Specific, Selected Course Descriptions
Fall 2009
Winter 2010
What are "Specific, Selected Course Descriptions"?
Well, as most students are familiar with the course descriptions in the University's catalog, the focus of this message will be to explain what is unique about our publication that takes both digital and paper forms. The English Department's "Specific, Selected Course Descriptions" publications provide greater specificity for students while they are in the process of registering for classes.
As a service to students, the English faculty members write descriptions that show the "specific" ways in which they will focus their courses. For example, Category I in the General Education program offers literature courses that fall into several types, including Literary Genre (English 202), Historical Approaches to Literature (English 203), and Thematic Approaches to Literature (English 204). However, given the specializations of various faculty members, these courses vary. So, to continue the example, in the upcoming academic year, there are genre courses that focus on poetry and others on the novel. The faculty members clarify how they approach the general designations in the Saginaw Valley Course Catalog. Some faculty members also use these descriptions as a way of letting students know what to expect in terms of assignments and reading lists.
Now, onto why these descriptions are "selected": The English faculty members volunteer their descriptions for these publications, which is why every class that is offered is not represented in these pages. Some of us prepare new classes over the summer and are not ready to write descriptions for the upcoming year as early as February. Others are awaiting approval of sabbaticals, fellowships, and other activities that may change their schedules, so they do not want to establish expectations for a class that they may not teach.
So, there you have it, "Specific, Selected Course Descriptions." We look forward to meeting you in our upcoming classes during the new academic year and hope that you will share the information that you gather from this document with friends and classmates.
Fall 2009
English 202: The Novel as Genre
English 204: Thematic Approaches to Literature: Fictions of Desire
English 212: Introduction to African American Rhetoric
English 262: Introduction to Journalism
English 307: American Indian Literature
English 311: Literature of Great Britain to 1660
English 338: Studies in Drama: Family Drama
English 441: Topics in 19th Century American Literature: American Renaissances
English 499: Senior Seminar in Literary Studies: Textual Editing
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English 202: The Novel as Genre
TR 10-11:20, Fall
Marsha Millikin
Office: Science West 356; Phone: (989) 964-2191
Email: mmilliki(at)svsu.edu
One of the goals of the course is to expose students to novels written during different time periods by authors of diverse backgrounds. Novels for the course are chosen with a common theme. The theme for fall semester is isolation and the family and how that isolation impacts family relationships. We will read and critically examine how such isolation is played out not only within the immediate family, but how that isolation may impact the community, nation, and globe. Film versions also shown when appropriate. Novels under consideration are:
Oroonoko- Aphra Behn
Frankenstein- Mary Shelley
Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronté
Hard Times- Charles Dickens
Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Last of the Mohicans- James Fenimore Cooper
Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck
Beloved- Toni Morrison
Indian Killer- Sherman Alexie
The Known World- Edward P. Jones
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English 204: Thematic Approaches to Literature: Fictions of Desire
TR 1:00 - 2:20 pm, Fall
Dr. Daniel Gates
Office: Science West 354; Phone: (989) 964-4354
E-mail: dfgates(at)svsu.edu
English 212: Introduction to African American Rhetoric
TR 8:30 - 9:50 am, Fall
Dr. Fenobia I. Dallas
Office: Zahnow 219, Phone: (989) 964-4627
E-mail: fidallas(at)svsu.edu
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English 262: Introduction to Journalism
MW 10:00 - 11:20 am, Fall
Dr. Fenobia I. DallasOffice: Zahnow 219; Phone: (989) 964-4627
E-mail: fidallas(at)svsu.edu
This course is designed as a balance between theory and application, with a critical analysis component. For the theory, we will read and discuss some underlying concepts about journalism. For the application, we will write and produce a class weekly newsletter. For the in-between critical analysis, we will read news stories from our text and locate other news stories to critique and examine. The course objectives are designed to enable students to write an opinion page article, write a feature story, and produce a bi-monthly class newsletter.
Texts for the course will include The Elements of Journalism by Kovach & Rosenstiel, The Associated Press Guide to News Writing by Cappon, and The Mammoth Book of Journalism by Lewis.
