Composition Courses (CMP, ENG)

 

91        Essential Reading Skills (Non-Credit)

This course is designed to develop the skills to comprehend and retain information from college-level texts. Offered Each Year (Fall).

 

92        Developmental English Language Skills (Non-Credit)

This course is designed to assist students in obtaining basic college-level proficiency in English grammar with direct application to paragraph and essay writing. Offered in HEOP Summer Program.

 

93        English as a Second Language (Non-Credit)

This course is designed for non-native speakers as a supplement to composition courses. It should be taken concurrently with CMP 95, Basic Grammar; CMP 97, Basic Rhetoric; or CMP 101, English Composition. Offered As Needed.

 

94        Developmental Reading and Study Skills (Non-Credit)

This course is designed to assist students in developing selective reading, study, and thinking skills necessary for successful performance in college-level courses. Offered in HEOP Summer Program.

 

95        Basic Grammar (Non-Credit)

Also offered as a tutorial. This course is designed for students who need to review the parts of speech, grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Students will master these concepts while simultaneously learning to vary their sentence types. Offered Each Year (Fall).

 

97        Basic Rhetoric (Non-Credit)

Also offered as a tutorial. This course emphasizes audience and purpose, invention, the main idea, focus, and coherence. Students will incorporate these concepts into their writing process while learning to use evidence to develop different modes of paragraphs. Offered Each Semester.

 

101     English Composition (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. The primary emphasis is on the technical and stylistic skills of expository writing including such matters as the structures of the language, sentence patterns, and organization. These skills will be addressed through group and individual instruction and through assignments in expository writing. Prerequisite: college-level competence as determined by tests administered by the Academic Resource Directors. Offered Each Semester.

 

301     Professional Writing (3)

This is a cross-curricular course in which students study and practice the discourse of various disciplines: Business, Fine and Performing Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural and Health Sciences. Students learn to recognize and utilize the central conventions of writing in these disciplines by using techniques of rhetorical analysis. Prerequisite: CMP 101 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

311     Advanced English Composition (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. Fulfills Research & Presentation requirement. This advanced course in composition is designed to help students expand and refine their technical and stylistic writing skills. Through analysis of professional writing, the students will learn to identify structures and techniques of effective writing. Through extensive directed writing experience, the student will learn to emulate techniques of effective written communication. Prerequisite: CMP 101 or permission of instructor. Offered Each Semester.

 

312     Creative Writing (3)

Writing Intensive. Fundamental principles in the writing of poetry, the short story, and other short forms. Individual and class criticism in a workshop format. Offered As Needed.

 

315     Advanced Composition for Health Professionals (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. This course in composition is designed to help students in the health and natural sciences expand and refine their technical and stylistic skills through extensive directed writing experience based on professional models. Students will use medical and scientific terminology, write case-based reports and analysis, and learn documentation methods and standard forms used in professional research and communications. Prerequisite: CMP 101 or permission of instructor. Offered Each Semester.

 

317     Journalism (3)

Writing Intensive. An introductory course in the fundamentals of journalism, with an emphasis on writing news stories, reviews, interviews, and editorials. Prerequisite: CMP 101 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

318     Writing for Media (3)

Writing Intensive. This course emphasizes non-fiction writing in such areas as in-depth reporting of public affairs, contemporary profiles, issue-related stories, magazine writing and criticism. Prerequisite: CMP 101 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

Language Courses (ENG, LNG)

 

307     The English Language: Its Evolution and Structure (3)

The nature and origin of language, the ancestry and growth of English, history of English sounds and inflections, sources of vocabulary and variations in standards. Offered Each Year.

 

337     Practicum in Implementing English Language Arts at the Secondary Level (3)

The primary purpose of this course is to provide secondary English education majors with a comprehensive examination of the many methods and materials used in the classroom at the secondary level. Particular emphasis is placed on the introduction and examination of the characteristics, definitions, standards and trends employed in effective middle and high schools. Offered Each Year (Fall).

 

Literature Courses (ENG, LIT)

 

112     Approaches to Literature (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. This survey course in literature includes textual analysis of literary works, classic through contemporary, selected from various genres. Writing assignments are based on the readings. Prerequisite for all higher-numbered literature courses unless waived by instructor. Offered Each Semester.

