Department of EnglishFaculty Contacts

Fall 2013

Chair, English Department Carol Beran GV 207 x 4432cberan@stmarys-ca.edu

Director, Composition Lisa Manter D 300 x 4462 lmanter@stmarys-ca.edu

Director, MFA Creative Writing Brenda Hillman D 322 x 4457 bhillman@stmarys-ca.edu riverrun Faculty Advisor Matthew Zapruder TBA

mjz4@stmarys-ca.edu English Underground (English Club) Molly Metherd D 309 x 4166

mmetherd@stmarys-ca.edu

Lysley Tenorio D 315 x 4764latenori@stmarys-ca.edu

Graduate School Advisor Kathryn Koo D 319N x8782kkoo@stmarys-ca.edu

SMPP Advising Janice Doane D 306 x 4424jdoane@stmarys-ca.edu

English Department website: www. stmarys-ca.edu/english

ENJOY ENGLISH IN FALL 201319-1 Introduction to Literary Analysis MWF 9:15 Molly Metherd19-2 Introduction to Literary Analysis MWF 2:45 Sandra Grayson19-3 Introduction to Literary Analysis T/Th 11:30 Jeannine King25-1 Creative Writing: Multi-Genre T/Th 9:45 Rosemary Graham25-2 Creative Writing: Multi-Genre T/Th 1:15 Marilyn Abildskov26 Creative Writing Reading Series (.25) Wed 7:30 pm Brenda Hillman27 Book Club (.25) Thurs 3:00 Kathryn Koo29-1 Issues in Literary Study MWF 2:45 Kathryn Koo100 Advanced Composition T/Th 11:30 Rosemary Graham101-1 Writing Advisor Training-Beg. (.25) Wed 11:45 Tereza Kramer101-2 Writing Advisor Training-Advanced (.25) Tues. 11:30 Tereza Kramer102-1 Creative Writing: Nonfiction M/F 1:00 Wesley Gibson102-2 Creative Writing: Poetry T/Th 3:00 Jeanne Foster104 British Literature II T/Th 8:00 Carol Beran105 Children’s Literature T/Th 9:45 Carol Beran124 SMPP Assessment & Portfolio (.25) TBA Janice Doane125 Film: Hitchcock T/Th 11:30 Lisa Manter140 Science Fiction MWF 10:30 Robert Gorsch143 18th C. Lit.:Reason, Madness, Money MWF 9:15 Clinton Bond144 19th C. Lit.: Gothic Imagination MWF 11:45 Sandra Grayson151 American Literature 1800-1900 MWF 10:30 Kathryn Koo153 Latino(a) Literature M/F 1:00 Molly Metherd170 Problems in Literary Theory T/Th 3:00 Ed Biglin171 Movements:Existentialism & Modern Lit. MWF 11:45 Ben Xu175 Shakespeare M/F 1:00 Hilda Ma198 Senior Honors Thesis TBA Carol BeranGraduate *200 Foundations of Contemporary Lit. T/Th 1:15 Barry Horwitz 201-2 Writing Across the Curriculum Wed. 11:15 Tereza Kramer 201-3 Writing Across the Curriculum Tuesday 11:30 Tereza Kramer 211 Fiction Workshop Wed. 4:00 Lysley Tenorio 212 Poetry Workshop Wed. 4:00 Matthew Zapruder 214 Nonfiction Workshop Wed. 4:00 Wesley Gibson*261 Craft Seminar in Fiction T/Th 3:00 Rosemary Graham*262 Craft Seminar in Poetry Thurs. 4:45 Brenda Hillman*264 Craft Seminar in Nonfiction Tues. 4:45 Marilyn Abildskov

*Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of instructor.Fulfills Core Curriculum: American Diversity: 23, 153, 154. Artistic Understanding: 19, 23, 105, 115, 118,125,

126, 138, 140, 153, 154, 163,173, 175. Artistic Understanding and Creative Practice: 25,102. NOTES: In addition to English Major Requirements, English 100, 101, 102, 110, 125, 126, 153, 154, 173, 182,

183, 184 can be used to satisfy The Subject Matter Preparation Program. See following page. English 144, 153 are cross-listed with Women’s Studies English 143 satisfies literature before 1800 requirement for the major English 144 satisfies literature before 1900 requirement for the major

Enjoy Literature, Poetry, Film, Plays Spring 2014

19-1 Introduction to Literary Analysis T/Th 9:45 Carol Beran23 American Voices MWF 11:45 Kathryn Koo24 SMPP Assessment & Portfolio (.25) TBA Janice Doane25 Creative Writing: Multi-Genre T/Th 3:00 Matthew Zapruder26 Creative Writing Reading Series (.25) Wed. 7:30 pm Brenda Hillman27 Book Club (.25) TBA Janice Doane29-1 Issues in Literary Study M/F 1:00 Sandra Grayson29-2 Issues in Literary Study MWF 2:45 Kathryn Koo101-1 Writing Advisor Training –Beg. (.25) Wed. 11:45-12:50 Tereza Kramer101-2 Writing Advisor Training-Adv. (.25) Tues. 11:30-1:05 Tereza Kramer 102-1 Creative Writing: Drama T/Th 9:45 TBA102-2 Creative Writing: Fiction T/Th 3:00 Marilyn Abildskov103 British Literature I M/F 1:00 Robert Gorsch115 Chaucer T/Th 11:30 Lisa Manter124 SMPP Assessment & Portfolio (.25) TBA Janice Doane142 Renaissance & 17th C. Literature M/F 1:00 Hilda Ma150 American Literature before 1800 MWF 9:15 Janice Doane152 20th Century American Lit. MWF 10:30 Molly Metherd154 Studies in African-Am Lit. T/Th 1:15 Jeannine King170 Problems in Literary Theory MWF 10:30 Ben Xu175 Shakespeare MWF 8:00 Clinton Bond184 Contemporary Drama MWF 11:45 Barry Horwitz198 Senior Honors Thesis TBA Carol Beran Graduate: 211Fiction Workshop Wed. 4:00 Joshua Mohr 212 Poetry Workshop Wed. 4:00 Norma Cole 214 Nonfiction Workshop Wed. 4:00 Kaya Oakes 232 Contemporary Poetry T/Th 3:00 Chris Sindt

*261 Craft Seminar in Fiction Thurs. 4:45 Lysley Tenorio*264 Craft Seminar in Nonfiction Tuesday 4:45 Wesley Gibson

*Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of instructor.

