Catalogue Description of the English Major: English is more than a language; it is both a way of thinking about the world and a world in itself, a place where the imagination and intellect combine to teach us about the most important subject of all--ourselves as human beings. When you study language and literature, you encounter an important expression of human experience and humane values. You also learn about history, philosophy, law, politics, medicine, anthropology, sociology, theology, and business, for the study of literature is the study of people, both as cultural and as psychological beings, and there are practically no limits to your subject matter. English is of course a language, but it is also the words and thoughts that for centuries have given insight into what it means to be alive. Over the years, English has been a route to rewarding careers in business, education, and government. The reason for this success is simple: employers have come to realize that English majors have been taught to be innovative and articulate. They also realize that as society continues to grow more technical and complex, key personnel will be needed to help people communicate with each other as people. As long as we depend upon language to make ourselves understood, the English major will always be practical. The English major also leads to a wide variety of professional graduate programs. Master's and doctoral programs in English accept students who want to prepare for college teaching and research. Historically, law schools have drawn their students from both political science and English. MBA programs and medical schools have also begun turning to majors from the liberal arts, such as English, for students. The English major at Saint Xavier University is flexible enough to allow for the addition of those basic courses in business or science needed for admission into professional programs. There is a chapter of Sigma Tau Delta on campus. This International Honor Society for English majors sponsors literary activities and, by encouraging student participation in regional and national conferences, it promotes literary research and creativity among its members.   Admission to the Major The English Major does not require that students apply for admission. However, approval of such applications is required by the School of Education for all students preparing to teach. Consequently, the Chairperson of the Department is authorized to approve such applications for all students preparing to teach who have a cumulative grade point average of 2.0 and an average of 2.5 in English major courses taken at Saint Xavier University. Undergraduate English Courses 099 - College Preparatory Writing (3 - hours to not apply toward degree) An intensive introductory writing course designed to assess the individual needs of students who have significant problems with written expression, to strengthen their paragraph and essay writing skills, and to prepare them for the writing demanded of them in English 101 and other University courses. Required of students whose performance on the English Placement Test indicates that they need this course. Graded on a pass/fail basis only. 101 - Critical Thinking and Writing (3) Prerequisite: Satisfactory performance on the English Placement Test or a passing grade in English 099. Application of the principles of clear thinking and effective writing to expository and argumentative essays. Must be passed with a grade of C or better. 102 - Research and Writing (3) Prerequisite: English 101 with a C or better. A continuation of English 101 but including training in writing documented research papers. Each instructor may choose a topic and assign selected readings, which provide the subject matter for student writing. Must be passed with a grade of C or better. 150 - Honors English (3) Prerequisite: Invitation by the department based on ACT and English Placement Test scores. Reading, discussion, writing and training in the process of documented research. Instructor will choose a topic and assign selected readings, which provide the subject matter for student writing. Fulfills both the English 101 and 102 requirement. 154 - Introduction to Literature (3) Close reading and analysis of poetry, fiction and/or drama selections leading to a better understanding of how literature works and what it can do. Open to all students and designed for students who are not English majors. May be taken concurrently with English 101-102. 158 - Introduction to Literary Interpretation (3) Prerequisite: English major or English 101. Introduction to the close reading and analysis of literary texts, with attention to the themes, techniques, and theory of literature. Required of English majors and minors but also open to other interested students with strong backgrounds in the study of literature. Should be taken as soon as possible by English majors and minors. 160 - Special Topics in Literature (1-3) Studies of topics of an introductory nature not regularly included in other departmental offerings and designed for students who are not English majors. Open to all students. May be taken concurrently with English 101-102. 201 - English Literature To 1800 (3) Prerequisites: English 101-102. English literature from the Old English period through the 18th Century, including works by such writers as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Behn, Pope, Swift, and Johnson. 202 - English Literature Since 1800 (3) Prerequisites: English 101-102. English literature from the Romantic Movement through the 20th Century, including works by such writers as Wordsworth, Byron, Bronte, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Dickens, Hardy, and Joyce. 203 - American Literature To 1865 (3) Prerequisites: English 101-102. American literature from the beginnings to the Civil War, including works by such writers as Bradstreet, Franklin, Hawthorne, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Whitman, and Dickinson. 204 - American Literature Since 1865 (3) Prerequisites: English 101-102. American literature from the Civil War to the present, including works by such writers as Twain, Chopin, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Eliot, Frost, West, O'Connor, Lowell, and Mailer. 