Stern College Syllabi -- Spring and Fall 2021-2022 courses --- ENGL (English)

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ENGL 1721 - M Topics: Media Photojournalism / ARTS 3970 - M Topics: Photojournalism
(2021-01) Shannon, Kathleen
Course Description: How can photography act as a witness? How can an image empower change? In this course we will consider these questions and more as we examine core ideas for understanding the creation, gathering, and dissemination of information via journalistic photography. Through various lectures, discussions, assignments, and critiques, students will fine tune skills of editing and composition as they advance their photographic practice. In addition to developing a nuanced understanding of the values and purpose of photojournalism, special attention will be given to increasing students' visual literacy, and covering the ethics of documentary photography.
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ENGL 2835 Shakespeare: Histories and Comedies - B
(2021-01) Grimaldi, Gina
COURSE DESCRIPTION Derided in 1592 as an “upstart crow”-- an arrogant literary hack from nowhere-- William Shakespeare spent his early professional years in London writing histories and comedies for the stage, eventually establishing his celebrity status. This course covers four remarkable plays from the first half of Shakespeare’s theatrical career: Henry V, a history from his tetralogy about medieval English monarchical drama, and The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night, comedies that indulge in shenanigans of love and intrigue. We will discuss the texts in depth, focusing on genre, character, structure, language, and theme, and we will explore English history, the Elizabethan era, Renaissance theater culture, Shakespeare’s legacy, and stage and film adaptations of the plays. Class sessions will involve seminar-style discussions, lectures, and video viewings. Requirements will be: two at-home essays, a short presentation, and a final research project.
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ENGL 2000 - B Ways of Reading
(2021-01) O'Malley, Seamus
Who decides what texts mean? Are some interpretations better than others? Does the author's intention matter? How does language work? In this foundational course, we will study texts of the cultures around us, as well as literature. Required for the English Major and Minor. 3.000 Credit hours __ This course is more about how we read than what we read. The goal is to show how meaning is created through critical reading and to help you learn to read and interpret works contextually and closely. To this end, our course has several objectives: students should leave this course with a clear sense of the variety of theoretical approaches available to them as readers of texts; have a sense of why these approaches matter in apprehending all different kinds of texts; and be able to manifest their ability to read texts in different ways through verbal and written modes of communication. You may find that the issues and texts – and the language in some of the readings – difficult at first. But the course will help you gain some of the skills you’ll need to read and write critically about all kinds of texts, not just literary ones. We will read poems, short fiction, a novel and a play. Each section of the course takes up a number of major issues of concern in literary and cultural studies, like authorship, language, reading, subjectivity, ideology, aesthetics, and history. General Education Goals: • Practice skills in close reading and interpretation • Understand the vocabulary and conventions of four genres of literature (poetry, short fiction, novel, play) • Express ideas in writing and practice revising your work • Read secondary critical articles and integrate them into your work Goals of the Course: • Practice the skills of close reading of literature • Explore literary interpretation and critical analysis • Write four thesis-driven essays using claims and evidence structure • Practice a variety of critical perspectives interpreting literature
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ENGL 1100 - K2 Composition and Rhetoric
(2021-01) Trapedo, Shaina
Course Description In 1967, as the civil rights and feminist movements continued to make waves, Gerry Goffin and Carole King co-wrote “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” and Aretha Franklin turned their song it into a power ballad for the ages. While artists including Celine Dion and Adele have covered this anthem of female agency and self-acceptance, the chorus begs the question: who is the “you”? Why must the “natural woman” rely on another to “feel” authentic in her own womanhood? Although the lyrics imply that the “you” is an individual man, what happens when we read “you” as a collective pronoun? While the selected readings for this class will only scratch the surface in addressing these questions, we will engage with writers who consider how the notion of a “natural woman” is defined in relation to patriarchal order, science and medicine, the media and fashion industries, and other social norms. The premise of this course is that critical thinking and careful reading are the bedrock of successful writing, and we will do plenty of writing. In discussions and assessments, you will examine texts as products of the writer’s decision-making process, and then be given ample practice in applying those techniques in your own work to create a distinctive verbal style, convey meaning, and project identity. By approaching writing