Course Description: This course is designed for non-majors or potential majors who want to study and explore three creative writing genres (literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry) before enrolling in a single-genre workshop. Throughout the course of the semester, students will read and study a wide variety of contemporary texts while simultaneously drafting similar exercises that target point-of-view, form, voice, and structure. Students will study and discuss elements of craft, develop and implement a literary vocabulary, and begin to develop critical editorial skills for responding to their peers' work and articulating how a particular manuscript is and is not successful and how to make it stronger. We'll also grapple with questions on creativity and art at large: what is art? Why do humans make art? Students should expect to produce ample writing throughout the semester, share this work with others regularly in a formal workshop environment, and offer thoughtful verbal and written feedback. We'll also work together to build a supportive literary community in our community while growing creatively as individuals. This course will culminate in a final portfolio comprised of original drafts and revised work as well as a thoughtful reflection. This course does not count toward the Creative Writing concentration.
Course Delivery: Fully Remote
Course Description: A focus on writing as a tool for learning and communicating. Students will develop critical thinking skills, productive writing habits, and a style appropriate for college-level writing. Several short papers and one longer paper are taken through stages of the writing process. Instructional formats include class discussion, workshop sessions, and individual conferences. A sequence of library assignments introduces students to the use of Beeghly Library resources as an integral part of the liberal arts education. Fall, Spring
Course Delivery: Fully Remote
Course Description: A focus on writing as a tool for learning and communicating. Students will develop critical thinking skills, productive writing habits, and a style appropriate for college-level writing. Several short papers and one longer paper are taken through stages of the writing process. Instructional formats include class discussion, workshop sessions, and individual conferences. A sequence of library assignments introduces students to the use of Beeghly Library resources as an integral part of the liberal arts education. Fall, Spring
Course Delivery- Hybrid: All lessons and materials will be provided via Blackboard. However, we will meet on a weekly basis to touch base, discuss questions, and do relevant group work. Specifically, class time will be a place for workshopping and discussion of class lessons. Additionally, I will provide regular and consistent feedback on student work via Google Docs.
Course Description: A focus on writing as a tool for learning and communicating. Students will develop critical thinking skills, productive writing habits, and a style appropriate for college-level writing. Several short papers and one longer paper are taken through stages of the writing process. Instructional formats include class discussion, workshop sessions, and individual conferences. A sequence of library assignments introduces students to the use of Beeghly Library resources as an integral part of the liberal arts education. Fall, Spring
Course Delivery- Hybrid: All lessons and materials will be provided via Blackboard. However, we will meet on a weekly basis to touch base, discuss questions, and do relevant group work. Specifically, class time will be a place for workshopping and discussion of class lessons. Additionally, I will provide regular and consistent feedback on student work via Google Docs.
Course Description: A focus on writing as a tool for learning and communicating. Students will develop critical thinking skills, productive writing habits, and a style appropriate for college-level writing. Several short papers and one longer paper are taken through stages of the writing process. Instructional formats include class discussion, workshop sessions, and individual conferences. A sequence of library assignments introduces students to the use of Beeghly Library resources as an integral part of the liberal arts education. Fall, Spring
Course Delivery- Fully Remote: We'll meet synchronously as a full group during our regularly scheduled class time (Tuesdays and Thursdays 8:30 AM- 9:50 AM (Eastern Time/UTC + 5)), online via Zoom. This means being 'live' without masks: so you'll be able to see and hear me, and I'll be able to hear you and see you. During our class time, you'll discuss models of good writing, engage in hands-on exercises designed to improve your writing skills, and learn revision techniques to improve the structure and clarity of your writing. You'll receive individual feedback on essay drafts during class time and in separate, one-on-one online meetings with me at several points during the semester.
Course Description: A focus on writing as a tool for learning and communicating. Students will develop critical thinking skills, productive writing habits, and a style appropriate for college-level writing. Several short papers and one longer paper are taken through stages of the writing process. Instructional formats include class discussion, workshop sessions, and individual conferences. A sequence of library assignments introduces students to the use of Beeghly Library resources as an integral part of the liberal arts education. Fall, Spring
Course Delivery- Hybrid: We will alternate a week of in-person classroom meetings with a week of meeting conducted via Google Hangout. The readings and assignments have been tailored accordingly.