210 - Introduction to Creative Writing (3) Prerequisite: None, but knowledge of basic writing conventions is assumed. Introduction to the writing in such genres as fiction and poetry. The course normally specializes in a particular type of writing. May be repeated for credit when the type of writing is different. 230 - Multiethnic Literatures in the United States (3) Prerequisite: English 101-102. An introduction to major works and issues of contemporary multiethnic literature in the United States, primarily works by African American, Asian American, Latino and Native American writers. 235 - Literature and Sports (3) Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. Reading and analysis of sports classics in poetry, fiction, drama, and personal experience writing. Focus on the sporting experience as a metaphor for life and on the various ways that sports events are transformed into literature. 241 - Modern English Grammar (3) Prerequisites: English 101-102. A thorough study of modern English grammar from the perspectives of traditional, structural, and tranformational grammar. 260 - Special Topics in Literature (1-3) Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. Studies of topics designed as electives for majors, and for students who are not majors. Open to all students. NOTE: Most 300-level English courses have prerequisites. English majors and minors are expected to have the necessary prerequisites. Other students with strong backgrounds may enroll in 300-1evel courses without having the prerequisites by obtaining the permission of the instructor. 300 - Medieval English Literature (3) Prerequisite: English 158. English literature of the Middle Ages, with emphasis on heroic and courtly narratives. 301 - Chaucer (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Selections of Chaucer's poetry, in the original, from The Canterbury Tales and one or two other works. 302 - Sixteenth-Century English Literature (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Study of the development of the major prose and poetic styles and genres from More to Donne. Major concentration on More, Lyly, Sidney, Spenser, and non-dramatic poetry of Shakespeare, along with the reading of two non-Shakespearean dramas. 303 - English Renaissance Drama (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Plays by one or more contemporaries of Shakespeare, especially Marlowe, Jonson, and Middleton. The plays may be studied together with plays by Shakespeare. 304 - Shakespeare: Major Plays (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Major comedies, histories and tragedies; the development of Shakespeare's career in relation to his theater and society. 306 - Seventeenth Century English Literature (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Selected 17th-century poetry and prose (to 1660), including works by such writers as Donne, Jonson, Herbert, Marvell, Lanyer and Wroth. 307 - Milton (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Selections from Milton's poetry and prose, with emphasis on Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. 310 - Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Literature (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Literature written between 1660 and 1800, with emphasis on writers such as Dryden, Behn, Pope Swift, Johnson, Finch, and Wollstonecraft. 311 - English Literature of the Romantic Period (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Selected works of such Romantic period writers as Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Coleridge, P.B. and Mary Shelley, Keats, and Byron. 312 - English Literature of the Victorian Period (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Selected works of such Victorian writers as Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Newman, Hopkins, and Arnold. 313 - Twentieth-Century British Literature (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Selected works of such 20th-Century British writers as Yeats, Joyce, Conrad, Eliot, Auden, and Woolf. 314 - The English Novel 1: Defoe to Dickens (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Major novels from the beginning to the mid-l9th century, including works by such writers as Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne Austen, Scott, the Brontes, and Dickens. 315 - The English Novel 11: Dickens to the Present (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Major novels from the mid-19th century to the present, including works by such writers as Dickens, Collins, George Eliot, Hardy, Joyce, Lawrence, Drabble, and Amis. 316 - Dickens (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Reading of selected novels by Charles Dickens against the background of l9th-century England. 321 - Literature of the American Romantic Period (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Selected works of such American writers of the mid-19th century as Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Douglass, Fuller, and Stowe. 322 - American Regionalism and Realism (3) Prerequisite: English 158. Selected works of such American writers of the later 19th century as Twain, Chopin, Jewett, Wharton, James, and Crane. 323 - American Modernism (3) Prerequisite: English 158. A study of how this most influential and widespread movement of the first half of the 20th Century manifests itself in America through the selected works of such authors as Pound, Frost, Eliot, Stevens, Stein, Crane, Hemingway, Faulkner, Moore, H.D., and Williams. 324 - Later Twentieth-Century American Literature (3) Prerequisite: English 158. The post-WWII malaise and the emergence of post modernism seen in the works of such writers as Bellow, O'Connor, Updike, Ellison, Lowell, Brooks, Ginsburg, Kerouac, Plath, Rich, and Pynchon. 325 - The Nineteenth Century American Novel (3) Prerequisite: English 158. American novels from the beginning to about 1900, including works by such novelists as Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Chopin Stowe, Davis, Jacobs, James, and Wharton. 