Course Descriptions By Program

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ENG100 - English Language Skills

This beginning course provides guided practice in writing and reading, with emphasis on the interrelationship of reading, thinking and writing. English Language Skills stresses fundamental principles of and attitudes toward writing, as well as how to put these principles and attitudes into practice. It emphasizes the ability to read correctly and to organize material effectively and, by adherence to the innate logic of language (revealed in its rules of grammar, syntax, punctuation and vocabulary choice), to express ideas clearly and precisely.

ENG101 - Composition I

Composition I is a sequel to English Language Skills. It provides guided practice in writing, with emphasis on thoughtful analysis of subject matter, clear understanding of the writing situation, flexible use of rhetorical strategies and development of stylistic options, particularly those related to an understanding of a variety of purposes and voices. ENG 101 continues the development of the essential writing, reading and thinking skills stressed in ENG 100.

ENG102 - Composition II

The sequence of Composition I – Composition II provides guided practice in writing, with an emphasis on more demanding writing situations. It continues the work begun in Composition I with more complicated rhetorical strategies and stylistic options, especially audience-centered considerations. ENG 102 introduces research and research writing at the undergraduate level.

ENG106 - Introduction to Poetry

An introduction to the elements of poetry, this course emphasizes close analysis and explication of selected poetry from a variety of poets.

ENG107 - Introduction to Fiction

An introduction to the elements of fiction, this course focuses on the close reading of selected short stories and novels by a variety of authors.

ENG108 - Introduction to Drama

This introduction to the basic elements of drama focuses on readings selected from works from the Greek Classical period to the Modern Age.

ENG110 - Introduction to Creative Writing

Introduction to Creative Writing presents creative writing as a process of creation, revision, expansion, transformation, and engagement, introducing the student writer to many of the elements of the craft of writing in the genres of fiction, drama, creative nonfiction, and poetry.

ENG112 - Myth, Magic, & Mysticism

The course is a study of the four basic paths into the unknown: magic, mysticism, fantasy and myth.

ENG127 - Woman as Hero

The course explores heroic roles assigned to women in literature, the contrast between reality and the literature, and the differences between fictional women created by male and female authors. An analysis of the reasons for these differences forms part of the subject.

ENG135 - Re-Reading Harry Potter

In Re-Reading Harry Potter, we will explore the literature that helped shape the Harry Potter series created by J.K. Rowling with the intention of better understanding her writing process and the imaginative world she has developed. We will also explore the larger socio-cultural themes that dominate her books, including racism, sexism, classism, and others social constructs and behaviors. In addition, students will be encouraged to think critically about their own responses to the series and how they have changed over time.

ENG136 - Women’s Memoirs

In this course, we will critically read and analyze memoirs written by women with the objective of better understanding the main characteristics of the genre. We will also explore the larger socio-cultural themes that dominate the memoirs and the cultures and time periods in which they are written, including racism, sexism, classism, and others. In addition, students will be encouraged to think critically about their own responses to the assigned literature.

ENG137 - Northern Appalachian Literature

In Northern Appalachian Literature, we will critically read and analyze literature written by people from the northern Appalachian region of the United States with the objective of better understanding the culture of the area. We will also explore the larger socio-cultural themes that dominate this literature, including racism, sexism, classism, and other social constructs. In addition, students will be encouraged to think critically about their own responses to the assigned literature.

ENG148 - Horror in Literature

An examination of the tradition of horror literature in England and America from a literary, historical and psychological viewpoint, the course also emphasizes the sociological implications of the popularity of the form.

ENG150 - Baseball in Literature

This course requires the student to read, write and talk about a game that Steinbeck called a "state of mind," a game that is, in the words of Jacques Barzun, a way "to know America." Thus, students who work learn about both themselves and their country.

ENG152 - The Lord of the Rings

This course explores J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy in light of its Medieval, Victorian, and early 20th century influences, as well as Tolkien’s influence on popular culture in the present day.

ENG155 - Introduction to African American Literature

This course introduces a variety of African American texts that represent African American life, culture, and history. Students work with African American non-fiction, fiction, drama, and poetry to cultivate a deeper understanding of the diverse literatures and experiences of African Americans and their relations with other American populations. The study surveys texts from the colonial period to contemporary times and analyzes them in historical, cultural, and critical contexts.