 

201-202         World Literature (6)

(201 only) Fulfills core competency: Contextual Competency. Writing Intensive. A study of the Greco-Roman literature with emphasis on epic and drama, medieval literature with emphasis on epic and folklore. Readings of the Renaissance include Dante's Divine Comedy and Cervantes' Don Quixote. The second semester consists of a survey of European literature (exclusive of that of England) from the Neo-classic Period to 1900. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered Each Year.

 

203-204         Readings in British Literature (6)

Fulfills core competency: Contextual Competency. Writing Intensive. These courses are designed to give the student an understanding and appreciation of the traditions of British literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present, and through close and critical reading of selected works, to acquaint the student with the various genres and with the major thematic and philosophical movements in British literature. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered Each Year.

 

211-212         Readings in American Literature (6)

(211 only) Fulfills core competency: Contextual Competency. Writing Intensive. During the first semester, emphasis will be placed upon the “becoming” of American literature and the development of an identity that is communicated in specifically American letters. The second semester will carry through with Whitman (whose early poetry will terminate the first semester’s study) and present a different set of complexities from those of early America: industrialization, urbanization, and immigration, among others. It will trace the development of the literature and the aesthetic theory of a second “new” America — and take that development to the present. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

213     Contemporary Native American Literature (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. This course provides an introduction to contemporary Native American literature, drawing readings from authors representing diverse culture areas. Fiction, poetry, and drama produced by Native American writers will be read as reflections of tribal and regional concerns and as material raising the broader questions of Native identity within mainstream white American culture. Critical analysis of the readings will address literary portrayals of the individual in her/his relation to the community, nature, spirituality, gender roles, political/economic conditions, and art and creativity. Literary images of Native America will be both reinforced and challenged with sensory experiences offered by contemporary film, dance, music, and artwork. Students will gain a deeper understanding of Native American perspectives on contemporary American culture. Offered As Needed.

 

219     Literature and Film (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. This course examines the various literary genres (short story, novel, drama, poetry, and non-fiction) in relation to film. The course assumes that film has radically expanded both the forms of literary communication and the way literature (especially literary narrative) is understood and received. The course also assumes that film not only supplements more traditional literary forms and media; it also depends on them in a way which is at once parasitic and synergistic. In keeping with its primary and secondary competencies, the course emphasizes the aesthetic and communicative aspects of literature and film. The course also examines these same aspects in the commercial and technical/ technological process involved in adapting literature to the screen, e.g., aesthetic choices made in adapting a short story, a novel, a play or “the poetic” to film, both for the large screen and the small (television). Offered As Needed.

 

241     Literary Legacies of the Sixties (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. This introductory course to literature includes the study of selected literary works of late twentieth-century America. It contextualizes contemporary literature and provides students with sources (including works of literature, film, and other primary source materials) that explain the background and development of a number of issues including the Cold War, Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, the Feminist Movement, the Gay Rights Movement, and the Culture Wars. Offered As Needed.

 

247     Selected Topics in English (3)

This listing provides opportunities to offer courses on a theme, era, author, or genre not included in the standard curriculum. The topic to be studied during a given semester will be approved by the department faculty and will be announced prior to registration. Recent topics include: Narrative Play in Contemporary Fiction, Film and Fiction, The Modern American and British Novel. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

301     Chaucer (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. An intensive study of the major poems with attention given to language and historical background. An extensive reading of the minor poems. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

302     Milton (3)

An intensive study of “Paradise Lost” and the minor poems, as well as a discussion of Milton’s representative prose. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

304     The Romantic Movement in English Literature (3)

A detailed study of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Bryon, Shelley, and Keats with supplementary readings in other less well-known poets of the period, Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

306     Adventures, Enchantments, and Wonders: The Literature of Fantasy and Science Fiction (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. A comprehensive study of the new and traditional forms of folk myths, fantasy stories, and tales of the future; with special emphasis on the future of our civilization and the nature of alternative “realities.” Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

307     Literature of the Supernatural (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. A study of prose and poetic works which have, as a central focus, supernatural beings, events, and/or phenomena; and an examination of how such literature reflects mankind’s deepest desires and drives. Prerequisite: CMP 101 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

309     Film Seminar (3)

Fulfills core competency: Affective Judgment. Writing Intensive. This course involves screening and discussion of classic and contemporary feature-length films. It is designed to expose students to a wide variety of film periods, styles, and genres, as well as cinema cultures and national co-texts. Discussion of technical matter provides background for interpreting film as a distinct literary genre. Offered As Needed.