Course Description: A focus on writing as a tool for learning and communicating. Students will develop critical thinking skills, productive writing habits, and a style appropriate for college-level writing. Several short papers and one longer paper are taken through stages of the writing process. Instructional formats include class discussion, workshop sessions, and individual conferences. A sequence of library assignments introduces students to the use of Beeghly Library resources as an integral part of the liberal arts education. Fall, Spring
Course Delivery:
Course Description: A focus on writing as a tool for learning and communicating. Students will develop critical thinking skills, productive writing habits, and a style appropriate for college-level writing. Several short papers and one longer paper are taken through stages of the writing process. Instructional formats include class discussion, workshop sessions, and individual conferences. A sequence of library assignments introduces students to the use of Beeghly Library resources as an integral part of the liberal arts education. Fall, Spring
Course Delivery- Hybrid: We will alternate a week of in-person classroom meetings with a week of meeting conducted via Google Hangout. The readings and assignments have been tailored accordingly.
Course Description: A focus on writing as a tool for learning and communicating. Students will develop critical thinking skills, productive writing habits, and a style appropriate for college-level writing. Several short papers and one longer paper are taken through stages of the writing process. Instructional formats include class discussion, workshop sessions, and individual conferences. A sequence of library assignments introduces students to the use of Beeghly Library resources as an integral part of the liberal arts education. Fall, Spring
Course Delivery: Fully Remote
Course Description: Once upon a time, long before the Age of Oprah, writers who had lived through something fascinating or terrible or both would turn their experiences into fiction; nowadays, however, these stories equally take the form of creatively rendered memoirs—a sub-genre of the diverse and expansive genre we typically call creative nonfiction, or “essay.” Between the 1940s and 1990s, the number of books published under this category tripled; more recently, the Neilson Bookscan reports a recorded 400% increase in the number of memoirs published between 2004 and today, with many of these soon thereafter adapted into award-winning, feel good Blockbusters. What does this mean? It means, in part, that the form is considered both artful and necessary, that experiences once deemed so humiliating or painful that people worked to hide them are now so remunerative that some writers even make them up. But where do we draw the line between what is fiction and what is fact, what is real and what is imagined, what happened in our lives with what might happen on the page? In this class, we’ll study some of the most innovative, genre-defying examples of the form, works that tackle and engage ideas of creative liberty, self-expression, and exaggeration in pursuit of better art. We’ll work daily to engage and understand the idea that memoir is less interested in the past than it is the act of remembering and the ways past selves continue to inform who we are in the present. And perhaps most importantly, we’ll test our theories and the genre’s limitations through creative exercises that help us hone in on why the genre can feel so tricky. In short, we’ll talk a bit about truth, identity, and veracity in art, then we’ll throw our own stories at the wall to see what makes them stick. Honors.
Course Delivery: Fully Remote
Course Description: A course to help students appreciate and understand the conventions of fiction, poetry, drama, and the essay. It raises fundamental questions about the nature of literature. Although works and approaches vary with the instructor, the emphasis of this course remains the same: it focuses on close reading and analysis to develop students' critical skills and to enrich their emotional and intellectual experience of literary texts. Fall, Spring (Group III)
Course Delivery- Hybrid: For those students on campus, half of the class will attend in-person on Tuesday and the other half on Thursday. On those days when students aren't in-person, there will be asynchronous lessons, assignments, and interaction with the professor. This way, if a student has to miss class, they can easily complete the asynchronous lessons and assignments for that session. Arrangements with remote learners will vary depending on time zone, although all remote learners can expect regular synchronous interaction with the professor. *** Special note for those students on campus: We will be holding class outside as much as possible, so you may want to invest in a picnic blanket or bag chair for your comfort.
Course Description: Fiction I is an introduction to the various elements of fiction: character, setting, plot, theme, conflict, point of view. Fiction I is a workshop, similar to the studio experience in Fine Arts or the lab experience in the sciences. Accordingly, students will learn the methods and routines of this charmed space: experimentation, exploration, interrogation, chance. As writers, they will receive serious responses to their work. As critics, they will learn what to talk about, from words and sentences to class, gender, race and identity. They will also learn how to talk about each other's work in ways sincere, honest, insightful and constructive. Students will confront concepts such as originality, the new, the authentic. They will begin to write work that is their own and of more than ordinary significance.