ENG156 - Introduction to Native American Literature

This course introduces a variety of Native American texts that represent Native people, culture, and history. Students work with traditional Native forms as well as fiction, drama, and poetry to cultivate a deeper understanding of the diverse literatures and cultures of Native peoples and their relations with immigrant populations of the Americas. The study surveys texts from pre-Columbian to contemporary times and analyzes them in social, historical, cultural, and critical contexts.

ENG178 - Literature and Film

A study of the relationship between literature and film and the artistic and technical processes of translating from one medium to the other. The course also investigates the influence of motion pictures on literary critics and writers.

ENG179 - Introduction to the Animated Film

This course provides a historical and international survey of the animated film from the late nineteenth century to the present day, emphasizing the unique characteristics of the medium across a wide range of cultures. The ways in which animation functions as both a global language while at the same time retaining specific cultural characteristics will also be explored. While this is not a production course, aspects of production and reception will both be covered.

ENG180 - Literature and Natural Environments

This course surveys fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction that represent humanity’s relationship with Earth and nature. The course will investigate the evolution of the concept of the “natural” and the development of a variety of perspectives that inform writing about Earth and natural environments, such as utilitarian, pastoral, romantic, conservation, transcendental, naturalistic, and ecological, with particularly emphasis on the latter.

ENG181 - Cultures of American Humor

This course analyzes diverse American humorous texts in theoretical, social, cultural, and historical contexts. Students will survey a variety of textual forms—fiction, nonfiction, film, TV, stand-up, graphic texts, and so on—to ascertain what humor is, how it functions, and how it critiques the complexities of America’s diverse social and cultural history.

ENG203 - Great Books

The texts and historical backgrounds of selections from the most highly regarded literature of the world are studied. The range is from the Classical Greek era to the 20th century.

ENG211 - Business Writing

The course is an introduction to the analysis, writing and oral presentation of formal and semiformal documents essential to the business communities.

ENG217 - Scientific and Technical Writing

This is a writing course that introduces students to the style, tone, techniques and formats used in scientific and technical documents and reports. Using interactive teaching strategies, students plan, structure, write, and evaluate a variety of scientific and technical papers and reports for multiple audiences.

ENG301 - British Literature I

The course is a survey of English literature from the beginnings in the sixth century to the late 18th century.

ENG302 - British Literature II

This course is a survey of English literature from the Romantic poets to the present day.

ENG306 - Press Law and Media Ethics

This course helps student journalists understand not only what they can and cannot do by law, but what they should and should not do within commonly accepted standards of good taste and morality.

ENG308 - Research for Writers

For students in each of the professional writing concentrations, this course introduces students to basic library materials and techniques, on-campus resources, government documents, research libraries, advanced techniques of interviewing, document analysis, etc., and concludes with a pre-publication draft of a researched paper in the student's area of specialization.

ENG312 - Journalism III, Editing

This course emphasizes practical journalism. Journalism III teaches students how to edit and prepare materials for publication. Professional editing procedures are covered, ranging from rewriting, editing and proofreading to headline writing, layout and design.

ENG315 - Survey of American Women Writers

The importance of both text and method in the study of American women writers is emphasized in this course. Assigned readings and research workshops introduce students to a variety of texts and sources as well as methods for reading, discovering and interpreting writings. Integration of text and method is achieved through a series of writing and research projects that are tied to the assigned readings.

ENG320 - Multimedia Journalism

Multimedia journalism is a class that asks students to examine critically and evaluate how journalism is evolving because of multimedia and to learn through hands-on projects how to create multimedia journalism.

ENG325 - World Literature to 1600

Examples of works from a variety of periods and cultures through 1600 are examined for their literary merit and national characters. Works are read in translation.

ENG326 - World Literature from 1600

Examples of works from a variety of periods and cultures after 1600 are examined for their literary merit and national characters. Works are read in translation.

ENG334 - Reporting

ENG 334 is a professional-level course that introduces students to basic newsroom procedures and assignments.

