work with other types of jobs and lead successful careers.

She says that many students in her introductory creative writing class were previously forbidden by parents to study creative writing. "You have to give yourself permission for the simple reason that you want to do it," she suggests.

Creative writing faculty acknowledge that a formal academic credential in creative writing is not needed in order to get writing published. However, they suggest, creative writing programs help aspiring authors develop their writing skills and allow space and time to complete long-term writing projects.

Working writers often juggle multiple projects at once and sometimes have more than one gig, which can make it difficult to finish an especially ambitious undertaking such as a novel, a play for the screen or stage, or a well-assembled collection of poems, short stories or essays. Grants and fellowships for authors are often designed to ensure that those authors can afford to concentrate on their writing.

Samuel Ace, a published poet and a visiting lecturer in poetry at Mount Holyoke, says his goal is to show students how to write in an authentic way that conveys real feeling. "It helps students to become more direct, not to bury their thoughts under a cascade of academic language, to be more forthright," he says.

Tips on Choosing Between a Non-Degree or Degree-Based Creative Writing Program

Experts note that someone needs to be ready to get immersed in the writing process and devote significant time to writing projects before pursuing a creative writing degree. Prospective writing students should not sign up for a degree program until they have reached that sense of preparedness, warns Kim Todd, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts and director of its creative writing program.

She says prospective writing students need to think about their personal goals and figure out if a creative writing degree will help them achieve those goals.

Aspiring writers who are not ready to invest in a creative writing degree program may want to sign up for a one-off writing class or begin participating in an informal writing workshop so they can test their level of interest in the field, Todd suggests.

How to Choose and Apply to a Creative Writing Program

In many cases, the most important component of an application to a writing program is the writing portfolio, writing program experts say. Prospective writing students need to think about which pieces of writing they include in their portfolio and need to be especially mindful about which item they put at the beginning of their portfolio. They should have a trusted mentor critique the portfolio before they submit it, experts suggest.

Because creative writing often involves self-expression, it is important for aspiring writing students to find a program where they feel comfortable expressing their true identity.

This is particularly pertinent to aspiring authors who are members of minority groups, including people of color or LGBTQ individuals, says Lawlor, who identifies as queer, transgender and nonbinary.

How to Use a Creative Writing Degree

Creative writing program professors and alumni say creative writing programs cultivate a variety of in-demand skills, including the ability to communicate effectively.

"While yes, many creative writers are idealists and dreamers, these are also typically highly flexible and competent people with a range of personal strengths. And a good creative writing program helps them understand their particular strengths and marketability and translate these for potential employers, alongside the more traditional craft development work," Melissa Ridley Elmes, an assistant professor of English at Lindenwood University in Missouri, wrote in an email.

Elmes – an author who writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction – says creative writing programs force students to develop personal discipline because they have to consistently produce a significant amount of writing. In addition, participating in writing workshops requires writing students "to give and receive constructive feedback," Elmes says.

Cindy Childress, who has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana—Lafayatte and did a creative writing dissertation where she submitted poetry, says creative writing grads are well-equipped for good-paying positions as advertising and marketing copywriters, speechwriters, grant writers and ghostwriters.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual compensation for writers and authors was $63,200 as of May 2019.

"I think the Internet, and writing communities online and in social media, have been very helpful for debunking the idea that if you publish a New York Times Bestseller you will have 'made it' and can quit your day job and write full time," Elmes explains. "Unless you are independently wealthy, the odds are very much against you in this regard."

Childress emphasizes that creative writing degree recipients have "skills that are absolutely transferable to the real world." For example, the same storytelling techniques that copywriters use to shape public perceptions about a commercial brand are often taught in introductory creative writing courses, she says. The ability to tell a good story does not necessarily come easily to people who haven't been trained on how to do it, she explains.

Childress says she was able to translate her creative writing education into a lucrative career and start her own ghostwriting and book editing company, where she earns a six-figure salary. She says her background in poetry taught her how to be pithy.

"Anything that we want to write nowadays, particularly for social media, is going to have to be immediately understood, so there is a sense of immediacy," she says."The language has to be crisp and direct and exact, and really those are exactly the same kind of ways you would describe a successful poem."

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Creative Writing Program

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Cultivating the power of individual expression within a vibrant community of writers

It’s here that I fell deeper and deeper in love with writing, and I can say without a shadow of doubt that I met mentors, peers, and friends for life. The generosity with which the Creative Writing Program has shaped me will sustain—it’s truly been life-changing.

Creative Writing Minor

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Creative Writing and Literature Master’s Degree Program

Unlock your creative potential and hone your unique voice.

Online Courses

11 out of 12 total courses

On-Campus Experience

One 1- or 3-week residency in summer

$3,220 per course

Program Overview

Through the master’s degree in creative writing and literature, you’ll hone your skills as a storyteller — crafting publishable original scripts, novels, and stories.

In small, workshop-style classes, you’ll master key elements of narrative craft, including characterization, story and plot structure, point of view, dialogue, and description. And you’ll learn to approach literary works as both a writer and scholar by developing skills in critical analysis.

Program Benefits

Instructors who are published authors of drama, fiction, and nonfiction

A community of writers who support your growth in live online classes

Writer's residency with agent & editor networking opportunities

Personalized academic and career advising

Thesis or capstone options that lead to publishable creative work

Harvard Alumni Association membership upon graduation

Customizable Course Curriculum

As you work through the program’s courses, you’ll enhance your creative writing skills and knowledge of literary concepts and strategies. You’ll practice the art of revision to hone your voice as a writer in courses like Writing the Short Personal Essay and Writing Flash Fiction.

Within the creative writing and literature program, you will choose between a thesis or capstone track. You’ll also experience the convenience of online learning and the immersive benefits of learning in person.

11 Online Courses

• Primarily synchronous
• Fall, spring, January, and summer options

Writers’ Residency

A 1- or 3-week summer master class taught by a notable instructor, followed by an agents-and-editors weekend

Thesis or Capstone Track

• Thesis: features a 9-month independent creative project with a faculty advisor
• Capstone: includes crafting a fiction or nonfiction manuscript in a classroom community

The path to your degree begins before you apply to the program.

First, you’ll register for and complete 2 required courses, earning at least a B in each. These foundational courses are investments in your studies and count toward your degree, helping ensure success in the program.

Getting Started

We invite you to explore degree requirements, confirm your initial eligibility, and learn more about our unique “earn your way in” admissions process.

A Faculty of Creative Writing Experts

Studying at Harvard Extension School means learning from the world’s best. Our instructors are renowned academics in literary analysis, storytelling, manuscript writing, and more. They bring a genuine passion for teaching, with students giving our faculty an average rating of 4.7 out of 5.

Bryan Delaney

Playwright and Screenwriter

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Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University

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Our community at a glance.

80% of our creative writing and literature students are enrolled in our master’s degree program for either personal enrichment or to make a career change. Most (74%) are employed full time while pursuing their degree and work across a variety of industries.

Download: Creative Writing & Literature Master's Degree Fact Sheet

Average Age

Course Taken Each Semester

Work Full Time

Would Recommend the Program

Professional Experience in the Field

Pursued for Personal Enrichment

Career Opportunities & Alumni Outcomes

Graduates of our Creative Writing and Literature Master’s Program have writing, research, and communication jobs in the fields of publishing, advertising/marketing, fundraising, secondary and higher education, and more.

Some alumni continue their educational journeys and pursue further studies in other nationally ranked degree programs, including those at Boston University, Brandeis University, University of Pennsylvania, and Cambridge University.

Our alumni hold titles as:

• Marketing Manager
• Director of Publishing
• Senior Research Writer

Our alumni work at a variety of leading organizations, including:

• Little, Brown & Company
• New York University (NYU)
• Bentley Publishers

Career Advising and Mentorship

Whatever your career goals, we’re here to support you. Harvard’s Mignone Center for Career Success offers career advising, employment opportunities, Harvard alumni mentor connections, and career fairs like the annual on-campus Harvard Humanities, Media, Marketing, and Creative Careers Expo.

Your Harvard University Degree

Upon successful completion of the required curriculum, you will earn the Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Extension Studies, Field: Creative Writing and Literature.

Expand Your Connections: the Harvard Alumni Network

As a graduate, you’ll become a member of the worldwide Harvard Alumni Association (400,000+ members) and Harvard Extension Alumni Association (29,000+ members).

Harvard is closer than one might think. You can be anywhere and still be part of this world.

Tuition & Financial Aid

Affordability is core to our mission. When compared to our continuing education peers, it’s a fraction of the cost.

After admission, you may qualify for financial aid . Typically, eligible students receive grant funds to cover a portion of tuition costs each term, in addition to federal financial aid options.

What can you do with a master’s degree in creative writing and literature?

A master’s degree in creative writing and literature prepares you for a variety of career paths in writing, literature, and communication — it’s up to you to decide where your interests will take you.

You could become a professional writer, editor, literary agent, marketing copywriter, or communications specialist.

You could also go the academic route and bring your knowledge to the classroom to teach creative writing or literature courses.

Is a degree in creative writing and literature worth it?

The value you find in our Creative Writing and Literature Master’s Degree Program will depend on your unique goals, interests, and circumstances.

The curriculum provides a range of courses that allow you to graduate with knowledge and skills transferable to various industries and careers.

How long does completing the creative writing and literature graduate program take?

Program length is ordinarily anywhere between 2 and 5 years. It depends on your preferred pace and the number of courses you want to take each semester.

For an accelerated journey, we offer year round study, where you can take courses in fall, January, spring, and summer.

While we don’t require you to register for a certain number of courses each semester, you cannot take longer than 5 years to complete the degree.

What skills do you need prior to applying for the creative writing and literature degree program?

Harvard Extension School does not require any specific skills prior to applying, but in general, it’s helpful to have solid reading, writing, communication, and critical thinking skills if you are considering a creative writing and literature master’s degree.

Initial eligibility requirements can be found on our creative writing and literature master’s degree requirements page .

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Creative Writing

Develop creative writing skills in multiple genres of interest including fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and more. This customizable program culminates in a capstone project in which students make significant progress on a polished collection of work. This certificate can be completed online or in the classroom.

This program is perfect for...

• Those new to writing who want to explore various genres while cultivating their skills
• Writers looking to hone their craft and develop a solid portfolio of work in a particular genre
• Writers considering graduate-level writing study, including those who wish to polish pieces for submission to MFA programs
• Individuals who want to become part of a vibrant and supportive community of artists who share their passion

What you can learn.

• Identify your creative writing goals and develop a plan to achieve them
• Deepen your practice within a chosen genre, or explore various forms of creative writing
• Discover techniques of powerful storytelling, craft compelling characters, and write memorable scenes and stories
• Receive guidance from successful writers and workshop in a group of supportive peers

Achieve results and reach your writing goals.

Whether you are new to writing, have a specific project you'd like to get off the ground, or are preparing to apply to an MFA program, the Certificate in Creative Writing is an immersive program for developing professional writing skills.

Our fully customizable certificate honors each individual student’s journey, allowing you to pursue the coursework that is most meaningful to your specific writing goals and level of expertise. 

The program offers the opportunity to specialize in genres like poetry, short stories, novel writing, essay writing, memoir writing, or to explore writing across genres, hybrid genres, and new forms without the limitation of a prescribed curriculum. 