as a process involving multiple stages, this challenging course will strengthen English language and grammar proficiency as it trains the student writer to present and develop a thesis-driven argument in a clear, logical, and convincing manner. While I look forward to the intellectual engagement and aesthetic pleasures literature affords, the primary goal of this course is to equip students with analytical tools, writing skills, and heightened self-awareness through humanistic inquiry that will serve you across disciplines and beyond. ____ Goals and Objectives The goal of this class is for students to develop proficiency in textual analysis and academic writing. Instruction simultaneously focuses on writing strategies, such as revision, summarizing, structuring, as well as the usage of academic English. Upon successful completion of this course: 1. Students will be able to apply strategies for the developing and revising of their academic essays. a. create an outline or plan of ideas for an academic essay. b. show evidence of idea development through peer review and collaboration. c. demonstrate successful revision strategies. 2. Students will be able to produce clear writing that employs appropriate conventions for academic discourse. a. produce clear and effective organization, paragraphs, and transitions. b. demonstrate mastery of syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling. c. choose evidence and detail consistent with the purpose of the essay. d. follow MLA formatting instructions. e. understand the audience for whom they write and employ appropriate diction and tone. 3. Students will be able to locate, identify, and integrate primary and secondary material into their own writing and cite it accordingly. a. locate and identify primary and secondary sources relevant to their topic. b. summarize the argument of a primary or secondary text accurately. c. quote from and integrate citations from literary or cultural texts and from literary criticism or other secondary sources accurately into their own writing. d. create a Works Cited page in MLA format that includes all primary or secondary works cited. 4. Students will be able to demonstrate mastery of academic argument structure, i.e., developing a significant set of ideas (a thesis) through a logical sequence of claims supported by appropriate evidence and analysis. a. create a clear and debatable thesis b. incorporate alternate views or counterarguments. c. provide the necessary background information on the topic. d. present a logical sequence of claims about the topic. e. identify and use appropriate evidence to support their claims. f. craft a conclusion that summarizes and offers new reflections. g. indicate a specific approach to the topic and account for why this approach is important to knowledge. _______ Essential Employability Skills • Use a variety of thinking skills to anticipate and solve problems. • Respond to written, spoken, or visual messages in a manner that ensures effective communication. • Analyze, evaluate, and apply relevant information from a variety of sources. • Show respect for diverse opinions, values, belief systems, and contributions of others. • Interact with others in ways that contribute to effective working relationships and goal achievement. • Manage the use of time and other resources to complete projects. • Take responsibility for one's actions, decisions, and consequences.
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ENGL 1200H-E Freshman Honors Seminar
(2021-01) O'Malley, Seamus
This class will explore the various assumptions and protocols of academic writing. Academic writing is your passport to success, both within the academy and in much of the professional world. It is a form of writing with its own codes and rules, and it is imperative that we begin our semester acknowledging that no one is born a good academic writer, just as no one is born already knowing English, French, Chinese or Hebrew. Academic writing must be learned by the hard work of practice and requires the skills of dedication and patience. The other forms of writing at which you are already adept—personal essays, emailing, blogging, texting, note-taking, etc.—will be of help with academic writing, but always be aware that academic composition is its own unique form. Academic writing is defined by its methods, not by its chosen subjects. You can write academically about professional wrestling, and writing about literature is not automatically academic. Through an exploration of various forms of expression, students will learn key aspects of academic writing such as ways to strengthen ideas and lines of inquiry, support argument positions and write clear and persuasive arguments. The essay sequence, which builds on itself, is designed for students to demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of a particular skill. In the first essay, students will close read a chosen advertisement. The second essay will offer the opportunity for students to showcase their comparative analysis strategies by putting in relation two short stories. The third and final essay, a research paper, asks students to demonstrate an ability to engage with secondary sources and enter into the ongoing academic conversation about a poem. Each of the essays will stem from a genuine question about the images and texts that students develop through their reading of the material, a question that arises through intrigue, confusion or curiosity and is revised, honed and reframed through discussions, prewriting exercises and revisions.
