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English Course Descriptions

English Course Descriptions – Fall 2007

All literature courses fulfill the College of Arts & Sciences literature requirement and MPSL culture track requirement.
Any writing course 200 or above fulfills the advanced writing requirement.
May & Summer 2007 Courses

CRN • Course • Sec • Crd • Course Title • Faculty • Days • Times • Room • Limit • Prereq

12753 • EN 160 02 • 1 • Reading Roundtable: Southern Writers • McKenna • W 3:00-3:50 • 15 • None

This semester the reading roundtable will be focusing on Southern writers. We will be identifying what sets the southern writer apart from other regional writers in terms of how they write and what they write about. Students will explore novels and short stories from Southern writers and discuss the impact of region and dialect in each. We will be reading Faulkner, Welty, O'Connor, Hurston, Walker, Capote, McCullers and more who represent a diverse body of writers in terms of gender, race, and generation to see what each offers in terms of representing a "typical" Southern writer.

10626 • EN 170 01 • 1 • Writing Roundtable • Braniger • W 3:00-3:50 • 15 • None

The Writing Roundtable meets weekly as a reader response workshop. Students share and respond to ongoing creative writing projects, concluding with a formal presentation or publication by participants. This roundtable will allow students to work on or develop multi-genre ongoing long-term projects such as scripts, poetry chapbooks and novellas.

13207 • EN 170 02 • 1 • Writing Roundtable: Writing Across Genres • McKenna • M 3:00-3:50 • 15 • None

In this course, students will have the opportunity to experiment with writing in multiple genres including poetry, parody, satire, fiction, creative non-fiction and memoir. The course offers the opportunities for students to write in a casual supportive environment. An ideal course for any writer who wants to experiment with a variety of forms.

A course in non-fictional prose, emphasizing clarity of style, audience and development of ideas. Content will vary semester to semester. Representative topics include persuasion and argument, the variety of non-fiction, writing in academic disciplines, research and extended essays.

EN 201, as the department's introductory creative writing workshop, will cover the essentials of form and structure (rhyme & meter, figurative language, narrative point of view) with an eye for improving and situating our own writing, whatever it is we wish to write. The expectations of critical writing and class presentation are limited in terms of length, but essential to our developing a vocabulary for talking about work and improving our own. We will write a few assigned creative responses to familiarize ourselves with form as a vehicle for meaning and a model for structure. Every effort in the course will focus on improving the student's own writing.

This is an entry level course to learn to write about literature, with special emphasis on literary criticism and critical approaches. The course begins with the question of why we write about literature and positions the writer as reader, then moves to careful readings and close textual analyses of literary creations, focusing on explication, analysis and interpretation based on primary texts from a variety of authors and genres. Finally the course includes basic critical approaches to reading literature: feminist criticism, new criticism, reader-response criticism, deconstructive criticism, historical, postcolonial and cultural studies, psychological criticism and post-feminism and queer theories. Students compile a portfolio of writing by the end of the course. Required of all literature majors, and fulfills one of the advanced writing requirements for all English majors. Usually taken in the sophomore year. Does not fulfill the A&S Literature requirement.

News Writing provides an introductory course to the basic elements of news production. Students learn to develop skills associated with gathering and organizing information from a variety of sources, and developing stories based on that information. They acquire a fundamental knowledge of writing techniques and story types, and learn to apply this knowledge in exercises and writing assignments. Students develop editing skills to refine and polish their writing. The course also examines ethical dilemmas of the contemporary news industry, as well as examine the role and responsibilities of a free press in contemporary society.

Adolescent literature is literature written about and intended for adolescents and framed within a rich literary, historical, and social context. In this class we will broaden our understanding of adolescents and their "place" in society while developing criteria for evaluating adolescent literature. Through reading, writing, and class discussions, students will also come to a better understanding of different literary genres highlighting this theme. We will examine critical theories about the function and purpose of literature for adolescents while reading some wonderfully written texts with which you might already be familiar.
Fulfills the English core Literature in the 20th Century requirement. Recommended for English Education majors.

This course is a study of major American writers, ideas, and literary trends from early native and Puritan literature through the work of Mark Twain. The course provides cultural background for the readings, and it emphasizes writers of the 19th century including Poe, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Stowe, Melville, Douglass, Whitman and Dickinson. Themes and units covered include Native Voices, Contact and Conflict in North America, the Utopian Promise, the Spirit of Nationalism, American Expansion, Ambiguity and Anxiety in the 19th Century, Race and Identity in Antebellum America, and Regional Realism.
Fulfills the English core American Literature to 1900 requirement.

This section of Western Classical Traditions: Classical Rhetoric is a basic introduction to classical rhetoric, from its beginnings through the Middle Ages. Readings will include Plato's Gorgias, Phaedrus, and excerpts from other works; Aristotle's Poetics and Rhetoric; excerpts from other ancient Greek rhetoricians such as Gorgias and Longinus, Cicero's De Invention, and Topics. By the end of the course, students should have an understanding of the major concepts and debates involving classical rhetoric, recognize how those advanced rhetorical thought in the Middle Ages, and be able to relate their own writing and writing instruction to classical rhetoric.
Fulfills the English Department Classical and Medieval Traditions requirement.