The only required course, the Creative Writing Certificate Capstone , allows you to compile and further refine your writing from prior coursework into a final portfolio representing the finest examples of your craft. 

Taught by a prestigious roster of instructors who are published writers and active professionals, courses in this certificate program can be taken onsite, online, or a combination of both. 

Expect more from your education.

MFA, fiction writer, author of the story collection Once Removed (UGA Press) and winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. 

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Certificate Curriculum

The Certificate in Creative Writing is fully customizable. You may follow a Writers’ Program sample curriculum plan based on specific writing goals, or design your own program of study.

Students must complete 21 total units comprised of the 3-unit Creative Writing Certificate Capstone course and 18 units of 400-level Creative Writing coursework.

Sample Program Tracks:

Novel I WRITING X 411.1

Novel II WRITING X 411.2

Novel III WRITING X 411.3

Novel IV WRITING X 411.4

Novel V WRITING X 411.5

Dialogue and Point of View WRITING X 462.1

Creative Writing Certificate Capstone WRITING X 460

Personal Essay I WRITING  X 422.1

Personal Essay II WRITING X 422.2

Personal Essay III WRITING X 422.3

Storytelling for Social Justice WRITING X 424.21E

Writing the Thinkpiece WRITING X 424.15E

The Art of Creative Research WRITING X 461.23

Poetry I WRITING X 431.1

Poetry II WRITING X 431.2

Poetry Toolbox WRITING X 432.10E

Prose Poetry WRITING X 432.11E

Reframing the Form WRITING X 432.7E

The "F" Word: Innovative Poetic Forms WRITING X 432.8E

Cuento Poems WRITING X 432.32E

Click below to view the required and elective courses, if applicable, for this program.

Students must complete 18 units of elective coursework. Select from courses numbered WRITING X 400-499 in the following areas:

Students may select courses in the following area with advisor approval:

Editing and Publishing

How to Get Started

Courses in this program are open enrollment, and each course is paid for individually.

Sequential courses should be taken in numerical order, starting from the lowest course number and progressing to higher numbers.

You may take Creative Writing courses without committing to the entire program.* However, by establishing candidacy in the program, you will receive  many benefits exclusive to our certificate students such as priority placement on waitlists and access to the UCLA Career Center's job board. Creative Writing Certificate students can also receive a customized curriculum tailored to your writing goals.

Need assistance? If you have any questions or need advice on course selection, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] .

Benefits exclusive for Writers' Program certificate students:

• Advising : Receive a 30-minute, one-on-one goal-setting consultation with a Writers’ Program advisor. During this consultation, the advisor will customize a certificate program curriculum tailored to your experience, interests, and writing goals.
• Enrollment Advantages : Receive quarterly notice when Writers’ Program courses open for enrollment each quarter and receive preferential placement on wait lists.
• Manuscript Consultation : Within six months of completing certificate program coursework, receive 50% off a one-on-one manuscript consultation with a Writers' Program instructor. Learn more .

Advanced standing at Antioch University*

Students who complete the Certificate in Creative Writing can receive Advanced Standing in Antioch University Los Angeles’s MFA in Creative Writing .

Advanced Standing allows a student to enter the MFA program with the equivalent of one semester completed. In addition, you may be eligible for Antioch’s fellowships and scholarships.

Additional benefits exclusive to all UCLA Extension certificate students:

• Career Resources : Access UCLA Extension’s Career Resources including online career coaching, workshops, networking events, and other resources.  Learn More .
• Handshake Access : Explore thousands of job and internship postings through UCLA Career Center’s online job board. Learn More .
• UCLA Alumni Association Membership : Upon completing your certificate, join the nationwide Bruin family as a member of the UCLA Alumni Association. Learn More .
• Graduation Celebration : Attend the annual UCLA Extension Graduation Ceremony on campus to celebrate your achievements. Learn More .
• UCLA Recreation Facilities : Enjoy access to UCLA Recreation facilities as a student affiliate. Learn More .
• Bruin ID Card : Obtain an affiliate/Guest UCLA Bruin ID Card for additional student-related benefits. Learn More .

How to Apply - Establish Certificate Candidacy

• Click the Apply Now button below
• Login or create a new student account
• Once you are logged into the student portal, you can select “My Applications” from the left side menu at any time to return to your application. Click the yellow “Start” button to proceed.
• On the Certificate Application page, follow the instructions and click save. Then submit your application. 
• Proceed to checkout and pay the nonrefundable candidacy fee to finalize your application. 

Estimated Cost Breakdown

All courses in this program are paid for individually, unless otherwise noted. An application form is required to establish candidacy in this program. From the 'Apply Now' button, complete the online application and pay the application fee if applicable.

Application & Candidacy Fee

Estimated program tuition, estimated program textbook/materials.

*The Application & Candidacy Fee establishes your candidacy in the program for a period of time covering normal progress toward completion and may allow you to access a variety of program benefits.

Internships Available

Approved for International Visa

VA Benefit Eligible

Federal Financial Aid

The U.S. Department of Education requires colleges and universities to disclose certain information for any financial aid eligible program that, “prepares students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation”. This information includes program costs; occupations that the program prepares students to enter; occupational profiles; on time completion rate; and for the most recent award year: the number of students who have completed the program, the number of students who complete the program within the estimated duration, the job placement rate, and the median Title IV and private loan debt incurred by those who complete the program. For gainful employment information for this program, visit our  Financial Aid page.

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Education Requirements for Creative Writers

Getting started as a creative writer.

• What is a Creative Writer
• How to Become
• Certifications
• Tools & Software
• LinkedIn Guide
• Interview Questions
• Work-Life Balance
• Professional Goals
• Creative Writer Resume Examples
• Creative Writer Cover Letter Examples

Start Your Creative Writer Career with Teal

Join our community of 150,000+ members and get tailored career guidance from us at every step

Do You Need a Degree to Become a Creative Writer?

Educational backgrounds of creative writers, a snapshot of today's creative writers' educational background, evolving trends and the shift in educational preferences, education for aspiring creative writers: what matters.

• Developing a Unique Voice: Through consistent practice, feedback, and self-reflection.
• Understanding of Literary Techniques: Gained through formal education or self-study of literature and writing craft.
• Exposure to Diverse Perspectives: Encouraged by reading widely and engaging with different cultures and ideas.

Building a Path Forward: Education and Beyond

• Writing Regularly: To refine skills and experiment with different styles and genres.
• Community Engagement: Participating in writing groups, workshops, and literary events to gain feedback and support.
• Professional Development: Attending conferences, pursuing writing residencies, and seeking mentorship from established writers.

The Bottom Line: Diverse Backgrounds, Unified by Passion

Most common degrees for creative writers, english literature or language, creative writing, communications, popular majors for creative writers, english literature, popular minors for creative writers, digital media, why pursue a degree for a creative writer career, networking and professional development in creative writing, facilitating career transition and advancement, what can you do with a degree in creative writing, degree alternatives for a creative writer, writing workshops and retreats, online writing courses and platforms, professional writing organizations, self-publishing and blogging, reading and literary analysis, navigating a creative writer career without a degree, build a diverse writing portfolio, engage in continuous writing practice, network with other writers and industry professionals, utilize online platforms and social media, learn from established writers, self-publish your work, seek freelance writing opportunities, stay informed about the writing industry, embrace feedback and rejection, education faqs for creative writer, do you need to go to college to become a creative writer, is it worth it to get a degree for a creative writer role, how important is continuous learning for a creative writer.

Creative Writer Certifications

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A companion for creative writing students.

CreativeWritingEDU.org is owned and operated by Wiley University Services. Our content originates from many different education content writers. Our views and opinions are our own and for information purposes only. We want this website to serve as a directory guide, or an on-ramp, for educational programs as you explore the many options available. Please note the higher ed landscape is expansive; we do not include every option available and encourage you to conduct your own independent research.

Please view our advertiser disclosure to learn more about our content, how we are compensated, and what to expect if you submit a request for information form.

To get in contact with us for updates or anything else, please email here: [email protected] .

Writers love to write about writing. So, it's our genuine pleasure to help introduce new and aspiring authors to the craft of creative writing and offer the guidance they need to get started down the path of self-expression–and a fulfilling career in writing.

And so we embarked on a bit of a trip of our own, setting out to create something that could serve as a useful companion to writing students at all stages of their own journeys of growth and discovery. We wanted to put together something that would be as much a resource for the Gen-Z poet who's finally gathered the courage to invite criticism as it is for the grad student looking to polish their thesis.

That something we set out to create found a name somewhere along the way: CreativeWritingEDU.org.

Creative writing is the beating heart of all forms of written English communication.

Our Contributors

Haley boyce.

Haley is a graduate of Harvard University with a master’s in creative writing and a bachelor’s in English Literature from San Francisco State University. When she is not writing… Read more!

Jennifer Williams

Jennifer is a freelance writer with more than a decade of experience covering topics like higher education, healthcare, and writing. She has a bachelor’s degree in… Read more!

Alex Dorian

An avid writer, Alex has been working in the industry for over five years. Specializing in content marketing, he enjoys writing about technical subjects such as plumbing, gasfitting , information … Read more!

Catherine Dorian

Catherine is a lifelong writer and seven-year educator. Catherine loves to teach for the same reason she loves to write; both require that we constantly dispute our ideas, question possibilities…  Read more!

Rebecca Turley

Rebecca is a full-time writer and editor with a BA in Journalism and Communications. Rebecca has built her freelancing career on editing for a national book publisher… Read more!

Scott Wilson

Scott Wilson is a creative writer today only courtesy of the skilled ministrations of the Department of English at the University of Washington, which awarded him a… Read more!

Creative Writer Education Requirements

The educational requirements for a creative writer are primarily a bachelor's degree in a related field, such as English, Communication, Writing, Journalism, or Photography. According to Dr. Christy Mesaros-Winckles Ph.D. , Associate Professor & Department Chair at Adrian College, "ongoing education is crucial as content knowledge and creativity will increasingly become what differentiates content written by AI from that written by a human being." Therefore, staying up-to-date on trends and developments in the industry is essential for a creative writer's career advancement.

What education do you need to become a creative writer?

What degree do you need to be a creative writer.

The most common degree for creative writers is bachelor's degree, with 73% of creative writers earning that degree. The second and third most common degree levels are associate degree degree at 10% and associate degree degree at 9%.

• Bachelor's , 73%
• Associate , 10%
• Master's , 9%
• High School Diploma , 5%
• Other Degrees , 3%

What should I major in to become a creative writer?

According to Dr. Adam Davis , Professor of English at Truman State University, "An English degree isn't a career credential; graduates tend to teaching, writing/editing/publishing, but also get hired into a wide variety of firms that have use for people who can think about texts and what they mean and make persuasive cases for how to understand a given fact pattern." Therefore, the best college majors for a creative writer are English, Communication, Writing, or Journalism.

• English , 20%
• Communication , 17%
• Writing , 10%
• Journalism , 9%
• Other Majors , 44%

Most common colleges for creative writers

Creative writers often get their degrees at University of Iowa, Eastern Michigan University, and University of Central Florida. Here are the most common colleges for creative writers in the US based on their resumes.

Best majors for creative writers

Best colleges for creative writers.

The top colleges for creative writers include Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Northwestern University. These institutions matter for aspiring creative writers as they offer high admissions and retention rates, strong earning potential for graduates, a high ratio of working students, and manageable costs and debt.