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ENGL 2923 - D1 Topics: American Countercultures
(2021-01) Miller, Matthew Ward
Course Description and Objectives The word “counter-culture” probably first calls to mind the counter-cultures of one’s own generation, usually music-related, whether hipster DIY culture, goth, hip-hop, or, if one is a bit older, grunge, punk, or even hippies and beatniks. Counter-cultures, however, have existed for as long as there have been groups of people unhappy with their present society. They have attracted musicians, artists, activists, poets, philosophers, rebels, and young people. Together, they have created alternate forms of culture that have profoundly affected both their own movements and the mainstream societies they rebelled against. This course focuses on the literature and counter-cultural expressions of Americans from the nineteenth century to the present. We will explore different formulations of cultural rebelliousness and redefinition: whether from the “proto-goth” of Edgar Allen Poe or today’s techno-horror and “steampunk” culture, from free-thinking, transcendentalist radicals like Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman to the beatniks and hippies of the 50s and 60s, or from the jazz countercultures of the 1920-40s to the cultural redefinitions of rap and hip-hop. Students in this course will examine and analyze the ways Americans have both rebelled and, what’s harder, created alternate forms of society and the culture that shapes it.
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ENGL 2750-C The Graphic Novel
(2021-01) O'Malley, Seamus
In the early part of the twentieth century, American newspapers began publishing strips of sequential art that became known as “comics,” because of their often humorous nature. Decades later, publishers started to collect these strips into small pamphlets, and eventually publishers began putting out pamphlets with original, as opposed to reproduced material. The term “comics” stuck, hence the “comic book.” As Marshall McLuhan theorized, new media often works in the language and modes of older media: novels were first called “histories,” early films were conceived as “photoplays” . Comics were no different, first trying to imitate preexisting genres like war narratives and crime dramas. Eventually, however, comics contributed a new, unique genre that for decades could only be found in comic book form: the superhero. Most superhero books followed a similar format. A young man, often in some way marginalized from society, gets in some way transformed—often via radiation, that obsession of mid-century Nuclear Age America—and becomes super-human, possessing remarkable powers. Part of the drama always came from the split personality most superheroes must undergo, as the awesome powers of the alter ego are often no match for the mortal problems faced by the secret identity. Such a paradigm proved ripe for young, mostly male memoirists of the 1980s and 1990s. But first many writers and artists were looking back at veteran comics-writer Will Eisner, who in 1978 wrote A Contract with God, a series of vignettes depicting the Jewish Lower East Side. This work is now seen as the first “graphic novel,” since it is not a collection of separate comic books (often referred to as a “trade paperback”) but instead a complete work of original material designed to be published and read in one unit. (While this will be our working definition of a graphic novel, several of the works we will consider should more technically be called trade paperbacks.) After pioneering superhero writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore proved that comics could tackle adult themes, and be as aesthetically complex and rewarding as other forms of art, the comics memoir, utilizing the graphic novel format, took off: writer/artists like Chester Brown, Seth, and Chris Ware took many of the superhero tropes and techniques and adapted them for narrating their very un-super lives. Female artists followed suit, especially in the last decade that has seen work by Vanessa Davis, Marjane Satrapi and Alison Bechdel. While we will touch on this diachronic development of the graphic novel, we will be mostly concerned with synchrony: we will ask how comics work, what is their shared vocabulary, what happens to the reader/viewer as we “read” a comic. We will try to determine the complex relationship between graphic novels the traditional novel, also how they relate to other forms of visual art (especially painting, but also cinema). Appreciating graphic novels means borrowing from both literary and art criticism, but will also need a critical look at what makes the form so unique. We will turn to several secondary sources, especially Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, to provide some models for critical appreciation.
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ENGL 2901 - N Introduction to Women Studies
(2021-01) Nachumi, Nora
This course is an introduction to Women’s Studies, an interdisciplinary field that grew out of the twentieth-century women’s movement. In its early years, those in the field concentrated on the “absence” of women (from literature, history, science, etc.) and worked to add them to the curriculum. Today, Women’s Studies is a vast and still growing field of study that draws on many different disciplines in the humanities and the sciences in its efforts to describe, understand and – in many cases – improve women’s lives. This particular course is organized around diverse representations of female experience. Drawing on a variety of sources--including essays, short fiction and visual media--we will ask how different categories of identity (i.e. race, class, gender, age, ability, etc.) impact each other. We will theorize and articulate our own positions regarding the issues we discuss and engage with positions that differ from our own. Students do not have to define themselves as feminists —or even be sympathetic to feminism as they currently define it—in order to take this course. Like all good conversations, the ones in this class generally benefit from a variety of reasoned opinions. This course is a “Forms, Identities, Reading Practices” course in English designed to pose questions about who reads for whom, in what ways, and why does it matter? It is an introductory-level course that fulfills a III D requirement for the English major. It fulfills a requirement in the SCW core curriculum, “Interpreting Literature and the Arts.” Pre-requisites: English 1100 or FHS. It is required for students pursuing Women’s Studies Minor.
