English 1 — 4

Please Note: Class times are subject to change. Before you register, consult course lists posted in the English Department.

English 1 Expository Writing

A study of the principles of effective written communication as a foundation for advanced learning. Intensive proactive in writing various types of expository prose, especially analysis and persuasion. Essays by modern and earlier writers will be examined chiefly as models of the range and versatility of standard written English. Offered both semesters, but substantially fewer in the Fall.

English 2 First Year Writing Seminars

English 2 fulfills the second half of the College Writing Requirement. Like English 1, English 2 is a composition course intended to provide a good foundation for writing in other courses. Unlike English 1, English 2 is divided into several groups according to themes, which are approached interdisciplinary. Seminars draw on various materials, often including fiction, film, essays, and visual and aural texts. Emphasis remains, however, on students' own writing.

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Family Ties

This writing course explores the family as a locus for conflict, alienation and reconciliation, as a center for the formation of identity, and as a source of joy. We will hear the voices of mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons as they speak of the experience of being within a family; and we will ask how families are formed. Strands of shared DNA define some, while legal documents establish others. Often people who are unrelated by biology or law nonetheless consider themselves family. While the work of novelists, essayists, biographers, and filmmakers will be the basis of our inquiry into topics as ancient as sibling rivalry and as contemporary as the ethics of reproductive technology, we will focus most of our attention on the students' own writing about family ties.

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Other Worlds

What is real? Who says so? The common theme of this course is the human urge to explore other dimensions of reality. Topics include labyrinths of the human consciousness; myths, dreams, and mysteries; underworlds; science fiction and futurist visions. We will take a diverse approach to our topic and examine how these dimensions appear in various expressive forms such as music, theater, myth, film, and language; and we will share our own ideas about boundaries-or lack of boundaries-between worlds. In all sections, a central concern will be students' writing.

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Environmental Visions

With globalization at the forefront of current events, environmental issues have a greater urgency now than at any time in the recent past. This course will focus on some of the most immediate issues in current environmental politics: global climate change, environmental justice, the rights of indigenous people, animal rights, and recent proposals to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In addition, we will consider the connections between environmental crises and war. Students will explore the causes of environmental problems, their extent, and possible solutions through a variety of books, essays, and films-as well as through their own writing of persuasive essays and creative non-fiction.

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Films About Love, Sex, & Society

Many films deal with romantic relationships and the possibilities for happiness in them, raising questions about male and female social roles and about lovers both heterosexual and homosexual at odds with society or coming to terms with it. We will look at a selection of films, some older and black and white, some more recent, some English-language, some foreign-language (with subtitles); and we will talk and write about the issues they raise. Readings will be assigned on the films and on the broader issues. Students will be required to attend film screenings Sunday or Monday evenings. We will do various types of writing, including formal analytical essays, film reviews, and informal response papers; and students' writing will be central.

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Love and Sexuality

In addition to examining love and sexuality both separately and in relation to one another, we will look at related issues such as gender, sex roles, sex, homosexuality, heterosexuality, narcissism, sadism, masochism, affection, marriage, marriage alternatives, divorce, adultery, pornography, prostitution, incest, and violence. Course materials will include some of the following: essays, theoretical writings, fiction, mythology, oral traditions, popular culture, and advertising. Students' ideas, interests, and experience will help guide the class, and students' writing will be the center of it.

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African American Presence

What have been the experiences of African Americans in the U.S.? How have African Americans attempted to construct their own identities and how have other Americans attempted to define "Blackness"? How have issues of class, gender, sexuality, regionalism, and skin tone impacted the formation of a collective African American identity? In this course, which is devoted, primarily, to increasing your writing proficiency, we will use readings and texts from various disciplines to think about what it means to be African American in the U.S. and how this heterogeneous identity is expressed in different forms.

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Conformity and Rebellion

How does one act on discontent? What are its consequences? Does conformity always imply a sacrifice of individuality? Does rebellion always lead to marginalization? We will examine the tensions between conformity and rebellion in a variety of contexts: political, social, familial, and religious. Readings will include novels, short stories, plays and essays, and we may also consider other media such as film or music. Discussion of material and the issues raised by it will provide the basis for the student writing that is at the center of the course.

Differences

What does it mean to be "different"-politically, religiously, racially, sexually, or by reason of class or disability-from the social "norm"? How do those in the social "norm" react when they encounter those who are different? If the social norm is white, Protestant, male, heterosexual and middle class, how do writers in other categories imagine themselves in relation to this "norm"? What are the special problems and opportunities for writers who are "different"? These are some of the questions to be addressed in this course which is devoted, primarily, to increasing your proficiency in writing.

Road Stories

All writing involves exploration, but writing about travel has always provided people with a unique opportunity to explore, re-imagine and then represent themselves, other cultures and other natures. This semester, we will be writing about travel in the age of globalization and the information superhighway. How does tourism change tourists and the cultures they visit? Can a quest come from a brochure? Why go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Mecca when many of us can see these sites on our computer screens every night? Indeed, why travel at all? To help us answer such questions, we’ll be reading a variety of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, and we’ll view at least one road movie. But the focus of the course will remain on our own writing. How do we explore and then represent our own insights into the meaning of travel today?

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English 3 Reading, Writing, Research

Lynn Stevens, Director

English 3, designed for international students and for students who speak English as an additional language, is an academic writing course focusing on writing from sources. Readings may include personal essays, research articles, fiction, and poetry. The course fulfills one semester of the college writing requirement. By consent.

Approved Courses That Meet the English 2 Requirement
Fall Semester 2004

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Philosophy 1: (Introduction to Philosophy)

Students interested in taking Philosophy 1 as an English 2 equivalent should contact the Department of Philosophy. Students must register for Philosophy I in the Philosophy Department.

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