Critical Writing Tutorials

The Critical Writing Tutorial (CWT) is a two-unit online tutorial that gives students at any level an opportunity to concentrate on their critical writing skills and strategies at the same time as they delve deeply into a focused area of literary study. 

The tutorial has two components: 

  • It will provide students an in-depth look at a literary field through the window of a single long-form text (such as a novel or a five-act play) or a focused body of shorter texts (poems, essays, or short stories) and of relevant critical and/or contextual materials.     
  • It will address key areas of writing practice: including defining the research question; understanding the audience; defining and optimizing the writing voice and style; structuring sentences, paragraphs, and arguments; integrating historical, critical, or other secondary materials into the argument; revising; framing the work for presentation or publication. 

In addition to the primary texts, readings may include related scholarship or other secondary material as well as scholarship on the writing process itself. Writing assignments may vary in length and nature, depending on the needs of the group. As a guide, we expect students to produce roughly 25 pages (6,000+ words) as they take their writing and thinking through several stages of revision.

The tutorial carries one unit of Group 1 credit and one unit of credit in the designated field (Groups 2-5); tuition will be the same as for a two-unit Bread Loaf course. Enrollments will be capped at five students / tutorial. 

CWT options will be posted in the BLSE course catalog. Students will register for the tutorial at the same time and following the same process as for other Bread Loaf courses.

Tutorials will meet across a six-week summer session, which runs concurrent with the Vermont session class dates.  Tutorials will meet at least twice a week for a total of five hours/week (30 class hours for the session). Additionally, students should expect to spend at least 10 hours per week working independently on the course assignments. 

Meetings, which will take place on Zoom, will be scheduled by the faculty member, in consultation with the enrolled students. Faculty will post readings and preliminary assignments (on their course Canvas site) at least two weeks in advance of the session, so the group can hit the ground running once the session begins. 

The CWT is open to students at any point of their BLSE careers, with some restrictions:

  • Ordinarily, students may enroll in the CWT only once, and they are not eligible to take an additional BLSE course or tutorial simultaneously. 
  • Students who took a one-unit Tutorial in Critical Writing in 2020 or 2021 may take a CWT taught by a different professor. 
  • CWT students are eligible to take up to two units of Directed Writing and Research (DRW) in a subsequent summer.   
  • Students who have taken a two-unit Advanced Writing Tutorial in 2020 or 2021 are not eligible to take the CWT but they may apply to take up to two units of DRW.
  • Students may count a maximum of 4 units of online BLSE tutorials towards their MA or MLitt degree, not counting those taken in 2020 and 2021. Degree candidates admitted from 2023 on must take at least six of their ten units in person.