This course is an introduction to layout and design as well as computer tools that assist designers in their tasks. The course will revolve around Adobe InDesign 2.0 (which replaces PageMaker 6.5). In addition, you will work with image software like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. By the time you finish this course you will be able to:

• Use InDesign to design a variety of professional materials
• Know the key concepts of layout and design
• Know more than you every wanted about type
• Know how to manipulate images for your publications
• Know how to adapt rhetoric for a business-oriented audience
• Have fun doing all of the above

Fulfills a publishing requirement for English majors, but does not fulfill advanced writing requirement.

Staff members of the Decaturian, Millikin's campus newspaper, receive credit for writing and other staff responsibilities. This course can be repeated each semester for up to eight credits. If you have not completed EN 215 please contact Dr. Meddaugh for possible consent.

12303 • EN 300 01 • 3 • Adv. Creative Writing: Fiction • McKenna • M 5:00-7:30 • 20 • EN 201

Students will explore contemporary writers in terms of their craft and aesthetic and consider the ways they can use those models in developing their own creative writing. We will be looking at developing voice, crafting story, adopting a persona, developing character and so forth in fiction writing. Students will be working on short or long fictional stories as well as exploring poetry as a fictional (as opposed to personal/confessional) genre. Students will expand their knowledge of providing helpful feedback and revising their own texts.

Web Publishing is a workshop on writing and publishing web sites. Are you ready to expand your mind into cyberspace? Will computer screens shape your thoughts? Or will you shape computer screens to create and project your cyber-self into the virtual world of the web? This workshop examines web publishing and takes you from reflective interaction to critical creation of new hypertexts. You will learn how to critique web site designs and how to create web pages for campus and off-campus clients. This is an advanced writing course, with extended individual projects ranging from fiction, nonfiction, poetry, literary criticism, bibliographical web resources, technical writing, educational resources and web reference collections. Web publishing fulfills an advanced writing or publishing requirement for all English majors.

This course offers a space for cultivating and contemplating self/other relationships. Keeping in mind the intimate relationship between reading and writing, we will learn about and engage in the contemplative practices of self-writing (a kind of journal-keeping) and correspondence (letter-writing). We will observe, remember, imagine. We will broaden our notion of what it means to think. As we contemplate and call into question the way one apprehends oneself and others, our goal is to come to recognize the potential for reading, writing, listening and speaking to help us construct identity and transform the way we interact with others. We will read the self-writing and correspondence of others such as Seneca, Saint Augustine, Van Gogh, Kahlo and Rilke. Major writing projects include letter writing, hupomn?mata writing and critical and reflective writing.

13583 • EN 315 01 • 3 • News Writing 2: Beat Reporting • Williams • TR 2:00-3:15 • 20 • EN 215

Beat reporting is a crucial element to providing fair and balanced news coverage of a community. Reporters are assigned a subject matter (or beat) to cover. It is the reporter's responsibility to keep readers up-to-date on events and occurrences related to his or her beat. For example, reporters might deal with issues related only to science, safety, the arts, health, finance, religion, a specific sports team, education, etc. Students will master how to form relationships with sources, become subject experts and how to write engaging stories while on continual deadline. In addition to the practice of news writing and research, students will discuss issues of ethics in the media, convergent media, media law, the First Amendment, research and the importance of accuracy. This is a 300-level class for students who are interested in becoming (or working with) professional writers.

A survey of British literature from the beginnings to the age of Pope and Sam Johnson. The focus will be on narrative and lyric poetry, but we will also read some drama and some prose. Teaching methods: Lecture and discussion. Requirements: 2 midterms, an essay, a final exam.
Fulfills the English core in British Traditions to 1700 requirement.

This course emphasizes the study of Shakespearean drama in its historical context, examining the ways in which this playwright negotiates the conflicting religious, philosophical, political, social, and scientific ideas of his day. We will also aim to develop strategies for close readings that pay attention to generic expectation and language. To that end, we will study a selection of sonnets, as well as selected histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. Methods: Lecture and discussion. Requirements: 2 midterm exams, an essay, a final exam.
Fulfills the Shakespeare requirement for English majors as well as the dramatic literature requirement for Theater majors.

Poems from Scandinavia, Eastern and Northern Europe, and Latin America thrilled U.S. poets when they appeared, some of them for the first time in English, in Robert Bly's literary journals of the 50's, 60's, and 70's. Poets from those regions enjoyed audiences beyond their national and linguistic borders; poets from the U.S. grew aesthetically and imaginatively beyond their own. Questions about translation are ultimately aesthetic ones about how poems are made and then remade in another language. Comparing different translations will allow us to ask further, what constitutes a "successful" translation? Any good translation should carry with it and bring into the new language something of the original's cultural situation, literary traditions, and linguistic tendencies. We will read poetry from Latin America, Europe, and Russia, including the work of Neruda, Mistral, Lorca, Machado, Trakl, Josef, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, and Pasternak. Reading knowledge of the original language(s) is not required.
Fulfills 20th Century Literature requirement

