Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Creative Writing

Are you looking to stimulate and improve your imaginative writing? The PCC creative writing program offers you the opportunity to study with instructors who provide unique approaches to creative writing. Expect to write a great deal, learn critical terminology, and spend class time discussing your own and others’ writing.

PCC offers one of the largest selections of creative writing courses in the state. There are no prerequisites for most of the introductory courses, although you should be able to write at the WR 121 level. All the courses are good for three units of transferable credit.

English Composition

The goal of the Composition Program is to provide students with the opportunity to practice those writing skills which will enable them to write successfully in all their college courses. By the end of the program, students should be skillful at reading analytically and critically; their writing should demonstrate an understanding of organization, audience, voice, and the conventions of college-level written English.

In any of the courses in the Composition Program, students will be expected to write several papers; they may be asked to keep a reading journal and practice peer editing in small groups or engage in some form of collaborative learning in which essays will be read by other students in the class. Some in-class writing is required in all writing courses.

Technical Writing

Technical writing is common in the contemporary workplace. Students from disciplines as diverse as business, engineering, information technology, law, and science benefit from taking technical writing courses.  You will learn how to analyze and communicate special information and to adapt your visuals, formats, and writing styles to the specific audiences and needs of the fields. These courses emphasize the precise use of language and graphics to communicate complex technical and procedural information safely, legally, and ethically.  We also focus on career-specific writing such as proposals, letters, memoranda, lab reports, and/or work reports. (See the Writing catalog and class schedule for technical writing classes.)