New Digital Storytelling and Poetics Minor to Prepare Students to Create and Interpret Online Texts

Students will learn to ‘approach writing for the web with intentionality and imagination.’

By Jessica Weiss ’05 

The Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities will debut a minor in digital storytelling and poetics this fall that will empower students from a range of academic backgrounds to make and tell stories in digital and new media spaces.

Students will learn to write and design creatively using digital tools—from code to artificial intelligence (AI) text generators to social media. That will provide an edge for students interested in pursuing fields like content creation, gaming or software and web development and design, said Professor of English and Digital Studies Matt Kirschenbaum, a core faculty member in the minor.

“There are all kinds of different media formats out there, but a lot of what we do online is still reading and writing text,” he said. “And that’s where the English department comes in. If students can approach writing for the web with intentionality and imagination, they’ll be more adept and creative.” 

Scott Trudell, the director of undergraduate studies in the Department of English, helped to create the program structure. In addition to focusing on “creative making,” the minor will require students to have a grounding in the analysis of digital texts, he said. 

“That combination—of making and analyzing—is at the heart of the minor,” Trudell said. “Whether digital fiction, poetry, video games or AI-generated writing, students will learn how those stories are fashioned through the media in which they’re produced.”  

Course offerings include titles such as “Videogames and the Boundaries of Narrative,” “Digital Fictions” and “Storytelling with Code.” Students must also submit a portfolio of works to complete the minor. It aligns with the campuswide Arts for All initiative, which aims to create new opportunities for students and faculty across disciplines to fuse the arts, technology and social justice.

Kirschenbaum said the minor is especially relevant as generative AI programs, like ChatGPT, grow in use and accessibility. Rather than see these technologies as threats to the study and craft of storytelling, Kirschenbaum said he considers them “just part of the long history of writing.”  
 
“We want to teach students to be responsible and critical users of those technologies but also to empower them to use them for imaginative and practical purposes,” he said. “So, whether it’s ChatGPT or whatever comes next, I think they’ll be ready for what the digital world has to throw at them.”