Fulfills Core Curriculum: American Diversity: 23, 153, 154. Artistic Understanding: 19, 23, 105, 115, 118,125, 126, 138, 140, 153, 154, 163,173,175. Artistic Understanding and Creative Practice: 25,102.

NOTES: In addition to English Major Requirements, English 100, 102, 110, 125, 126, 153, 154, 173, 182, 183, 184 can be used to satisfy The Subject Matter Preparation Program. See following page. English 150 and 154 are cross-listed with Women’s Studies

English 150 satisfies literature before 1800 requirement for the major English 154 is cross-listed with Ethnic Studies

THE ENGLISH MAJOR

Lower Division:

The lower-division requirements are as follows:

English 19: Introduction to Literary Analysis (prerequisite to English 29)

English 29: Issues in Literary Study

It is recommended that students take these courses prior to the junior year.

Upper Division:

English 19 is prerequisite to English 29.English 29 is prerequisite to English 167, 168, and 170.

The upper-division requirements are as follows:

English 103: British Literature I

English 104: British Literature II

English 150: American Literature Before 1800 or English 151: American Literature 1800-1900 or English 152: Twentieth-Century American Literature

English 175: Shakespeare

One additional course in English or American literature prior to 1800

One additional course in English or American literature prior to 1900

One course in literary criticism or literary theory: English 167, 168, or 170. (It is recommended that the course in literary criticism or literary theory be taken in the senior year.)

Four additional English courses, not more than one of which may be lower division. English 3, 4, and 5 do not count towards the major.

Updated 4/15/09

The English Minor

The minor in English requires:

English 19: Introduction to Literary Analysis (prerequisite to English 29)

English 29: Issues in Literary Study

English 175: Shakespeare

and

three upper division English electives

Updated June 2004Effective Fall 2002

The Creative Writing Minor

The Creative Writing Minor, offered through the Department of English, is designed for students who wish to explore their creative potential as writers. The Creative Writing Minor is an excellent place for students who wish to gain a greater appreciation of the art of writing, who may wish to pursue a career in writing or journalism, or who simply wish to develop their academic or business writing skills by applying the techniques offered in creative writing classes to their writing at large.

Requirements: (total 5.5 courses)

English 19: Introduction to Literary Analysis

English 25: Creative Writing: Multi-Genre Studies

Three courses from the following:

English 100: Advanced Composition English 102: Creative Writing Workshop (in Fiction, Poetry, Creative Non-Fiction, Drama, or Screenwriting) (may be repeated for credit)

English 26: The Creative Writing Reading Series (.25 units) (Must be taken at least twice for credit)

3/07

Emphases Within the English Major

The English major provides a broad foundation in the discipline. Students who desire to focus on a special area of interest may do so by choosing electives within the major that meet the following requirements:

Creative Writing Emphasis:-- English 25 (preferably freshman or sophomore year)-- Any three upper division Creative Writing classes: English 102 (Poetry, Fiction, Non-fiction, Dramatic Writing, Screenwriting)-- Two semesters of English 26 (.25 credit)

Literary Theory and History Emphasis: (preparation for graduate study)-- One additional course in literary criticism or theory-- One additional pre-1900 course -- English 198 (honors thesis) in the fall semester of the senior year-- English 200, the graduate-level course in Modernism (undergraduates must apply to enroll in this course)

Dramatic and Film Arts Emphasis:-- English 125 or 126 (Film)-- Any three of the following:

English 102: Dramatic Writing or ScreenwritingEnglish 182: The DramaEnglish 183: Topics in DramaEnglish 184: Contemporary DramaEnglish 185: Individual Dramatists

-- Other English and Upper Division January Term courses with film or drama- based content may also apply to the concentration.

For the Subject Matter Preparation Emphasis, please see the next page.

Beginning in Fall 2010, students may petition for the emphasis to be listed on their transcripts.

SUBJECT-MATTER PREPARATION PROGRAM

All students in the Subject-Matter Preparation Program must enroll in the following special courses:

English 24/124: SMPP Assessment and Portfolio

English 24 (offered in Spring Only)English 24 is a .25 credit course that students in the English Subject-MatterPreparation Program, designed for prospective secondary school teachers, are required to register for once prior to their senior year. The course assists students in beginning their portfolio and preparing them for the initial assessment interview required by the SMPP program.

English 124English 124 is a .25 credit course that students in the English Subject-Matter Preparation Program are required to register for during one semester of their senior year. The course assists students in assembling the final version of their portfolio and preparing them for the final assessment interview required by the SMP program

Instructor: Janice Doane Schedule to be arranged with students

Full requirements for the SMPP are listed on the facing page.

SUBJECT-MATTER PREPARATION PROGRAMIN ENGLISH

Saint Mary’s College has been approved by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing of the State of California to offer a student who majors in English appropriate preparation for a teaching credential in English. The following course of study is the normal preparation for a prospective secondary school English teacher. Those who complete this program are allowed to waive the CSET exam required for high school classroom teaching.

I. CORE STUDIES: 13 courses (12.25 units)

Composition and Rhetoric – 2 courses (1.25 units)English 100: Advanced CompositionEnglish 101: Writing Tutor Workshop (.25 units)

Linguistics – 1 course English 110: Linguistics—Language, Mind, and Culture

Literature – 8 courses English 19: Introduction to Literary AnalysisEnglish 29: Issues in Literary StudyEnglish 103 and 104: Major British WritersEnglish 175: ShakespeareEnglish 150, 151or 152: American LiteratureOne course in English or American Literature before 1800One course in English or American Literature before 1900

Speech, media and creative performance: 2 of the following courses. Choose 1 Communication and 1 in Performing Arts :

Communication 10: Argument and AdvocacyCommunication 2: Communication and Social UnderstandingCommunication 3: Communication Inquiry

Performing Arts 1: Perceiving the Performing ArtsPerforming Arts 33: Acting 1: Principles of PerformancePerforming Arts 132: Performing Arts in Production

continued

II. EXTENDED STUDIES: 9 courses (7 units)

The extended studies curriculum is designed to supplement the core by providing students with depth, breadth, areas of concentration, and an introduction to classroom teaching and teaching technology.