Course Delivery: Fully Remote
Course Description: Fiction I is an introduction to the various elements of fiction: character, setting, plot, theme, conflict, point of view. Fiction I is a workshop, similar to the studio experience in Fine Arts or the lab experience in the sciences. Accordingly, students will learn the methods and routines of this charmed space: experimentation, exploration, interrogation, chance. As writers, they will receive serious responses to their work. As critics, they will learn what to talk about, from words and sentences to class, gender, race and identity. They will also learn how to talk about each other's work in ways sincere, honest, insightful and constructive. Students will confront concepts such as originality, the new, the authentic. They will begin to write work that is their own and of more than ordinary significance.
Course Delivery: Fully Remote
Course Description: A course on the process of writing and revising non-fiction essays, concentrating primarily on improving organizational skills, developing style, and accommodating readers. Students will write different kinds of non-fiction essays and will read and analyze essays by professional writers. F, S.
Course Delivery: Fully Remote
Course Description: The goal of this class is deceptively simple. We will learn how to write better poetry. We will write poems, and discuss poems, all with this goal in mind. This class is an introduction to the art of poetry composition; the only requirement is an interest in poetry. (Writing Requirement)
Course Delivery- Hybrid: We will alternate a week of in-person classroom meetings with a week of meeting conducted via Google Hangout. The readings and assignments have been tailored accordingly.
Course Description: In this class, we will study and practice cultural criticism: that is, interpretative and evaluative writing for a general audience. Students will write and revise reviews (e.g., book, film, music) and try their hand at other forms, such as the critical analysis of a cultural trend. Other assignments will include peer editing and a substantial diet of reading, since good writing depends on the study of first-rate examples. While this class cultivates many of the skills that are central to the study of English, it is suitable for all majors. R Course.
Course Delivery- In-Person: out-of-doors. Whenever the weather permits, this class will meet outside. Both the instructor and students will wear masks and practice social distancing. Students who are taking this course remotely will meet with the instructor for 50 minutes at least once per week, and interact with their classmates through Blackboard and Flipgrid.
Course Description: In this course, students learn to write the kinds of letters, memoranda, and reports most common in the workplace. They sharpen their writing style and their revising and editing skills. They learn to appeal to business and professional audiences while seeking to achieve specific purposes. Because employers expect the use of Edited American English (Standard English) and professional-quality page layout, this course teaches and enforces high standards of style, mechanics, and graphic design. Since oral communication skills are vital in the workplace, this course requires students to make both formal and informal oral presentations. Fall, Spring
Course Delivery: Hybrid
Course Description: In this workshop, students analyze traditional play structure, study the nature and process of playwriting as an art form, and explore how playwrights develop ideas through character and action. Students complete weekly writing assignments and exercises, share work, and respond to others' writing, culminating in the completion of a one-act play. Also listed as THEA 369. Prerequisite: ENG 105 and one college theatre or creative writing course. Fall (Group IV)
Course Delivery- Hybrid: Currently, we plan to meet for at least 1.5 hour a week on the main stage in Chappelear Drama Center. Depending on student interest and need, we may break into two smaller groups, with one meeting in person on Tuesday and one on Thursday, with a required full-group synchronous remote meeting arranged for one or both of those days. The remaining class time will consist of at least one hour of independent required weekly remote or in person small group workshop and discussion sessions (I am currently planning on two groups). The small work groups may decide the preferred meeting mode, whether in person on Google Meet or Blackboard Collaborate. I will assist the groups initially with arranging and setting up meeting times, but students will have flexibility in carrying out the small group workshops themselves. I will join the sessions on alternating weeks. Students may arrange to meet during the scheduled class time or outside of class time, as long as all group members and I will be available at the desired times. Once we see how things go, we may decide instead to meet for more time as a full class in person if we all agree that will work for us. Since this is a creative writing class that involves workshopping and discussion of works-in -progress, students will share work that is ready for review with each other and with me in a shared Google Drive for commentary and discussion. Students will complete weekly video and/or written exercises, and/or discussion board responses to readings, submitted through email, Google docs, and/or Blackboard. Students will also have at least two required remote individual conferences with me about their work, and may of course schedule as many individual conferences as they like. We are going to present two public staged readings, one before midterm and one the last week of classes as a culminating final activity. I hope that the first will be a traditional socially-distanced reading on the studio or main stage in Chappelear, or perhaps in an outdoor area, with a small audience, if possible. If that is not possible, we will arrange either to video the reading and share/distribute it online, perhaps in a live social media event or with a public Zoom session. We will invite audience/viewer commentary and feedback on the midterm reading. The last reading will be remote, and again we will try a live online event, or record the reading for sharing and distribution. (Honestly, I am still working this out, and hope to enlist the creative energy of students to come up with exciting ways go present our scripts for audiences!)