 

310     The English Novel (3)

A study of the evolution of the novel as a genre, beginning with its prototypes in the romance and allegory and including representative selections from the more prominent 19th and 20th century authors. The study will include various types of novels as well: the novel of manners, the sociological novel, the philosophical novel, etc. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

311-312         Survey of English Poetry (6)

Analysis of representative English poetry from 1530 to the present, in terms of thought, technique, type, and historical background. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

313     The Gothic Imagination (3)

Gothic literature pushes the boundaries of social convention, exploring the darker side of human experience and opening taboo subjects. This course engages contemporary critical and theoretical assessments as it covers three main avenues of gothic literature-horror stories, sensation fiction, and detective narratives. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

317     Gender Trouble: Literature and Film (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication skills. Writing Intensive. Do the gender roles represented in literary works reflect a “reality” based on biological differences between the sexes? Or are gender roles simply a product of a culture’s religious, economic, and political agendas? This course examines works from various genres and historical periods in order to understand how they reinforce or subvert gender stereotypes that inform and condition people’s lives. Offered As Needed.

 

318     English Drama (3)

A study of the development of English drama from its medieval beginnings in church ritual to its contemporary forms. Readings include representative selections from the mystery and morality plays of the 14th century, Renaissance and Restoration drama, 19th century social drama, and modern experimental theatre. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of the instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

320     From Celtic Twilight to Celtic Tiger: 20th Century Irish Literature (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. In this course we will read and analyze works (fiction, drama, poetry) produced in Ireland during the twentieth century. The early part of this period, following the late 19th c. Celtic Twilight, is known as The Irish Renaissance. This period saw a resurgence of Irish Nationalism that manifested itself in several ways, some of which were renewed interests in the Irish language, literature and culture. The latter part of the period is marked by the emergence of Ireland as a postcolonial republic under partition (post 1922), leading up to the ongoing sectarian conflict we still refer to today as “The Troubles.” More recently in the 1990’s, Irish writing reflects Ireland’s entrance into the European market economy, earning the epithet “The Celtic Tiger.” The works we will read are all part of the Anglo-Irish tradition (written or translated into English). We will focus on modern and contemporary Ireland in selected works of its major writers as they examine their country’s encounters with the British Empire, Catholic/Protestant religious conflict and its own mythological past. Offered As Needed.

 

323     18th Century English Literature (3)

Dryden to the Pre-Romantics. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

324     Jane Austen (3)

Fulfills core competency: Contextual Competency. Writing Intensive. This study of the works of Jane Austen situates the six major novels in the context of early nineteenth-century culture, introducing the comedy of manners as an important contribution to the rise of the novel in the nineteenth century. Readings include excerpts from Austen's letters as well as the juvenilia and fragments. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

330     The Scottish Renaissance and Scottish National Identity (3)

Fulfills core competency: Contextual Competency. Writing Intensive. This course examines the major works of fiction of the second Scottish Renaissance (1982Ń ) as they both reflect and contribute to the preservation/ formation of a distinctive but highly contested and increasingly fragmented sense of Scottish national identity.

It examines this fiction as a primary means for reinvigorating Scottish national identity while at the same time challenging it by critically examining the past rather than nostalgically reproducing it is light of past and present forces that have altered and in many cases eroded both community and identity. Alisdair Gray's Lanark, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, Alan Warner's Morvern Callar, Janice Galloway's The Trick Is to Keep Breathing are some of the required readings. Offered As Needed.

 

334     British Women Writers (3)

Fulfills core competency: Contextual Competency. Writing Intensive. This course presents selections from the work of British women writers from the fifteenth century to the present, with emphasis on the nineteenth century, when female authors came into their own through the popularity of prose fiction. We place these literary works in their social context, learning about historical, legal, and scientific influences on the condition of women in Britain. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

337     Contemporary American Novel (3)

In this course contemporary novels will be presented as additions to, and variations on, the novel form. The study will include the theory of the novel and the development, and the connections between contemporary themes and those of earlier American literature. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

338     The Short Story (3)

This course will focus on the development of the short story as a literary genre, or on a specific aspect or period of that development, e.g. the contemporary American (or British, or Irish) short story. Offered As Needed.

 

339     Contemporary British Novel (3)

This course introduces students to a representative sampling of some of the most interesting, important and influential British novels and novelists of the past two decades, while situating these works in the larger context of contemporary British literary, cultural, socio-economic and political life. In addition, the course uses these works to hone students' reading, writing, research and critical thinking skills. Offered As Needed.

