UG Course Descriptions: Summer 2014

Days, times and room locations listed below are subject to change. For detailed and up-to-date listings of instructors, course times, room numbers, and open/closed/waitlisted status, see the University's official online Schedule of Classes.

For past syllabi or more information on a specific course, please contact the English Department at 502-852-6801.

Summer 2014

This course serves as an introduction to the genres of poetry, short fiction, and playwriting for beginning creative writers.  Part survey, part workshop, in this class students can expect to learn and apply a new vocabulary of criticism and craft, to read literature from each of these three genres, and to write in each of these genres themselves.  Students who will best be served by this class are those who are interested in learning about the craft of writing creatively, those who are open-minded about exploring genres they have not previously encountered, and who are driven to compose and share their creative works in an academic environment.  This course will prepare students to move on to the genre-specific workshops of higher level creative writing classes.

This course emphasizes the importance of developing and improving both written and oral communication skills in the workplace. Writing assignments for this course will include resumes, cover letters, business letters and memos, and other genres of writing important for professional and business communication. The class will specifically focus on generic conventions within business writing genres, oral communication, and various writing skills that are necessary to successfully complete writing tasks in various business settings.

English 306 is designed for advance business students and Arts and Sciences students (juniors and seniors) anticipating careers in law, business, or government.  This course assumes that the better prepared you are to communicate effectively and persuasively using customary business forms, the more readily will you achieve your personal goals.  We will compose and present work in modes, both written and visual, expected in business and government.  We will also practice composing processes, research relevant business questions, and practice professional problem-solving.  As an integral part of these activities, we will examine the rhetorical nature of professional discourse in addressing diverse audiences, sometimes with multiple purposes.

In this section of 310, we’ll be reading primarily contemporary (post-1960) American fiction, drama, and poetry to consider the themes that appear to be prominent—even if constantly evolving in their representations—in those works as well as some of the following questions: What does it mean to be American?  To be Literature?  Or to be American literature?  How might the themes we observe in pieces of literature help formulate an understanding of those terms and how they function in our society?

Covering a wide range of genres and authors, this course will explore the following question: What makes a text both "American" and "Literature"? Course readings may include long, short, and experimental fiction; creative non-fiction, essays, and speeches; poetry; drama and film; comics and graphic novels; and podcasts, blogs, and electronic literature. We will situate their features in context with each other and within the broader history and culture of the United States over the last 100 years. In addition to gaining familiarity with recent literary history in the U.S., students will also practice using some of the basic terms, conventions, and scholarly methods of studying literature.

This course discusses American works by minority authors as a literary tradition. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which minority authors from different time periods and cultures represent their experiences in America. Students in the course will write small weekly responses to the literature as well as develop a major project about the themes of the course. Prerequisite: ENGL 102 or 105.

While Gothic fiction was very popular in the eighteenth-century, it did not disappear when that century ended but was revised in a number of ways.
To get our bearings, we will begin with definitions of the Gothic and a classic eighteenth-century Gothic novel, Radcliffe's A Sicilian Romance. But most of our attention will be on texts from the nineteenth century: Austen's Northanger Abbey, James' Washington Square, Polidori's The Vampyre, LeFanu's Carmilla, Doyle's The Parasite, and several short stories. As a requirement for the course, we all need to have the editions in common so we can refer easily to specifics we interpret.  Because English 415 is a WR course, expect practice with MLA, regular informal and formal writing in-class and out-of-class, research practice.
Requirements:  participation in an electronic discussion list, careful reading, enthusiastic participation in class discussion, reading quizzes, some practice in research and in MLA documentation, and several essays so you can work on your writing.

Prerequisites: You must be a declared English major, with six hours in English beyond 101 and 102 or 105. You must also have a 3.0 GPA and receive permission of the instructor. Internship opportunities and placements are researched by the student and submitted for approval by the Director of Internships. Each Internship position needs to have at least 40 hours of work on site and include a supervisor/mentor on site willing to provide a final evaluation of the Intern to the English Dept. All Internships should be off-campus; this requirement may be waived by the Director of Internships if the student can demonstrate that the position does not directly benefit the English Dept. or another degree granting Academic program. Students may petition to use their current work-site as an Internship, if they can identify a project or position that is SUBSTANTIALLY different from, and supplementary to, their normal work requirements.

Prerequisites: You must be a declared English major, with six hours in English beyond 101 and 102 or 105. You must also have a 3.0 GPA and receive permission of the instructor. Internship opportunities and placements are researched by the student and submitted for approval by the Director of Internships. Each Internship position needs to have at least 40 hours of work on site and include a supervisor/mentor on site willing to provide a final evaluation of the Intern to the English Dept. All Internships should be off-campus; this requirement may be waived by the Director of Internships if the student can demonstrate that the position does not directly benefit the English Dept. or another degree granting Academic program. Students may petition to use their current work-site as an Internship, if they can identify a project or position that is SUBSTANTIALLY different from, and supplementary to, their normal work requirements.