English

The aim of "Perfect Grammar" is to provide students with a solid foundation in grammar, mechanics, and appropriate academic language.  Through a variety of methods and assessments, students will become knowledgeable about their own grammatical weaknesses, learn how to revise written work to display sound grammar, and come to appreciate the need for clarity of expression in the academic world and beyond.  

This introductory course in reading imaginative literature will include fiction, plays, and poetry, ranging from early ballads to the work of contemporary writers. Analysis of style and structure and the development of skills in critical reading and writing will be stressed. Students who have completed ENG 120 may not take ENG 154 for credit.

This fully online course explores young adult literature, its history, contemporary contexts, and literary, formal, and thematic interests. The course examines the evolving canon of young adult fiction and non-fiction, including traditional genres, such as school stories and adventure tales, as well as contemporary formats, such as the graphic novel.

This course introduces the student majoring in English to the important concepts and principles involved in the study of English and its literatures. Required of all English majors.

This course surveys English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period through the early 17th century, including works by Caedmon the Beowulf poet, Chaucer, Margery Kempe, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. Emphasizing tradition, the course investigates the interaction between literary conventions and social history.

The primary purpose of the course is to familiarize students with readings by selected British writers from 1650 through 1830. Major trends of the 18th century and Romantic literary periods will be observed in works of fiction, poetry, and drama. Readings will be approached not only as individual works of art to be read creatively and enjoyed imaginatively and intellectually, but also as representatives of major cultural movements in the English-speaking world.

This survey course opens with texts written in response to the Civil War and explores the full diversity of the voices and experiences that represent America as the United States emerges as a multi-cultural global power. We will discuss the literature of the nation as it struggles to define itself through periods of reconstruction, immigration, international wars, and domestic battles for civil rights, covering the significant literary movements that arose and flourished in these periods, including: realism, naturalism, regionalism, modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and the post-modernism. Authors may include: Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Zora Neale Hurston, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath, N. Scott Momaday and many more.

This course will explore each of the major categories of literature for children including folk tales, fables, myths, epics, poetry, stories of enchantment and modern fiction. The course will also explore the contributions of authors, artists and illustrators for their value, importance and influence.

This course surveys American literature from the arrival of early settlers through the Civil War. The literature ranges from accounts of life in the colonies and Puritan sermons to slave narratives and transcendentalist poetry. Diverse authors, genres, and issues are examined in relation to the developing tradition of a national literature.

British Literature III explores British and Anglophone literature from the Victorian period to contemporary times. Major developments in poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction are investigated in the course. The literature is examined in the context of culture, gender, and history, with a particular emphasis on the British Empire. Authors may include: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Chinua Achebe, and Louise Bennett.

This course is an introduction to the writings of African-Americans from 1850 to the present. In addition to reading the literature, students will also consider the historical, cultural, and theoretical contexts important to understanding current African-American studies. Possible topics: a survey of African-American literature, African-American women, slave narratives and autobiography, contemporary fiction, or modern African-American drama.

(Also WST 215) An introduction to contemporary Cuban-American, Mexican-American (Chicano), and Puerto Rican Literatures, this course also explores the history and culture of these communities. Students will be introduced to some theoretical issues necessary to understand the main currents in Chicano/Latino Studies.

What is Perfect Grammar? provides a solid course in English grammar, covering the major concepts, rules, guidelines and intricacies of the language, with an emphasis on understanding the function of various lexical and structural constructs through interactive learning. This course is ideal for writers from across the disciplines preparing for diverse careers and graduate study, as well as future teachers who will examine and analyze grammar from a sociolinguistic perspective as both teachers and as learners. This study of grammar also focuses on developing knowledge and skill in the writing process while exploring critical theory and sociolinguistic topics that deepen students' understanding of critical social and ethical issues as they apply to dialect, region, socio-economic status and race.  A student cannot receive credit for both ENG-218 and EGL 125.  *This course is not intended as a remedial course in Grammar.

This course explores the literatures of diverse Native American tribes, including oral traditions imbedded in modern speeches, political documents, novels, memoirs, and contemporary anthologies and media. Students read and discuss works by major Native American writers in order to examine indigenous philosophies, rhetorical approaches and traditions that are distinct from those of western cultures. Of particular interest to our study will be the rise of Native American Literature in the context of history, and the resistance movements that created new American forms and genres.

This course will trace the development of Children's Literature in Western culture from ancient to modern times. The course will examine the following genres: alphabets, fables, primers, chapbooks, fairy and folk tales, short fiction, nursery rhymes, children's verse, and picture books. Secondary materials will address issues such as conceptions of the child during different historical periods, and theoretical approaches to children's literature including literary, multicultural, psychoanalytic and word/image studies.