Course Description: Designed to introduce the student to screenplay form and technique, this workshop moves from readings through written exercises to a completed dramatic script of about thirty minutes in length. Fall
Course Delivery: Fully Remote
Course Description: There are few stories of adventure more riveting than that of King Arthur and his knights. We'll read a wide variety of Arthurian legends: beginning with the earliest chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth, turning then to the Celtic tales of love and magic by England's first female writer, Marie de France, and concluding with the chivalric romances of Sir Thomas Malory, Sir Gareth, and Sir Lancelot du Lake. Readings and discussions will be focused primarily upon fictional texts, but we will also situate the literature in relation to the ideals of chivalric knighthood, the medieval practices of jousting & tournament, the psychology of love as expressed in courtly literature, artistic illustrations of Arthurian literature in medieval manuscripts, and the role of women as writers and readers of Arthurian legend. In order to better understand our culture's continuing fascination with the legends of Arthur, we will also view several famous films (Boorman's Excaliber, Erec Rohmer's Perceval) and consider how they reinvent Arthurian legend. Writing Option available. Fulfills university distribution requirements for Group III/Humanities, English Department requirements in British Literature and pre-1800, and Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Core or Elective course).
Course Delivery- Fully Remote: We'll be getting together live from 1:20-2:40 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we'll be doing so online. Happily that means no need for masks, and so you'll be able to see me and hear me, and I'll be able to hear you and see you. I'm very pleased that we'll be using Zoom to host our discussions this fall: it lets all of us be together at once, like we're sitting around a seminar table.
Course Description: A wide-ranging study of British literature and culture during the Victorian period (1837-1901), an era characterized simultaneously by a profound domestic and imperial confidence and a set of deep anxieties surrounding changing understandings of the individual, society, and the natural world. Topics include empire, gender and class divisions, industrialization and urbanization, the challenge science offered to religious faith, the dilemmas of post-Romantic poetry, and the evolution of the novel. Novelists may include C. and E. Brontë, Carroll, Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell, Hardy, Trollope, Wilde; poets may include E. B. and R. Browning, Hopkins, C. Rossetti, Tennyson; prose writers may include Arnold, Carlyle, Cullwick, Darwin, Ellis, Mayhew, Mill, Ruskin.
Course Delivery- In-Person: out-of-doors. Whenever the weather permits, this class will meet outside. Both the instructor and students will wear masks and practice social distancing. Students who are taking this course remotely will meet with the instructor for 50 minutes at least once per week, and interact with their classmates through Blackboard and Flipgrid.
Course Description: Variable course focusing on a specific genre‚ "narrative, poetry, novel, drama, essay‚" within African American literary tradition. The course will examine both literary and socio-political factors that have influenced the development of the specific genre. Possible topics include: Toward a Re- Definition of Slave Narrative and Contemporary Black Drama. Also listed as BWS 369. F.
Course Delivery:
Course Description: English has one of the richest recorded histories of any language, and this course examines the development of the English language from its earliest origins in Anglo-Saxon England (AD 450) to its contemporary state in places as geographically disparate as Ireland and India. English will be examined in respect to its internal history, and students will learn to read English in its earliest forms: the Old English of the epic author of Beowulf, the Middle English of Chaucer's day, and the Early Modern English written during the Renaissance by poets such as Shakespeare and Milton.
Course Delivery- Fully Remote: We'll be getting together live from 10:30 AM-12:20 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we'll be doing so online. Happily that means no need for masks, and so you'll be able to see me and hear me, and I'll be able to hear you and see you. I'm very pleased that we'll be using Zoom to host our discussions this fall: it lets all of us be together at once, like we're sitting around a seminar table. Please note that the textbook for this class comes with access to an online, companion website that contains additional resources and supplemental study exercises.
Course Description: Two semesters of editorial work for one unit of academic credit. The student is involved in every aspect of publication, from soliciting submissions, through selection and editing of works, to publicity and sales. An English major or minor may apply for the apprenticeship to the faculty advisor in the spring term of the academic year preceding the apprenticeship. This course does not count toward the English major. Fall, Spring.
Course Delivery: Fully Remote