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

2. Harvard University

3. Northwestern University

Evanston, IL • Private

4. Columbia University in the City of New York

New York, NY • Private

5. University of California, Berkeley

Berkeley, CA • Private

6. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC • Private

7. California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo

San Luis Obispo, CA • Private

8. University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA • Private

9. Emory University

Atlanta, GA • Private

10. University of Texas at Austin

Austin, TX • Private

20 best online courses for creative writers

1. COMPLETE Creative Writing - All Genres - THE FULL COURSE!

Learn to write engaging Fiction, Poetry, Drama, & Creative Non-Fiction and become the successful writer you want to be...

2. Creativity Course by a Creativity Coach Art & Innovation

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3. Writing Tools & Hacks: Copywriting/Blogging/Content Writing

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4. Copywriting Secrets: Become a Content Writing Expert

Discover secret copywriting power words and phrases proven to sell & persuade. Become a content writing expert...

5. Adobe Creative Cloud Ultimate Guide

Adobe Creative Cloud Ultimate A-Z Guide. Go From Basic to Advanced with Creative Cloud and 10 Projects From Scratch...

6. Creative Writing For Beginners - Writing Creative Prose

Creative Writing For Beginners : Beginners Creative Writing Tips : Creative Writing : Writing Creative Prose - Beginners...

7. Certification in Editing and Proofreading - Masterclass

A comprehensive course for business / creative writing, copywriting, email writing, content writing, blogging etc...

8. Copywriting: Persuasive Writing Ft. Two Forbes Writers

Forbes Contributors Renee Sylvestre-Williams & Matthew Rolnick offer a Comprehensive Guide to Persuasive Copywriting...

9. 365 Days of Creativity

A totally new learning experience that will teach you 365 creative skills...

10. Best of Copywriting & SEO: Content, Copywriting & SEO Course

Learn SEO, Content Marketing & Copywriting FAST & FUN. Enjoy Quizzes & Animated Videos. Download Professional Templates...

11. Viral Blogging 101: Blogging & Content Writing Masterclass

Step-by-step blogging & content writing guide. Go from blank page to viral blog post. Become a blog writing pro...

12. Become a Freelance Content Writer - Get Paid to Write Online

Learn everything you need to know about becoming a freelance writer - Work from home!...

13. The Complete AI-Powered Copywriting Course & ChatGPT Course

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14. Write to Ignite - Master the Art of Sales Copy & Copywriting

Writing sales copy is critical to content marketing/writing. Learn copywriting today and write copy that gets the click...

15. Fiction for Young Writers (Writing Mastery)

A fun, interactive workshop to help young writers unlock their creativity, improve their craft, and write better stories...

16. Best of Content Marketing, SEO & Copywriting + 23 Templates

Content Marketing, SEO & Copywriting Course filled With Animated Videos, Quizzes, Assignments & 23 Copywriting Templates...

17. Copywriting: Master Content Writing & Copy Writing in 2023

Copy Writing that Sells: Social Media, Email Marketing, Websites & Landing Pages, Content Writing, Freelance Copywriter...

18. Copywriting for Content and Udemy Course Creators Unofficial

Content Writing, Copy Editing, Proofreading and Copy Writing - Freelance Writing for Copywriting and Sales...

19. Creative Thinking Exercises: Improve Your Creative Thinking

Creative exercises to boost your creativity and brainstorm new ideas with design thinking, writing & drawing exercises...

20. Copywriting & SEO for Beginners: Complete Copywriting Course

Enjoy SEO & Copywriting Animated Videos & Interactive Quizzes. Make Learning Fun. Use our Resource. Make your Life Easy...

Top 10 most affordable universities for creative writers

The most affordable schools for creative writers are Baruch College of the City University of New York, university of florida, and california state university - long beach.

If the best universities for creative writers are out of your price range, check out these affordable schools. After factoring in in-state tuition and fees, the average cost of attendance, admissions rate, average net price, and mean earnings after six years, we found that these are the most affordable schools for creative writers.

1. Baruch College of the City University of New York

Cost of Attendance

2. University of Florida

Gainesville, FL • Private

3. California State University - Long Beach

Long Beach, CA • Private

4. Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

Brooklyn, NY • Private

5. Brigham Young University

Provo, UT • Private

6. California State University - Los Angeles

7. Hunter College of the City University of New York

8. University of South Florida

Tampa, FL • Private

9. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

10. California State University - Northridge

Northridge, CA • Private

Top 10 hardest universities to get into for creative writers

The hardest universities for creative writers to get into are Northwestern University, Harvard University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Some great schools for creative writers are hard to get into, but they also set your career up for greater success. The list below shows the most challenging universities to get into for creative writers based on an institution's admissions rates, average SAT scores accepted, median ACT scores accepted, and mean earnings of students six years after admission.

1. Northwestern University

Admissions Rate

SAT Average

3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

5. Northeastern University

Boston, MA • Private

6. Boston University

7. emory university.

8. New York University

9. university of southern california, 10. university of california, berkeley, top 10 easy-to-apply-to universities for creative writers.

The easiest schools for creative writers to get into are Notre Dame de Namur University, mount saint mary's university, and rochester university.

Some schools are much easier to get into. If you want to start your career as a creative writer without much hassle, check out the list of schools where you will be accepted in no time. We compiled admissions rates, average SAT scores, average ACT scores, and average salary of students six years after graduation to uncover which were the easiest schools to get into for creative writers.

1. Notre Dame de Namur University

Belmont, CA • Private

2. Mount Saint Mary's University

3. rochester university.

Rochester Hills, MI • Private

4. Centenary University

Hackettstown, NJ • Private

5. La Roche College

Pittsburgh, PA • Private

6. University of the Incarnate Word

San Antonio, TX • Private

7. Saint Joseph's College of Maine

Standish, ME • Private

8. Kean University

Union, NJ • Private

9. San Francisco State University

San Francisco, CA • Private

10. Holy Names University

Oakland, CA • Private

Average creative writer salary by education level

According to our data, creative writers with a Doctorate degree earn the highest average salary, at $83,525 annually. Creative writers with a Master's degree earn an average annual salary of $77,477.

Creative Writer Education FAQs

What job can you get with a creative writing degree, what is the best college for creative writers, search for creative writer jobs.

Updated April 5, 2024

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

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(Major Code: 15071) (SIMS Code: 112121)

Admission to the Degree Curriculum

STUDENTS WILL BE ADMITTED TO THE M.F.A. IN CREATIVE WRITING ONLY IN THE FALL SEMESTER AND COMPLETE APPLICATIONS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN FEBRUARY 1.

In addition to meeting the general requirements for admission to San Diego State University with classified graduate standing, as described in Admission and Registration   , a student must satisfy the following requirements before being recommended for classified graduate standing.

The applicant must possess a baccalaureate degree in creative writing, or in English with a focus in creative writing, or an approved affiliated field, with a grade point average of not less than 3.0 overall in the last 60 units of study attempted, with a 3.25 undergraduate grade point average in the major, and a 3.5 average in those courses considered prerequisite for the M.F.A. focus the student elects.

If deficient, the applicant must complete undergraduate requirements commensurate with the proposed focus in the M.F.A. program.

The applicant normally must achieve a minimum score of 300 on the Graduate Record Examination, with a minimum of 156 on the verbal section.

Students who submit especially compelling samples of creative work, but who have not met certain criteria or who demonstrate deficiencies in undergraduate preparation or basic skill development may be granted conditional classified admission to the program. The graduate adviser shall specify the conditions for such admission with the proviso that any prerequisite coursework assigned must be completed with a minimum grade point average of 3.0 and no grade less than a B-.

A student holding an M.A. degree in English from San Diego State University, or any other acceptable accredited institution of higher learning, must formally apply for admission to the M.F.A. program. Applicants holding an M.A. or pursuing an M.F.A. may transfer up to 18 units of certified graduate credit from an accredited institution upon review and recommendation by the M.F.A. graduate adviser and the approval of the dean of the College of Graduate Studies. Students unable to satisfy the requirements for the M.F.A. degree will not automatically be considered for an M.A. degree.

Students already accepted into the M.F.A. program at San Diego State University who request a change of focus (poetry or fiction) at a later date will be required to notify the M.F.A. graduate adviser and reapply to the creative writing committee.

Advancement to Candidacy

All students must meet the general requirements for advancement to candidacy as described in Requirements for Master’s Degrees   . Candidates for the M.F.A. degree must have completed a minimum of 34 units within their official program of study, including transfer credit, with a minimum grade point average of 3.25 and have no grade less than B-. Students will be permitted to repeat only one course to achieve these levels. After a student has filed an official program of study and advanced to candidacy, the student must enroll in ECL 797    and ECL 799A    if pursuing thesis option (Plan A) or must enroll in six units of manuscript preparation (English 791) if pursuing manuscript option (Plan B).

If the student chooses to pursue thesis option ( ECL 797    and ECL 799A   ) instead of enrolling in six units of manuscript preparation (English 791), the student is required to have the approval of the M.F.A. graduate adviser. The M.F.A. creative writing committee must have approved a thesis topic and must recommend the appointment of a thesis adviser from the student’s area of focus (fiction or poetry). After advancement to candidacy, the student must enroll in and complete ECL 797    and ECL 799A    if pursuing Plan A or six units of English 791 if pursuing Plan B.

In addition, the M.F.A. graduate committee must have recommended appointment of a thesis adviser from the student’s area of focus (poetry, fiction) and the creative writing committee must have approved a thesis topic. Applicants for advancement should submit a portfolio of their creative work to the creative writing committee for a recommendation for advancement. Aspects to be reviewed include artistic achievement, ability to function in situations that writers and teachers usually encounter, and demonstration of skills in the focus area.

After advancement to candidacy, a student must enroll in and complete a minimum of 24 units from the official program to include ECL 797    and ECL 799A   .

Specific Requirements

In addition to meeting the requirements for classified graduate standing, candidates for the M.F.A. in creative writing must complete a 54-unit graduate program, 39 of which must be in courses numbered 600 and above as follows:

Creative Writing Research Focus

Student to select one 24-unit research focus as follows:

• ECL 750F - M.F.A. Seminar: Fiction Writing Units: 3 (18)
• Six units in another genre of creative writing
• ECL 750P - M.F.A. Seminar: Poetry Writing Units: 3 (18)

Literature Research

An 18-unit literature research component divided as follows:

Three Units Selected From the Following

• ECL 630 - Form and Theory of Poetry Units: 3
• ECL 631 - Form and Theory of Fiction Units: 3

Nine Units in American, British, or Comparative Literature

Nine units in American, British, or comparative literature, or an appropriate modern language literature selected with the approval of the M.F.A. adviser.

Six Units Selected From the Following

• ECL 700 - Seminar: A Major Author or Authors Units: 3
• ECL 724 - Seminar: Issues in British Literature Units: 3
• ECL 725 - Seminar: Issues in Literature of the United States Units: 3
• ECL 726 - Seminar: Issues in Comparative Literature Units: 3
• ECL 727 - Seminar: Issues in Children’s Literature Units: 3
• ECL 784 - Seminar: Creative Non-Fiction Units: 3
• ECL 796 - Internship Units: 3
• ECL 798 - Special Study Units: 1-3 (3) with consent of instructor But not both.

Six Units of Electives

Six units of electives selected with consent of adviser.

