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Course Descriptions — English
ENG1000 Preparatory and Introductory Composition (4 semester hours)
Develops writing skills both formal and analytical: mechanically sound sentences and paragraphs, spelling, vocabulary development, and sentence variation. The course progresses toward sustained work on sentence and paragraph structure and the organization of short descriptive and expository essays. Students may read each other's work and the work of professional writers to improve their critical and inter-pretive skills and to discover subjects and strategies for their own essays. Placement into the course will be determined by the performance on the English placement exam by students whose ACT English subscore is below 22; the course is open also to other students seeking help with these English composition skills. (Fall)
No prerequisites.
ENG1010 Composition I: Introduction to Academic Writing (2 semester hours)
Sentence and paragraph structure and the organization of short analytic and expository essays. Students may read each other's work and the work of profes-sional writers to improve their critical and interpretive skills and to discover sub-jects and strategies for their own essays. (Fall)
Prerequisites: Satisfactory performance on the English placement exam for students with ACT English subscore below 22; an ACT English subscore of 22 or higher or by a comparable SAT verbal score. Where no ACT or SAT scores are available, placement is by consent of the program chair.
ENG1020 Composition II: Introduction to Research Writing (4 semester hours)
Continuation of ENG1000 or ENG1010. ENG1020 is the second course in the University's Introduction to Writing sequence. Students read and discuss both fic-tional and non-fictional prose and prepare related writing assignments, including a substantial research-based argument paper requiring library research and documentation and synthesis of materials gathered from diverse sources into a coher-ently organized paper. (Spring)
Prerequisites: ENG1000, ENG1010 or equivalent via transfer or CLEP credit.
ENG1060 Introduction to Literature (4 semester hours)
Helps students become more competent and productive readers of literature through the examination of works from a variety of periods and genres. Through the reading of novels, short stories, plays and poems from a variety of authors writ-ing during a variety of eras, the course addresses such questions as: How does read-ing literature differ from reading other kinds of writing? How does the experience of literature vary according to the type of work one is reading? What is the use or value of reading literature? The course will also aim to provide students with a basic critical vocabulary for the analysis and discussion of literature. (Annually)
No prerequisites.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG/COM1140 Journalism (3 semester hours)
Cross-listed with COM1140. For description see COM1140.
ENG/COM2040 Technical and Professional Writing 4 semester hours
Mastery of practical forms of organizational writing: letters, memos, reports, emphasizing the preparation of the long formal report common to business, gov-ernment, and industrial organizations. Emphasizes mastery of the standard forms of organizational communication. (Every other year)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
ENG2060 Creative Writing (4 semester hours)
This course will be primarily concerned with the production and study of creative fiction. Students will study techniques and the imaginative uses of language in short stories, poems, and drama. Participants will read successful examples by diverse writers. Students will read and critique the creative works produced by members of the class in a friendly workshop environment. (Every other year)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
ENG2100 Linguistics (4 semester hours)
The course is designed to introduce a range of topics within the discipline, from phonetics through phonology, and morphology, to syntax and semantics. Partic-ipants will be exposed to the study of prescriptive and descriptive grammars. We will also study child language acquisition, language and the brain, historical lin-guistics and change over time, social and geographical dialects with a focus on Black English Vernacular (recently referred to as Ebonics) and English as a Second Language issues. (Spring)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
ENG2200 The Novel (4 semester hours)
Studies the development of the novel from the 18th through the 20th centuries; the focus will be on the English novel, but some attention will be given to Amer-ican and European instances of the form. The course will also explore a range of critical approaches to the form and to its relationship with the various contexts that shape the way we read novels. (Every other year)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG/THE2220 Drama Literature (4 semester hours)
A study of the art of dramatic writing that examines representative world theatre texts, along with their cultural and historic contexts. Organized around genre forms (e.g., verse, five-act, three-act, one-person, non-realism), students analyze the form and its context, do playwriting exercises in the form, and study the mas-ters of the form and their themes/motivations. Part performance analysis skill, part creative writing, part scholarly examination, this course is a unique context for studying and experiencing the vibrancy of theatrical forms, their cultural gen-esis or relevance, and for broadening skills in creative writing and understanding ancient and modern dramatic texts.
Prerequisites: ENG1020, THE1100 or THE1200.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG2240 Poetry (4 semester hours)
Students will study poetry written in English during the last 400 years. Reading in the poetry is supplemented and focused by readings in criticism and poetics. The approach is topical rather than chronological and should develop a student's sense of what kind of thing a poem is and how poems can best be read. (Every other year)
Prerequisite: ENG1020 or consent of instructor.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG 2260 Critical Approaches to Literature (4 semester hours)
This course provides preparation in the methods and materials of literary study. While the course devotes some attention to introducing or reviewing basic ana-lytic vocabulary, it emphasizes the application of different critical and theoretical approaches to the interpretation of primary literary texts. Along with the selected literary works, assigned readings will include a variety of scholarly secondary texts. (Every year)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
ENG3020 Advanced Academic Writing (4 semester hours)
Analyzes and prepares students to produce prose of the sort expected in upper- level undergraduate courses or graduate programs, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. The course emphasizes the development of a flexible and efficient style and of sophisticated expository and argumentative discourse strate-gies. (Fall)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
ENG/EDU3180 Multicultural Literature for Children (2 semester hours)
Cross-listed with EDU3180. For description see EDU3180.
ENG/EDU3190 Multicultural Literature for Young Adults (2 semester hours)
Cross-listed with EDU3190. For description see EDU3190.