326 - The Twentieth-Century American Novel (3) Prerequisite: English 158. American novels of the 20th Century, including works by such novelists as Cather, Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Updike, Ellison, Wright, Hurston, and Walker. 327 - The Writing of the American South (3) Prerequisite: English 158. A study of the literary renaissance which reinvented, even as it described, the region. Special attention is paid to such writers as Tate, Warren, Cash, Faulkner, Welty, O'Connor, Styron, Wright, Percy, Hurston, Walker, and Gaines. 330 - Folklore (3) / Cross Ref: Anthropology 330 Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. Introduction to the study of the folklore of the major areas of the world, concentrating on the study of the folktale. 331 - Issues in African American Literature (3) Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. A study of the major figures and issues involved in the African- American canon, one of these being the canon itself. Special attention is paid to such writers as Wheatley, Douglass, Jacobs, Chesnutt, Johnson, Toomer, Larsen, Hughes, Brooks, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, and Morrison. 332 - Introduction to Women's Studies (3) Cross Ref: Humanities 232 Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. This course examines women's traditions and texts from a variety of perspectives. The course is multidisciplinary and examines women of the present and past through a consideration of women's writing, women's art and women's ways of knowing. The women's movement is also considered as well as women's contributions to philosophy, history, science, literature, anthropology, and popular culture. Required for a minor in women's studies. 333 - Modern African Literature (3) Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. Selected works by modern African writers within their historical and cultural contexts. Satisfies the teacher certification requirement in non- Western and Third-World cultures. 334 - American Movie Genres (3) / Cross Ref: Humanities 334 Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. A study of the notion of genre, which distinguishes American films from the European school. Viewing and analysis of selected films from genres like the Western, Detective, Cyberpunk, Horror, and Family Melodrama. Readings in structuralist critical theory and its application to American expressionist film-making. 340 - Literary Criticism (3) Prerequisite: junior standing as an English major or consent of instructor. Selected texts in literary theory, ancient and modern, with a strong emphasis on contemporary theories. Strongly recommended for English majors planning to attend graduate school. 341 - Studies in Linguistics (3) Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. Introduction to contemporary theories of language structure: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse structure. Concentration on English and one other language selected for study, plus analysis of selected problems from other languages of the world. 342 - Development of the English Language (3) Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. Introduction to historical linguistics. Study of the principal structural features of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English and Modern English dialects, and of the lines of historical development relating them. 343 - Topics in Limguistics (3) Prerequisites: English 101, 102, and one of English 241,341, or 342. Linguistic topics of a specialized nature. 344 - Classical Backgrounds (3) Prerequisite: English 154 or 158. Major works from classical Greek and Roman literature with an emphasis on works important for the study of English and American literature. May include selections from the Bible and Dante at the instructor's discretion. 345 - Modern Drama (3) Prerequisites: English 154 or 158. The modern revival of the drama of ideas and the independent theatre in Europe and America. Plays by such modern dramatists as Buechner, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, Pirandello, Brecht, O'Neill, Miller, Williams, Albee, Beckett, and Pinter. 350 - Advanced Writing (3) Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. An advanced course in the writing of expository and argumentative essays, with emphasis on the improvement of each student's style and technique. 354 - Business and Professional Writing (3) / Cross Ref: Business 354 Prerequisites: Junior standing, English 101-102, and 15 s.h. of business courses, or consent of the instructor. Principles of effective argument and exposition applied to writing about business and professional topics. Emphasis on the purpose, audience, and design of letters, reports, and other business and professional documents. 356 - The Teaching of Writing (3) / Cross Ref: Education 356 Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. The writing process and the problems students have with it; the development of writing, primarily in 6-12 classrooms. Includes work in interpreting and writing about literature. Required of English majors preparing to teach, and recommended for others preparing to teach (elementary, secondary, and college) or to engage in curriculum development. 357 - Topics in Writing (3) Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. Writing topics of a specialized nature. 360 - Topics in Literature (3) Prerequisites: English 101 and 102, or as set by instructor. Studies of topics designed for English majors and other interested students with a back ground in literature. 373 - Methods of Teaching English in the Middle and Secondary Schools (3) / Cross Ref: Education 373 Prerequisites: English 101 and 102. Classroom and field experiences. Principles, methods, and materials of teaching English in middle schools and junior/senior high schools, including literature, writing, speech, drama, film, and journalism. Includes work in reading comprehension, vocabulary, and study skills. To be taken concurrently with Education 370. (30 clinical hours.) 395 - Senior Seminar (3) Prerequisite: senior standing as an English major or consent of instructor. A study of literature using current methodologies, critical approaches, and research techniques. Students write and present a senior paper under the supervision of a faculty member.