Six units in preparation of the thesis; a book-length creative work. Select A. Thesis or B. Manuscript:

• ECL 797 - Thesis Research Units: 3
• ECL 799A - Thesis Units: 3
• ECL 791A - Seminar in M.F.A. Manuscript: Poetry Units: 3
• ECL 791B - Seminar in M.F.A. Manuscript: Fiction Units: 3

Introduction to Creative Writing

Course description.

Introduces the craft and practice of creative writing. Engages with both contemporary and classic authors within the primary genres of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. May also include exploration of other genres such as drama, screenwriting, digital storytelling, film, and performance genres. Develops use of craft elements discussed in class to compose original work in at least two genres. Covers revision practices for voice and purpose. Audit Available.

Course Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: 

• Identify the basic craft elements of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction writing. 
• Read critically to analyze poetry, fiction, essays, and other written works. 
• Write original poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction works. 
• Participate in workshop method of critiquing creative writing. 
• Revise works within the creative writing process.

Suggested Outcome Assessment Strategies

The determination of assessment strategies is generally left to the discretion of the instructor. Here are some strategies that you might consider when designing your course: writings (journals, self-reflections, pre writing exercises, essays), quizzes, tests, midterm and final exams, group projects, presentations (in person, videos, etc), self-assessments, experimentations, lab reports, peer critiques, responses (to texts, podcasts, videos, films, etc), student generated questions, Escape Room, interviews, and/or portfolios. 

Department suggestions: Original poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction works, peer workshop, written analysis of creative texts.

Course Activities and Design

The determination of teaching strategies used in the delivery of outcomes is generally left to the discretion of the instructor. Here are some strategies that you might consider when designing your course: lecture, small group/forum discussion, flipped classroom, dyads, oral presentation, role play, simulation scenarios, group projects, service learning projects, hands-on lab, peer review/workshops, cooperative learning (jigsaw, fishbowl), inquiry based instruction, differentiated instruction (learning centers), graphic organizers, etc.

Course Content

Outcome #1: identify the basic crat elements of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction writing..

• point of view
• symbolism/allegory
• figurative language
• rhyme scheme
• speaker vs poet
• basic poetic forms (i.e. sonnet, haiky, villanelle, sestia, acrostic, ballad, ode, free verse, limerick, etc.)

Outcome #2: Read critically to analyze poetry, fiction, and essays.

• identiry genre
• identify main idea/point/purpose
• describe structure
• impacts of author choices
• annotating a text
• making claims
• summary vs analysis
• in class workshop
• instruction in constructive feedback (both written and verbal)
• crafting question as feedback

Outcome #3: Write original poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction work.

• Brainstorming
• writing journal 
• acrostic prompts
• hermit crab/mimic forms
• written description of images
• timed freewriting
• at least one fiction draft
• 2-5 poem drafts
• at least one creative nonfiction draft

Outcome #4: Participate in workshop method of critiquing creative writing.

• set community standards for in class workshop
• written drafts submitted in advance
• instruction on constructive and polite feeback
• guided workshop process
• both verbal and written feedback among peers

Outcome #5: Revise works within the creative writing process.

• reverse outlines
• cut & amp; rearrange
• scan and highlight
• revision checklists
• diction/word choice
• consistent point of view
• shifts in verb tense
• sentence/line variety
• paragraph breakdown
• integrate insights from workshop process in revision work
• integrate insights from readings in revision work
• write self-assessment of revision process

Suggested Texts and Materials

• OER Text:  Write or Left: An OER Textbook for Creative Writing Classes. Compiled and written by Sybil Priebe, an Associate Professor at the North Dakota State College of Science.
• OER Text:  the anti-textbook of writing (remixed). By Sybil Priebe and students.
• OER Text:  Introduction to Creative Writing. Linda Frances Lein, Alexandria Technical and Community College – Distance Minnesota
• OER Text:  Creative Writing, Creative Process. Matthew Cheney, Plymouth State University

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Education Articles & More

How creative writing can increase students’ resilience, students can find strength and community in sharing their stories through writing..

Many of my seventh-grade students do not arrive at school ready to learn. Their families often face financial hardship and live in cramped quarters, which makes it difficult to focus on homework. The responsibility for cooking and taking care of younger siblings while parents work often falls on these twelve year olds’ small shoulders. Domestic violence and abuse are also not uncommon.

To help traumatized students overcome their personal and academic challenges, one of our first jobs as teachers is to build a sense of community. We need to communicate that we care and that we welcome them into the classroom just as they are. One of the best ways I’ve found to connect with my students, while also nurturing their reading and writing skills, is through creative writing.

For the past three years, I’ve invited students in my English Language Development (ELD) classes to observe their thoughts, sit with their emotions, and offer themselves and each other compassion through writing and sharing about their struggles. Creating a safe, respectful environment in which students’ stories matter invites the disengaged, the hopeless, and the numb to open up. Students realize that nobody is perfect and nobody’s life is perfect. In this kind of classroom community, they can take the necessary risks in order to learn, and they become more resilient when they stumble.

Fostering a growth mindset

One of the ways students can boost their academic performance and develop resilience is by building a growth mindset. Carol Dweck, Stanford University professor of psychology and author of the book Mindset , explains that people with a growth mindset focus on learning from mistakes and welcoming challenges rather than thinking they’re doomed to be dumb or unskillful. A growth mindset goes hand in hand with self-compassion: recognizing that everyone struggles and treating ourselves with kindness when we trip up.

One exercise I find very useful is to have students write a story about a time when they persevered when faced with a challenge—in class, sports, or a relationship. Some of the themes students explore include finally solving math problems, learning how to defend themselves, or having difficult conversations with parents.

I primed the pump by telling my students about something I struggled with—feeling left behind in staff meetings as my colleagues clicked their way through various computer applications. I confided that PowerPoint and Google Slides—tools (one might assume) that any teacher worth a paperweight has mastered—still eluded me. By admitting my deficiency to my students, asking for their help, and choosing to see the opportunity to remedy it every day in the classroom, I aimed to level the playing field with them. They may have been reading three or four grade levels behind, but they could slap a PowerPoint presentation together in their sleep.

For students, sharing their own stories of bravery, resilience, and determination brings these qualities to the forefront of their minds and helps solidify the belief that underlies a growth mindset: I can improve and grow . We know from research in neuroplasticity that when students take baby steps to achieve a goal and take pride in their accomplishments, they change their brains, growing new neural networks and fortifying existing ones. Neurons in the brain release the feel-good chemical dopamine, which plays a major role in motivating behavior toward rewards.

After writing about a few different personal topics, students choose one they want to publish on the bulletin boards at the back of the classroom. They learn to include the juicy details of their stories (who, what, when, where, why, and how), and they get help from their peers, who ask follow-up questions to prompt them to include more information. This peer editing builds their resilience in more ways than one—they make connections with each other by learning about each other’s lives, and they feel empowered by lending a hand.

In my experience, students are motivated to do this assignment because it helps them feel that their personal stories and emotions truly matter, despite how their other academics are going. One student named Alejandro chose to reflect on basketball and the persistence and time it took him to learn:

Hoops By Alejandro Gonzalez Being good takes time. One time my sister took me to a park and I saw people playing basketball. I noticed how good they were and decided I wanted to be like them. Still I told my sister that basketball looked hard and that I thought I couldn’t do it. She said,“You could do it if you tried. You’ll get the hang of it.” My dad bought me a backboard and hoop to play with. I was really happy, but the ball wasn’t making it in. Every time I got home from school, I would go straight to the backyard to play. I did that almost every day until little by little I was getting the hang of it. I also played with my friends. Every day after lunch we would meet at the basketball court to have a game. … I learned that you need to be patient and to practice a lot to get the hang of things. With a little bit of practice, patience, and hard work, anything is possible.

Originally, Alejandro wasn’t sure why he was in school and often lacked the motivation to learn. But writing about something he was passionate about and recalling the steps that led to his success reminded him of the determination and perseverance he had demonstrated in the past, nurturing a positive view of himself. It gave him a renewed sense of investment in learning English and eventually helped him succeed in his ELD class, as well.

Maintaining a hopeful outlook

Another way to build resilience in the face of external challenges is to shore up our inner reserves of hope —and I’ve found that poetry can serve as inspiration for this.

For the writing portion of the lesson, I invite students to “get inside” poems by replicating the underlying structure and trying their hand at writing their own verses. I create poem templates, where students fill in relevant blanks with their own ideas. 

One poem I like to share is “So Much Happiness” by Naomi Shihab Nye. Its lines “Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house / and now live over a quarry of noise and dust / cannot make you unhappy” remind us that, despite the unpleasant events that occur in our lives, it’s our choice whether to allow them to interfere with our happiness. The speaker, who “love[s] even the floor which needs to be swept, the soiled linens, and scratched records,” has a persistently sunny outlook.

It’s unrealistic for students who hear gunshots at night to be bubbling over with happiness the next morning. Still, the routine of the school day and the sense of community—jokes with friends, a shared bag of hot chips for breakfast, and a creative outlet—do bolster these kids. They have an unmistakable drive to keep going, a life force that may even burn brighter because they take nothing for granted—not even the breath in their bodies, life itself. 

Itzayana was one of those students who, due to the adversity in her life, seemed too old for her years. She rarely smiled and started the school year with a defiant approach to me and school in general, cursing frequently in the classroom. Itzayana’s version of “So Much Happiness” hinted at some of the challenges I had suspected she had in her home life:

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness. Even the fact that you once heard your family laughing and now hear them yelling at each other cannot make you unhappy. Everything has a life of its own, it too could wake up filled with possibilities of tamales and horchata and love even scrubbing the floor, washing dishes, and cleaning your room. Since there is no place large enough to contain so much happiness, help people in need, help your family, and take care of yourself.   —Itzayana C.

Her ending lines, “Since there is no place large enough to contain so much happiness, / help people in need, help your family, and take care of yourself,” showed her growing awareness of the need for self-care as she continued to support her family and others around her. This is a clear sign of her developing resilience.

Poetry is packed with emotion, and writing their own poems allows students to grapple with their own often-turbulent inner lives. One student commented on the process, saying, “By writing poems, I’ve learned to be calm and patient, especially when I get mad about something dumb.” Another student showed pride in having her writing published; she reflected, “I feel good because other kids can use it for calming down when they’re angry.”

To ease students into the creative process, sometimes we also write poems together as a class. We brainstorm lines to include, inviting the silly as well as the poignant and creating something that represents our community.

Practicing kindness

Besides offering my students new ways of thinking about themselves, I also invite them to take kind actions toward themselves and others.

In the music video for “Give a Little Love” by Noah and the Whale, one young African American boy—who witnesses bullying at school and neglect in his neighborhood —decides to take positive action and whitewash a wall of graffiti. Throughout the video, people witness others’ random acts of kindness, and then go on to do their own bit.

“My love is my whole being / And I’ve shared what I could,” the lyrics say—a reminder that our actions speak louder than our words and do have an incredible impact. The final refrain in the song—“Well if you are (what you love) / And you do (what you love) /...What you share with the world is what it keeps of you”—urges the students to contribute in a positive way to the classroom, the school campus, and their larger community.

