English (ENG)

This course emphasizes that writing, both formal and informal, is key means of inquiry into important questions. It also provides a foundational introduction to the principles of Writing Across the Curriculum and Writing in the Disciplines. Students completing this course should demonstrate the following skills: critical reading strategies; a basic understanding of rhetorical situations and rhetorical analysis; the ability to write for specific audiences; and the ability to write well-organized texts free from major grammatical errors. The course also instructs students in college-level research and provides substantive practice in shaping that research into well-reasoned arguments.

Special Topics in English.

In this course, students will learn strategies for developing their skills and techniques in writing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. In addition to reading each other’s works-in-progress and providing helpful revision comments, students will study work by established writers, thinking about how these authors respond to literary traditions while also seeking to break new creative ground. Through the use of techniques such as imagery, voice, character, setting, development, and revision, this course introduces basic skills and structures for students interested in a general knowledge of creative writing, and helps to prepare the committed student writer for further study in the field. No prior experience in creative writing is necessary.

This seminar-style class focuses on skills and strategies for becoming a successful freelance writer – whether as a full-time professional or as an occasional participant in the field. Topics include researching appropriate markets, submitting manuscripts, revising existing work for different editors with different goals, finding an agent or publisher, and organizing the “self-employed business” aspects of creative writing. Students will compile portfolios of manuscripts, acceptable markets, standard submission materials, and submission tracking methods across a variety of genres.

Literature is one of the primary ways that a culture speaks back to itself about its own values and beliefs, wrestles with its most pressing questions, and attempts to envision its own future. In this course, students will develop the critical and analytic skills to read and respond to literature that speaks to contemporary culture. With readings from a variety of genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, artistic nonfiction, and film, students will explore components of literary meaning such as personal reaction, historical influences, traditional form, and artistic language. By studying and applying different critical and theoretical approaches to literature, students will develop their skills at finding literary meaning that is relevant to their lives. Expected to be offered: Every semester

This course develops the analytical and critical skills required for sophisticated readings and interpretations of literary works. Students will be introduced to the vocabulary and methods of literary theory from a variety of traditional and current critical approaches, including historicism, formalism, reader-response, feminism, deconstruction, etc. The comparative study of major critical theories encourages students to participate in the history of ideas and the current controversies between various schools of criticism.

General outline of English structure and its components, with intensive study of the levels of systematic rules and relationships called syntax. Course provides a paralanguage for describing language, essentially from a structural linguistics perspective.

Special topics in English. Course content will vary. See course description in the schedule for more information.

This workshop focuses on the skills necessary for crafting a successful short story. Students will explore various methods for developing plot, form, and structure, and elements for creating compelling characters, dialogue, and point of view. The workshop requires participants to share their work with classmates and instructor. Participants also critique their classmates’ work. The instructor will encourage all students to develop at least one work for publication.

Students will develop their facility in reading and writing a variety of nonfiction forms – memoir, interactive journalism, personal essays, lyric essays, etc. – as they gain a critical foundation for discussing and analyzing nonfiction. Through readings, class discussions, and writing assignments, students will hone their skills in using narrative arc, point of view, diction, description, narrative distance and vocabulary. The workshop requires participants to share their work with classmates and instructor. Participants also critique their classmates’ work. The instructor will encourage all students to develop at least one work for publication.

This workshop develops students’ poetry writing skills and their creative, critical, and aesthetic understanding of the genre. Students will work extensively with various elements of creating poetry, including language use, imagery and metaphor, sound, rhythm, and meter. The workshop requires participants to share their work with classmates and instructor. Participants also critique their classmates’ work. The instructor will encourage all students to develop at least one work for publication.

Study and practice of the most widely demanded form of writing at college level: the expository essay. The course objective is the student’s mastery of a variety of skills for a mature expository writing style.

Emphasis on the value of articulate communication in management affairs; technique and form of business letters; preparation of reports and resumes; and application of communication theory to planning, transmitting, and evaluating messages. Review of grammar, mechanics, and style essential to effective writing in all fields.

This course focuses on the fundamental conventions of scientific writing. Students will read and discuss published material and produce their own original writings in a variety of genres, including review articles, popular science articles, and all sections of peer-reviewed journal articles. In addition to studying the conventions of these forms, students will also examine writing strategies for making conscious decisions regarding structure, organization, voice, and editing that are appropriate for various audiences throughout the science fields. Students’ current research work provides the content material for writing whenever possible.

Practice in writing news stories, features, and interviews; evaluation of current mass media writing. Emphasizes style flexibility according to journalistic conventions as students cover the campus and community and write news, feature, and in-depth stories which may be published.

Expected to be offered: Sufficient demand

Chronological and critical study of British literature with focus on medieval, Renaissance, 17th and 18th-century literature. Includes Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.

Chronological and critical study of British literature with focus on Romantic, Victorian, and modern writers. Expected to be offered:Spring semester, Even years

A study of major literary figures from colonial times, through the struggle for independence, and up to the Civil War. Includes colonial writers, Franklin, Freneau, Bryant, Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman.

A study of major writers from the time of the Civil War to the present. Includes Melville, Dickinson, Clemens, Robinson, Frost, Dreiser, Anderson, O’Neill, T. S. Eliot, Henry James, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wharton, Crane, Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, and Faulkner.

This cross-cultural survey course examines the literary, cultural, philosophical, religious and social dimensions of different literary traditions and the common mechanisms of writing employed in great works of world literature, specifically those not likely to be covered in courses on American or British literature. Readings are selected from at least three different chronological or geographical literary traditions, such as Ancient Greek literature, early Islamic literature, Premodern Japanese literature, contemporary Latin American literature, etc.

Each section of this course assigns a selection of literature by a particular group often marginalized by booksellers and critics, such as Native American writers, African-American writers, Canadian writers, southern writers, or female writers. The selection for each section will include works from at least three of the major literary genres: poetry, drama, fiction, essay, and film.

Each section of this course assigns a selection of literature covering a particular theme or focus such as classical myth, romanticism, Arthurian legends, mysteries, science fiction, etc. The selection for each section will include works from at least three of the major literary genres: poetry, drama, fiction, essay, and film. Course may be repeated if offered with a different focus.

Scientific investigation into the human language. Emphases: origin and acquisition of human language; structure and distinctive features of language; linguistic schools and theories. Includes phonology, morphology, morphophonemics, syntax, semantics, and a brief history of the English language.

Each section of this course assigns a selection of literature by one writer, such as Chaucer, Milton, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, etc. Class activities will include reading individual works, orally discussing them, orally interpreting some, and writing about some. Students will also study the many contexts and influences of the writer and works: historical, religious, social, economic, and linguistic. Course may be repeated if offered with a different focus.

A study of the tragedies of William Shakespeare; emphasis is placed on the plays as members of the genre of drama, and as illustrative of the ancient Tragic Ritual in the Elizabethan View of the universe.

A study of the major comedies and/or major history plays as members of the genre of drama, and as illustrative of the ancient Comic Ritual, and of tragicomic elements of human history in the

Expected to be offered: Sufficient demand

Pre-requisite: Consent of instructor

Each student majoring in English must produce a substantive paper on a literary figure or theme connected with one of the literature courses. Students select one full-time or distinguished English faculty member at UGF who will select two additional English faculty members as expert readers.