One of the following courses:English 167: Literary Criticism: From the Ancient Greeks to the RomanticsEnglish 168: Literary Criticism: the 19th and 20th centuriesEnglish 170: Problems in Literary Theory

One of the following courses: English 153: American Ethnic Writers and Oral TraditionsEnglish 154: Studies in African-American Literature

Two of the following courses: English 102: Creative WritingEnglish 105: Children’s LiteratureEnglish 125 or 126: FilmEnglish 140: Literary Genres (Including Popular Genres)English 163: The Other English Literatures English 173: Women WritersEnglish 182, 183 or 184: Drama

Internship Requirement and Classroom Technology

All of the following courses:Registration in SMPP: English 24 first semester in program (.25 units)Registration in SMPP: English 124 senior year in program (.25 units)Education 122: Field Experience (1 unit)Single Subject Teacher Education 224: Technology in the Classroom (.5 units)

* * *

SMPP Coordinator: Professor Janice Doane Dante 306, 631-4424 jdoane@stmarys-ca.edu

October 7, 2010

English 19: Introduction to Literary Analysis

There are courses in speed reading. This is a course in slow reading, for reading works of literature is a reading that never quite finishes. A good reader has a hard time getting to the end. There is so much to pay attention to along the way: a surprising word or comparison, a distracting digression by the narrator ... Why won't that narrator get out of the way?

Although primarily designed as an introductory course for English majors, this course is open to all lovers of literature. It will give more experienced readers a chance to perfect their analytical skills and less experienced readers a chance to acquire new skills. We will concentrate on learning how to pay the kind of attention that literature demands and how to ask and answer fruitful questions. We will begin to master the language of literary criticism, the technical vocabulary that makes it possible for a reader to ask and to answer interpretive questions with clarity and precision.

English 19-1 and 19-2:

Texts: Scholes et al., eds., Elements of LiteratureAbrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms

Requirements: Careful reading and rereading, active participation in class discussions, and several short essays.

19-1: Instructor: Molly Metherd MWF 9:15-10:2019-2: Instructor: Sandra Grayson MWF 2:45-3:50

English 19-3:

Text: Michael Meyer, The Compact Bedford Introduction to LiteratureRequirements: Active participation in class discussions, group presentation, three shortEssays and three quizzes.

19-3: Instructor: Jeannine King T/Th 11:30-1:05

English 19 satisfies the Core Requirement: Artistic Understanding.

English 25-1: Creative Writing, Multi Genre

Over the course of the semester, you will study and experiment with various writing forms and techniques, using exercises from our text as well as other sources. You will analyze and critique established writers’ work, with a special emphasis on form and technique. You will employ these techniques as you write and revise your own personal essays, poems, fiction and drama.

Texts: Janet Burroway, Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft Assorted stories, poems, and plays.

Basis for final grade:

Daily creative exercises, graded as a whole 30% Four creative pieces, expanded and revised: 30% Short analytical essays: 30% Participation. 10%. Lively participation is expected. Although it can be intimidating at

first, you are expected to share your work with your peers. You are all expected to provide honest, encouraging feedback. (We’ll talk about what that is.)

Instructor: Rosemary Graham T/Th 9:45-11:20

No experience required! This course is open to all majors. It fulfills a Creative Writing Minor requirement and the Artistic Understanding Learning Goal for the Core Curriculum.

English 25-2: Introduction to Creative Writing: Feeling to Form

There are many reasons to write, but one of the most time-honored is this: we have some strong feeling we want to convey. We miss the small red house of our childhood, the smell of our grandmother’s soap, the slant of our father’s handwriting, the perfect meal we had with someone in a seaside town many years ago. We write out of longing, memory, happiness, and revenge. But we also know that no one cares about our house, our soap, our father’s script. No one cares about the oysters we ate in that lost-to-memory seaside town. No one cares about the person we ate those oysters with. Unless, of course, we find just the right words and put them in just the right form. “It is through form, not in spite of it, or accidental to it,” says the writer Jeanette Winterson, “that the most powerful emotions are let loose over the greatest number of people.” In this course we will study and practice the craft and techniques of four genres of creative writing: poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, and drama. Throughout the course, we will practice techniques applicable to all good writing: sharp imagery, a memorable voice, precise scenes, clear summary, and a conflict that will make your reader remember what you wrote. Keeping this in mind, your patience, stamina, commitment, and good humor are essential for this course. It will be a lot of work, but a lot of fun as well.

Required Text: Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft by Janet Burroway

Requirements: One short story, a set of poems, a personal essay, and a short dramatic scene.

Instructor: Marilyn Abildskov T/Th 1:15-2:50

This course satisfies the Core requirement in Artistic Understanding and Creative Practice.

English 26: Creative Writing Reading Series (.25)

“You are young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and tot try to love the questions themselves…” So the poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes to a friend, a young writer who asks him about the writing life. From writers we hear about bringing language to the unsolved questions.

Every semester, some of our finest contemporary writers visit Saint Mary’s to read from their work and to discuss their writing processes. English 26 is a quarter-credit class designed to give students an opportunity to be more active members of the audience. The student will attend the events in the Creative Writing Reading Series, read the work of some of the writers, and have a chance ask the visitor questions about the life of a writer.

Requirements:

Regular attendance at all events in the Reading Series; brief reviews of two events and a longer review of one writer’s book.

Instructor: Brenda Hillman Wednesdays 7:30-9:00 p.m.

English 27: Book and Film Club“Your only duty is to write a really good screenplay with the same title as my book.”

-Kazuo Ishiguro

What exactly is the relationship between a book and a screenplay? Between what is found in the pages of a novel, biography, memoir, or autobiography and what is later illuminated on the screen? In this book club, we’ll explore the transformation of different literary genres into film and develop our own theory of adaptation along the way.

If you’ve ever wanted to be a film critic, this is the book club for you. Students will have the opportunity to shape the reading/ viewing list on the first day of class (the books/films to the right are just some of the possibilities). Please note that several adaptations will be arriving in theaters soon, thus offering us the opportunity for field trips to the local movie theater.

All are welcome. Join us!

P/F grading based on attendance, completion of reading assignments, and participation in class discussions.

