Concentrations
Choose Your Path to Success
At UNC Asheville, English majors can tailor their academic journey through thoughtfully designed concentrations that align with their interests and career goals. Whether students are passionate about literary analysis, creative writing, or teaching, each concentration offers a focused path of study while maintaining the major’s foundation in critical thinking, communication, and cultural understanding. These concentrations empower students to dive deeper into their chosen area while preparing them for meaningful work in education, publishing, journalism, graduate study, and beyond.
Literature
The concentration in Literature contains a combination of core courses and electives that emphasize interpretation, literary history, genre, and cultural identity. A mix of survey, readings, and seminar courses create a curriculum that combines breadth and depth, historical overviews, and close attention to particular authors and literary periods. Students will acquire experiences, abilities, and tools for a lifelong engagement with literature and ideas, as well as reading, writing, and discussion skills that will serve them well regardless of career path.
Creative Writing
The concentration in Creative Writing offers students the opportunity and incentive to develop their writing in a workshop setting and to support their writing with a strong background in literary studies. The goal of the program is to foster confident undergraduate writers who work with a sound knowledge of their own literary tradition. Students in the program will learn to write in multiple genres: fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Scaffolded workshops at the 200, 300, and 400 levels will help them hone their craft throughout their undergraduate experience.
Teacher Licensure in English
Designed especially for prospective teachers, this concentration prepares students in a broad range of areas expected of English teachers: literature, composition, language and drama, speech or communications.
Teacher Licensure in Creative Writing
This concentration is designed for candidates who, in addition to completing the concentration in Creative Writing, wish to study the skills required for English Licensure.
Ready for what's next?
From our strong liberal arts core to our seemingly endless opportunities for hands-on engagement with literature and the writing craft, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of North Carolina Asheville gives you an undergraduate experience unlike any other.