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English 307: American Indian Literature
T 7:00 - 10:00 pm, Fall
Dr. Elizabeth Rich
Office: 164 Science East; Phone: (989) 964-4317
E-mail: rich@svsu.edu; url: www.svsu.edu/~rich/
This course will provide a historical survey of texts representative of the experience of American Indian people, and the vast majority of texts will be written by people affiliated with tribes, including the Osage, Annishinaabe, Lakota, Coeur d' Alene, Crow, Creek, Dakota, Laguna Pueblo, Kiowa, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Koyukon Athabaskan, Acoma Pueblo, and Oneida. The course will specifically be interested in looking at differences among various tribal groups' world views more so than contrasting a pan-tribal view against a European one. Because the study of American Indian literature strangely groups a great diversity of identities together under one category, this course will be sensitive to the ways in which colonial voices historically held sway over representations of American Indian people, will use recent critical tools that help readers to understand how the legacy of problematical stereotyping endangers understanding, and will look to representative voices from American Indian communities to formulate more accurate ideas about American Indian people and their literature. The course's anthology will be John Purdy and James Ruppert's Nothing But the Truth. Assessment will include daily quizzes, a mid-term and a final exam, papers, and an on-line group project.
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English 311: Literature of Great Britain to 1660
TR 2:30 - 3:50, Fall
Dr. Daniel Gates
Office: Science West 354; Phone: (989) 964-4354
E-mail: dfgates(at)svsu.edu
This course will survey literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It will provide an introduction to several literary forms that continue to influence modern literature, such as epic, romance, morality play, and tragedy. Students who take this course will read important works by major authors, such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.
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English 338: Studies in Drama: Family Drama
MW 2:30 - 3:50 PM, Fall
Dr. Daniel Gates
Office: Science West 354; Phone: (989) 964-4354
E-mail: dfgates(at)svsu.edu
In the United States and elsewhere, there are increasing numbers of students who want to learn English, yet there are insufficient numbers of qualified teachers to meet the demand. This course provides a broad-based introduction to theoretical foundations, standards and instructional practices of teaching English to students who are learning English as an additional language. The emphasis is on practical application, so you will be working with English language learners as part of this course. It is a required course for the ESL Endorsement or TESOL Certificate. Regardless of your major, if you would like to consider teaching English to English language learners, this course is a must!
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English 400: Editing
W 4:00 - 6:50 pm, FallDr. Fenobia I. Dallas
Office: Zahnow 219; Phone: (989) 964-4627
E-mail: fidallas(at)svsu.edu
This course is designed to help you learn how to edit by editing your own work. Practice makes perfect, so we will apply this principle in this class. We will look at editing from three levels:
1. Developmental: comprehensive editing to look at the overall document
2. Substantive: sentence-level editing that also checks for content and meaning
3. Copyediting: checking for correctness, accuracy, and completeness
And consider a fourth level:
4. Style: often depends on the audience or discourse community.
The course will focus on rewriting the course paper as an article for a journal or magazine. This will entail the use of MS Word or Adobe InDesign, and the inclusion of visual elements (text and image).
Texts for the course will include Robert Scholes, The Rise and Fall of English; William Strunk, The Elements of Style; and Gary Hoffman & Glynis Hoffman, Adios, Strunk and White.
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English 415: Milton
W 7:00 - 10:00 pm, Fall
Dr. Paul Munn
Office: Science West 317; Phone: (989) 964-7083
E-mail: ptmunn(at)svsu.edu
- To develop student understanding of John Milton, mainly as a poet but also as a political figure and rhetorician in his historical and cultural contexts.
- To explore central professional issues, including problems of interpretation, the concept of author, biographical criticism, the literary canon, and the purpose of historical study.
- To develop student abilities as readers of, writers about, and discussants of literature and other texts.
- How did Milton adapt or Atransume@ the genres of pastoral elegy, Virgilian epic, and other genres? How and why did Milton miltonize, Christianize, and otherwise transform historical genres and modes?
- Is it true that Ano moral ambiguities@ exist in Milton=s writings (Stanley Fish)? Or is it true that Milton=s writings are fraught with Aunresolved antinomies@ and Aincertitude@ (Peter Herman)?
- Milton articulated political ideasBespecially about Aliberty@--related to ideas that circulated in the eighteenth century and found their way into the United States Constitution, and he has been perceived in the twentieth century as a vigorous proponent of civil liberties. But he supported punishment of those publishing documents in England in support of Catholicism. Did he contradict himself or can we understand his seemingly opposed views as consistent with his religious and political premises?
- Milton=s Paradise Lost was quoted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in support of both feminist and anti-feminist positions. How do the poem=s statements about and representations of gender makes possible these opposed uses?