ENG337 - Survey of American Literature I (to 1865)

A writing intensive course, American Literature I surveys canonical authors and works from pre-Columbian Native America to the American Civil War, studying writers, genres, and narrative forms that have contributed to America’s diverse literary and cultural history.

ENG338 - Survey of American Literature II

The second course of the two-course survey begins with the literature of the Reconstruction period, Realism and later Naturalism and moves to the experimental writing of the 20th and 21st centuries, culminating in works by contemporary authors. The emphasis is on showing the development of an eclectic and uniquely American literature.

ENG345 - English Grammar and Usage

This course provides future English teachers, writing majors and other interested students with a sophisticated background in English grammar. The course covers a variety of grammatical theories, issues of mechanical correctness in writing and the sociology of usage.

ENG346 - History of the English Language

This course surveys the development of the language from its Germanic base to the emergence of American English. Explanations of sound shifts and foreign and social influences are covered.

ENG347 - Introduction to Linguistics

This course examines the several areas of language study: history of the language, phonology and morphology, grammars (traditional and modern), and contemporary American usage, dialects, lexicography and semantics.

ENG350 - Journalism Genres

Special Topics in Journalism Genres is a repeatable theoretical and hands-on course, in which students study one of the following genres: editorials and commentary, arts and entertainment reporting and criticism, public affairs reporting and analysis, environmental reporting and analysis, health and fitness reporting and analysis, technology reporting and analysis, or consumer and business reporting and analysis, or other genres. Students will read journalism articles in the genre, as well as report and write stories in that genre.

ENG351 - Publishing the Magazine

Students in this course publish a magazine, "The Inkwell." They contribute works of literature and photographs, edit the pieces, establish editorial policy and publish the magazine.

ENG352 - Studies in Writing

This course is a study in style, its definition, its analysis, and the techniques modern writers of creative nonfiction use to achieve it. Students analyze the work of such writers as Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Hunter Thompson and Truman Capote, then apply to their own prose the techniques these writers use.

ENG354 - Media History

A critical exploration of how American journalism evolved from colonial times to the present, analyzing the roles that political, philosophical, social, technological and economic forces play in the evolution of the media, particularly print and online media, and how the media, in turn, influence society.

ENG355 - Survey of African American Literature

This course introduces students to literary texts by and/or about African Americans and their experience over several centuries. The course features the signficant literary contributions of African Americans to America’s diverse cultural history. The course will also include several critical approaches to the analysis of this literature.

ENG367 - Journalism – News Writing

This course is an introduction to basic news gathering and news writing taught by in-class exercises early in the semester, followed by weekly assignments that require submission to the Cal Times newspaper.

ENG369 - Journalism – Feature Writing

Students learn feature writing and in-depth news reporting and write several articles, some of which are submitted to local media.

ENG371 - Critical Theory and Teaching of Literature

A required course for English majors in the Secondary English track, Critical Theory and the Teaching of Literature shows students how to relate contemporary literary criticism to the teaching of literature. The varieties of literary criticism covered include New Criticism, reader-response criticism, deconstructive criticism, psychological criticism, feminist criticism and New Historicism. The literature studied emphasizes items typically taught in secondary schools, including both canonical (e.g. Shakespeare's plays) and noncanonical (e.g., Young Adult literature and Multicultural literature) works.

ENG372 - Advanced Composition

Advanced Composition is an introduction to rhetorical theory as it concerns the nature of writing and the teaching of writing. This course also offers practical information about and experience with modern course design and pedagogy, as well as discussion of the politics of writing instruction in contemporary schools.

ENG375 - Advanced Writing

This course is concerned with helping students develop a more sophisticated style in using persuasion, exposition and argumentation.

ENG376 - Creative Writing Fiction

Techniques of fiction are studied and applied to the writing of short stories, and students are encouraged to use and shape their own experience, transmitting those everyday things around them into fictional realities.

ENG377 - Creative Writing Poetry

Aspects of poetry such as line length, rhythm, sound patterns, and imagery are discussed. Students will apply those techniques to their own experience and vision, developing a poetic voice or style.

ENG378 - Creative Writing: Drama

Writing techniques for the modern stage are covered; students progress from idea through written text to the production of a scene or a one-act play.