Instructor: Kathryn Koo

Time: Thursdays 3:00-4:35The Bell Jar

Cloud Atlas

Argo

Lincoln

The Hobbit

life of PI

On the Road

The Help

The Social Network

Moneyball

Anna Karenina

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Cosmopolis

The ROAD

Great expectations

Winter’s Bone

A beautiful mind

English 29: Issues in Literary Study

This course will offer students the opportunity to develop a “toolbox” of methods and skills for the advanced study of literature. We will examine and practice a number of theoretical approaches, including New Critical, feminist, deconstructionist, post-structuralist, and historical/cultural approaches to the text. We will seek to identify the cultural and aesthetic values that shape literary canons. We will also practice the research skills of the literary scholar and engage with other critics whose views may or may not coincide with our own. This course will be essential to the development of a new critical voice in the field – yours. Join us.

Reading List: Steven Lynn, Texts and Contexts Novellas, short stories, and plays, to be determined

A course reader

Course Requirements: Participation, Presentations, Short Assignments and Responses, and Three Essays

Instructor: Prof. Kathryn Koo M/W/F 2:45-3:50

English 100: Advanced Composition

This course is designed to improve students’ analytical, persuasive and expository writing as well as to help them develop voice and style. Students will build on their research skills with the aim of producing effective upper-division college papers on complex topics. In addition, the course will cover motivation and commitment to writing and revising, appealing to specific audiences, developing and organizing ideas.

Prerequisites: English 4 and 5. In some cases, transfer students with advanced standing may take this course in lieu of English 5. Students must petition the Director of Composition for this exception.

Texts: William Vesterman, Great Interdisciplinary Ideas: A Reader for Writers Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta LacksWilliam Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Requirements: Attendance; active preparation and participation; assorted exercises; three essays taken through draft and revision process.

Instructor: Rosemary Graham T/Th 11:30-1:05

This course satisfies a Creative Writing Minor requirementand the SMPP Core Studies Writing Requirement.

ENGLISH 101-1: Writing Adviser Training – BEGINNING (.25)

We explore ways of helping peer students express themselves during all stages of the writing process – from discovering and organizing ideas to editing drafts. By learning practical techniques, we strengthen our own writing and develop confidence in working with others. We also will learn strategies for helping peers write in diverse genres, situations, and academic disciplines.

This training is especially valuable for those who are considering working as teachers, counselors, lawyers, business executives, or other positions that involve mentoring and professional communication.

After this course, students are eligible to apply to work in the Center for Writing Across the Curriculum. If interested, please contact the CWAC Director for details of the application process.

Readings : Ryan, Leigh, and Lisa Zimmerelli. The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors

Requirement: One class hour per week (l hour/.25 unit)Instructor : Tereza Joy Kramer Wednesday 11:45-12:50

ENGLISH 101-2: Writing Adviser Training – ADVANCED (.25)

This is a weekly Staff Workshop taken by students who already have passed ENGLISH 101-1, have been hired, and currently work as Writing Advisers in CWAC.

Through the Learning element of our Service-Learning work, we are always building our repertoire of skills to offer peer writers and simultaneously improve our own writing and empathic skills.

We explore various facets of Writing Center work, weaving in ideas from scholarly research and our practical experiences in CWAC. We reflect upon and discuss these topics, and we work on collaborative projects that enhance our learning and benefit writers of all disciplines across the college.

Readings : As assignedRequirement: 1.5 workshop hours per week (l hour/.25 unit)Instructor : Tereza Joy Kramer Tuesday 11:30-1:05Enrollment: By permission of instructor

English 102-1 Creative Writing: Nonfiction

In this course we will examine, mostly, how to translate the stuff of life into the stuff of art. In other words, we will examine how to turn our personal experience into readable prose that will be enlightening and moving and pleasurable for others to read. We will also look at other forms of nonfiction writing like travel writing, the profile, literary journalism and even popular criticism. We will read a variety of some of the great writers of the genre like Joan Didion and Jo Ann Beard and Pauline Kael. We will spend the first half of the semester doing exercises to practice the craft of creating characters, how to tell a story, the original and authentic use of language, point of view, how setting works, figurative language, among other things. Students should leave with a fundamental knowledge of nonfiction literature and how to begin to write it. It should be fun and stimulating.

Reading List: Joan Didion, The White Album Beard, Boys of my Youth

Course Requirements: Class participation (this means coming to class prepared in every way), six to eight exercises, and a final creative piece of work of 10-15 pages.

Instructor: Wesley Gibson M/F 1:00-2:40 p.m.

This course fulfills the Core Curriculum requirement of Artistic Understandingand Creative Practice.

English 102-2: Creative Writing: Poetry

The question is not “How to write” but “How to say what you really mean,” the poet Ted Hughes says in his little book Poetry Is. In this course you will be writing your own poems in which you try to “say what you really mean.”

You’ll present them to the group for comment, revise your poems as a result, and practice how to give comments to others in an atmosphere of consideration and trust, with a focus on enabling each one to fulfill his or her unique potential for writing poetry.

Requirements: The class will consist of weekly workshops; in-class writing exercises; reading, reflecting on and discussion of assigned poetry by established writers as well as handouts on the writing process. At the end of the course you will turn in a portfolio of your best work and present some of it in a group reading.

The grade will be based on your regular attendance, active and thoughtful participation in group discussions, completion of all written assignments, and development of your imaginative and creative writing skills.

Instructor: Jeanne Foster T/Th 3:00-4:35

English 104: “The Center Cannot Hold”: British Literature, Pre-Romantic to Modern

Dizzying changes in England during the late eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries infuse the literature of the time with excitement, hope, and pain. As established ideas were challenged, questions about gender roles, love, marriage, wealth, work, social status, oppression, nature, art, truth, and where to seek meaning in life became subjects of debate in poetry, fiction, drama, and essays.

As we read texts by writers such as Jane Austen, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Alfred Tennyson, Gerald Manly Hopkins, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning, William Butler Yeats, and Thomas Hardy, we will learn about their world and about the forces that have shaped our past. We will experience the power of writers to create thoughtful, beautiful, and moving literature from exciting or sad or perplexing experience. We will discover what happens to literature in times of rapid change, as writers create new forms to construct new visions of what it means to be human.

