Spring 2012 English Department Courses

All courses are described below (click on links)

Course Descriptions

ENGL 213 01 Expository Writing II
James, David MW 2:00 PM 2:50 PM

In this workshop-oriented course, students will make their own choices of both topics and expository genres. In the process, everyone will focus on clarity and style to suit chosen audiences and purposes. Revising with feedback will then lead to a semester’s end portfolio. Full semester.

ENGL 214 01 Workplace Writing
Aslanian, Janice MW 9:30 AM 10:20 AM

Communication skills are currently ranked by employers as among the most desired job-related competency. No matter which career you pursue, this course will prepare you to respond effectively to various workplace situations. You will learn to write memos, letters, and electronic messages aimed at a variety of audiences. Additionally, you will construct a resume and job application letter, and complete a short report. All major writing assignments will be submitted in a portfolio for a final grade at the end of the semester.

ENGL 214 02 Workplace Writing
Aslanian, Janice MW 11:00 AM 11:50 AM

Communication skills are currently ranked by employers as among the most desired job-related competency. No matter which career you pursue, this course will prepare you to respond effectively to various workplace situations. You will learn to write memos, letters, and electronic messages aimed at a variety of audiences. Additionally, you will construct a resume and job application letter, and complete a short report. All major writing assignments will be submitted in a portfolio for a final grade at the end of the semester.

ENGL 231 01 Literature Western World I
Hemenway, Stephen MWF 12:00 PM 12:50 PM

Aesop's fables and Homer's tales of war and adventure start us on an oddysey of ancient literature. Ancient Roman and medieval Italian epics send us on a spiritual journey that also embraces excerpts from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita and the Islamic Koran. Chaucer takes us on a pilgrimage with the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath, and Cervantes inaugurates a quest with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Sappho, Lady Murasaki, Marie de France, and Sor Juana de la Cruz go places where few females dare to tread. Michelangelo and Shakespeare lead us through the Renaissance and Reformation and prepare us for the modern world. As you study these authors and works, you will read and write about the masterpieces of Western literature in a global context.

ENGL 248 01 Intro to Literature
Montano, Jesus MW 2:00 PM 3:20 PM

This course is an introduction to the literary forms of fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction, considering elements they have in common and elements unique to each. It will examine how genres differ, but also how they intersect and overlap and influence each other. It aims to teach how to read literature with sensitivity, understanding, and appreciation, and how to approach that reading from a variety of theoretical perspectives. It is not a course in writing stories or poems or drama--for that, see English 254 or 255 or 258. It is a foundational course, intended as preparation for all higher-numbered literature courses in the English department. But it also is of value in itself and is recommended for students looking for an elective dealing with literature broadly. Four credit hours.

ENGL 248 02 Intro to Literature
Schakel, Peter MWF 9:15 AM 10:20 AM

This course is an introduction to the literary forms of fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction, considering elements they have in common and elements unique to each. It will examine how genres differ, but also how they intersect and overlap and influence each other. It aims to teach how to read literature with sensitivity, understanding, and appreciation, and how to approach that reading from a variety of theoretical perspectives. It is not a course in writing stories or poems or drama--for that, see English 254 or 255 or 258. It is a foundational course, intended as preparation for all higher-numbered literature courses in the English department. But it also is of value in itself and is recommended for students looking for an elective dealing with literature broadly. Four credit hours.

ENGL 248 03 Intro to Literature
Kipp, Julie TR 12:00 PM 1:20 PM

This course is an introduction to the literary forms of fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction, considering elements they have in common and elements unique to each. It will examine how genres differ, but also how they intersect and overlap and influence each other. It aims to teach how to read literature with sensitivity, understanding, and appreciation, and how to approach that reading from a variety of theoretical perspectives. It is not a course in writing stories or poems or drama--for that, see English 254 or 255 or 258. It is a foundational course, intended as preparation for all higher-numbered literature courses in the English department. But it also is of value in itself and is recommended for students looking for an elective dealing with literature broadly. Four credit hours.

ENGL 254 01 Creative Writing: Fiction
Sellers, Heather TR 12:00 PM 1:20 PM

“My inspiration is the deadline.” --Paul Taylor.

Our focus in this course is studying and creating short stories. We’ll look at works by American masters of the form (such as Ernest Hemingway) as well as contemporary favorites, such as Lorrie Moore. We read a lot and write a lot in this class and our discussions of these works—by students and professionals— have a hungry purpose: what new techniques can we, as writers, incorporate into our own work?

