The Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies provides students the opportunity to experiment with writing as a craft and as a means of self-expression. The program helps prepare students to communicate the results of their work forcefully and clearly to members of their professions and to larger audiences. All subjects in the program emphasize the development of writing skills and strategies. Some subjects, including those at advanced levels and those offered for distribution, require substantial reading.
Subjects in the program's four areas—exposition and rhetoric, creative writing, science writing, and technical communication and new media studies—are taught at introductory and advanced levels. All subjects require repeated writing and revision. In addition, manuscripts are typically discussed in workshops and receive the written commentary of the instructor. Students are encouraged to schedule private conferences with their instructors.
Concentrations in writing establish a course of intensive study for prose, poetry, and fiction writers, or for engineers and scientists who expect writing to play a key role in their career development.
The Minor Program in Writing provides students with a structured opportunity to develop their expertise in one of the program's four areas—exposition and rhetoric, creative writing, science writing, or technical communication and new media studies—while also exploring offerings in the other areas.
At the graduate level, the program offers a one-year master's degree in science writing.
The Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies offers two undergraduate programs leading to the degree of Bachelor of Science in Writing. The curriculum in Creative Writing/Exposition and Rhetoric is designed to develop expertise in writing and reading a genre of the student's choice (for example, fiction, poetry, essay), familiarity with related genres, and three-subject focused exposure to an allied discipline in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. This curriculum offers students a great deal of flexibility in designing their programs.
The curriculum in Science Writing/Technical Communication Studies is designed to develop mastery of these more specialized genres, to offer experience of the professional environments in which they are used, and to introduce related areas such as the history of technology and the structure of business organizations. Like the Creative Writing/Exposition and Rhetoric curriculum, it also requires a three-subject focused exposure to an allied field. In order to guarantee integration of these interdisciplinary elements, this curriculum places greater constraints on the design of individual programs.
The Minor Program in Writing consists of six subjects focusing on one
of four areas: exposition and rhetoric; creative writing;
science writing; or technical communication and new media studies arranged
into two levels of study as follows:
| Tier I | One subject from the following: | |
| 21W.730 | |
Expository Writing |
| 21W.731 | Writing and Experience | |
| 21W.732 | Introduction to Technical Communication | |
| 21W.734J | |
Writing About Literature |
| 21W.755 | Writing and Reading Short Stories | |
| 21W.756 | Writing and Reading Poems |
|
| Tier II | |
Five subjects from among the remaining writing subjects |
Joint degree programs are offered in writing in combination with a field in engineering or science (the 21E and 21S degrees). See the joint major programs listed under Humanities.
The one-year Graduate Program in Science Writing is aimed at students who wish to write about science and technology for general readers, in ordinary newsstand magazines and newspapers, in popular and semi-popular books, on the walls of museums, or on television or radio programs. Students may be products of undergraduate science, engineering, journalism or writing programs; experienced journalists and freelance writers; working scientists or engineers; historians of science and technology; or other scholars, including those already holding advanced degrees.
The program is built around an intensive year-long advanced science writing seminar. In addition, students choose one elective each semester, write a substantial thesis, and complete an internship.
The graduate program maintains links to MIT's Program in Science, Technology, and Society; to the Comparative Media Studies program; and to the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships program. For more information, see the descriptions of the Science, Technology, and Society and Comparative Media Studies programs in Part 2. See Interdisciplinary Research and Study in Part 1 for more information about the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships program.
Information about the new Communication Requirement is available under Undergraduate Education in Part 1. Additional details may be obtained from the Office of the Writing Requirement at 617-253-3039.
The MIT Writing and Communication Center offers free individual writing consultation on an appointment or drop-in basis to all members of the MIT community. In addition, the center gives mini-sessions each semester on a variety of writing topics, and also offers workshops for people for whom English is a second language. For further information, contact the Writing Center at 617-253-3090.
The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) staff of the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies helps provide the integration of instruction and feedback in writing and speaking in subjects in all undergraduate departments and programs. The writing tutor program supports enhanced writing instruction in Communication Intensive in Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CI-H) subjects. WAC lecturers collaborate with faculty in all schools in the teaching of Communication Intensive in the Major (CI-M) subjects.
Subjects in writing are numbered 21W.730 through 21W.899 in Part 3. Further information on subjects and programs may be obtained from the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies Office, Room 14E-303, 617-253-7894.
James Paradis, PhD
Robert M. Metcalfe Professor of Writing
Program Head
Robert Kanigel, BS
Professor of Science Writing
Thomas Levenson, BA
Professor of Science Writing
Kenneth R. Manning, PhD
Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric and the History of Science
James H. Williams, Jr., PhD
SEPTE Professor of Engineering
Charles F. Hopewell Faculty Fellow
Rosalind H. Williams, PhD
Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology
Junot Diaz, MFA
Associate Professor of Writing
Helen Elaine Lee, JD
Associate Professor of Writing
Beth Coleman, PhD
Assistant Professor of Writing and New Media
Nick Montfort
Assistant Professor of Digital Media
Marcia Bartusiak, MS
Visiting Professor of Science Writing
Joe Haldeman, MFA
Adjunct Professor of Fiction
Alan Lightman, PhD
Adjunct Professor of the Humanities
Edward Barrett, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Writing
Cherie Abbanat, MA
Atissa Banuazizi, MA
Karen Boiko, MA
Harlan Breindel, MA
Mary Caulfield, MA
B. D. Colen, BA
Jane Abbott Connor, MA
William Corbett, BA
Director, Student Writing Activities
Jennifer Craig, MA
David Custer, BA
Thomas Delaney, MA
Robert Doherty, MA
Lisa Dush, MA
Rebecca Faery, PhD
Director, First Year Writing
Erica Funkhouser, MA
William Haas, PhD
Sarah King, PhD
Neal Lerner, EdD
Shariann Lewitt, MFA
Lucy Marx, MA
Janis Melvold, PhD
Benjamin Miller, MA
Marilee Ogren-Balkema, PhD
Karen Pepper, PhD
Mya Poe, MA
Director, Technical Communication
Boyce Rensberger, MS
Leslie Ann Sulit Roldan, PhD
Thalia Rubio, MEd
Susan Ruff, BA
Cynthia Taft, PhD
Donald Unger, PhD
Lydia Volaitis, PhD
Andrea Walsh, PhD
Mary Zoll, PhD
Sonal Jhaveri, PhD
Philip Alexander, MS
Anita Desai, BA
John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities, Emerita
Robert Reynolds Rathbone, AM
Professor of Technical Communication, Emeritus
Cynthia Griffin Wolff, PhD
Class of 1922 Professor of Literature, Emerita