Analysis and criticism of the short story as a literary form. Short stories selected from many cultures are read and discussed. The course illustrates the development of the genres from the early 19th century to the present.

This course is designed to aid the student in developing skills of creative self-expression in verse and/or short fiction.

This course is designed to aid the student in developing skills of creative self-expression in verse and/or short fiction. ENG 232 is for those students who have taken ENG 231 and wish to take an additional semester of Creative Writing.

This advanced writing course focuses on effective use of written language to influence or persuade. Students identify persuasive strategies in a variety of texts to develop critical analytic skills, and to become informed citizens and sophisticated consumers and producers of print and electronic media, gaining professional experience in their fields. 

This 1.5 credit course is open to current or beginning peer tutors as well as to students who may be interested in acquiring the skills necessary to become an effective and welcoming peer writing tutor. The practicum may also appeal to those who may wish to enhance effective collaborative writing skills necessary to nearly every career, or to enhance their training and credentials in order to apply to graduate assistantship programs that value such experience and training. Writing Centers provide a supportive environment, free from the evaluative, teaching centered focus of many writing classrooms.  
 
The Peer Writing Practicum is a series of interactive weekly seminars focused on building collaborative coaching strategies that support student writers from across the disciplines. Learning activities are designed to deepen our understanding of Writing Center theory and practice by engaging with texts and research on best practices, by generating approaches and strategies according to the priorities and current needs of our Writing Center, and by participating in practice sessions designed to support developing skills in assisting student writers as they work through challenges that arise as their writing projects proceed from topic selection through final draft. Our texts will include current publications, web forum and podcast studies of services and techniques employed by  model Writing Centers from across the country, and several key essays and podcasts by scholars important to establishing peer tutor practices for English language speakers, writers and learners. 

Careers in Writing offers a survey of writing-focused careers with special emphasis on practical, job-specific skills and knowledge. This course is designed to remove the mystery behind how to make a living as a writer by exploring, understanding, and practicing details, duties, and skills of multiple career paths in which writing is a main component. Potential fields may include editing, publishing, public relations, technical writing, advertising and marketing copywriting, corporate and organizational communication, journalism, fiction writing, video script writing, or self- publishing. 

Under this heading, the English Program will, from time to time, offer special courses in English language and literature -- courses dealing with, for example, themes, genres, figures, or problems not otherwise covered in the department's curriculum. For any such course, the instructor involved will determine the specific subject matter and will make available to students a full description in advance.

In this course, students read women's writing from several cultures to understand how women's cultural differences affect the reading of literature and how cultural differences affect women's authoring of (authority over) texts.

This course surveys literature from the Old and New Testaments.  Biblical history, fiction, poetry, drama, prophecy, biography, and letters will be read from a literary point of view.

This course examines selected myths and legends as they are presented in works of literature from ancient to modern times. Students may read works by such authors as Hesiod, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Ovid and Virgil as well as a selection of later works that incorporate mythical structures and themes. The course also may present selections of theoretical works, which have influenced the analysis, and understanding of myth. Some attention may be given to the close alliance between myths and folktales.

An interdisciplinary study of concepts of heaven and hell, and angels and devils in the history of ideas, this course examines a wide variety of literary, religious and philosophical traditions, including Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist, as they relate to the concepts of heaven and hell. 

This interdisciplinary honors course takes as its focus the history and portrayal of nursing and nurses in literature, with a particular emphasis on the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries. From the religious orders of women who preceded Florence Nightingale in serving the ill and infirm to the empowerment of women in nursing currently, the course explores the field of nursing from its origins to current time. The challenges and opportunities that nursing presented for diverse women will be analyzed by considering the ways in which gender, race, and class shaped and continue to shape their work experiences. Students will analyze the role of nursing in a variety of text selections, including historical literature, biographies and first-person accounts of leaders within the nursing profession, selected essays and fiction, as well as film excerpts. The course emphasizes the important contributions that women have made in the development of the field of nursing, including creating an awareness of the profession through literary production.

This course celebrates the work of writers, thinkers, artists, philosophers, etc. whose voices have traditionally been constrained, marginalized, or ostracized by cultural, canonical, economic, political, social, and/or other systemic forces. A key goal of this course is to honor and foreground these voices while simultaneously examining the forces that have contributed to their marginalization. To best reflect a scope of diversity, Diverse Voices will regularly rotate different voices. May repeat for credit (different voice or theme). Other possible voices include: Daughters of Africa; Identity, Bodies, Spaces, and Sexuality; Extraordinary Bodies; Contemporary Multicultural American Voices; Voices from the Fringe.

