ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION
Go to class! As a discipline, English is defined by both materials and methods. While students can certainly access the materials—texts of many kinds, defined in many ways—on their own, the methods require participation in a community of scholars, which is the role of the classroom lecture and discussion. Students learn from each other as well as from faculty, and miss a significant portion of the educational experience when they miss class meetings or fail to participate in discussions. The English Department therefore affirms the importance of regular class attendance and supports penalties for non-attendance as indicated on the syllabi of individual faculty members.
Courses at the 200-level
The principles that define form and meaning in a literary text are examined. Emphasis is on close reading and on acquiring a critical vocabulary and methodology.
4 credit hours
- or completion of the College writing requirement
- ENGL 100 and WRTG 100
The assumptions we make when we read and write about a literary text are examined. Fundamental issues of literary interpretation and various contemporary contexts for studying literature are considered.
4 credit hours
- ENGL 201
Representative works of British literature from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century are studied.
4 credit hours
- or completion of college Writing Requirement
- ENGL 100 and WRTG 100
Representative works of British literature of the 19th and 20th centuries are studied.
4 credit hours
- or completion of college Writing Requirement
- ENGL 100 and WRTG 100
Major authors and literary movements of American literature from the beginning to the present are studied.
4 credit hours
- ENGL 100 and WRTG 100
- or completion of college Writing Requirement
Students read material from early folklore to current literature in order to develop discrimination in the selection of books for children at the elementary school level. Focus is on methods of interpreting and evaluating children's literature.
4 credit hours
Themes appropriate to adolescence are explored in various genres. Resource material is included on adolescent literature.
4 credit hours
Basic techniques of writing fiction and poetry are introduced. Emphasis is on fundamental methods and forms basic to contemporary fiction and poetry.
4 credit hours
- WRTG 100
- or completion of College Writing Requirement
Students explore the social and rhetorical dimensions of professional communication. Emphasis is on the rhetorical situation. Genres may include business letters, memos, proposals, and/or reports. (Formerly Business Writing.)
4 credit hours
- WRTG 100
- or completion of College Writing Requirement
Students examine the consumption and production of digital and multimedia communication. Emphasis is on the rhetorical situation. Genres may include rhetorical analyses, proposals, progress reports, and blogs. (Formerly Expository Writing.)
4 credit hours
- or completion of college Writing Requirement
- WRTG 100
Students explore the critical and communicative tools of democratic participation. Emphasis is on the rhetorical situation. Genres may include letters, editorials, rhetorical analyses, white papers, and/or position papers.
4 credit hours
- WRTG 100
- or completion of College Writing Requirement
Study includes principles of gathering and writing news, developing article ideas, writing news stories and feature articles, and submitting articles for publication.
4 credit hours
- WRTG 100
- or completion of College Writing Requirement
Students examine cultural contact narratives, both "factual" and "fictional," between European "explorers" of the Arctic and native peoples in the comparative context of European colonialism and emergent native literatures.
4 credit hours
- Gen. Ed. Core 1, 2, and 3.
Representations are examined in fiction, nonfiction, film, and television of women as criminals, as crime victims, and as detectives. Emphasis is on twentieth-century Western and non-Western texts.
4 credit hours
- Gen. Ed. Core 1, 2, and 3.
Students explore Zen and its way of mindful "unknowing" in Eastern and Western expressions. Literary works, the works of Zen Buddhism, and Catholic mysticism are examined to discover the "negative way" in the literary experience.
4 credit hours
- Gen. Ed. Core 1, 2, and 3.
Various approaches are used to trace the origins, evolution, diversity, and significance of human notational and writing systems. Students cannot receive credit for both English 264 and Anthropology 264.
4 credit hours
- Gen. Ed. Core 1, 2, and 3.
Contemporary narratives by women from various Western and non-Western cultures are examined. Focus is on women's struggles for identity and agency within a global context and their diverse strategies of finding and telling their stories.
4 credit hours
- Gen. Ed. Core 1, 2, and 3.