ENG406 - Advanced Study in Literature

This course will provide students with an opportunity for advanced study of literary texts using one or more theoretical / critical approaches. The course may investigate a particular time period, genre, author(s), or a combination thereof.

ENG410 - Adv Study in Creative Writing

Through the study of creative nonfiction, fiction, drama and poetry, students will explore the diverse voices of published writers and develop their own unique voices. Students will identify and analyze different styles of published writing and outline a range of craft techniques for their own writing. Classes will consist of readings of contemporary literature, discussions of aesthetic principles, writing exercises and workshops in which students will have the opportunity to give and receive constructive feedback on their work.

ENG419 - Internship in Professional Writing

An internship is a 120-hour, work-based and academic experience, emphasizing learning in a professional setting. Internships are supervised by both a work-site supervisor and a faculty supervisor and are designed to give the student a broad understanding of the particular writing and professional practices of the internship sites.

ENG425 - Shakespeare

This course explores in considerable depth Shakespeare's plays and poetry in their cultural, literary and performative contexts, both contemporary and modern.

ENG430 - Adaptation of Literary Materials

Students learn how to write fiction, poetry, drama and/or screenplays based on another work, such as writing screenplays or plays based on novels, writing updated versions of classics, writing in response to visual art, or telling traditional stories from altered perspectives.

ENG448 - Practical Criticism

An introduction to the theories comprising major schools in literary criticism, this course provides practice in applying these theories to literary analyses.

ENG450 - Advanced Study in Journalism

Intensive study and practice of reporting and writing articles employing one or more journalistic techniques such as longform writing, immersion journalism, literary journalism, investigative reporting, data journalism, and digital storytelling. Areas of emphasis will vary with each semester.

ENG452 - Advanced Study in Composition and Rhetoric

An opportunity for in-depth study, this course may focus on a single theme, historical period, theoretical approach, or group of rhetoricians and/or compositionists. Given that this is a writing intensive course, students will be expected to use writing as a tool for learning. In addition, this upper division course may familiarize students both with the consumption and production of emerging technologies for text-based inquiry, research, and expression.

ENG478 - Advanced Study in Media and Film

This course will provide students with an opportunity to study mediated forms of creative expression that go beyond (though not exclusive of) the textual. The course will look at one or more forms of media, such as film, television, and social media from an English Studies perspective. That is, questions of narrative, setting, character and cultural historical context will be combined with an awareness of the unique qualities of the medium.

ENG484 - Studies in 19th Century English Literature

This course emphasizes the poetry of Keats, Shelley and Byron; the critical writings of Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge; and the essays of Lamb and Hazlitt. It traces for the student the mutual evolution of literary forms and cultural, social and philosophical upheavals. It places particular emphasis on the essence of the Romantic movement: the spirit of individual liberty.

ENG485 - Studies in 20th Century British Literature

This course examines contemporary trends in literature, such as inter-texuality, ethical issues, major figures (i.e., Conrad, Greene, Woolf, Orwell and Burgess), WW I poetry, drama or the novel.

ENG487 - American Literary Genres

English 487 surveys canonical authors and works in selected genres or special topics in American literature study, which may include the short story, novel, poetry, drama, nonfiction, humor, travel writing, transatlantic writing, period literature, and ethnic literatures.

ENG489 - Studies in English Literary Genres

English 489 is an in-depth study of a particular genre of English literature or a comparative study of more than one genre. Genres covered may include epic poetry, lyric poetry, the short story, the 19th-century novel, the 20th-century novel, modern poetry, drama, nonfiction and film.

ENG495 - Seminar in Creative Writing

This is intended to be a final polishing course in creative writing, where students write and revise fiction, poetry, or drama, preparing a professional-level work.

ENG496 - Writing for Publication

Students analyze regional and national markets and refine their work for publication. They are expected to publish at least one work during the semester.

ENG499 - English Studies Capstone Class

This course for English majors is required for every English Department track: creative writing; journalism; language and literacy; and literature. The course will give majors from any track opportunities to demonstrate their application of the knowledge and skills developed through the undergraduate curriculum, particularly in the major and the General Education Program. Emphasizing written and oral performance at the professional level, the course will ask students to show proficiency in academic analysis and synthesis of English studies concerns while also addressing the social relevance and community implications of such concerns.