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ENGL 1100 - K Composition and Rhetoric
(2021-01) Nachumi, Nora
COURSE DESCRIPTION The reading in this course is organized around the idea of crime and community. Over the course of the semester, we will divide our time between exploring the assigned texts and learning college-level academic writing practices. The techniques you will learn in this course will apply to every subject that demands clear, logical and cogent exposition. ______ GOALS AND OBJECTIVES The primary goal of this class is for you to learn to write a thesis-driven academic essay that articulates a complete, clear, logical thesis, and supports that thesis through a logical series of claims supported by well-chosen evidence and effective analysis. Throughout the term, we will develop composition skills with the foundational premise that the best writing results from an ongoing process of asking genuine questions, developing arguments, cultivating structures for putting ideas into words, and rethinking and revising our work. Since this class is interdisciplinary, the techniques of analysis and formal writing practice should prepare you for college-level academic work in any field. Specifically, we will approach writing as a process of developing genuine questions through documenting textual evidence; developing an approach to this material; analyzing our evidence; and from all that work building a central claim, or thesis—all to be molded into a cohesive structure. The process is called “Academic Discourse.” We will discuss practical strategies to help you begin, write, revise, and polish formal written work, as well as research and citation techniques.
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ENGL 3525 - F Transcendentalism (advanced English course)
(2021-01) Miller, Matthew Ward
Course Description Between the 1830s and 1860s this country's most talented writers forged a distinctively American literature and philosophical outlook on the world known as Transcendentalism. What is our best self? What is our relationship to nature? to the universe? to each other? These are just a few of the key questions Transcendentalists addressed in stories, poems, and essays. A time of rebirth, this literary movement has been called "the American Renaissance" (F.O. Matthiessen, 1968). It features some of the most memorable literature of the last two centuries. The course will begin with our discussion of influential essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, such as "Self-Reliance" about one's relationship with nature and G-d. We'll read excerpts of Henry David Thoreau's famous meditation on the natural world, Walden. We'll examine the journalism, as well as the feminist and abolitionist writings of women such as Margaret Fuller. We'll study Walt Whitman, both his poetry and prose, and examine how this singularly original American transformed Transcendentalism into something bolder, shaggier, and more in touch with ordinary Americans. We'll also take a look at the darker, almost gothic side of Transcendentalism as embodied by the stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the gem-like precision of the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Finally, we’ll consider how the Transcendentalists are still relevant for us today, as we ask ourselves what Emerson called “the practical question of the conduct of life: How shall I live?”
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ENGL 3792 - L American Autobiography
(2021-01) Peters, Ann
This course will examine the development of American autobiography from the early captivity narratives written in the colonial period to the contemporary memoirs of today. We’ll begin by focusing on a few early examples of the autobiographical tradition in America: the captivity narrative (Mary Rowlandson), the bootstrap narrative (Benjamin Franklin), the slave narrative (Frederick Douglas,) and the immigrant story (Mary Antin). In the second unit of the course, we’ll read personal essays and excerpted chapters from autobiographies written in the 20th century by writers like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, Vivian Gornick, Maxine Hong Kingston, David Foster Wallace, and Richard Rodriguez. Our final reading will be voted on by the class. We’ll choose one work from the following list of memoirs: Maggie Nelson’s Bluets; Bob Dylan’s Chronicles; Natasha Tretheway’s A Daughter’s Memoir; Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped; graphic memoirs by Art Spiegelman and Alison Bechdel. Our goal is to study the different forms that an autobiography can take and learn about the tradition of life writing from colonial days to the present. Along the way, we’ll ask whether American autobiographies share certain characteristics, consider the problem of memory and the distortions of truth that can occur in telling a life story, and explore the important ways that family, community, gender, class, race, and ethnicity shape identity. We’ll also try our hand at writing a short piece of autobiographical writing. The course will be reading and writing intensive with three group discussion forums, two reading responses (2-3 pages), a research paper (7-10 pages), and a short autobiographical essay of your own due at the end of the semester. This course is a “Forms, Identities, Reading Practices” course designed to pose questions about who writes and reads for whom, in what ways, and why it matters. It is an Advanced course. It fulfills a III B ADVANCED requirement for the English Major. It does fulfill "Interpreting Literature and the Arts.” Pre-requisites: an introductory-level literature course or a straight “A” in ENGL 1100 or 1200H on transcript that you show to the instructor. It counts towards the Minor in American Studies.