Readings:

Norton Anthology of English Literature, Romantic, Victorian, ModernJane Austen, Sense and SensibilityThomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge

Requirements:

Good attendance, attentive reading, active class participation, three short essays, project, final exam.

Instructor:

Carol Beran Tuesday and Thursday 8:00-9:35

Note: This course fulfills a requirement for English majors.

English 105: Children’s Literature

As stories entertain children, they also teach them about the culture in which they live and their place in it. In this course we will begin with oral storytelling and then move into folk tales, attempting to become aware of our own acculturation through a study of literature we encountered as children. We will read essays highlighting theoretical concerns and issues relating to literature for children and classic examples of children’s literature including Alice in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Anne of Green Gables, and The Hobbit. We will sample recent multicultural books and consider Harry Potter too. Students interested in writing their own children’s stories will have opportunities to do so.

Readings will include :

Schimmel, Just Enough to Make a StoryClassic Fairy Tales, ed. Tatar (selections)Considering Children’s Literature, ed. Wyile and Rosenberg (selections)Carroll, Alice in WonderlandBaum, The Wonderful Wizard of OzMontgomery, Anne of Green GablesTolkien, The HobbitRowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Requirements:

Enthusiastic class participation, attentive reading, several essays, research project presentations, final exam.

Instructor:

Carol Beran Tuesday/Thursday 9:45-11:20

Note: This course fulfills an Area A requirement or an Artistic Understanding requirement. It can be used as an English elective for English majors and minors.

ENGL 125: Alfred Hitchcock Presents: An Introduction to Film History & Film Analysis

Course Description:The Master of Suspense, whose career ranges from the silent period to the seventies, will be our guide through the history of American and European cinema. His films have won over both popular audiences and film critics with their morbid sense of humor and ability to reveal the dark side of everyday life. His artistic career reflects the developments of 20th century cinema, and his innovative use of film techniques and his commitment to “shooting for the camera” have made him one of the most influential directors in the eyes of modern film-makers. Each week we will view and discuss a Hitchcock film that is representative of a particular stage of film history. These films will serve as the basis for understanding specific aspects of film analysis. Readings from the required text will provide starting point for discussions and serve to introduce you to film analysis and film criticism.

Required Texts:Louis Giannetti. Understanding Movies. Prentice Hall.Marshall Deutelbaum & Leland Poague. A Hitchcock Reader. Iowa State UP.

This course fulfills the Core’s Pathways to Knowledge Artistic Understanding Learning Goal, which asks students to analyze, interpret and critique works of art, considering the role of formal methods and techniques, and historical contexts. As part of this goal, students will be asked to analyze and interpret the form and meaning of selected films. You will learn to apply discipline-based critical vocabulary and theory to explore Hitchcock’s works, as well as learn about how these works fit into the history of film.

Grading Breakdown:Participation (10%)Film Notes and Questions for Discussion (10%) Quizzes (10%)Short Essays (20%)Two In-class Exams (20%)Comprehensive Final Exam (30%)

Instructor: Prof. Lisa Manter T/Th 11:30-1:05

This course satisfies the core requirement for Artistic Understanding.

English 140: Science Fiction

“The Shape of Things to Come”-- title of the work by H. G. Wells

from which the 1936 movie Things to Come was made

“The Way the Future Was” -- title of the autobiography of

Frederik Pohl, a science fiction writer who grew up during the 1930s

It wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth-century that “futuristic fiction” began to emerge as a literary genre. Darwin’s theoretical model of the processes of evolutionary change had something to do with this; so, too, did the accelerating pace of advances in scientific knowledge and technological achievement.

It became clear at the beginning of our century that the future was going to be different, to a degree unprecedented in human history, from the present and from the past and that no one had any reliable way to predict the distant future. “The future” emerged as an intellectual and imaginative playground, the object at once of sober prophecies and speculations and colorful and outlandish imaginings that verged on fantasy.

This course will study the development of “science fiction” – in pulp magazines, comics, radio, hardcover and paperback books, movies, and television—during the twentieth century. Science fiction, as the exploration of possible futures, has outgrown its origin in magazines addressed to “nerds” and proto-scientists to become one of the dominant influences in contemporary American culture.

Readings will include the writings of H. G. Wells, Robert Heinlein, Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Frederic Pohl, Philip K. Dick, Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ, and a host of others. We will pay attention to the emergence of science fiction in comics, radio, movies and television, taking seriously, for example, classic science fiction films like Things to Come, The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, and Bladerunner, and Star Trek in both its TV and cinematic incarnations.

Requirements: Faithful attendance, careful reading and watching, active participation in class discussion, two or three papers, and a take-home final exam.

Instructor: Robert Gorsch MWF 10:30-11:35

This course fulfills the Core Curriculum Requirement of Artistic Understanding

English 143: Reason, Madness and MoneyScholars have traditionally called the eighteenth century “The Age of Reason” or

“The Enlightenment,” as if regular life with its violence and tenderness, beauty and ugliness didn’t exist and the period was devoted to dry discussions of philosophy, mathematics or the many scientific discoveries of the time. But this was an era that was framed by revolution and war—revolution in England in the mid-seventeenth century and in the American colonies (and France) over one hundred years later.

Looking at a variety of works, we will examine the age’s claims of rationality, but we will also investigate works that treat the other, darker sides of the time—crime, madness, illicit sexuality, slavery and colonization, the power of money, and so forth. We’ll also take note of the increasing importance of female authors in the literature, as well as seeing how much of the modern world was being shaped in this strange and contradictory time.Texts: Volume I of the 9th ed. of The Norton Anthology Of Eng. Lit. or Vol. C of the split ed. James Boswell, The London Journal Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders Selected Photocopies.Requirements: attendance, participation, two papers, final examination.Instructor: Clinton Bond MWF 9:15-10:20

***This course satisfies the English-major requirement for a course in literature before 1800***

English 144: Nineteenth Century Literature: The Gothic Imagination

In Gothic writing, darkness and shadows prevail. The past reaches into the present, and things are often not what they seem. Heroines and heroes may be tortured by their own imaginations, their own desires.