After watching the video, I ask students to reflect upon what kind of community they would like to be part of and what makes them feel safe at school. They write their answers—for example, not being laughed at by their peers and being listened to—on Post-it notes. These notes are used to create classroom rules. This activity sends a message early on that we are co-creating our communal experience together. Students also write their own versions of the lyrics, reflecting on different things you can give and receive—like kindness, peace, love, and ice cream.

Reaping the benefits

To see how creative writing impacts students, I invite them to rate their resilience through a self-compassion survey at the start of the school year and again in the spring. Last year, two-thirds of students surveyed increased in self-compassion; Alejandro grew his self-compassion by 20 percent. The program seems to work at developing their reading and writing skills, as well: At the middle of the school year, 40 percent of my students moved up to the next level of ELD, compared to 20 percent the previous year. 

As a teacher, my goal is to meet students where they’re at and learn about their whole lives. Through creative writing activities, we create a community of compassionate and expressive learners who bear witness to the impact of trauma in each others’ experiences and together build resilience.

As a symbol of community and strength, I had a poster in my classroom of a boat at sea with hundreds of refugees standing shoulder to shoulder looking skyward. It’s a hauntingly beautiful image of our ability to risk it all for a better life, as many of my ELD students do. Recognizing our common humanity and being able to share about our struggles not only leads to some beautiful writing, but also some brave hearts.

About the Author

Laura Bean, M.F.A. , executive director of Mindful Literacy, consults with school communities to implement mindfulness and creative writing programs. She has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and presented a mindful writing workshop at Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth Conference in San Diego in 2016.

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Program Code: 233*/233B CIP Code: 23.0101

General Education Requirements (44 Hours)

• General Education Requirements  

Some general education requirements may be double-counted in the major with departmental approval. Please see your advisor for information.

Language Requirements (3 Hours)

Students are required to demonstrate intermediate-level proficiency in a language other than English. Intermediate-level proficiency is demonstrated by successful completion of a 4th-semester language course in one of the following:

• Intermediate Language Course II   * or
• Combined Intermediate Language Course   * or
• Higher level language courses     (A higher-level language course that requires one of the above listed courses as a prerequisite may also be used to fulfill the language requirement.)

Note: Beginning language course I & II or beginning combination language course and intermediate language course I are prerequisites for *intermediate level II course. Placement tests are designed for placement purposes only and a score on this test alone is not sufficient to demonstrate intermediate-level proficiency.

Language courses 1050 or 1060 may be used in General Education Liberal Studies Experience.

Major Requirements (39 Hours)

2.0 major GPA is required for graduation. Major GPA calculation will include all courses taken in the major discipline, plus any other courses under Major Requirements.

36 semester hours above the 2001 level; 24 semester hours must be at the 3000 level or above.  RC 1000     a prerequisite for all ENG & RC courses level 2001 and above.

Writing Courses (9 Hours)

At least three (but no more than five) of following : (+ course may be repeated for credit when content varies)

• ENG 3651 - Creative Writing: Poetry (3)
• ENG 3652 - Creative Writing: Prose (Fiction) (3)
• ENG 3661 - Advanced Poetry (3) +
• ENG 3662 - Advanced Fiction (3) +
• ENG 3663 - Advanced Creative Non-Fiction (3) +
• ENG 3670 - Playwriting (3) +
• THR 3670 - Playwriting (3) +
• ENG 3679 - Screenwriting (3)
• THR 3679 - Screenwriting (3)
• ENG 3680 - Literary Journalism (3)
• COM 3680 - Literary Journalism (3)
• ENG 4550 - Senior Seminar in Creative Writing (3) [CAP] +
• ENG 4815 - Distinguished Guest Seminar in Creative Writing (3) [CAP] +

Literature Courses (3 Hours)

Choose at least one of the following genre courses:

• ENG 3720 - Studies in the Short Story (3)
• ENG 3740 - Studies in Poetry (3)
• ENG 3750 - Studies in Drama (3)

Grammar (3 Hours)

• ENG 3300 - Applied Grammar (3)

Writing in the Discipline (3 Hours)

• ENG 3000 - Approaches to Literary Studies (3) [WID]

Senior Capstone (3 Hours)

Choose 3 hours. 

• ENG 4510 - Senior Honors Thesis (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4550 - Senior Seminar in Creative Writing (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4571 - Capstone in American Indian Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4581 - Capstone in African-American Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4586 - Capstone in Ethnic American Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4592 - Capstone in Topics in World Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4711 - Capstone in Women and Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4721 - Capstone in Appalachian Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4726 - Capstone in Southern Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4731 - Capstone in the Novel (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4761 - Capstone in Literary Criticism (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4771 - Capstone in Early American Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4781 - Capstone in American Literature: 1783-1865 (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4786 - Capstone in American Literature: 1865-1914 (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4791 - Capstone in Modern American Literature: 1914-1960 (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4796 - Capstone in Contemporary American Literature: 1960-present (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4811 - Capstone in Folklore (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4815 - Distinguished Guest Seminar in Creative Writing (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4821 - Capstone in Medieval British Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4826 - Capstone in Literature of the Middle Ages (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4841 - Capstone in Shakespeare: Later Works (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4851 - Capstone in Renaissance Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4861 - Capstone in Restoration and Eighteenth Century Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4871 - Capstone in British Romantic Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4881 - Capstone in Victorian Literature (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4891 - Capstone in Twentieth Century British Literature: 1900-1945 (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4896 - Capstone in Twentieth Century British Literature: 1945-present (3) [CAP]
• ENG 4899 - Capstone in Topics in Irish Literature (3) [CAP]

Foundation in Literacy History (18 Hours)

Honors courses are indicated by section number - 410 on the Schedule of Courses .

British Literature - Choose one (3 Hours)

• ENG 2010 - British Literature to 1789 (3)
• ENG 2020 - British Literature since 1789 (3)

World Literature - Choose one (3 Hours)

• ENG 2030 - World Literature to 1650 (3) [GenEd: LS]
• ENG 2040 - World Literature since 1650 (3) [GenEd: LS]

American Literature - Choose one (3 Hours)

• ENG 2310 - American Literature to 1865 (3)
• ENG 2320 - American Literature since 1865 (3)

4000 Level Literature Courses - Choose Two (6 Hours)

4000 level english elective - (3 hours).

If ENG 4550    taken to meet Writing Course above (not just Capstone) , then one 3000 level or higher course can be taken to meet this requirement

Minor Required (12-21 Hours)

• Minimum of 9 semester hours of courses taken to fulfill minor requirements must be courses offered by Appalachian

Electives (13-22 Hours)

Taken to total 120 hours for the degree

Total Required (120 Hours)

• Testimonials
• Writer’s Diagnostic
• Time Management Questionnaire
• Resources by State
• Beta Reading, Critique & Workshops
• Publication Assistance
• Editing & Proofreading
• Ghostwriting
• Request Services

Idaho Resources for Writers

Here you’ll find a collection of resources for writers in Idaho, from conferences to local critique groups to literary magazines. If you’re looking for writing groups near you, writing workshops near you, creative writing classes near you, or simply a place to hang out with writers or submit your work, these are some Idaho writing organizations you might want to check out:

WriteByNight

For more than a decade, WriteByNight has helped writers in Idaho and beyond achieve their literary goals. And we want you to be next! Claim your free consultation  to learn about WBN’s customizable  one-on-one writers’ services , including:

Book Coaching :  If you’re writing a book and want some help along the way.

Manuscript Critique : If you’ve written a book and want a beta read, critique, or writing workshop.

Editing/Proofreading : If you’ve written a book and want someone to polish it for you.

Publication Assistance : If you’ve written a book and want help finding an agent or publisher.

Blue Sage Writers of Idaho

A writing group in southeastern Idaho that meets once a month to critique works-in-progress and share industry news.

The Cabin offers programs year-round, including youth and adult education, a Readings and Conversations series that brings the world to Boise one author at a time, and publication opportunities for all ages.

Idaho Commission on the Arts

A state organization that offers grants and awards to writers and elects annual writers-in-residence.

Idaho Writers Guild

A community-based literary arts organization that promotes education and literacy by hosting public programs and projects, including author readings, writing workshops on a broad spectrum of topics, writing contests, and conferences of interest to writers and readers of all genres.

Lost Horse Press

A nonprofit, independent press that publishes poetry titles of high literary merit and makes available fine contemporary literature through cultural, educational and publishing programs and activities.

Spokane Authors and Self-Publishers

Membership is open to anyone, published or unpublished, who is interested in self-publishing, including those from nearby Idaho.

Help us add to this list, Idahoans! Do you know of writing groups near you, writing workshops near you, creative writing classes near you, or an Idaho literary journal we should be aware of? Let us know here

I love WBN's blog. I learn all sorts of good things about writing and publishing, but most importantly, I've learned that I am not alone out here. Maureen Fisher-Fleming Armstrong, BC, Canada

Client Credits

WBN has helped writers publish with:

Simon & Schuster Little, Brown & Co. St. Martin’s Press Amazon Slate Threepenny Review Huffington Post

WriteByNight, LLC 235 West End Avenue, 6H New York, New York 10023

646.374.8174 [email protected]

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Ringling college, fla., launches ai certificate for creative majors, whether they major in creative writing, fine arts, film or virtual reality development, students at the ringling college of art and design can add an ai certificate and develop a project portfolio for job searches..

The AI undergraduate certificate program is a proactive response to the rapid technological changes reshaping the creative landscape. We want our students to be equipped to shape the future of art with AI, not simply be shaped by it.

My Ivy Education, Davidson Alum Krystle DiCristofalo Offering Creative Writing Classes This Summer

This summer, Davidson alum-run and NACAC-certified educational consulting firm My Ivy Education will be bringing back popular writing courses, including “How to Write Successful Essays at the Stanford Online High School (and Other Private Schools),” which many Davidson Young Scholars have attended and loved.

About the course: Are you a student who attends or will attend the Stanford Online High School (SOHS), or another school with a notoriously rigorous English and writing program? We’re launching the perfect summer class to prepare you to get solid A’s from Day 1, taught by My Ivy Education co-founder Krystle DiCristofalo. We’ve noticed a pattern: whether you’ve been a student for years or you’ll be starting in the fall, English classes at private schools like SOHS, Philips Exeter, Harker, Harvard-Westlake, and more are hard. That’s why we’ve designed this 6-week summer class to cover not just the basics of essay-writing, but specifically how to write at the college level – exactly what top high schools demand. Krystle is sharing all the secrets she had to learn to ace SOHS essays in English, Core, History, and more. From explaining the philosophical concepts that underpin the literature students will read, to the perfect framework to structure a winning essay, to writing assignments readying students for what they’ll submit during the school year, this utterly unique course will give you all the tools you need to succeed.

About the instructor: Krystle DiCristofalo is a Rhodes Scholar nominee, author, and professional writing mentor and college counselor. She graduated cum laude from Columbia University in three years instead of four with a degree in Creative Writing and Business Management, and was shortlisted for nomination for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize (top 12 English-language stories of the year internationally) by the Adroit Journal. She has taught Creative Writing at Princeton University and Columbia University Splash events and has coached multiple Davidson Fellows Scholarship Winners in Literature, as well as 50% of the 2021 Presidential Scholars in the Arts in Writing. She has also helped many students become National YoungArts finalists and National Student Poets, and to get accepted to the prestigious Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, and Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program.

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Home Numéros 59 1 - Tisser les liens : voyager, e... 36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Teac...

