SPRING 2000
UNDERGRADUATE COURSE OFFERINGS
WRITING
ENGL 099 01: College Preparatory Writing
10:00 - 10:50 MWF
Laima Rastenis
An intensive introductory writing course designed to assess
the individual needs of students, to strengthen their paragraph and
essay writing skills, and to better prepare them for the writing
demanded of them in English 101 and other college courses. Required
of students whose performance on the English Placement Test indicates
that they need this course. Graded on a pass/fail basis only.
ENGL 101: Critical Thinking and Writing
See schedule below
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. Prerequisite:
Satisfactory performance on the English Placement Test or a passing
grade in English 099.
01: Laima Rastenis 12:00 - 12:50 MWF
02: tba 9:30 - 10:45 TTH
03: tba 6:30 - 9:20 Tues.
ENGL 102: Research and Writing See schedule below
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.
Prerequisite: English 101 with a C or
better.
02: Norman Boyer 10:00 - 10:50 MWF
03: Norman Boyer 11:00 - 11:50 MWF
Topic: (both sections) The Language of Who We Are: Contemporary
Discourses of Race, Gender, and Politics.
This course is designed to introduce you to the world of
academic discourse and to the research process by way of one of the
most important tools of academic discourse, analytical writing. Our
approach is through an examination of the power of language to lead
us (or mislead us) and of the effect our own use of language has on
others. Through reading, discussion, and writing, we will consider
such topics as language variety, the language of prejudice and
discrimination, and the language of politics (something we will have
plenty of opportunity to observe as the presidential, congressional,
and local political campaigns get into full swing). Your writing in
the course will include a short paper on a language issue, several
short papers and reports related to your research paper topic, and a
longer analytical documented research paper of 10-12 pages on an
academic topic of your choice, which may involve a language issue but
does not have to. Regular attendance and participation are
essential.
Required texts: Language Awareness: Essays for College Writers, 7th edition (1997), edited by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark; Writing Analytically, 2nd edition (1999), by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen; and MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 5th edition (1999), by Joseph Gibaldi. You will also need a handbook; I will order Easy Writer: A Pocket Guide (1998), by Andrea Lunsford and Robert Connors, for those who do not have a handbook from English 101 (The St. Martin's Guide does not count as a handbook). Prerequisite: English 101 with a C or better (strictly enforced).
Please note: Use will be made of e-mail and the Internet in conducting this course. If you do not already have Internet access (through the University or on your own), please arrange for it before the beginning of the semester. (An SXU computer account will automatically be created for all students enrolled for spring 2000 courses, according to a new policy.)
04: John Gutowski 12:00 - 12:50 MWF
Topic: Popular Culture
This course will help students to:
Acquire a basic foundation for a critical perspective on popular
culture.
Read widely and comparatively, both academic writing and other
kinds.
Analyze the ideas, contexts, and rhetorical strategies of what they
read.
Enhance capabilities for college level expository writing.
Develop questions for further inquiry in response to their
readings.
Conduct research appropriate to the questions they want to
answer.
Use the appropriate conventions of discourse to communicate their
answers to those questions.
Required Textbook: Axelrod and Cooper, The St.
Martin's Guide to Writing, 5th ed.
Nachbar and Lause, Popular Culture: an Introductory Text.
05: Augustus Kolich 1:00 - 1:50 MWF
Topic: The Day the Universe Changed
The research in this course centers on James Burke's video
series, The Day the Universe Changed, which was produced and
aired in 1985, and his companion book, reissued in 1995. In both the
series and the book, Burke examines how the introduction of new ideas
in western culture came to change the way people lived. His emphasis
is on how technology fashions what we know and what we can think - a
topic appropriate to all of us as we face the next thousand years.
Students will watch the nine-part video series in class and read the
companion book.
Requirements: Numerous short writing assignments; one documented essay (8-10 pages)
07: Laurence Musgrove 11:00 - 12:20
TTH
Topic: Presidential Campaign 2000
In this section of English 102, students' writing and
research will focus on the presidential campaign of 2000. Students
will compost a portfolio of writing including the following
ingredients.
1. Political Stances: A survey of students' attitudes toward politics
and politicians.
2. Goals 2000: A list of goals for learning about politics and the
2000 campaign.
3. Sound Bites: Short responses to assigned readings in Time Magazine
and Civility by Stephen Carter.