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ENGL 1502 - FGW Feature Writing
(2021-01) Lieber, Chavie
Focuses on the skills and techniques to write articles or stories for newspapers, magazines or news websites. 3.000 Credit hours
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ENGL 2003 - A Survey of British Literature I
(2021-01) Spencer, Stephen
History of British literature and culture focusing on major works from the earliest literature through Donne. 3.000 Credit hours ___ In this survey of the first ten centuries (!) of literature written in English, we will thematically focus on the intersection between sacred and secular love. A common narrative about the years 600–1660 CE is that increased literacy, scientific advancements, the global spread of capitalism, and other developments led to a world emphasizing “secular” pursuits—money, power, romance—beyond traditional religious observance. Though this narrative will guide our tour of the earliest English literature, we will also question it by defining literature as both of this world and not: as displaying love for the world in which it was created while also trying to transcend that world. In this course, “love” will be a capacious term, describing relations between humans and other humans (romantic, familial, friendly), the divine realm, and nature that are not always beneficial. The first half of the course will focus on literature from the medieval period (~600–1400 CE). In this unit, we will read the oldest recorded song of praise in English to the Creator, stories of knightly chivalry, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which satirize religious hypocrisy and forecast gender equity in equal measure. In the second half of the course, we will focus on literature from the Renaissance (~1400–1660). We will look at sonnets written by men and women (for men, women, and God), a play about a doctor who sells his soul to a demon for unlimited knowledge, and the poetry of John Donne, a man with split personalities oriented towards heaven and earth. Throughout the course, we will emphasize both change and continuity between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, through the perspective of each period’s literature. ___ Course Objectives and Goals ENGL 2003 establishes a common knowledge base in English literature up to Donne, and it equips students with the vocabulary and techniques for describing and analyzing literary works, with an emphasis on developing critical writing skills specific to literary analysis. The course develops in students an appreciation and understanding of the aesthetic qualities of various genres and periods of British literature, as well as an awareness that this literature is part of a larger ongoing cultural, social, and historical dialogue.
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ENGL 2007 - N Survey of American Literature II
(2021-01) Peters, Ann
American Literature II is an introductory survey of the period between the end of the Civil War and the present. We’ll read a wide variety of works over a broad sweep of time. We’ll learn about some of the literary movements of the time, starting with the realist tradition and ending with postmodernism, and about some of the schools of poetry that have emerged over the period. We’ll consider literature in its context and look at how literature responds to changes in the culture at large. Fiction will include works by Sherwood Anderson, James Baldwin, Abraham Cahan, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Theodore Dreiser, William Faulkner, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William Dean Howells, Sarah Orne Jewett, Maxine Hong Kingston, Flannery O’Connor, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, and Mark Twain. Poetry will include (but not be limited to) works by Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams. We’ll also be reading a play, August Wilson’s Fences. You’ll write two reading response letters, respond to peer discussion forums, give a short presentation, and write one argument paper in two drafts (7-10 pages.) There will not be a midterm or a final. ___ In this course, you will: • Practice skills in close reading and interpretation • Express ideas in writing and practice revising your work • Gain familiarity with the social and political forces shaping American culture during the period and understand literature in its cultural and intellectual context • Understand the literary movements of the period (i.e. modernism, realism, regionalism)
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ENGL 1651 - FGM Developing Effective Messages
(2021-01) Schleuter, Deborah Brown
SYLLABUS Explore how to break through the clutter with public relations techniques to help ensure your key audience is listening to your message. The course will include individual papers, workshops, and a team project that focuses on creating effective messages and influencing audiences. Goal: Students will understand why certain messages are effective and resonate with consumers and how to develop messages for a client’s product or service. Objective 1: Students will learn how to use specific PR tools such as surveys and focus groups to develop message direction/positioning. Objective 2: Students will learn how to write a persuasive argument. Objective 3: Students will learn how to write messages in a problem/solution format and how to develop a strong message platform. Objective 4: Students will learn how to develop insights and create a new product, as a team, to break through a crowded marketplace.