There is some lecture, but mostly this is a discussion-based course. You’ll get lots of helpful feedback on your pieces-in-progress. By the end of the semester, each student creates a chapbook (twenty pages of revised, polished linked stories) for each member of the workshop. To this end, writing groups examine new writing by all members every week. So please note: this course requires weekly group meetings outside of class scheduled hours.

Memoir, autobiographical fiction, and experimental work are all welcome; however, this workshop doesn’t accept fantasy, screenplays, science fiction, stories for children, romance, or detective stories. Any student is welcome to take this course, which is for beginners. Contact the instructor sellers@hope.edu if you have any questions! Welcome!

ENGL 255 01 Creative Writing: Poems
Peschiera, Pablo TR 9:00 AM 10:50 AM

Poetry is play. Poetry is an answer to an unasked question. Poetry is a pretty big house, with lots of different rooms, in which “Risk” is always played. That's why poetry permits with language what no other mode of expression allows.
In English 255, we'll come to understand that there are as many ways to write poetry as there are people; that writing one poem leads to the writing of another poem, and then another; that reading poetry is essential to becoming a better poet; and that becoming a better reader and writer of poetry rewards us with possibilities for life-long pleasures with language.

We will attempt to write in many different styles, allowing a huge amount of experimentation based on the style presented. We will discuss the poems we write as a group, and express our respect for the individual poem and poet by questioning it deeply. We will work collaboratively as a whole class and in small groups. We will use our ingenuity to apply our knowledge gained outside the class to the benefit of the class as a whole. We will write until our hands cramp-up, and call our writing poetry.

ENGL 279 01 Writing for Teachers
Trembley, Elizabeth MW 1:00 PM 2:50 PM

This workshop course will help its members become better writing teachers by first becoming better writers. You will become more energetic, attuned, and agile writers in multiple genres. You’ll have chances to play with fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and even plays, scripts and the graphic “novel” form! As we become more experienced with the techniques needed to write the kinds of works readers love to read, we’ll also explore how you, future teachers, will teach writing to your future students. Together we will form a community founded on respect for each person as a writer, dedicated to helping each and every person in class become a better writer and teacher of writing.

This blended learning course will include: special online content (learning modules similar to power point slides, quizzes, discussion forums, videos, etc.), out-of-class group work and reports on that work, reduced face-to-face “seat time” ( we will not meet as a class most Wednesdays--but you’ll need to see the syllabus for all date details. This is when you will do the online and out of class content), and student-centered, active, in-class activities designed for us to explore and practice as a community (including discussion of materials (textbook and online lectures) studied outside of class, sharing of our creative work, discussion of teaching values and strategies, writing sessions, workshops and presentations).

Feel free to contact me before registration if you have questions.
Four credit hours.

ENGL 301 01 British Literature I
Schakel, Peter MWRF 11:00 AM 11:50 AM

Brit Lit I surveys literature written in England until the late eighteenth century. Its purpose is to give students a general knowledge and understanding of the great writers and works of early England (Beowulf and other Old English texts), medieval England (Chaucer, Langland, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), Renaissance England (Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare), writers of the early seventeenth century (Donne, Jonson, Herrick, Herbert) and the later seventeenth century (Marvell, Milton, Bunyan, Dryden), and writers of eighteenth century England (Swift, Pope, Johnson, and Austen). These are the “classic” works and writers that established the tradition on which later writers built, works and writers that all students of English literature should be familiar with. Four credit hours.

ENGL 302 01 British Literature II
Hemenway, Stephen MWF 2:00 PM 3:10 PM

Enter the world of ancient mariners, Grecian urns, opium-eaters, Frankenstein, light brigades, blessed damozels, goblin markets, garden parties, waste lands, jazz, endgames, and dumb waiters. This scintillating survey course will introduce you to the major movements and writers in Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Commonwealth during the Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Postmodern Eras (roughly 1789-2011, or about 222 years). The literary canon (dead but vital white male poets, such as Blake, Keats, Tennyson, Eliot, and Auden) will be augmented by wondrous women warriors (Austen, Shelley, Woolf, Mansfield, and Lessing), Irish giants (Shaw, Wilde, Joyce, Yeats, and Heaney), and fresh Commonwealth voices (Rhys, Achebe, Walcott, Munro, and Rushdie). Approximately equal time will be devoted to poetry, fiction, and drama. Forging links between geographical centers, genders, genres, races, and critical approaches will be among the impossible dreams of the teacher. Three tests or innovative test alternatives will measure your mastery of material. Three papers or nonpapers (musical, artistic, sculptural, choreographic, cinematic options) will engage your scholarly and creative impulses. You will move from "The Songs of Innocence" to the "Moment before the Gun Went Off." Four credit hours.