4. My Platform: An essay explaining student's political beliefs,
attitudes, and criteria for judging political candidates.
5. Bumpersticker.com: An essay analyzing the ways parties and
candidates use the Internet to advertise their political beliefs.
6. Taking the Pulse: An essay revealing results of student-designed
survey polling political attitudes of family and friends.
7. Decision 2000: Final Research Project in which student reveals the
candidate which best fits his or her political
requirements.
09: Poston
Topic: Reading the Environment 8:00 - 9:20 TTH
This course is designed to teach research writing as a
process, beginning with observation and interview research, then
searching electronic and written texts in a library setting. While
there will be shorter, graded written assignments, the course will
culminate in the research paper of 10-15 pages which we will produce
in well-defined stages. The theme for the course is reading the
environment in all its many aspects.
Required texts: Reading the Environment by Melissa Walker and Research Writing in the Information Age by Arnold, Poston, and Witek.
01: tba 9:00 - 9:50 MWF
06: tba 9:30 - 10:50 TTH
08: tba 12:30 - 1:50 TTH
10: tba 8:00 - 8:50 MWF
11: tba 6:30 - 9:20 Tues.
12: tba 2:00 - 2:50 MWF
ENGL 354: Business and Professional Writing
A: Maureen Bigane 1:00 - 1:50 MWF
R: Nelson Hathcock 6:30 - 9:20 Mon.
Principles of effective argument and exposition applied to
writing about business and professional topics. Emphasis on clear and
effective writing for the appropriate audiences.
Prerequisites: English 101-102.
ENGL 154 01 : Introduction to Literature
9:30 - 10:45 TTH
TBA
Recommended for the Literature/Fine Arts core requirement.
Close reading of selected short fiction and poetry, with an
emphasis on developing student confidence and skill in
interpretation. Reading selections attempt to reflect a broad range
of modern and contemporary voices in literature, and a variety of
stylistic and thematic concerns. Class is organized around group
discussion, with occasional short introductory lectures. Students
write several interpretive essays, and frequent brief, informal
responses to the day's readings
ENGL 158 01: Introduction to Literary
Interpretation 12:00 - 12:50 MWF
Nelson Hathcock
Recommended for the Literature/Fine Arts core requirement for
students with a strong background in literature.
Prerequisite: English major or English 101. Required of
English majors but also open to English minors and other interested
students with strong backgrounds in the study of literature. Should
be taken as soon as possible by English majors.
This course will focus upon strategies of reading
literature - poetry, short fiction, and novels - and constructing
solid arguments about what we've read. The first half of the course
will be devoted to the fundamentals of close reading, and the second
half will introduce students to some major critical approaches, as
applied to a novel.
ENGL 202 01: English Literature Since 1800
12:30 - 1:45 TTH
Carol Poston
Recommended for the Literature/Fine Arts core requirement.
English 202 surveys British literature from 1780 to the
present and includes poetry, essay, short fiction and one novel. The
class is reading, not writing, intensive, but I will ask for
occasional short response papers (ungraded) and one brief (3-5 page)
critical paper not requiring documentation. Requirements include
regular attendance, participation in class discussion, and three
exams including both objective and essay components. Text: Norton
Anthology of English Literature, volume 2.
ENGL 204 01: American Literature Since
1865 9:00 - 9:50 MWF
Nelson Hathcock
Recommended for the Literature/Fine Arts core requirement.
Major works from the Civil War to the present, examining the
validity and influence of such "movements" as modernism, realism, and
postmodernism in the works of such writers are Twain, Chopin,
Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Frost, West, Ellison, O'Connor, Lowell,
Pynchon, and DeLillo.Assignments:
ENGL 235 01: Sports and Literature 1:00 -
1:50 MWF
John Gutowski
Recommended for the Literature/Fine Arts core requirement.
Reading and analysis of sports classics in poetry, fiction,
drama, and personal experience writing. Focus on the sporting
experience as metaphor for life and on the various ways that sports
events are transformed into literature.
ENGL 260 01: Women and Literature 12:30 -
1:45 TTH
Maire Mullins
Recommended for the Literature/Fine Arts core requirement.
