FALL 1999
GRADUATE ENGLISH COURSE OFFERINGS
TEACHING
GR ENG 473-01: Methods of Teaching English in the Middle and Secondary School
5:00 - 7:50 Tues.
Angelo Bonadonna
Required for English majors seeking certification at the secondary level.
This course involves the study of the principles, methods, and materials of teaching English in middle school and senior high school. Course requirements include class and field experiences (30 hours), the development of a unit of study (in any of the language arts areas-literature, writing, speech, drama, film, journalism, and so on), the teaching of practice lessons, reflective writing on course readings, and, as a culmination of all the course components, the development of a course portfolio.
All course activities and discussions are oriented around the question, What is needed to become an excellent English teacher? There are many ways, of course, to answer this question. The major course premise is the view that, of all the qualities one might name-of all the skills, knowledge, and dispositions that are desirable for a prospective teacher to possess-the foremost quality is a professionally reflective habit of mind.
Defining and exemplifying this disposition is a central concern of the course in general, and the portfolio project in particular.
GR ENG 496-01: Apprenticeship in the Teaching of College Writing Arr.
Writing Program Director
The student serves as an apprentice to an individual full-time English faculty member in a selected freshman writing course (Eng. 099, 101, 102). Open only to those invited to enroll by the English Graduate Program on the basis of applications submitted.
Prerequisite: English 495 or 538.
GR ENG 497-01: College Teaching Practicum (non-credit) Arr.
Writing Program Director
Experience teaching a freshman writing course. Open only to those invited to enroll by the English Graduate Program on the basis of applications submitted.
Prerequisite: English 495. (Also 496 for those who lack teaching experience.)
GR ENG 501 R: Critical Theory and Literary Research 6:00 - 8:50 Wed.
Augustus Kolich
This course involves the study of literary discourse, both in theory and practice. In literary studies, the term "interpretati0n" implies that processes exist that enable us to convert language systems into meaning systems, such as when symbols are interpreted to mean certain things other than what is linguistically apparent. Some of these processes can generally be described as methodologies for the study of literature, and usually they possess both a theoretical rationale and a methodological description. Our individual approach to literature may involve a single theory and practice or it may be hybrid, drawing on a variety of approaches. Tentatively, this course will explore the variety of interpretive approaches common in literature courses today, including Formalism, New Criticism, Structuralism, Deconstructionism, Reader-Response Criticism, New Historicism and Feminist Criticism.
As a result of taking this course, graduate students will be able to: (1) Identify and describe a variety of theoretical approaches to the study of literature as it is studied today; (2) Understand how interpretive theories and practices develop; (3) Identify what theories of interpretation are operative in specific interpretive communities, such as classrooms and conferences; (4) Understand the nature of literary discourse in these interpretive communities; (5) develop in themselves an awareness of their own interpretive approach or develop consciously in themselves such an approach; and, (6) Acquire some of the skills needed to engage in literary research.
GR ENG 510-01: The Ideology of Victorian Womanhood 6:00 - 8:50 Thurs.
Carol Poston
We want to examine what contemporaries meant "that angel in the house," the Victorian woman. What pressures and facts of life helped shape her? What were the representations of her - in fiction, in history, in poetry? We will include both men and women writers and move across several genres. Probably authors will include: Tennyson "The Princess"), Elizabeth Barrett Browning ("Aurora Leigh"), Robert Browning ("Men and Women"), Queen Victoria (excerpts from letters and journals), Coventry Patmore ("Angel in the House"), Christina Rosetti (Goblin Market" and other short lyrics), Charlotte Bronte (Shirley), and George Gissing (The Odd Women), and sensational popular fiction such as Mrs. Henry Wood's East Lynne and M.E. Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret.
Requirements: one oral report on a text from outside the class list; a documented seminar paper of 15 pages.
GR ENGL 536-01: Race and American Literature: 6:00 - 8:50 Mon.
"[De]Facing the Other"
Nelson Hathcock
This course focuses primarily on a number of texts by white authors that somehow evoke ideas of "race" in order to specify and treat groups (in our case, Native American and African American) as different and therefore worthy of objectifying. In order to define this focus and observe the development of such ideas, we'll be reading a supremely selective survey from over three hundred years. Contemporary thought about the question of race the representation of racial identity in literature will inform our readings and discussions. In addition to the "white" texts, Chesnutt and Alexie will provide African American and Native American perspectives and ideas that will force "conversations" among various clusters of these books. Students should also be forewarned - - many of these texts deal with violent content.
Primary texts:
Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682)*
Franklin, "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America" (1784)*
Poe, The Narrative ofArthur Gordon Pym (1838)*
Melville, "Benito Cereno" (1855)*
Crane, "The Monster" (1899)*
[*These texts will be available in a supplemental packet to be purchased through the bookstore.]
Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars (1900)
Faulkner, Light in August (1932)
Updike, The Coup (1978)
Sherman Alexie, Indian Killer (1991)
Robert Penn Warren, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce (1982)
McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)
Secondary sources:
Morrison, Playing in the Dark
Nelson, The Word in Black and White: Reading "Race" in American Literature 1638-1867
Sundquist, To Wake the Nations: Race and the Making of American Literature
Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860
|
|