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ENGL 2810H - K Harlem Renaissance
(2021-01) Peters, Ann
In the 1920s and 1930s, between World War I and the Great Depression, African American culture experienced a flourishing both in literature and the arts known as the Harlem Renaissance. The goal of this course is to give you a broad overview of Harlem Renaissance writing and to situate the works in their literary and political contexts, focusing on the ways in which literature represents, responds to, and shapes intellectual and political change. The course examines literature alongside art and music of the period and introduces you to some of the events and people that helped create the Harlem Renaissance. We’ll learn, for instance, about The Great Migration, the role of literary magazines in early 20th Century American literary life, the impact of W.E.B. Dubois, the significance of white patronage in Harlem, and the importance of Harlem as a cultural center. Readings will include fiction, essays and poetry by Countee Cullen, W.E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Alain Locke, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and George Schuyler. Along with our reading, we’ll watch two documentaries about the period. We’ll also read selections from Isabel Wilkerson’s book on the Great Migration, The Warmth of Other Suns. Requirements for the course include in-class responses, discussion forums, three reading response letters, and a 7-10 page argument paper. There will be occasional pop quizzes to make sure you are keeping up with the reading. This is a “Forms, Identities, Reading Practices” course in English, designed to pose questions about who writes and reads for whom, in what ways, and why does it matter? It fulfills a III C Intro. requirement for the English Major. It fulfills Interpreting Literature and the Arts. Pre-requisite: English 1100 or 1200H or FYWR 1020. As an Honors course, it requires a 3.5 average or membership in the Honors program. It also fulfills an elective for the American Studies minor.
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ENGL1610 & MAR3324 - PQT Advanced Advertising Copywriting
(2021-01) Mintz, Erik
Course Description: What does it take to get a job as a copywriter in the advertising business? A good book, for sure. The “book” means your portfolio, the spec ads that you’ll need to show to a prospective employer. This course will be an intensive workshop devoted to further exploring what it takes to get your print, TV, and digital/new media ideas whipped into shape and building upon principles learned and discussed in ENGL1600. Creative case studies will be analyzed and discussed in both oral and written form with hopes that these will inform students’ ongoing work. Note: For portfolio to be in presentation shape, student should be prepared to work on the “art” side of the ad as well, doing a semi-professional job in Photoshop (or some other graphics software), with her own hand-drawn artistic ability, or by enlisting the art talents of a fellow student. Course Goal1: For students to get a more in-depth understanding of how to write smart, fresh advertising copy. We’ll do this by first dissecting and evaluating print, TV, and digital/new media advertising. As we analyze case studies and understand great campaigns, we’ll undertake the challenge of coming up with a benefit or promise that drives compelling creative work. Objective 1: Through exposure to good (and bad) advertising, students will get a clearer perspective on what it takes to write effective, and, we hope, entertaining and/or intriguing ads. Course Goal 2: To develop a quality portfolio, or “book” of ads. Towards this end, we will have a presentation night during one of our last classes, with, I hope, professionals from the advertising business offering thoughts, advice, encouragement, and critique on the current state of your book. You will be asked to assemble your ads in some coherent form (ideally, in a website format) for an overall grade (which will be a composite of all the “ad pros” comments). Objective 2: Through weekly presentations, and student and teacher critique, students will aim to produce ads and develop concepts that, with revision and some artistic enhancement, will be presentation ready. Content/Concept and Skill Goals: As students study and then understand how to make ads that accomplish the task of getting people interested in a product, service or message in a creative manner, they will improve their abilities at accomplishing that goal for themselves or in a team setting.