Postcolonial International Literature is a strange name for an anomalous class. We will begin this course by asking what the terms “colony,” “empire” and “nation” mean to you. Back at the end of the nineteenth century, at the height of British and, indeed European imperialism, over 85% of the planet was controlled by a European empire. In Great Britain alone, countries or regions that we now call India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, South Africa, Rhodesia, Sudan, Trinidad, Barbados, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada were all painted red in the map of Empire. We will not, indeed cannot, study the literatures from all of these countries. Instead, focusing on one of the most significant and long-standing spots for the British empire—India—we will be reading international literature written not by the colonizer but by the natives of this region, as they articulate the struggle for national independence, as well as the difficult aftermath of what happened when the British left.  Indian writing in English or the “Indo-Anglian” tradition in literature is not a contemporary phenomenon. Its origins can be traced to the infamous "Minute of 2 February 1835 on Indian Education," authored by Lord Macaulay. However, Macaulay did not anticipate that this class of interpreters would, put the master's tools to subversive use. For decades Indian writers have used the colonizer's language, English, to produce an Indian reality that is very different from anything Macaulay might have envisioned. Thus, the twentieth century witnessed the rapid development of what is the "Indo-Anglian" tradition. In this class we will read a series of well-known novels, essays, and plays (and their filmic adaptations) by Indian authors who are central to Indo-Anglian literature. It is a markedly fluid tradition in which number of pressing cultural issues and anxieties permeates texts, including notions of nation, gender, sexual orientation, identity as mask or performance, commodity culture, urban life-style, feminism, and imperialism, to name a few.
Fulfills the Literature major requirement Studies in Fiction and the English core Literature in the 20th Century requirement .

In this course, you will read brilliant, yet persistently silenced women writers who have been recently "discovered" in the mainstream literary and rhetorical traditions of America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Feminist scholars urging for a reevaluation of women writers will also be on the reading list. Through reading, class discussion, watching movies, and writing about these women's writings in such diverse genres as poetry, fiction, and essays, you are learning to understand how their writings have both contributed to and challenged the Western and non-Western literary and rhetorical paradigms; meanwhile, you are also encouraged to reflect on and revise your own preconceived notions about literary and rhetorical traditions and eventually to develop a more complicated understanding about women, writing, literature, and, more importantly, about yourself.

Art of Publishing Module is a learning practicum in publishing. Students learn by working as an editor or student leader carrying out specific responsibilities for Bronze Man Books, Millikin University's student publishing company. Students may enroll by consent only, following applications and interviews for needed positions in the publishing house. Interviews will be conducted on advising day or the day before advising day. Watch for campus posters promoting this opportunity. Possible student positions include: editor, acquisitions editor, assistant editor, legal research, production manager, art director, designer, sales manager, marketing manager, marketing research, publicist, and advertising manager. For questions contact co-teachers, Randy Brooks or Ed Walker. (1 to 3 credits) by consent only. This course is cross-listed with AR 380 Art of Publishing.

EN382 fulfills a publishing requirement for English majors, but does not fulfill the advanced writing requirement.

10672 • EN 410 01 • 3 • Senior Writing Portfolio • Zhao • MWF 11:00-11:50 • 20 • senior

Senior Writing Portfolio is a student-centered workshop in which senior writing majors or minors will review, reflect on, and revise on your writing, editing, and publishing projects completed during your undergraduate studies. Each senior will

• Read and discuss about the theories and practices of constructing a comprehensive portfolio of your best writing projects
• Compile, review, and reflect on a general writing portfolio to develop your personal writing theory
• Construct and present a concentration writing portfolio that creates a professional identity as a writing major
• Construct and present a writing profession portfolio showcasing your acquired professional knowledge and abilities in a writing portfolio and knowledge in upcoming requirements and expectations for the profession

This course highlights two of the major learning outcome goals for all writing majors. Writing majors: 1) will be able to critique their own writing processes and artifacts, and 2) will synthesize knowledge specific to their writing concentration and develop a personal theory of writing or poetics.

This one-credit course continues the teaching of specific methods of Language Arts instruction in secondary schools and is a follow-up to the EN 235 Methods course. The course's specific focus is on planning and organizing a multi-part unit of instruction for implementation during student teaching. Also included are research opportunities for identifying instructional resources along with peer critiques of specific lessons designed within the unit plan.

Students work with a faculty member teaching Interdisciplinary 150 helping to design assignments, tutor students, and read about and discuss various composition theories. This course is required for English education majors and encouraged for all English majors planning to attend graduate school.

The professional writing internship is an opportunity to learn from writing and publishing experiences in the workplace. Students are placed in a variety of organizations depending on personal or professional interests. This internship fulfills the off-campus learning requirement. A learning contract specifying the task goals, learning goals and professional expectations is required.
Signature of chair on internship form required. Fulfills an advanced studies writing requirement for English majors and /or off-campus learning requirement.

May & Summer 2007 Courses Taught by English Faculty

for course descriptions see
http://www.millikin.edu/immersion/courses.asp