This course is designed to familiarize and enhance students' critical and analytical reading and writing skills through selected works by Hispanic women writers from the Colonial through Contemporary periods. Using different genres (novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and essays), we will endeavor to understand how women's literary expression has been shaped by history, society, cultural identity, traditions, and politics in Spain and Latin America. The course is taught in English.

This course introduces students to ways in which writing can be used as a tool to address communities in the legal world as well as the larger global community. A variety of rhetorical modes will be explored to address both public and private sectors as well as formal and informal modes of expression inherent to those spheres. The course will also explore the value of careful diction, syntax, voice, and the process of revision as students engage in the social forums of the legal and social world. It is recommended that students complete LAW 202 and SOC 260 prior to enrolling in this course.

To be arranged with faculty.

This course examines English literature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries form both historical and critical points of view.

A survey of the drama, poetry, and prose of British Victorian writers (c. 1830-1900).

The novels of British writers from Forster to Lessing and Murdoch will be read and discussed in relation to contemporary British culture.

A survey of dramatic literature, history and theory from 1870 to the present.  Emphasis is placed on Ibsen and the Theatre of the Absurd.

This seminar course offers a sustained study of a single writer’s ouvre (or, occasionally, that of a pair or select group of writers) and its historical, cultural, and literary significance. Through extensive reading discussion, research, and writing students will explore diverse aspects of the writer’s work including key themes, form and style, cultural contexts, reception, and current critical conversations. Writers will vary each year.

This course examines the philosophical and literary unity of European thought from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. Authors include Chaucer, Langland, and Dante.

This course examines the development of the legend of Arthur and his knights, from its origin to the present.

The works of Dryden, Pope, Johnson, and Swift are central to this course on the 18th century literary epoch, sometimes described as the Age of Satire.

This course looks at some of the more notable literature of the 1980s, studying it in light of the cultural and historical events of the decade. The 1980s was a decade of excess. It was a decade of boisterous success, and tragic failure. Authors covered include Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, Alice Walker, Tama Janowitz, Jay McInerney, Brett Easton Ellis, and Paul Auster

The Elizabethan world view as it develops against the background of late medieval and humanist thought is the focus for readings in this course. The work of such writers as More, Spenser, Greene, Lyly, Nashe, Lodge, Marlowe, Kyd, Middleton, Drayton, Johnson, Marston, and Chapman will be considered.

A celebration of some of the world's finest poets including such authors as Pablo Neruda, Anna Swir, Yosano Akiko, and Yehuda Amichai. Some consideration may be given to the ways a particular poet's work has been shaped by social, political, or historical context, and to the questions of what it means to read a poem translation.

Fiction, nonfiction, and film are the foundations of this course which explores work and its effect on human experience. A study of the often unexpected ways that work affects life, the course will focus on the power and the importance of work economically, emotionally, and spiritually, viewed through the lens of visionary contemporary and traditional writers and film makers.

A study of the American novel from post-World War I to present.

A survey of British and American poetry of this century with an emphasis on contemporary writers.

There is so much that can be said about the United States Constitution.  Most simply, it is our country's foundational document that serves as the supreme law of the land.  Beyond this, there is controversy.  Is it a living document - the product of a particular historical situation to be reinterpreted in later historical contexts - or is it limited to its text and its meaning as intended when written?  What the true limits of central government's power?  How do checks and balances really work?  When is there sufficient government involvement to implicate individual rights under the Bill of Rights?  In fact, nothing is simple or static when it comes to constitutional interpretation and ultimately it is up to the Supreme Court to determine what it means.  This course will explore various provisions of the Constitution and the Court's interpretation thereof.  (This course is often cross-listed with POL 344, HST 344 and PSC 209.)  Prerequisites: ENG 101 or HUM 112 or WLD 101

Under this heading the English department will, from time to time, offer special courses in English language and literature -- courses dealing with, for example, themes, genres, figures, or problems not otherwise covered in the department's curriculum. For any such course, the instructor involved will determine the specific subject matter and will make available to students a full description in advance.

This course explores a number of plays form the career of the most important English dramatist.

This capstone course combines traditional seminar readings/discussion with individual student research projects, allowing students to draw upon and synthesize their previous work in the major.

To be arranged with faculty.

This course will feature the outstanding works of the first major English poet, including Troilus and the Canterbury Tales.

To be arranged with faculty.

Under this heading, the English Program will, from time to time, offer special courses in English language and literature -- courses dealing with, for example, themes, genres, figures, or problems not otherwise covered in the department's curriculum. For any such course, the instructor involved will determine the specific subject matter and will make available to students a full description in advance.

Complete one of the ENG courses from the following (3 credits):

• ENG 201 British Literature I
• ENG 202 British Literature II
• ENG 206 American Literature II
• ENG 208 American Literature III
• ENG 211 British Literature III
• ENG 332 Sowing & Reaping