ENGL 305 01 American Literature I
Verduin, Kathleen MWF 9:30 AM 10:20 AM

“America is a poem in our eyes,” wrote Emerson. In this course we will investigate and interpret the Poem of America through the literature of our first couple of centuries, seeking to understand our national experience through the eyes of our writers. The course begins with the Native American oral tradition, proceeds through the difficult waters of Puritan literature, savors the exhilaration of the early Republic, and then nests for a long time in the writers of the mid-century Renaissance: Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Hawthorne, Melville, Douglass, Longfellow, Whitman, Stowe. We will conclude with the literature of the Civil War, whose apocalyptic significance redefined America forever.

Three tests, noncumulative; four critical papers, five or six double-spaced pages in length; frequent short reaction papers; one Power Point presentation; a short research project. Along with reading and appreciating the literary texts, students will forage in the scholarship on American literature in search of challenging models for their own projects.
Four credit hours.

ENGL 306 01 American Literature II
Verduin, Kathleen MWF 1:00 PM 1:50 PM

America lives in its literature. History shows us events: literature pictures, responds, incarnates. Rejoices. Sorrows. Brings to life. This course surveys the American past from the end of the Civil War—and marches prophetically into the future. We will watch as American writers (Henry James, Henry Adams, Edith Wharton) define their country in contrast with Europe; as Civil War veterans (Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Ambrose Bierce) confront that apocalypse; as African Americans (Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois) struggle to find their place; as Native Americans (Sarah Winnemucca, Zitkala) unfold their stories; as women (Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman) explore the complexities of their condition; as the West is won, stolen, commandeered (Bret Hart, Jack London). We will trace the rise of Modernism (T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell), the explosion of new fiction in the 1920s (Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nella Larsen), the confrontation of darkness in small towns (Sherwood Anderson) and rural strongholds (Robert Frost), the assertion of regional difference (Jean Toomer, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor), the establishment of a genuinely American theatre (Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller). We will exult in the carnivalesque variety of American literature in the last half-century (Tennessee Williams, Bernard Malamud, the Beats, Joyce Carol Oates)—and soberly reflect on still festering wounds in the social fabric (James Baldwin, John Updike, Yusef Komunyakaa). And in the process we’ll get to know ourselves better. A lot better.

Three examinations, four critical papers, one short research project. Four credit hours.

ENGL 354 01 Intermed Creative Wrtg:Fiction
Trembley, Elizabeth M 3:00 PM 5:50 PM

This workshop-based course will help you discover the power of your creative spirit turned loose to play with the techniques and forms of well-constructed short stories. Our texts will be contemporary short stories, technique explanations, and our own writing. Together we'll study how stories are put together. It'll be sort of like playing with Legos: we'll look at stories others have built and study that construction. Next we'll "build" our own. Then we'll take them apart again and see what else we can build using the same pieces! And then we'll bring in new pieces and see what else can happen! We will form a community, founded on respect for each person as a writer, dedicated to helping each and every person in class become a better writer. We will write stories that create experiences that move readers. You’ll read, draft, re-vision and coach others in this course. Though the load is medium, the work—if you’re passionate about it—will be hard. And wonderful. And I hope you will be passionate about it! Four credit hours.

Prerequisite: any 200-level creative writing course or permission of the instructor.

ENGL 355 01 Intermed Creative Wrtg:Poems
Sellers, Heather TR 1:30 PM 2:50 PM

This course is for beginning writers, advanced writers, and experimentalists of all stripes. Shy people are quite welcome. Prerequisite: any 200 level writing class or permission of instructor.

In this class you have the delicious opportunity to:
• Practice innovative poetry techniques such as: erasures, scaffolds, syllabics, turns, imitations, sonnets, ghazals, lists, leaps, brevity, links, and rants.
• Write a dozen wonderful new poems
• Get feedback on your work
• Create a chapbook of sequenced poems
• Learn strategies for getting more out of reading poetry
• Meet fascinating actual live poets
• Explore poetry around the world.