In this course we will read literature by women writers and
view films that focus on the themes of vocation, survival and
friendship. We will begin by studying the short novel Babette's
Feast, by Isak Dinesen and the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Both
of these writers focus on the possibilities/challenges which the
women artist faces. Next, we will read The Country of the Pointed
Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett and O Pioneers! by Willa
Cather. These novels also examine the woman artist, but explore
women's friendship with other women and with men as well. We will
view the film When Harry Met Sally, and examine the
possibility/impossibility of male/female friendship. Alice Walker's
The Color Purple brings all of these themes together but
also explores the most crucial issue for most women: survival. We
will finish the course by viewing Thelma and Louise and
The Piano. Requirements: a short essay after each work plus
a final examination.
ENGL 304 01: Shakespeare: Major Plays 1:00-1:50 MWF
Norman Boyer
Our aim is to gain an appreciation and understanding of some
of Shakespeare's finest plays. We will tentatively be reading A
Midsummer Night's Dream. The Merchant of Venice,
Measure for Measure, Henry IV parts 1 and 2,
Henry V, Troilus and Cressida, King Lear, Coriolanus,
and The Winter's Tale. We will attempt to situate the
plays both within their early modern literary, theatrical,
historical, and social contexts and as the focus of modern cultural,
theatrical, and educational interest. Course requirements include
participation in discussion, weekly one-page responses, one short
paper on some aspect of Shakespeare criticism (5 pages), one long
paper (10-15 pages), a midterm exam, and a final exam. Required text:
The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, et al.
Please note: This is an advanced course designed for
English majors and minors, not an introductory course. Others are
welcome but should have a background in literary interpretation (such
as that provided by English 158) or a strong interest in Shakespeare
and experience in reading several plays. Also please
note: Use will be made of email and the web in conducting
this course. If you do not already have internet access (through the
University or on your own), please arrange for it before the
beginning of the semester. (An SXU computer account will
automatically be created for all students enrolled for spring 2000
courses, according to a new policy.)
ENGL 313 01: Twentieth Century British
Literature - "The Great War"
Carol Poston 11:00 - 12:20 TTH
The U.S. entered World War I in 1917, one year before it
ended, and American military casualties were nearly as great from the
flu epidemic as from warfare. For Europe, however, and Great Britain
in particular, World War I was "the Great War" that shaped the
culture and society of the whole century.
Our study will examine texts that explore the Great War and its aftermath, literary and visual. Literary texts may include poets Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, T.S. Eliot and prose writers Virginia Woolf, Vera Brittain, E.M. Forester, and D.H. Lawrence. Visual presentations will include "All Quiet on the Western Front" and the masterful "Gallipoli" starring the young Mel Gibson.
Requirements: two exams (midterm and final with both essay and objective portions), one panel presentation, and one short critical essay (3-5 pages) from that presentation.
ENGL 340 01: Literary Criticism 10:00 - 10:50 MWF
Augustus Kolich
This survey course covers the major theoretical developments
in the 20th century - - from thematic formalism to gay/lesbian/queer
theory. Emphasis is placed on theory, interpretation, and practice,
with literary texts introduced for theoretical application. This
course is strongly recommended for those students going on to
graduate school in English or law school after graduation.
Requirements: 4 short exams; 2 oral presentations; 2 papers (4-5 pages each).
ENGL 346 01: Modern English Grammar 2:00 - 3:15 TTH
Laurence Musgrove
To what degree can we teach students to write correctly? Why
do students continually struggle with comma placement? How can we
teach stylistic maturity? What do teachers and their students need to
know about grammar? What is the best way to respond to error in
student writing?
This course is designed to help prospective English teachers understand effective ways to teach grammar, usage, and sentence style at the secondary level. We will be reading two texts on the latest research into "teaching grammar," Grammar and the Teaching of Writing by Rei Noguchi and Lessons to Share on Teaching Grammar in Context by Constance Weaver. A third text Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing by Harry Noden, offers practical strategies and materials for integrating grammar in the writing class.
Course requirements include a class portfolio with
the following ingredients.