 

401     Contemporary American Poetry (3)

An investigation of the particular concept of American poetics developed from Whitman through Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, the influence of which is evident in work of poets belonging to all of the major schools of American poetry since the 1930's. Prerequisite: LIT 112. Offered As Needed.

 

403     Myth and the Invention of Self (3)

Fulfills core competency: Contextual Competency. Writing Intensive. Through a series of readings and discussions of primal myths, urban legends, and folk tales, the course first examines the dynamics of the storytelling process and then how the story becomes elevated by repetition and ritual into myth. After further research into mythopoesis, we investigate how the individual's concept of the self is developed with reference to myths, or stories of belief. Offered As Needed.

 

410     Shakespeare (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. An intensive study of the major plays considered in the light of philosophical, political, and social ideas of the time. An examination of Shakespeare's thought and of his achievement as dramatist and poet. Offered Each Year.

 

411     Modern Poetry (3)

An intensive study of the works of three or four major modern and contemporary poets. Emphasis on selected themes. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

413     Victorian Literature (3)

This course is designed to acquaint the student with the major authors and works of British literature of the Victorian Age. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

415     Modern and Contemporary British Literature (3)

This course is designed to acquaint the student with the major figures of British literature since 1900, plus the literary and cultural characteristics of the period. Prerequisite: LIT 112 or permission of instructor. Offered As Needed.

 

420     Seminar for English Majors (3)

This course involves the intensive study of a literary topic selected by the instructor. It requires intensive reading and research as well as report writing and presentation of research in a cooperative seminar format. The course is open only to English majors or to non-majors nominated by the English faculty. Students may take LIT 420 more than once, providing the topic is different. Offered Each Year.

 

443     Senior Seminar (3)

In this course the student writes, with faculty advice and supervision, a literary thesis of substantial length. Offered Each Year (Fall & Spring).

 

Public Relations and Communication Arts Courses (CA, ENG, PR)

 

102     American Sign Language I (3)

See SED 102. Offered As Needed.

 

106     American Sign Language II (3)

See SED 106. Offered As Needed.

 

205     Oral and Visual Communication (3)

Fulfills core competency: Communication Skills. Writing Intensive. This course assists the student in understanding communication principles, both oral and visual, and mastering the techniques of speaking and presenting that are instrumental to the achievement of success in our society. It also raises the consciousness of the place of culture in human interaction and the ethics surrounding the role of the "speaker." Offered Each Semester.

 

221     Human Communication (3)

An introductory study of the fundamental concepts and theories of human communication, exploring and defining its nature from an anthropological/ cultural point of view. The course will examine such topics as animal vs. human communicative processes, the various elements of communication, a study of the nature of human interaction and the concept of audience, and representative types of communicative techniques. Offered Each Year.

 

222     Introduction to Mass Communication (3)

This course will emphasize the application of the theories and concepts to specific forms of human communication including mass media, the graphic arts, interpersonal and group communications, and written communication. Offered Each Year.

 

301     The Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication (3)

A thorough and intensive study of dyadic, a two-person interaction, its component parts, and its basic issues and concerns. Particular attention is given to the evolution of human relationships. Offered As Needed.

 

303     Communication in a Multi-Cultural Society (3)

An examination of the social and cultural implications of interaction among diverse cultures, both international and domestic; the problems inherent in such interaction; and the rewards and benefits which result. Offered As Needed.

 

317     Journalism (3)

See CMP 317. Offered As Needed.

 

318     Writing for Media (3)

See CMP 318. Offered As Needed.

 

322     Introduction to Public Relations (3)

An introduction to the concepts, history, ethics and techniques of public relations. The course is designed to provide the student with both theoretical knowledge and the development of basic skills required in professional public relations positions. Research, planning and programming, evaluation and analysis are examined and practiced in the classroom/workshop format. Offered Each Year (Fall).

 

420     Promotional Writing (3)

Writing Intensive. This course provides opportunities to practice skills that are essential to the work of public relations and directly related to the business and marketing fields. Public relations, communication, and marketing theories are applied to real-life situations and, in particular, to an actual production written and produced for a client in education, business, or social services. Offered Each Year.

 

443     Research Practicum (3)

This course will provide an introduction to research through an individual project and thesis in the area of Public Relations. The topic selected by the student is subject to approval by the instructor. Prerequisite: PR 422. Offered As Needed.