This workshop will concern poems whose strategies are double: the brevity, intensity, and emotional precision of lyric working across the longer stretch of a sequence. Think of a perfect album by your favorite songwriter—each song stands alone, and the parts work together to create a whole—that’s what we are trying to accomplish in our chapbooks. For the purposes of this workshop, "sequence" will be read broadly to mean any type of linking strategy—subject, form, or strategy. The idea is to create a booklet of poems that connect to each other in innovative, surprising ways. You will have lots of prompts and guidance along the way, and we will read some wonderfully inspiring examples of miniature sequences.

ENGL 360 01 Modern English Grammar
Vissers, Carla TR 1:30 PM 3:20 PM

If you’ve ever hesitated between who and whom, this course is what you need to increase your poise as a speaker and writer. And if you have selected a career path whose success even partially depends on your oral and written presentation, then you will find this class valuable. Modern English Grammar, a four-unit, full-semester course, introduces you to the building blocks of speech and grammar. Its goal is to make you confident about your writing, and to give you a background that will permanently change the way you write. Beginning with the eight parts of speech, the course builds a cumulative knowledge through exercises, small group praxis, and games. Because the class assumes that some students will eventually be teaching grammar themselves, the learning environment is an active one, designed to model creative learning strategies that are easily adaptable for future teachers. By course’s end you will be able to detect even the subtlest usage errors.

ENGL 371 01 History, Politics, and Asian Pacific American Literature
Cho, David M 6:00 PM 8:50 PM

Pearl Harbor. Chinese “Coolie” Labor. The “Internment” of Japanese Americans. The Korean War. Filipino History. Korean Adoption. Hawaiian Plantations. Pidgin English. Asian American literature. The Pacific Rim. Pacific American literature. Asian Pacific American Identity.

If these terms are foreign or familiar to you, you are invited to take this course which will provide an introductory survey and upper-level examination of key Asian American and Pacific American topics, events, and literatures. We will closely examine the historical and political contexts surrounding each ethnicity to gain a fuller understanding of the literatures and cultures, and vice-versa—the literatures will help us gain a more comprehensive idea of the historical and political contexts of each respective ethnic group in certain historical eras.

The course is designed as a seminar, to foster a sense of community-oriented curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking. The course is also designed to be interdisciplinary, and will touch on issues relevant to the fields of American Studies, American Ethnic Studies, Communication, Critical Theory, Education, English, International Studies and Education, Law, Literature, Political Science, Sociology, Women’s Studies, and anyone working in the fields of Multiculturalism, Diversity, Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. The course has also been flagged as a “CD” or Cultural Diversity course.

ENGL 373 01 Shakespeare's Plays
Cox, John MW 3:00 PM 4:20 PM

The textbook for this course organizes Shakespeare's plays into four kinds, or "genres": comedy, history, tragedy, and romance. The first "complete works" edition (the so-called First Folio, published in 1623) uses a similar organizing strategy, but it omits "romance" and often puts plays in very different categories from those a modern editor would select for them. Who is right, in a case like this, and why? How much did Shakespeare himself think in terms of genre, as he wrote his plays? Does genre have a fixed identity, or is it a cultural construct? This course will approach Shakespeare's plays by raising questions about the identity of dramatic form, trying to understand, as best we can, how the plays came to have the shape they do. An important question is whether film constitutes a new genre. Is Branagh's Hamlet a different kind of work from a stage production of the play? To help answer this question, the course will strongly emphasize filmed versions of the plays, using the extensive DVD and videotape collection in the VanWylen Library. Four credit hours.

ENGL 373 02 Lit for Children and Adolescents
Portfleet, Dianne TR 3:00 PM 4:20 PM

This course will focus on reading many works of Adolescent and Children's Literature, with 60% of the readings being Cross Cultural Readings. Reading and analyzing what we have read will be for the purpose of writing a literary theory of your own at the end of the semester, so that you can on your own discern poor, good, and excellent literature and have solid reasons for your decisions. Your final exam for the course will be your completed literary theory. The course will be mainly discussion of the works we are reading and deciding the quality of each of our readings as the semester progresses. It will be a fun course, for the books chosen to be read are all award-winning books. This course is designed to stimulate your imaginations, help your critical thinking skills, rekindle a love of reading for pleasure in your lives, and prepare you to discern quality literature and movies on your own.