36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Teaching Travel Writing and Mindfulness in the Tradition of Hokusai and Thoreau

L'auteur américain Henry David Thoreau est un écrivain du voyage qui a rarement quitté sa ville natale de Concorde, Massachusetts, où il a vécu de 1817 à 1862. Son approche du "voyage" consiste à accorder une profonde attention à son environnement ordinaire et à voir le monde à partir de perspectives multiples, comme il l'explique avec subtilité dans Walden (1854). Inspiré par Thoreau et par la célèbre série de gravures du peintre d'estampes japonais Katsushika Hokusai, intitulée 36 vues du Mt. Fuji (1830-32), j'ai fait un cours sur "L'écriture thoreauvienne du voyage" à l'Université de l'Idaho, que j'appelle 36 vues des montagnes de Moscow: ou, Faire un grand voyage — l'esprit et le carnet ouvert — dans un petit lieu . Cet article explore la philosophie et les stratégies pédagogiques de ce cours, qui tente de partager avec les étudiants les vertus d'un regard neuf sur le monde, avec les yeux vraiment ouverts, avec le regard d'un voyageur, en "faisant un grand voyage" à Moscow, Idaho. Les étudiants affinent aussi leurs compétences d'écriture et apprennent les traditions littéraires et artistiques associées au voyage et au sens du lieu.

Index terms

Keywords: , designing a writing class to foster engagement.

1 The signs at the edge of town say, "Entering Moscow, Idaho. Population 25,060." This is a small hamlet in the midst of a sea of rolling hills, where farmers grow varieties of wheat, lentils, peas, and garbanzo beans, irrigated by natural rainfall. Although the town of Moscow has a somewhat cosmopolitan feel because of the presence of the University of Idaho (with its 13,000 students and a few thousand faculty and staff members), elegant restaurants, several bookstores and music stores, and a patchwork of artsy coffee shops on Main Street, the entire mini-metropolis has only about a dozen traffic lights and a single high school. As a professor of creative writing and the environmental humanities at the university, I have long been interested in finding ways to give special focuses to my writing and literature classes that will help my students think about the circumstances of their own lives and find not only academic meaning but personal significance in our subjects. I have recently taught graduate writing workshops on such themes as "The Body" and "Crisis," but when I was given the opportunity recently to teach an undergraduate writing class on Personal and Exploratory Writing, I decided to choose a focus that would bring me—and my students—back to one of the writers who has long been of central interest to me: Henry David Thoreau.

2 One of the courses I have routinely taught during the past six years is Environmental Writing, an undergraduate class that I offer as part of the university's Semester in the Wild Program, a unique undergraduate opportunity that sends a small group of students to study five courses (Ecology, Environmental History, Environmental Writing, Outdoor Leadership and Wilderness Survival, and Wilderness Management and Policy) at a remote research station located in the middle of the largest wilderness area (the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness) in the United States south of Alaska. In "Teaching with Wolves," a recent article about the Semester in the Wild Program, I explained that my goal in the Environmental Writing class is to help the students "synthesize their experience in the wilderness with the content of the various classes" and "to think ahead to their professional lives and their lives as engaged citizens, for which critical thinking and communication skills are so important" (325). A foundational text for the Environmental Writing class is a selection from Thoreau's personal journal, specifically the entries he made October 1-20, 1853, which I collected in the 1993 writing textbook Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers . I ask the students in the Semester in the Wild Program to deeply immerse themselves in Thoreau's precise and colorful descriptions of the physical world that is immediately present to him and, in turn, to engage with their immediate encounters with the world in their wilderness location. Thoreau's entries read like this:

Oct. 4. The maples are reddening, and birches yellowing. The mouse-ear in the shade in the middle of the day, so hoary, looks as if the frost still lay on it. Well it wears the frost. Bumblebees are on the Aster undulates , and gnats are dancing in the air. Oct. 5. The howling of the wind about the house just before a storm to-night sounds extremely like a loon on the pond. How fit! Oct. 6 and 7. Windy. Elms bare. (372)

3 In thinking ahead to my class on Personal and Exploratory Writing, which would be offered on the main campus of the University of Idaho in the fall semester of 2018, I wanted to find a topic that would instill in my students the Thoreauvian spirit of visceral engagement with the world, engagement on the physical, emotional, and philosophical levels, while still allowing my students to remain in the city and live their regular lives as students. It occurred to me that part of what makes Thoreau's journal, which he maintained almost daily from 1837 (when he was twenty years old) to 1861 (just a year before his death), such a rich and elegant work is his sense of being a traveler, even when not traveling geographically.

Traveling a Good Deal in Moscow

I have traveled a good deal in Concord…. --Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854; 4)

4 For Thoreau, one did not need to travel a substantial physical distance in order to be a traveler, in order to bring a traveler's frame of mind to daily experience. His most famous book, Walden , is well known as an account of the author's ideas and daily experiments in simple living during the two years, two months, and two days (July 4, 1845, to September 6, 1847) he spent inhabiting a simple wooden house that he built on the shore of Walden Pond, a small lake to the west of Boston, Massachusetts. Walden Pond is not a remote location—it is not out in the wilderness. It is on the edge of a small village, much like Moscow, Idaho. The concept of "traveling a good deal in Concord" is a kind of philosophical and psychological riddle. What does it mean to travel extensively in such a small place? The answer to this question is meaningful not only to teachers hoping to design writing classes in the spirit of Thoreau but to all who are interested in travel as an experience and in the literary genre of travel writing.

5 Much of Walden is an exercise in deftly establishing a playful and intellectually challenging system of synonyms, an array of words—"economy," "deliberateness," "simplicity," "dawn," "awakening," "higher laws," etc.—that all add up to powerful probing of what it means to live a mindful and attentive life in the world. "Travel" serves as a key, if subtle, metaphor for the mindful life—it is a metaphor and also, in a sense, a clue: if we can achieve the traveler's perspective without going far afield, then we might accomplish a kind of enlightenment. Thoreau's interest in mindfulness becomes clear in chapter two of Walden , "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," in which he writes, "Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?" The latter question implies the author's feeling that he is himself merely evolving as an awakened individual, not yet fully awake, or mindful, in his efforts to live "a poetic or divine life" (90). Thoreau proceeds to assert that "We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn…. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor" (90). Just what this endeavor might be is not immediately spelled out in the text, but the author does quickly point out the value of focusing on only a few activities or ideas at a time, so as not to let our lives be "frittered away by detail." He writes: "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; … and keep your accounts on your thumb nail" (91). The strong emphasis in the crucial second chapter of Walden is on the importance of waking up and living deliberately through a conscious effort to engage in particular activities that support such awakening. It occurs to me that "travel," or simply making one's way through town with the mindset of a traveler, could be one of these activities.

6 It is in the final chapter of the book, titled "Conclusion," that Thoreau makes clear the relationship between travel and living an attentive life. He begins the chapter by cataloguing the various physical locales throughout North America or around the world to which one might travel—Canada, Ohio, Colorado, and even Tierra del Fuego. But Thoreau states: "Our voyaging is only great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely. One hastens to Southern Africa to chase the giraffe; but surely that is not the game he would be after." What comes next is brief quotation from the seventeenth-century English poet William Habbington (but presented anonymously in Thoreau's text), which might be one of the most significant passages in the entire book:

Direct your eye sight inward, and you'll find A thousand regions in your mind Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be Expert in home-cosmography. (320)

7 This admonition to travel the mysterious territory of one's own mind and master the strange cosmos of the self is actually a challenge to the reader—and probably to the author himself—to focus on self-reflection and small-scale, local movement as if such activities were akin to exploration on a grand, planetary scale. What is really at issue here is not the physical distance of one's journey, but the mental flexibility of one's approach to the world, one's ability to look at the world with a fresh, estranged point of view. Soon after his discussion of the virtues of interior travel, Thoreau explains why he left his simple home at Walden Pond after a few years of experimental living there, writing, "It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves" (323). In other words, no matter what we're doing in life, we can fall into a "beaten track" if we're not careful, thus failing to stay "awake."

8 As I thought about my writing class at the University of Idaho, I wondered how I might design a series of readings and writing exercises for university students that would somehow emulate the Thoreauvian objective of achieving ultra-mindfulness in a local environment. One of the greatest challenges in designing such a class is the fact that it took Thoreau himself many years to develop an attentiveness to his environment and his own emotional rhythms and an efficiency of expression that would enable him to describe such travel-without-travel, and I would have only sixteen weeks to achieve this with my own students. The first task, I decided, was to invite my students into the essential philosophical stance of the class, and I did this by asking my students to read the opening chapter of Walden ("Economy") in which he talks about traveling "a good deal" in his small New England village as well as the second chapter and the conclusion, which reveal the author's enthusiasm (some might even say obsession ) for trying to achieve an awakened condition and which, in the end, suggest that waking up to the meaning of one's life in the world might be best accomplished by attempting the paradoxical feat of becoming "expert in home-cosmography." As I stated it among the objectives for my course titled 36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Or, Traveling a Good Deal—with Open Minds and Notebooks—in a Small Place , one of our goals together (along with practicing nonfiction writing skills and learning about the genre of travel writing) would be to "Cultivate a ‘Thoreauvian' way of appreciating the subtleties of the ordinary world."

Windy. Elms Bare.

9 For me, the elegance and heightened sensitivity of Thoreau's engagement with place is most movingly exemplified in his journal, especially in the 1850s after he's mastered the art of observation and nuanced, efficient description of specific natural phenomena and environmental conditions. His early entries in the journal are abstract mini-essays on such topics as truth, beauty, and "The Poet," but over time the journal notations become so immersed in the direct experience of the more-than-human world, in daily sensory experiences, that the pronoun "I" even drops out of many of these records. Lawrence Buell aptly describes this Thoreauvian mode of expression as "self-relinquishment" (156) in his 1995 book The Environmental Imagination , suggesting such writing "question[s] the authority of the superintending consciousness. As such, it opens up the prospect of a thoroughgoing perceptual breakthrough, suggesting the possibility of a more ecocentric state of being than most of us have dreamed of" (144-45). By the time Thoreau wrote "Windy. Elms bare" (372) as his single entry for October 6 and 7, 1853, he had entered what we might call an "ecocentric zone of consciousness" in his work, attaining the ability to channel his complex perceptions of season change (including meteorology and botany and even his own emotional state) into brief, evocative prose.

10 I certainly do not expect my students to be able to do such writing after only a brief introduction to the course and to Thoreau's own methods of journal writing, but after laying the foundation of the Thoreauvian philosophy of nearby travel and explaining to my students what I call the "building blocks of the personal essay" (description, narration, and exposition), I ask them to engage in a preliminary journal-writing exercise that involves preparing five journal entries, each "a paragraph or two in length," that offer detailed physical descriptions of ordinary phenomena from their lives (plants, birds, buildings, street signs, people, food, etc.), emphasizing shape, color, movement or change, shadow, and sometimes sound, smell, taste, and/or touch. The goal of the journal entries, I tell the students, is to begin to get them thinking about close observation, vivid descriptive language, and the potential to give their later essays in the class an effective texture by balancing more abstract information and ideas with evocative descriptive passages and storytelling.

