CREATIVE WRITING students may soon say annyeonghaseyo to a course on Korean drama as their department is planning to revise its curriculum to include subjects that will prepare them for the demands of modern media platforms.
Creative Writing department chair Prof. Joselito delos Reyes said it was “high time” for the program to revisit the present curriculum and check if it still fits the demands of artistic fields.
“We don’t know if this is still what the industry needs. Remember, creative writing now has many platforms, ways and hybridity. So, we don’t know if the curriculum still fits (the current practices),” delos Reyes told The Flame in an interview.
Among the new elective courses the department is planning to roll out are Pop Culture and Pop Music as Literature, Horror Fiction, Children and Young Adult Literature, Film as Literature, Literature and Video Games and Korean Drama.
The department is also considering Catholic Writing, Performance Art, Performing Writing, Writing from the Regions, Rizal as a Creative Writer, Literature and the Environment, Gender and Writing, Speculative Fiction and Philippine Mythology as electives. Advanced Poetics, if offered, would be classified as a professional elective for third-year students to aid those working on their theses.
According to delos Reyes, course offerings will be prioritized based on the facilitators’ availability.
Writing for New Media, an elective course, will become a professional course offered to all Creative Writing students as the department considered the feedback from alumni who had cited the need to equip students for modern media platforms.
Latin American Literature will be merged with Survey of Post-Colonial Literature to widen the scope of the subject to include African and Asian texts.
Faculty members are also discussing the possibility of requiring students to read at least 50 works from the 100-title list prepared by the department.
“This is a culmination of everything. We are not just pure experiences… We noticed that there is a need to intervene with reading. Creative Writing majors should be armed with the books that they have read,” delos Reyes said.
Under the proposed curriculum, Creative Writing students’ practicum will carry three units, while Thesis Writing courses will have three units each instead of the previous two units.
It also plans to teach survey courses as reading courses, offer electives as reading or workshop courses or both and refocus introductory and workshop classes on Philippine Literature in English and Filipino to highlight the program’s bilingual nature.
If the proposed curriculum revision is approved, the new version would be the first revision the program will have undergone after producing five batches of graduates.
The department is set to present to stakeholders its proposed curriculum by August or September and will consider their suggestions before submitting the final proposal to the Office of the Vice Rector for Academic Affairs and the Commission on Higher Education.
Delos Reyes said it might take a year before the department could finalize and submit the revised proposal, so the new curriculum might take effect by the academic year 2026-2027.
Creative Writing is a four-year program established in 2017 to help train and nurture aspiring writers in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and drama. It was elevated to department status last year after previously being housed under the Department of Literature. F — with reports from Sheridan Joy Delfino