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ENGL 1100 - L Composition and Rhetoric
(2021-01) Blau, Rivkah
Course Description: “Facing Challenges” Goal: The goal is for you to write an academic essay that articulates a clear, logical thesis and supports that thesis through well-chosen evidence and effective analysis. We will revise our work. We will study research and citation techniques. We will make every word count. I have based this statement on Gina Grimaldi’s outline in her syllabus and added my concern with “no clutter.”
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ENGL 1900 - E Advanced Creative Writing
(2021-01) Miller, Matthew Ward
Course Description and Objectives This advanced creative writing course will allow students to further develop their skills in whatever genre of creative writing interests them, including both poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction. Students will explore what makes each of these modes of writing unique, as well as how they overlap, complicate, and enrich one another. Your workload will be comprised of both reading and writing with an emphasis on your own creative work. You will be expected to produce a substantial, revised, and well-polished portfolio of your creative writing. In addition, you will be learning terms and concepts important to these genres, and you will respond to several outstanding examples of poetry, stories, and creative nonfiction from established writers. You will share your writing with your professor and your fellow students, and we will spend most of the class in “workshop” discussions of your submitted work. You do not need to feel “advanced” in your writing to take this course, but the course does assume students taking the course will have at least some natural interest in and experience with creative writing. ___ Objectives for the Course • Students will develop a better understanding of language as an artistic medium. • Students will become more confident and informed using the artistic and rhetorical devices that constitute the building blocks of effective writing. • Students will read and discuss creative writing with greater precision and insight. • Students will assess and sharpen their writing in response to written and oral critique. • Students will show improvement in their writing and analytic skills.
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ENGL 1010 Essentials of Writing
(2021-01) Trapedo, Shaina
Course Description Welcome to English 1010. This course will introduce you to the conventions and expectations of writing at the college level. Since careful reading leads to stronger writing, we will spend time examining texts closely to understand what makes them effective (or ineffective) pieces of communication, and you will be given ample practice in applying those techniques in your own work. This semester, our reading and writing will focus on the general theme of "Going Rogue." While the term “rogue” has been attached to villains and cheats for centuries, today, “going rogue” suggests individual behavior that expresses independence and resists the status quo. In our primary texts we'll encounter figures who disregard conventions (whether cultural, legal, moral, literary, etc.) and examine how characters—and writers— make use of various rhetorical strategies to resist, exploit, and/or survive situations that they perceive as unaccommodating, unfair, or just plain oppressive. In many ways, learning how to write requires a keen understanding of audience expectations and genre conventions. Throughout this course, you will study the writing process and produce several original essays that demonstrate your ability to understand and respond to a text, develop and defend your ideas, and integrate and synthesize sources with your own thinking—all of which are essential skills required across disciplines. We will also consider mechanical and grammatical issues, and you will be responsible for observing the rules of standard English as you develop your craft and style. Reading and writing are time-consuming endeavors; however, if done well, this course will be a highly rewarding experience (as with any worthwhile educational venture) since the skills you will learn here will serve you in and beyond your other academic pursuits. Goals and Objectives The goal of this class is for students to develop proficiency in textual analysis and academic writing in preparation for English 1100. Instruction simultaneously focuses on writing strategies, such as revision, summarizing, structuring, as well as the usage of academic English. Upon successful completion of this course students will: • Understand rhetorical contexts for their writing by establishing the writer’s role, the target audience, and the purpose of the communication act. • Identify and discuss the key elements of successful paragraphs and essays. • Paraphrase and summarize the main idea and supporting details from a variety of texts without plagiarizing. • Read and respond to various texts for purposes of interpretation, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and argumentation. • Use recursive writing processes that include collecting information, focusing, ordering, drafting, proofreading, revising, and editing. • Demonstrate the techniques and skills of research, integration of source material, and documentation. • Write more effective sentences by improving coordination/subordination, eliminating fragments and run-on sentences, and addressing any other needs of fundamental English mechanics and usage. ___ Essential Employability Skills • Use a variety of thinking skills to anticipate and solve problems. • Respond to written, spoken, or visual messages in a manner that ensures effective communication. • Analyze, evaluate, and apply relevant information from a variety of sources. • Show respect for diverse opinions, values, belief systems, and contributions of others. • Interact with others in ways that contribute to effective working relationships and goal achievement. • Manage the use of time and other resources to complete projects. • Take responsibility for one's actions, decisions, and consequences.