11 I am currently teaching this class, and I am writing this article in early September, as we are entering the fourth week of the semester. The students have just completed the journal-writing exercise and are now preparing to write the first of five brief essays on different aspects of Moscow that will eventually be braided together, as discrete sections of the longer piece, into a full-scale literary essay about Moscow, Idaho, from the perspective of a traveler. For the journal exercise, my students wrote some rather remarkable descriptive statements, which I think bodes well for their upcoming work. One student, Elizabeth Isakson, wrote stunning journal descriptions of a cup of coffee, her own feet, a lemon, a basil leaf, and a patch of grass. For instance, she wrote:

Steaming hot liquid poured into a mug. No cream, just black. Yet it appears the same brown as excretion. The texture tells another story with meniscus that fades from clear to gold and again brown. The smell is intoxicating for those who are addicted. Sweetness fills the nostrils; bitterness rushes over the tongue. The contrast somehow complements itself. Earthy undertones flower up, yet this beverage is much more satisfying than dirt. When the mug runs dry, specks of dark grounds remain swimming in the sunken meniscus. Steam no longer rises because energy has found a new home.

12 For the grassy lawn, she wrote:

Calico with shades of green, the grass is yellowing. Once vibrant, it's now speckled with straw. Sticking out are tall, seeding dandelions. Still some dips in the ground have maintained thick, soft patches of green. The light dances along falling down from the trees above, creating a stained-glass appearance made from various green shades. The individual blades are stiff enough to stand erect, but they will yield to even slight forces of wind or pressure. Made from several long strands seemingly fused together, some blades fray at the end, appearing brittle. But they do not simply break off; they hold fast to the blade to which they belong.

13 The point of this journal writing is for the students to look closely enough at ordinary reality to feel estranged from it, as if they have never before encountered (or attempted to describe) a cup of coffee or a field of grass—or a lemon or a basil leaf or their own body. Thus, the Thoreauvian objective of practicing home-cosmography begins to take shape. The familiar becomes exotic, note-worthy, and strangely beautiful, just as it often does for the geographical travel writer, whose adventures occur far away from where she or he normally lives. Travel, in a sense, is an antidote to complacency, to over-familiarity. But the premise of my class in Thoreauvian travel writing is that a slight shift of perspective can overcome the complacency we might naturally feel in our home surroundings. To accomplish this we need a certain degree of disorientation. This is the next challenge for our class.

The Blessing of Being Lost

14 Most of us take great pains to "get oriented" and "know where we're going," whether this is while running our daily errands or when thinking about the essential trajectories of our lives. We're often instructed by anxious parents to develop a sense of purpose and a sense of direction, if only for the sake of basic safety. But the traveler operates according to a somewhat different set of priorities, perhaps, elevating adventure and insight above basic comfort and security, at least to some degree. This certainly seems to be the case for the Thoreauvian traveler, or for Thoreau himself. In Walden , he writes:

…not until we are completely lost, or turned round,--for a man needs only be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost,--do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. (171)

15 I could explicate this passage at length, but that's not really my purpose here. I read this as a celebration of salutary disorientation, of the potential to be lost in such a way as to deepen one's ability to pay attention to oneself and one's surroundings, natural and otherwise. If travel is to a great degree an experience uniquely capable of triggering attentiveness to our own physical and psychological condition, to other cultures and the minds and needs of other people, and to a million small details of our environment that we might take for granted at home but that accrue special significance when we're away, I would argue that much of this attentiveness is owed to the sense of being lost, even the fear of being lost, that often happens when we leave our normal habitat.

16 So in my class I try to help my students "get lost" in a positive way. Here in Moscow, the major local landmark is a place called Moscow Mountain, a forested ridge of land just north of town, running approximately twenty kilometers to the east of the city. Moscow "Mountain" does not really have a single, distinctive peak like a typical mountain—it is, as I say, more of a ridge than a pinnacle. When I began contemplating this class on Thoreauvian travel writing, the central concepts I had in mind were Thoreau's notion of traveling a good deal in Concord and also the idea of looking at a specific place from many different angles. The latter idea is not only Thoreauvian, but perhaps well captured in the eighteen-century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai's series of woodblock prints known as 36 Views of Mt. Fuji , which offers an array of different angles on the mountain itself and on other landscape features (lakes, the sea, forests, clouds, trees, wind) and human behavior which is represented in many of the prints, often with Mt. Fuji in the distant background or off to the side. In fact, I imagine Hokusai's approach to representing Mt. Fuji as so important to the concept of this travel writing class that I call the class "36 Views of Moscow Mountain," symbolizing the multiple approaches I'll be asking my students to take in contemplating and describing not only Moscow Mountain itself, but the culture and landscape and the essential experience of Moscow the town. The idea of using Hokusai's series of prints as a focal point of this class came to me, in part, from reading American studies scholar Cathy Davidson's 36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan , a memoir that offers sixteen short essays about different facets of her life as a visiting professor in that island nation.

17 The first of five brief essays my students will prepare for the class is what I'm calling a "Moscow Mountain descriptive essay," building upon the small descriptive journal entries they've written recently. In this case, though, I am asking the students to describe the shapes and colors of the Moscow Mountain ridge, while also telling a brief story or two about their observations of the mountain, either by visiting the mountain itself to take a walk or a bike ride or by explaining how they glimpse portions of the darkly forested ridge in the distance while walking around the University of Idaho campus or doing things in town. In preparation for the Moscow Mountain essays, we read several essays or book chapters that emphasize "organizing principles" in writing, often the use of particular landscape features, such as trees or mountains, as a literary focal point. For instance, in David Gessner's "Soaring with Castro," from his 2007 book Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond , he not only refers to La Gran Piedra (a small mountain in southeastern Cuba) as a narrative focal point, but to the osprey, or fish eagle, itself and its migratory journey as an organizing principle for his literary project (203). Likewise, in his essay "I Climb a Tree and Become Dissatisfied with My Lot," Chicago author Leonard Dubkin writes about his decision, as a newly fired journalist, to climb up a tree in Chicago's Lincoln Park to observe and listen to the birds that gather in the green branches in the evening, despite the fact that most adults would consider this a strange and inappropriate activity. We also looked at several of Hokusai's woodblock prints and analyzed these together in class, trying to determine how the mountain served as an organizing principle for each print or whether there were other key features of the prints—clouds, ocean waves, hats and pieces of paper floating in the wind, humans bent over in labor—that dominate the images, with Fuji looking on in the distance.

18 I asked my students to think of Hokusai's representations of Mt. Fuji as aesthetic models, or metaphors, for what they might try to do in their brief (2-3 pages) literary essays about Moscow Mountain. What I soon discovered was that many of my students, even students who have spent their entire lives in Moscow, either were not aware of Moscow Mountain at all or had never actually set foot on the mountain. So we spent half an hour during one class session, walking to a vantage point on the university campus, where I could point out where the mountain is and we could discuss how one might begin to write about such a landscape feature in a literary essay. Although I had thought of the essay describing the mountain as a way of encouraging the students to think about a familiar landscape as an orienting device, I quickly learned that this will be a rather challenging exercise for many of the students, as it will force them to think about an object or a place that is easily visible during their ordinary lives, but that they typically ignore. Paying attention to the mountain, the ridge, will compel them to reorient themselves in this city and think about a background landscape feature that they've been taking for granted until now. I think of this as an act of disorientation or being lost—a process of rethinking their own presence in this town that has a nearby mountain that most of them seldom think about. I believe Thoreau would consider this a good, healthy experience, a way of being present anew in a familiar place.

36 Views—Or, When You Invert Your Head

19 Another key aspect of Hokusai's visual project and Thoreau's literary project is the idea of changing perspective. One can view Mt. Fuji from 36 different points of views, or from thousands of different perspectives, and it is never quite the same place—every perspective is original, fresh, mind-expanding. The impulse to shift perspective in pursuit of mindfulness is also ever-present in Thoreau's work, particularly in his personal journal and in Walden . This idea is particularly evident, to me, in the chapter of Walden titled "The Ponds," where he writes:

Standing on the smooth sandy beach at the east end of the pond, in a calm September afternoon, when a slight haze makes the opposite shore line indistinct, I have seen whence came the expression, "the glassy surface of a lake." When you invert your head, it looks like a thread of finest gossamer stretched across the valley, and gleaming against the distinct pine woods, separating one stratum of the atmosphere from another. (186)

20 Elsewhere in the chapter, Thoreau describes the view of the pond from the top of nearby hills and the shapes and colors of pebbles in the water when viewed from close up. He chances physical perspective again and again throughout the chapter, but it is in the act of looking upside down, actually suggesting that one might invert one's head, that he most vividly conveys the idea of looking at the world in different ways in order to be lost and awakened, just as the traveler to a distant land might feel lost and invigorated by such exposure to an unknown place.

21 After asking students to write their first essay about Moscow Mountain, I give them four additional short essays to write, each two to four pages long. We read short examples of place-based essays, some of them explicitly related to travel, and then the students work on their own essays on similar topics. The second short essay is about food—I call this the "Moscow Meal" essay. We read the final chapter of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), "The Perfect Meal," and Anthony Bourdain's chapter "Where Cooks Come From" in the book A Cook's Tour (2001) are two of the works we study in preparation for the food essay. The three remaining short essays including a "Moscow People" essay (exploring local characters are important facets of the place), a more philosophical essay about "the concept of Moscow," and a final "Moscow Encounter" essay that tells the story of a dramatic moment of interaction with a person, an animal, a memorable thing to eat or drink, a sunset, or something else. Along the way, we read the work of Wendell Berry, Joan Didion, Barbara Kingsolver, Kim Stafford, Paul Theroux, and other authors. Before each small essay is due, we spend a class session holding small-group workshops, allowing the students to discuss their essays-in-progress with each other and share portions of their manuscripts. The idea is that they will learn about writing even by talking with each other about their essays. In addition to writing about Moscow from various angles, they will learn about additional points of view by considering the angles of insight developed by their fellow students. All of this is the writerly equivalent of "inverting [their] heads."

Beneath the Smooth Skin of Place

22 Aside from Thoreau's writing and Hokusai's images, perhaps the most important writer to provide inspiration for this class is Indiana-based essayist Scott Russell Sanders. Shortly after introducing the students to Thoreau's key ideas in Walden and to the richness of his descriptive writing in the journal, I ask them to read his essay "Buckeye," which first appeared in Sanders's Writing from the Center (1995). "Buckeye" demonstrates the elegant braiding together of descriptive, narrative, and expository/reflective prose, and it also offers a strong argument about the importance of creating literature and art about place—what he refers to as "shared lore" (5)—as a way of articulating the meaning of a place and potentially saving places that would otherwise be exploited for resources, flooded behind dams, or otherwise neglected or damaged. The essay uses many of the essential literary devices, ranging from dialogue to narrative scenes, that I hope my students will practice in their own essays, while also offering a vivid argument in support of the kind of place-based writing the students are working on.