Gothic fiction became a dominant literary genre in nineteenth-century England, as writers used this form to explore issues that their society suppressed. In novels and stories, they question the social order, especially conventional gender roles. They raise questions about the nature of the self, exploring self-division, dreams, and sexual desire. They challenge their culture’s definitions of good and evil. Employing multiple narrators and comparing versions of reality, they present experience as subjective and unverifiable. These Gothic texts still have the power to unsettle readers, evoking pleasure, fear – and thought.

In this course, we’ll study some early classics of a genre still popular today. We’ll ask how subversive Gothic writing is, and why it remains so compelling after hundreds of years.

Readings will include Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, LeFanu’s Carmilla, Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stoker’s Dracula, Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and short fiction by Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, and others.

Requirements: Active class participation, brief responses to readings, one formal essay, final exam.

Instructor: Sandra Grayson MWF 11:45-12:50

This course is cross-listed with Women’s Studies; satisfies literature before 1900.

English 151: American Literature 1800-1900

In this course, we will survey the century of American literature that is most closely associated with the possibilities of reform: reform of the self, reform of the body politic, reform of the meaning of the republic itself. As we examine the works of Washington Irving, William Apess, Edgar Allan Poe, Lydia Maria Child, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, and Charles Chesnutt, we will consider the numerous calls for reform that were made in response to the legacy of Puritanism, the horrors of slavery, the socio-economic upheavals of the mid-century, and the persistent inequalities between men and women. We will also attend to the innovations in literary form, technique, and strategy that emerged during this critical time period.

Reading List : Nina Baym, ed., The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. B, 8th editionNathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale RomanceHarriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s CabinMark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, Charles W. Chesnutt, The Conjure Woman and Other Conjure Tales

Course Requirements: Participation, Group Presentation, Critic’s Journal, Two Essays, and Midterm and Final ExaminationsInstructor: Prof. Kathryn Koo M/W/F 10:30-11:35

This course is cross-listed with Ethnic Studies.

Illustration by Hammatt Billings, from the first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852

English 153: US Latino/a Literature and the Americas

This course is an introduction to the literature and cultures of Latinas and Latinos writing in English in the United States. We will read prose and poetry by multiple Latino/a groups including Chicano/as, Cuban Americans, Dominican Americans, and Puerto Ricans and examine the diverse artistic explorations of memory, exile, language, family, displacement. We will read their texts as personal and political expressions of the Latino/a experiences in the United States. We will also have a visit to our class from Cuban-American author Cristina Garcia in November.

Readings: Augenbraum and Fernández Olmos, The Latino ReaderCisneros, Sandra. Woman Hollering Creek.Garcia, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban.Rivera, Tomas. Y no se lo trago la tierra/And the earth did not devour himDiaz, Junot. This Is How You Lose Her

Requirements: Two papers, regular short responses, creative work, final exam, active class participation.

Instructor: Molly Metherd M/F 1:00-2:40

Note: This course fulfills two Core Curriculum requirements: American Diversity; Artistic Understanding.

- is cross listed with Women’s Studies - satisfies a SMPP requirement

English 170: Dominance, Resistance and Understanding: Post- Colonial Literary Theory

. . .I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before. -- Huckleberry Finn

At the end of his great adventure to free the former slave Jim, Huck decides not to submit to the attempts to "sivilize" him. He's had a taste of freedom from the constraints, and hypocrisies, of a culture he feels to be alien and imposed on him. At one level, Huck was reminding Americans that we have a colonial legacy, both as a colony of England and a colonizer of other lands. Many Americans still share Huck's colonial resistance to the notion that BBC TV dramas are somehow classier than "The Simpsons", or that classical Opera is more important than the music of the Grateful Dead or Death Cab for Cutie. And our current debates over the language students will speak in school, and the books they will read, reveal our continuing colonial consciousness.

Can we, through literature, truly understand the experience of people very different from ourselves? Does great literature give us access to universal human truths, or does Shakespeare, even well translated, reveal very different truths in a small West African village. Can literature give voice to those who were previously silenced, or do the conventions of literature reproduce the power relationships that once silenced so many, including women and minorities in our own country?

We will explore these and other questions by reading literature from both colonial and colonized people, and the literary criticism written to help us understand both.

Readings : Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin, eds., The Post-Colonial Studies Reader M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart J. M. Coetzee, Foe Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe Shakespeare, The Tempest Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Requirements : Careful reading and rereading, active participation in class discussion, two formal essays and a final exam.

Instructor: Ed Biglin TuTh 3:00-4:35

English 29 is prerequisite to English 170.

English 171: Anguish, Anxiety, and Alienation: Existentialism and Modern Literature

Dostoevsky has written that if God did not exist, all would be permitted. That is Existentialism's starting point. If we really grasp the meaning of modern godless plight of man, we are at first reduced to nausea and despair. We must pass through the awful sense of anguish, anxiety, and alienation that accompanies a real insight into man's condition. But on the far side of this abyss, there is one message of salvation, one ground of hope: man, the human consciousness, is after all left. He is somehow here, able to react. Even in feeling despair, he shows the possibility of bestowing value on a meaningless world.

In this course we will learn how existentialist writers attempt to turn to man himself to find new values, what kind of efforts they make to gather all the elements of human reality into a total picture of man, and in what sense and to what extent they help shaping the modern Western literature.

Readings:

Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism from Dostoevsky to SartreRobert G. Olson, An Introduction to Existentialism F. Nietzsche, Selections from Beyond Good and EvilF. Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, The Zurau Aphorisms Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit, The Flies, The Wall Albert Camus, The Stranger, The PlagueSimone de Beauvoir, Selections from The Second SexMilan Kundera, The Farewell Party; The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Requirements: Careful reading, active discussion, two papers.

Instructor: Ben Xu MWF 11: 45 - 12: 50

English 175: Living With Shakespeare

Gender-bending and cross-dressing; bearded witches and cannibalism; an enchanting Egyptian Queen; and the wonders of the New World. In this course, we will study Shakespeare’s plays in their cultural context. What is the relationship between dramatic texts and the social environment within which they were conceived? What influence did England’s monarchs have in the production of Shakespeare’s work? Furthermore, how might these plays reflect – as well as define – the Renaissance notions of gender, race, identity, and power? As we explore these questions, we will also focus on close reading and the particularities of the playwright’s poetic language. In doing so, perhaps we can discover together what makes this body of literature so special and timeless.

Our study will be enhanced by reading scholarly criticism about the texts, discussing the plays alongside clips from related films, and reading excerpts from various resources written during the early modern period.