Texts:
Greenblatt, Stephen, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th ed. Vol. I. New York: Norton, 2006. Or Vol B: The Sixteenth Century and The Early Seventeenth Century.
Corns, Thomas N. A Companion to Milton. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2001.
A current glossary of literary terms, such as Harmon=s.
A current handbook of English, such as Maimon=s, or the current MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
Writing:
Three exams.
Two papers: one short, one long.
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English 441: Topics in 19th Century American Literature: American Renaissances
M 4:00 - 6:50 pm, Fall
Dr. Eric Gardner
Office: B 317; Phone: (989) 964-4037
E-mail: gardner(at)svsu.edu
Scholars have long recognized the decades just before the Civil War as a period of unprecedented growth and change in American letters. While much criticism has focused on writers tied to or reacting against Transcendentalism, other literary renaissances circled around questions of gender, popular culture, race, and slavery. This course will examine examples of each with an eye toward interrogating how they can be conceived of as “renaissances,” how they are implicitly and explicitly “American,” and how they “talk” to each other and to broader aesthetic and social phenomena during the period. Students will create a range of documents (including online work and researched essays) and will participate actively in class discussions.
Required Texts
Andrews, William and Regina Mason, eds. Life of William Grimes. Oxford. 0195343328.
Crafts, Hannah. The Bondwoman’s Narrative. Warner. 0446690295.
Gardner, Eric, ed. Major Voices: The Drama of Slavery. Toby Press. 1592641180.
Gutjahr, Paul, ed. Popular American Literature of the 19th Century. Oxford. 0195141407.
Lauter, Paul. Heath Anthology of American Literature: Volume B, 1800-1865. Houghton Mifflin. 0618532986.
Southworth, E.D.E.N. The Hidden Hand. Rutgers. 0813512964.
English 499.01: Senior Seminar in Literary Studies: Textual Editing
T 4:00 - 6:50 pm, Fall
Dr. Basil Clark
Office: Scienc West 314, Phone: (989) 964-4312
E-mail: baclark(at)svsu.edu
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Winter 2009
English 300: Writing in the Professions
English 313: Literature of Great Britain and the United States, 1865 - Present
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English 300: Writing in the Professions
TBD, WinterDr. Fenobia I. Dallas
Office: Zahnow 219; Phone: (989) 964-4627
E-mail: fidallas(at)svsu.edu
This course is designed to assist you with learning the difference between academic and workplace writing through reading, research, and writing for specific needs. We will:
1. Read and critique texts which will provide a basis of strategies for producing similar texts and documents
2. Consider an audience's system of aesthetics, values, and ethics
3. Examine strategies for developing and supporting various professional communication modes
Texts for the course will include The 10 Lenses by Mark A. Williams and The Non-Designer’s Design Guide by Robin Williams.
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English 313: Literature of Great Britain and the United States, 1865-Present
W 4:00-6:50, Winter
Dr. Eric GardnerOffice: B 317; Phone: (989) 964-4037
E-mail: gardner(at)svsu.edu
This course begins to survey the massive amount of rich literature in Britain and the United States published after the American Civil War. As we look at texts representative of key movements and consider a selection of “major authors”—both in a deeply trans-Atlantic fashion—we’ll also be sure to veer off on some fascinating side-paths. To that end, while several course readings will come from the anthologies standard in SVSU’s English 311, 312, and 313 (the Norton English and the Heath American), students will also read from a small handful of single-author volumes. In addition to reading carefully and participating actively in class discussion, students will complete two exams, two papers, and a set of shorter activities.
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English 373: Literary Theory
TBD, Winter
Dr. Elizabeth Rich
Office: 164 Science East; Phone: (989) 964-4317
E-mail: rich@svsu.edu; url: www.svsu.edu/~rich/
Selected theories will be included in this course that will focus primarily on poststructuralist theories and mostly 20th century literature. Students will read excerpts from full texts and full texts by various literary theorists, including Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Shelley Fisher Fishkin. Students are advised to have taken English 301 or another course that introduces them to general trends in literary scholarship, such as New Criticism, deconstruction, and postcolonial interpretive strategies. If students have not had such exposure and still wish to take the class, it is advised that they study Lois Tyson's Literary Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide before taking the class. Assessment will include daily quizzes, a mid-term and a final exam, papers, and an on-line group project.
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