ENG3200 Comparative Literature (4 semester hours)
Studies classic works of literature, primarily from the western tradition, ranging from the Greeks through the modernist period. Versions of the course will be organized around particular themes or issues (e.g., the Antigone or Faust story, the development and exhaustion of the epic tradition, the rise of realism in Euro-pean literature, etc.). The course will also explore a range of critical and scholarly perspectives on the literature it studies. (Every other year)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
ENG3320 American Literature: Puritanism-1865 (4 semester hours)
American Literature presents a study of Americans in their developing and chang-ing environment from the Puritanism, to the Colonial and the Romantic periods, to the end of the Civil War. We will cover a broad range of texts: political essays, songs, captivity narratives, memoirs, myths and tales, poetry, and the emerging American novel. Writers studied may include Bradford, Bradstreet, Mather, Franklin, Jefferson, Wheatly, Douglass, Truth, Melville, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Whitman. (Annually)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG3350 American Literature: 1865-present (4 semester hours)
Examines the rise of modernism and post-modernism in an ongoing dialog with our world. The course explores various genres and sub-genres from the Civil War to the present and pays particular attention to understanding approaches to criticism within historical, social, political, and philosophical contexts. Authors stud-ied may include: Twain, Chopin, Crane, Dunbar, Cather, Frost, Sandburg, Anderson, Eliot, Hughes, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Porter, Williams, O'Connor, Sexton, Morrison, and Mason. (Annually)
Prerequisite: ENG1020 or consent of instructor.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG3400 British Literature: Anglo-Saxons to the Renaissance (4 semester hours)
The course provides a survey of British Literature, beginning with works from its Anglo-Saxon period, progressing through the Medieval Age in the work of such writers as Chaucer and the Gawain poet, into the height of the Renaissance in England, as exemplified by the poetry of Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare. Also explores the changes in the English language during this span of time. The course will also explore critical approaches to literature, especially those that emphasize the reading of literary texts within historical and cultural contexts. (Annually)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG3420 British Literature: Renaissance to the Romantics (4 semester hours)
The course continues the survey of British literature through the study of poetry, drama, and some of the nonfictional prose written in England between the height of the Renaissance through the 17th and 18th centuries to arrive at the beginnings of the Romantic period. Authors studied may include Marlowe, Shakespeare, Mil-ton, the Metaphysical poets, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Johnson, and Blake. The course will also explore critical approaches to literature, particularly those that emphasize the reacting of literary texts within historical and cultural contexts (Annually)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG3440 British Literature: The Romantics to the Present (4 semester hours)
The course concludes the survey of British literature by tracing the literary devel-opments from Romanticism to the Victorian Age to the Modernist period to the present age. Readings will reflect the popularity of prose fiction during these cen-turies. In addition to Wordsworth and the Romantic poets, readings may include works by Austen, Tennyson, Arnold, Browning, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, Conrad, Lawrence, Woolf, and Shaw. Literature of the mid- to late-20th century will also be represented. The course will also explore critical approaches to literature, par-ticularly those that emphasize the reading of literary texts within historical and cultural contexts (Annually)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG3500 Contemporary World Literature (4 semester hours)
Studies literature since WWII, with special emphasis on the postcolonial and post-modern strands in the imaginative writing of the last half-century. The course will also explore a range of critical approaches to this work and to its relationship with the various contexts that shape the way we read it. (Every other year)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
ENG3520 Racial and Ethnic Themes in Literature (4 semester hours)
The development of racial or ethnic themes in different literary genres created in America and the diaspora by African American, Asian/Pacific American, Native American, Latino/American origin, or writers of other ethnic origin, from the 19th century to the present. We will focus on interpretations of texts, the world that these texts create as well as our everyday world. We will also examine the sociopolitical, historical, and ethnic foundations underlying the contexts that shape these texts. Critical approaches to the interpretation of these works will include cultural criticism. Writers studied may include: Douglass, Dunbar, Hughes, Baldwin, Walker, Angelou, Hong Kingston, Mukherjee, Moraga, Cis-neros, Castilo, Valdez, Alexie, Dandicat, Singer, Erdrich, Momaday, Silko, Allende, and Kosinski. (Every other year)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
ENG3550 Language, Literacy and Cognition (4 semester hours)
Studies the ways in which the mind acquires, produces, and understands lan-guage; the origins, development, uses, and consequences - especially the cog-nitive consequences - of literacy; the impact of various technologies on literacy and its uses; and the interaction between literacy and schooling. (Every other year)
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
ENG3810 Topics in Language (2 or 4 semester hours)
Special topics in language offered periodically as the need occurs.
Prerequisite: ENG1020.
Meets General Education "Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression" Group B requirement.
ENG3820 Secondary Methods in English (4 semester hours)
This course presents techniques that are effective in teaching in the content areas. The course includes lesson planning, classroom arrangement, curriculum design, alternative teaching strategies, and evaluation. In addition to the classroom hours, there is a simultaneous practicum. This is usually the last course the student takes prior to student teaching. (Fall)
Prerequisites: Acceptance into the College of Education including passing the Basic Skills Test, maintaining a GPA of 3.00, passing a background check, and EDU2200 and EDU2260. Placement applications for the practicum are due to the College of Education placement coordinator the January before the academic year of the practicum or for transfer students upon acceptance into the College of Education.
ENG4990 Seminar in English (4 semester hours)
This course will survey major theoretical positions on the structure and functions of written texts, literary and otherwise, and on the processes by which they are written and read. It will also examine significant contemporary interactions between English studies and other fields of scholarly inquiry. (Fall)
Prerequisites: A declared major or minor in English; a minimum of four courses in English, including ENG2260 or equivalent, and at least two of them at the 3000- level; submission of a portfolio completed according to program guidelines; senior standing recommended.
Academic information on departmental Web sites reflects the university's most current curriculum. The print version of the catalog, which is also posted online, may differ from this information.