Text: The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt

Requirements: Weekly reflections and Moodle posts, two formal essays, careful reading, participation in class discussions, a midterm and a final exam.

Instructor: Hilda Ma MF 1pm – 2:40pm

From Hark! A Vagrant, Comics by K. Beaton

**This course satisfies the core requirement: Artistic Understanding**

English 198: Senior Honors Thesis (Independent Study)

Directed reading and research under the supervision of a department faculty member, culminating in the writing of an academic thesis.

Prerequisites

1. Senior standing in the English Major (for the semester in which thesis is to be undertaken)

2. 3.70 GPA in the English Major Exceptions must be pursued with the Department Chair.

Application and Deadlines

To undertake an Honors Thesis in Spring 2014, apply by November 11, 2013.

Students are responsible for contacting and proposing projects to potential faculty supervisors. They must then submit a proposal containing the following to the Department Chair by the above deadline. Final approval rests with the Dept. Chair

1. a page-long description of the academic project to be undertaken2. the signature of a faculty supervisor for the project, to be solicited by the student3. evidence of 3.70 GPA in major

Course Credit Students will receive 1 course credit for English 198. The course must be taken for a grade and may not be repeated for credit.

Requirements

1. Regularly scheduled meetings with faculty supervisor to establish a reading list, organize research, and confer on progress and on drafts of the essay.

2. To equip the student with the skills necessary to complete a significant research study, the student will meet early in the semester with the librarian subject specialist (Sharon Walters) who will assist the student in formulating a search strategy, and in identifying, using, and evaluating appropriate sources of information.

3. The final project for this course will be a scholarly research essay of at least 20 pages, in addition to a Bibliography or Works Cited list. The essay must conform to MLA citation procedures. The faculty supervisor must approve and grade the final project.

Graduate Level Courses

English 200: Foundations of Contemporary Literature

The Foundations course will introduce all first-year MFA students to selected core texts in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and essays. We will learn to appreciate the history and innovations of landmark works of the modern world. By way of lecture and discussion, we will cover a wide range of literary movements and periods, including 19th Century visionaries, international modernists, and U.S. innovators. We will analyze and discuss a wide variety of approaches to the basic foundation texts, questioning novels, stories, poems, and essays.

We will read, study, and be inspired by: I. John Keats, Jane Austen, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, & Emily Dickinson. II. James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens & Virginia Woolf. III. Vladimir Nabokov, James Baldwin, Sylvia Plath, Maxine Hong Kingston, & Raymond Carver.

Along the way, you will choose a writer to research, in order to develop and write an essay that helps you immerse yourself in your own writing projects. Choose a writer or question that interests you; then, use your research to pursue an idea, developing your own style.

Texts: Course Reader: Excerpts from writers. Syllabus available.Jane Austen. Persuasion. 1819. Norton Critical Edition. ISBN # 978 0 3939 6018 1.Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. 1845. Triliteral Press.

ISBN # 978-0674-03401-3 (now Harvard University Press).James Joyce. Dubliners. 1914. Oxford University Press. ISBN # 978-0-19-953643-6.Virginia Woolf. To the Lighthouse. “Foreword” by Eudora Welty. Harvest. 1927. ISBN # 0-15-690739-9.Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita. New York: Vintage Intrn'l., 1955. ISBN # 0-679-72316-1.James Baldwin. Notes of A Native Son. Random. 1955. ISBN # 978-0-8070-6431-3.Maxine Hong Kingston. Woman Warrior. Vintage Intrn'l. 1975. ISBN # 0-679-72188-6.

Requirements: Attendance & participation; a creative research essay of 15 to 20 pages.

Instructor: Barry Horwitz Tuesday / Thursday 1:15 p.m. to 2:50 p.m.

ENGLISH 201-2: Writing Across the Curriculum: Training in One-on-One Pedagogy

This course prepares students for working one-on-one with student writers of all disciplines and levels, as well as creating and presenting Writing in the Disciplines (WID) workshops. Students learn strategies for helping peers write in diverse genres, situations, and academic disciplines. Students will explore the pedagogy of collaboration and one-on-one teaching and do hands-on practice to see if this is something they are adept at and that interests them.

This meets for 1.5 hours a week during the first half of the semester; students then may apply and potentially be hired for paid positions as Writing Across the Curriculum Advisers in the Center for Writing Across the Curriculum (CWAC). If hired, they then join the weekly Staff Workshop.

Readings : Ryan, Leigh, and Lisa Zimmerelli. The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors

Requirement: 1.5 class hours per week, through mid-semester only Instructor : Tereza Joy Kramer Wed. 11:15-12:50

ENGLISH 201-3: Writing Across the Curriculum: Writing Adviser Staff Workshop

This is a weekly Staff Workshop offered continually, every semester, and taken by students who have passed ENGLISH 201-2, have been hired, and currently work as Writing Across the Curriculum Advisers in CWAC.

Through the Learning element of our Service-Learning work, we are always building our repertoire of skills to offer peer writers and simultaneously improve our own writing and revising strategies. We consider ideas from scholarly research into writing pedagogy, coupled with our practical experiences in CWAC; topics include empathic questioning, non-native speaker concerns, the demands of particular academic disciplines, grammar, and source integration for research papers. We collaboratively prepare trainings for each other, and we work on collaborative projects that enhance our learning and benefit writers of all disciplines across the college.

Readings : As assignedRequirement: 1.5 workshop hours per week Instructor : Tereza Joy Kramer Tuesday 11:30-1:05 Enrollment: By permission of instructor

English 211: Fiction Workshop

This course is an intensive exploration of the ideas, techniques, and forms of fiction, such as the short story, novella, and novel, with primary emphasis on the careful analysis and discussion of student works-in-progress. Students will grapple with the questions of voice, point of view, dramatic movement, structure, rhythm, and imagery, as well as with any and all issues of art and craft that arise from the individual manuscripts. By the end of the course, the students should develop the terminology and the critical skills for revising fiction, and should develop a good understanding about issues and trends in the genre.