23 Another vital aspect of our work together in this class is the effort to capture the wonderful idiosyncrasies of this place, akin to the idiosyncrasies of any place that we examine closely enough to reveal its unique personality. Sanders's essay "Beneath the Smooth Skin of America," which we study together in Week 9 of the course, addresses this topic poignantly. The author challenges readers to learn the "durable realities" of the places where they live, the details of "watershed, biome, habitat, food-chain, climate, topography, ecosystem and the areas defined by these natural features they call bioregions" (17). "The earth," he writes, "needs fewer tourists and more inhabitants" (16). By Week 9 of the semester, the students have written about Moscow Mountain, about local food, and about local characters, and they are ready at this point to reflect on some of the more philosophical dimensions of living in a small academic village surrounded by farmland and beyond that surrounded by the Cascade mountain range to the West and the Rockies to the East. "We need a richer vocabulary of place" (18), urges Sanders. By this point in the semester, by reading various examples of place-based writing and by practicing their own powers of observation and expression, my students will, I hope, have developed a somewhat richer vocabulary to describe their own experiences in this specific place, a place they've been trying to explore with "open minds and notebooks." Sanders argues that

if we pay attention, we begin to notice patterns in the local landscape. Perceiving those patterns, acquiring names and theories and stories for them, we cease to be tourists and become inhabitants. The bioregional consciousness I am talking about means bearing your place in mind, keeping track of its condition and needs, committing yourself to its care. (18)

24 Many of my students will spend only four or five years in Moscow, long enough to earn a degree before moving back to their hometowns or journeying out into the world in pursuit of jobs or further education. Moscow will be a waystation for some of these student writers, not a permanent home. Yet I am hoping that this semester-long experiment in Thoreauvian attentiveness and place-based writing will infect these young people with both the bioregional consciousness Sanders describes and a broader fascination with place, including the cultural (yes, the human ) dimensions of this and any other place. I feel such a mindfulness will enrich the lives of my students, whether they remain here or move to any other location on the planet or many such locations in succession.

25 Toward the end of "Beneath the Smooth Skin of America," Sanders tells the story of encountering a father with two young daughters near a city park in Bloomington, Indiana, where he lives. Sanders is "grazing" on wild mulberries from a neighborhood tree, and the girls are keen to join him in savoring the local fruit. But their father pulls them away, stating, "Thank you very much, but we never eat anything that grows wild. Never ever." To this Sanders responds: "If you hold by that rule, you will not get sick from eating poison berries, but neither will you be nourished from eating sweet ones. Why not learn to distinguish one from the other? Why feed belly and mind only from packages?" (19-20). By looking at Moscow Mountain—and at Moscow, Idaho, more broadly—from numerous points of view, my students, I hope, will nourish their own bellies and minds with the wild fruit and ideas of this place. I say this while chewing a tart, juicy, and, yes, slightly sweet plum that I pulled from a feral tree in my own Moscow neighborhood yesterday, an emblem of engagement, of being here.

Bibliography

BUELL, Lawrence, The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture , Harvard University Press, 1995.

DAVIDSON, Cathy, 36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan , Duke University Press, 2006.

DUBKIN, Leonard, "I Climb a Tree and Become Dissatisfied with My Lot." Enchanted Streets: The Unlikely Adventures of an Urban Nature Lover , Little, Brown and Company, 1947, 34-42.

GESSNER, David, Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond , Beacon, 2007.

ISAKSON, Elizabeth, "Journals." Assignment for 36 Views of Moscow Mountain (English 208), University of Idaho, Fall 2018.

SANDERS, Scott Russell, "Buckeye" and "Beneath the Smooth Skin of America." Writing from the Center , Indiana University Press, 1995, pp. 1-8, 9-21.

SLOVIC, Scott, "Teaching with Wolves", Western American Literature 52.3 (Fall 2017): 323-31.

THOREAU, Henry David, "October 1-20, 1853", Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers , edited by Scott H. Slovic and Terrell F. Dixon, Macmillan, 1993, 371-75.

THOREAU, Henry David, Walden . 1854. Princeton University Press, 1971.

Bibliographical reference

Scott Slovic , “ 36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Teaching Travel Writing and Mindfulness in the Tradition of Hokusai and Thoreau ” ,  Caliban , 59 | 2018, 41-54.

Electronic reference

Scott Slovic , “ 36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Teaching Travel Writing and Mindfulness in the Tradition of Hokusai and Thoreau ” ,  Caliban [Online], 59 | 2018, Online since 01 June 2018 , connection on 04 May 2024 . URL : http://journals.openedition.org/caliban/3688; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/caliban.3688

About the author

Scott slovic.

University of Idaho Scott Slovic is University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Idaho, USA. The author and editor of many books and articles, he edited the journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment from 1995 to 2020. His latest coedited book is The Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication  (2019).

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• Introduction (version en français) [Full text] Introduction [Full text | translation | en] Published in Caliban , 64 | 2020
• To Collapse or Not to Collapse? A Joint Interview [Full text] Published in Caliban , 63 | 2020
• Furrowed Brows, Questioning Earth: Minding the Loess Soil of the Palouse [Full text] Published in Caliban , 61 | 2019
• Foreword: Thinking of “Earth Island” on Earth Day 2016 [Full text] Published in Caliban , 55 | 2016

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 . All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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• 63 | 2020 Dynamics of Collapse in Fantasy, the Fantastic and SF
• 62 | 2019 Female Suffrage in British Art, Literature and History
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10 Positive Impacts of Artificial Intelligence

Healthcare, accessibility, and other ways AI is here to help

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Digital Assistants and Smart Home Devices

Streaming services, creative work, fitness plans, work projects, creating accessibility, combating climate change, winning the war on drugs, and even better healthcare, how artificial intelligence can help the world.

• Frequently Asked Questions

Artificial intelligence suddenly seems like all you hear about, but it didn’t just happen. Scientists have been working toward creating working AI models for years . Only recently have they managed to create something that can be useful.

At first glance, it might seem that AI is really only good for language or image processing: You can have AI write a story or create an image. Some creatives have even used it to create complete books . Or, if you’ve really been following AI developments, you might have seen all the stories about how AI has gone off the rails . 

Despite all the doom and gloom, AI isn’t all bad. Quite the opposite is true. You're actually using AI in many ways already , even if you don't realize it. Here are 10 of the best uses for AI in your daily life.

Suppose you own an Amazon Alexa device, an Apple product with Siri, a computer that leverages Cortana, or an Android-based device with Google Assistant. In that case, you may not realize it, but you already use AI regularly. Digital assistants are software applications that can learn your voice, recognize your speech pattern, and even monitor your environment to send an alert at the sound of breaking glass or when other triggers take place. And statistics show that more than 40 percent of people use these digital assistants somehow.

Omid Armin / Unsplash

Digital assistants use Natural Language Processing, which is the ability to recognize words and phrases that are commonly used and to ‘infer’ the response you’re looking for based on those words and phrases. Moreover, they can even be programmed to complete complicated routines like dimming the lights, changing the temperature, and reading specific information aloud when triggered using the right phrase. 

Almost 80 percent of people worldwide listen to music through some streaming service. That’s a lot of music streaming. And AI is getting in on the action there, too. For example, Spotify has an AI-enhanced streaming service in beta testing that will create playlists for you based on the music you’ve listened to and explain why it chose the songs on that playlist.

You may have also used AI if you use Netflix or Amazon Prime. Both services have AI-enhanced capabilities that help create recommendations for what you might want to watch. Netflix even tried its hand at creating an anime film using AI . 

If you work (or play) in a creative environment and use software applications like Adobe After Effects or Premiere Pro, you may have used AI there. The company has added AI capabilities to help creators during the editing process, specifically for video creators.

But digital creators aren’t the only ones who can benefit from AI. Programs like Magic Canvas for the Glowforge laser cutter have incorporated AI to help creators move an idea from conception to creation. Even woodworkers are using AI to design woodworking projects in ways they may not have previously been able to. 

Fitness is another area that has gotten lots of attention over the past few years as more and more people realize the need for a healthier lifestyle. As a result, some people have turned to AI to create fitness plans tailored to their specific needs, styles, and preferred focus.

Apps like FitnessAI are popping up online to help novice users dig even deeper into AI capabilities for a truly customized workout. And that doesn’t even consider all of the already available apps that use AI to nudge people toward healthier lifestyle choices. Nor does it include the software that’s built into wearable devices. 

Researchers are working on ways to integrate AI into education at all levels. For example, researchers from Clemson University are developing AI that can customize lesson plans based on a student’s needs, while researchers at Stanford have created a prototype for an AI-enhanced biology textbook that helps students find the answers they need and engages with those students to deepen their understanding of the subject.

Even beyond basic instruction, AI can give students a boost in language skills. Programs like Grammarly learn from a person’s writing style or targets that person has outlined for a document and makes suggestions to improve their writing. Grammarly can even help teachers by sniffing out plagiarism.  

Recently, a major area of focus has been on creating AI that can help people do common tasks faster. What better place to apply that kind of AI than in the necessary communications people must create and send daily at their jobs? For example, if you’ve ever used Gmail and noticed that it offers suggestions while writing an email—that’s AI.

Microsoft is also getting into the game with Copilot, an AI assistant designed to help you create documents, presentations, and reports. It can even create email responses, monitor calendars to sync up meeting times, and create PivotTables in Excel. 

Probably one of the greatest advantages of AI is its ability to help people with disabilities. For example, a feature of MidJourney, an image-generating AI, will automatically write alt text for images . Alt text describes the image screen readers use to help people with disabilities deciphers the images on a page.

University of Central Florida

Another advancement that AI can facilitate is the diagnosis of disabilities. There was a time when a person might make it into adulthood before they were diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, or even Asperger’s syndrome. AI can now examine patterns of behavior , test results, and other information to diagnose these and other conditions. What’s more, once the diagnosis is made, AI can help create a plan of care to help the individual learn to function more effectively with the disorder or overcome it completely. 

Climate change is at the forefront of nearly everyone’s mind. Changes in weather patterns and how animals behave, differences in our atmosphere, and even increases in diseases can be attributed to climate change. And AI can help combat those issues.

For example, AI is used to help monitor climate change and create recommendations for reducing emissions. It also has the ability to unearth facts and data that were previously overlooked, which helps researchers to look more creatively at the problems our planet is facing, which in turn helps those scientists to find better solutions to the problems we face. AI could even help us save the bees that are so vital to our ecosystem. 

An unexpected benefit of having AI that can crunch billions of bits of data is that it can make connections faster than humans will ever be able to. Think about drug molecules that could be used to create new, more dangerous designer drugs. AI can connect the dots between those combinations , which scientists and law enforcement agencies can then use to prevent the creation of those drugs.

Taking that whole idea up a notch, AI can also use that information to create safer, more effective drugs to treat diseases that have never been treatable before. 

If AI can be used to create better drugs, it can also improve our healthcare to levels that we’ve only dreamed about. For example, AI can create connections in a patient record that might point to early symptoms of a disease. Or it could be used to identify disease markers in areas difficult to differentiate.

However AI is used in healthcare, its ability to use vast amounts of data to make connections that have never been made before opens a world of possibilities for the cures and preventative measures that may be coming in the near future.

Taken together, it’s easy to see the possibilities for artificial intelligence to positively impact our world. And we haven’t even gotten to chatbots, banking and finance, social media, or facial recognition.

Are there still many nuances that need to be considered, addressed, and maybe even legislated? Absolutely. But we’ve only scratched the surface of the technology, and there are so many possibilities. It’s exciting to see what might come next.

AGI stands for "artificial general intelligence." It's a theoretical version of AI that can do anything a human brain can do with minimal input or guidance. Another term for it is "strong AI," which differs from currently available algorithms (known as "weak AI").

One commonplace example of an AI is the digital assistant on your smartphone or computer (e.g., Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Bixby). Other AI systems you may see around are social-media algorithms and text generators like ChatGPT.

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