ENGL 375 01 Banned Books
Pannapacker, William MWF 12:00 PM 12:50 PM

What makes some writers so dangerous? Why did the Zeeland Public Schools get so upset about Harry Potter? Why did some readers think that The Catcher in the Rye was a threat to American national security comparable to The Communist Manifesto? Why would the Catholic Church maintain an Index of Forbidden Books for more than 400 years? Are some scientific theories so dangerous that they should be concealed from the general public? How did Milton’s Areopagitica make freedom of the press a basis for the American Revolution? Should some books, such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, be banned from schools because they are offensive to the very people their authors sought to liberate? Why have banned books, such as Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Ginsberg’s Howl, and Nabokov’s Lolita become literary classics? Why is the struggle between freedom and censorship a challenge that every generation must face? “Banned Books” will attempt to answer those questions. Along the way, participants must risk being shocked and offended by some of the texts, images, and films.

ENGL 454 01 Adv Creative Writing:Fiction
Sellers, Heather W 3:00 PM 5:50 PM

“My inspiration is the deadline.” --Paul Taylor.

Our focus in this course is studying and creating linked short stories. We’ll look at works by American masters of the form (Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway) as well as contemporary favorites, such as Lorrie Moore and Elizabeth Strout. We read a book almost every week and our discussions of these works have a hungry purpose: what new techniques can we incorporate into our own writing practice?

Each student creates a chapbook (forty pages of revised, polished linked stories) for each member of the workshop. To this end, writing groups examine new writing by all members every week. This course requires weekly group meetings outside of class scheduled hours. Memoir, autobiographical fiction, and experimental work are all welcome; however, this workshop doesn’t accept fantasy, screenplays, science fiction, stories for children, romance, or detective stories. Any student is welcome to apply to the workshop—see the instructor and bring a writing sample. Because of the scheduled due dates, most students begin drafting their first workshop submission over break, well in advance of the first class. Students are encouraged to begin reading Robert Olen Butler’s book on craft in advance of the first class as well. Students who have taken this course in the past may repeat it for credit and are strongly encouraged to do so. Welcome!

ENGL 455 01 Adv Creative Writing:Poems
Peschiera, Pablo TR 1:00 PM 2:50 PM

In this course, we read poetry, we recite poetry, we read about poetry, and we write poetry. Each one of those activities is immensely complex, as is most creative activity—and yes, reading and speaking are creative acts. Poetry allows us access complex truths in our world that usually require years of study and training in other disciplines. This is true of all art, but poetry has an advantage—it requires only language, and the simplest methods to record it.

In Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry we will read many contemporary poets, in their full-length collections. We will read one of the most celebrated anthologies of contemporary poetry. We will read intelligible, timely contemporary essays about poetry and poetics. In every class, we will discuss the differences between preference and quality, value and evaluated, and popularity and aesthetics. Informal—yet deeply thoughtful and critical—essays will help you develop and articulate your understanding of poetry and poetics, while allowing you to show your stuff in your prose. Collaborative writing assignments and exercises will help you develop a sense of flexibility and poetic adventurousness. At the end of the class, you will design and print a polished saddle-stitched chapbook of poems.
In the literary world today, many would like to professionalize writing at all levels, even in creative work. Writing satisfying poems requires a high level of professionalism—discipline, respect for the work of others, and collaborative skills—writing and reading poetry is, above, all, an unprofessional act. It is not a commodity in our society, like writing good clear prose—it has no monetary value. Because of this, we write and read poetry to work-out our own obsessions, worries, confusions, joys, and passions without asking for results or the right answer. Thank God for not having the right answers! In this way, poetry is the greatest relief--so come to this class ready to be relieved!

ENGL 495 01 Wicked
Montano, Jesus TR 1:30 PM 2:50 PM

wicked. What?
wicked. What did you say?

i said, wicked. it’s a course, a senior English capstone course. but you have to whisper it. say it softly, because it’s so wickedly good.

Why?

well, have you ever thought about what made Cruella DeVille so bad? Or Max Steel?

Well, yes. I have thought about it. Bad guys are so wickedly fun. Remember Ursula? And my favorite, Yzma and Kronk?

hey, that’s really good. but think about this: Sauron, Valdemort, Mrs. Coulter, Galbatorix. as well dragons, vampires, and zombies. whetting your appetite, your literary nerdiness?

Yes, oh yes!!!

but there’s more. for the assignments you write from the perspective of you favorite wicked character.

WHEN? WHERE?

english 495: wicked. tr 1.30 – 2.50. lubbers 120. it’s going to be deliciously wicked!!!