Instructor: Lysley Tenorio Wednesday 4:00-7:15

English 212:   Poetry Workshop

According to William Carlos Williams, the poem is a small or large machine made of words. While this may seem cold or mechanical, it can also be a useful way to step back from our own work, and to think about how exactly our machines are built and designed, as well as the great mystery of what ultimately our various machines are designed to produce. In this poetry workshop, we will consider crucial aspects of poetic structure (metaphor and imagery, titles and beginnings, form and structure, endings, and so on) in order to learn more about the effects of our current, and potential, choices in our poems on readers. Simone Weil famously wrote that attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. In this workshop, we will seriously and generously and closely attend to the poetry of our peers in the class, in order to reflect back to each other the effects on us as readers of those myriad poetic decisions (conscious and otherwise). Our focus will be on close reading the poetry of our peers, and when necessary and helpful, reading the poetry of the past that can help us understand how we might move forward. Students will write (at least) one poem a week for the course, and engage in thorough and significant revision over the course of the semester. 

Instructor:  Matthew Zapruder            Wednesday 4:00-7:15                     

English 214: Nonfiction Workshop

This course gives students the opportunity to explore material in various areas of nonfiction, such as memoir, personal essay, or travel writing. The course addresses issues of voice, scene, point-of-view, and theme, as well as any other elements of nonfiction writing that will emerge from individual manuscripts. By the end of the course, the students should develop the terminology and the critical skills for revising nonfiction, and should develop a good understanding about issues and trends in the genre.

Instructor: Wesley Gibson Wednesday 4:00-7:15

* English 261: Craft Seminar in Fiction Beyond Setting: Locating Character in Time and Place

“The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.” Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners

This course will give you the opportunity to focus on two of the three parts of O’Connor’s “peculiar crossroads.” Weekly readings will guide weekly experiments encouraging you to take your fiction into unexplored territory: other decades, other continents as well as the here and now.

Likely Texts: Eudora Welty, Mystery and MannersWilliam Faulkner, Go Down, MosesMargot Livesey, The House on Fortune StreetPeter Behrens, The O’BriensJennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon SquadJoan Silber, The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long As It Takes

Requirements: Weekly informal written responses to the reading and weekly 2 pp. experiments, one of which to be expanded into a 15-20-page story or novel excerpt. Attendance, active participation in lively class discussion.

Official Learning Outcomes for English 261, Craft of FictionIn this course, students will:

read fiction with attention to the techniques writers use to locate characters in place and move them through time

create original fiction using these and other techniques to locate characters in place and move them through time

relate the content of the course to their own fiction and to the practice of writing fiction in our time.

Instructor: Rosemary Graham T/Th 3:00-4:35

*English 262: Prosody and Poetic Form

Some say our hearts beat in iambic rhythm; whether this is true or not, there is a deep correspondence between seasonal and bodily rhythms and poetic form. In this course, you will learn the basics of scansion, prosody, received forms of metrical verse, and procedural forms of poetry. This nuts-and-bolts background is useful for the student of poetry, especially in light of the fact that free verse has been the most common choice for poets in the twentieth century. We will start the semester learning the basic techniques of scansion and will proceed to study principles of some received forms—the sonnet, the villanelle, the sestina, accentual-syllabic verse, syllabic poetry, concrete poems, prose poetry—as well as techniques of free verse poetry. The student will be asked to annotate poetry and to write weekly versions, imitations and variations of these received forms. We will study variants of the singlet, the couplet, the triplet and other stanzaic structures. Though this class is primarily a graduate seminar, it is open to undergraduates with permission of instructor, if space permits.

Texts:Annie Finch, A Poet’s Craft Mary Kinzie, A Poet’s Guide to Poetry

Requirements:Weekly poems and critical annotations of the readings; full participation in every class discussion; weekly attendance; and final project.

Instructor: Brenda Hillman Thursday, 4:45pm-8:00 pm

*English 264: The Craft of NonfictionTwo Strands of Storytelling: Action & Thought

To identify and begin to detail the story of action (or a basic plot) is the beginning of any narrative project. But for a writer to restrict himself to action alone is like trying to play a melody on the piano with one hand and hoping for the best. This course will devote itself to identifying and analyzing the two strands of storytelling--the story of action and the story of thought--and to discover where the rising action and turns and conflicts exist in each. Texts may include Truth Serum by Bernard Cooper, Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War by Deb Olin Underferth, and more..Instructor: Marilyn Abildskov Tuesdays, 4:45 p.m. to 8 p.m

*Open to Undergraduates

English Composition at St. Mary’s College of California

In English 4 and 5 students write analytical, evaluative, and argumentative essays; they also study examples of good writing. We have found that careful and thoughtful reading helps students learn to communicate their own ideas and experiences more effectively. The "better writing" our students aim for is characterized by:

a clear thesis that controls the entire essay, adequate development of ideas, whether through logical explanations and

arguments or through specific details and examples, a clear organization that suits the topic and the audience, coherent paragraphs, appropriately connected and built from well-constructed

sentences, sentences that employ the conventions of Standard Written English in

grammar, spelling and punctuation, and use appropriate diction, evidence that the writer has tried to make his or her work both informative and

interesting.

Instructors often use a workshop method, in which students read their own essays (in draft form or in finished versions) to small groups within the class. This procedure teaches students to be critical of their own and other writers' work and encourages revision.

Class discussions of the readings focus on style and structure as well as on the writers' ideas and arguments. Students may be asked to use these readings in various ways as bases for their own writing. For example, they may relate a writer's ideas or experiences to their own ideas or experiences; they may analyze and evaluate the arguments in thereading and the arguments that were raised in class discussion; they may write similar essays.

In English 4 (Composition): Students read examples of good writing and write and rewrite 4 to 5 essays, using analysis, evaluation, explanation and argument. The course emphasizes learning to articulate and support a clear thesis, as well as to use writing as a tool for intellectual discovery and growth. Students will write a minimum of 7500 words.

English 5 (Argument and Research): This course continues to develop the more complex critical thinking skills that students need to analyze texts and to elaborate arguments. In addition, the course gives students practice in exploring ideas through research and in supporting a thesis by consulting, synthesizing and properly citing sources. Students write and rewrite two or more papers. Both essays ask students to evaluate and synthesize evidence. At least one essay will be a research essay of at least 2500 words that presents an extended argument and incorporates at least 3 peer-reviewed sources, as well as other appropriate research material. Students will write a minimum of 6000 words.

Spring 2013