1. A resume
2. A list of learning goals detailing what the student wants to learn
about teaching grammar and how the students wants to improve as a
writer
3. A reading journal
4. In-class sentence exercises
5. An essay analyzing the style of two fiction or non-fiction
writers
6. An interview with a secondary teacher on teaching grammar
7. A midterm essay
8. A personal handbook
9. A final essay
356 R: Teaching of Writing 5:30 - 8:20 M
Angelo Bonadonna
The premise of this course is the notion that the best way
to begin learning how to teach writing is to study how you yourself
have learned (and continue to learn) to write. By reflecting on your
intuitions about writing, you'll be better equipped to understand and
appreciate the research and intuitions of the scholars and writers we
as a class will be reading throughout the semester. Thus, one of the
principal assignments throughout the semester will be a journal in
which you react to and reflect on the course readings in the context
of your own remembered development as a writer.
Our readings will address a variety of practical teaching of writing issues, including teaching the writing process, writing about literature, revising, collaborative learning, grammar and writing, the writing workshop, journals, responding to writing, the rhetorical nature of writing, and others. Other course work besides the readings and journal include two reaction papers, a research paper, and participation in a small group that will lead class on two separate days during the semester.
ENGL 360 01: Introduction to Japanese Literature and Culture
9:30-10:45 TTH
Maire Mullins
The primary aim of this course will be to cultivate a
greater and more insightful understanding of contemporary Japanese
culture through the reading of literature, essays, and philosophical
works, the viewing of films and videos, and the study of the
principles of Zen through its expression in ikebana, the tea
ceremony, and Zen gardens. We will read Daisetz T. Suzuki's Zen
and Japanese Culture, Merry White and Sylvan Barnet's
Comparing Cultures; Kathy Davidson's Thirty -Six Views
of Mount Fuji; Natsumo Soseki's Kokoro; and Shusako
Endo's Silence. We will study the film techniques of
Yasujiro Ozu and Akiro Kurosawa and view Tokyo Story and
The Seven Samurai, and we will take part in a Japanese tea
ceremony as well as witness an ikebana display.
Requirements: two take home examinations, a response journal, and a final short paper.
ENGL 360 02: Twentieth-Century Novel 11:00 - 11:50 MWF
Augustus Kolich
The major genre in the twentieth century was the novel, but
there is yet no clear consensus as to who the major novelists were in
this century. A short list of possible candidates always seems
incomplete or perhaps biased. Thus, for this course, I have selected
a series of novels that might be considered as "unusual," while
recognizing that this thematic principle is arbitrary at best. The
list of authors includes: William Faulkner (The Sound and the
Fury), James Joyce (The Portrait of an Artist), Albert
Camus (The Plague), Franz Kafka (Metamorphosis),
Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba the Greek), Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(One Hundred Years of Solitude), D.M. Thomas (The White
Hotel), Kathy Acker (Empire of the Senses), and Ralph
Ellison (The Invisible Man).
Requirements: 2 oral reports, 2 essays (4-5 pages each), mid-term and final.
ENGL 360 03: Nineteenth Century American Magazine Fiction
2:30 - 5:20 M
Judith Hiltner
This course examines the culture of American magazine
fiction in the first half of the nineteenth century. Magazines were
the most widely read forum for American fiction and the forum
employed by most authors who aspired to be literary professionals,
including Irving, Poe, Melville and Hawthorne, as well as scores of
other writers less widely read in our own times but far more well
known in the nineteenth century: Sara Parton ("Fanny Fern"), Margaret
Fuller, N.P. Willis, D.G. Mithcell ("Ike Marvel") and a wide range of
"southwestern humorists." The same audiences were reading the stories
of all of these authors. We will read widely from their magazine
writings, first of all to enjoy entertaining stories that offer up
sensational gothic hauntings, social satire, sentimental effusions,
broad humor and even profound probings of the human psyche. Our
discussions will explore some of the following questions: How did the
expectations and tastes of popular audiences influence what writers
could say and how they said it? How does popular fiction, even
stories exploiting the "other worldly" devices of the gothic
tradition, or stories set in foreign places and "olden times,"
actually reflect pressing issues and concerns of the young nation in
the generation preceding the Civil War, a nation energized by the
enthusiasms of democratic individualism, Manifest Destiny and an
increasingly commercial economy, and a nation with mounting sectional
tensions, increasing anxieties regarding the assimilation of
"aliens," and shifting ideologies regarding race and
gender.
The class format will include short background
lectures, discussion of texts, and sharing with one another our
informal (one page) "reaction writings" in response to assigned
readings. In several 5-8 page essays, students will be provided with
opportunities to explore the topics and texts that most engage
them.