154 courses with the subject EN, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
Concentration on language basics - spelling, vocabulary, grammar, usage - with practice in writing sentences and paragraphs. Carries developmental credit (not counted toward degree requirements.)
College Writing I focuses on writing as critical inquiry, reflection, and communication. Students practice the fundamentals of effective writing, emphasizing planning, drafting, revising, and editing. (Required of all students unless exempted by the English Department)
EN-102 builds upon EN-101 and focuses on research writing, synthesizing sources, critical analysis, argumentation, and information literacies. Students practice the fundamentals of effective writing in collaborative and academic communities, while evaluating and using sources in different rhetorical situations. This course is designed to help students develop transferable skills and strategies that may be applied to a variety of audiences and in a range of situations.
This one credit course offers supplemental support for students concurrently enrolled in a section of EN101: College Writing I. First-Year Writing Lab reinforces the fundamentals of effective writing practices and processes, specifically the practices of drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading. In First-Year Writing Lab, students will work Lab-specific assignments and activities, as well as on assignments from their specific first-year writing sections, with the goal of learning to transfer and apply a developing set of rhetorical abilities across a variety of writing situations. First-Year Writing Lab is offered pass/fail only.
LASC Categories: TLC A critical introduction to the principal genres of literature: poetry, drama, and fiction. Fall and Spring and every year.
LASC Categories: WAC This course introduces students to the history of American journalism and the role of journalism in democratic and non-democratic societies. [Cross- listed with CM-107] Every year. 3 Credits
This course approaches narrative as a key tool for LGBTQ+ individuals to create life-sustaining community, establish identity as artists and activists, and combat social discrimination and stigma. Students will analyze a diverse array of material, including memoir, fiction, poetry, painting, film, and music. Collectively, we will ask what qualifies as a LGBTQ+ narrative: is it determined by the content of a piece, its formal manifestation, the identity of its creator, or something else entirely? The intersections of gender identity and sexual orientation with other components of selfhood-including race, disability, and class-will be essential to our conversations.
Comics offers a unique combination of tools for representing race. Artists have long used either language or visual art to think about identity, but comics merges the two in new ways. In this course, students analyze innovative comics and graphic novels/nonfiction to better understand why this medium is such a productive way to reflect on racial identity. How do comics authors engage with the difficult history of racial caricature and the longstanding lack of diversity in the field? And what can the combination of image and text say about the tension between appearance and identity?
LASC Categories: TLC Greek and Roman literary masterpieces in transition, including Homer, Greek tragedy, Plato, Virgil and Roman comedy and satire. Every 2-3 years.
to Modern Continental masterpieces of the present millennium in translation by such writers as Dante, Cervantes, Voltaire, Dostoevsky, Baudelaire, and Kafka. Fall only and every year.
LASC Categories: GP, DAC, TLC Representative poems, stories, plays, both ancient and modern, from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Fall and Spring and other or on demand.
Examination and appreciation of the techniques and types of poetry including the sonnet, the pastoral, the mock heroic, and the ode.
LASC Categories: TLC Theories and development of tragedy and comedy; plays of Sophocles to Eugene O'Neill as illustrations of these and related genres. Fall and Spring and every year.
Introduction to the art of the short story through analysis of representative works.
LASC Categories: TLC The major practitioners of the novelette over the past century: Conrad, Mann, Kafka, Dostoyevsky, and others. Every 2-3 years.
Major literary trends of the twentieth century. Every 2-3 years.
Myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome which form a part of the classical tradition in English literature.
The nature and function of nineteenth and twentieth century science fiction literature: Wells, Verne, Asimov, Bradbury, and others.
Biblical writings. Emphasis will be placed on the Old Testament.
The course will examine fairy tales and folk tales from across the globe and from different cultural traditions, which may include Indian, Japanese, African, German, Irish, Jewish, African-American, or Hawaiian. The course will compare similar themes, such as identity or distrust of step-parents, in these traditional tales and contrast the differing forms the tales may take in different cultures. Along with traditional folk tales, modern stories reinterpreting a traditional tale from a diverse point of a view (e.g. a lesbian Cinderella) will be analyzed.
Students are introduced to the basics of narrative theory and storytelling practices across genres and cultures. Students craft their own stories while exploring different modalities, including oral, written, visual, and audio storytelling. Students practice critical analysis of stories, examine how stories circulate among publics and audiences, and how stories impact individuals and communities.
The course examines writing about human rights, including memoirs and novels, and examines issues of social justice. Violations of human rights that may be addressed include genocide, political repression, and torture; while social justice issues that may be examined include women's rights, justice and punishment, disability rights and methods of protesting for human rights. The course will examine definitions of human rights as well as reparations and living with the aftermath of human rights violations.
An examination of the fundamental, rhetorical techniques of film and literature to determine the similarities of and differences between the two forms of expression.
LASC Categories: USW, TLC, DAC Study of ethnic literature in the U.S., focusing on African- American, Asian-American, Latino, and Native-American writers. Fall and Spring.
This course is designed to explore the topic of identity in literature, which may include gender, race, ethnicity, philosophy, body image, physical ability/disability, etc. The course will examine each literary text for the relative importance of the various aspects of identity for each author/character and the intersectionality of identity. Questions to consider will include: which identity is prioritized (by the individual and by society) in any given situation? What or who determines which aspect of identity is prioritized at different moments? How do conflicts in identity for an individual get resolved?
Explores basic issues and problems in literature by and about women.
This course will survey the literature of baseball, including writers from the golden era of baseball, such as Ernest Lawrence Thayer, Charles E. Van Loan, Albert G. Spalding, Damon Runyon, and Ring Lardner, to more contemporary authors, such as May Swenson, Roger Angell, Robert Creamer, and Annie Dillard. We will consider baseball writing within the context of American social, political, and historical perspectives, examining such themes as the idealism of sport, public mythologies, race relations, and national identity.
LASC Categories: TLC, WAC, GP A close reading and analysis of poetry written by women from a historical as well as a contemporary feminist perspective. Other or on demand.
LASC Categories: WAC This course will examine representative works from Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other writers associated with the Beat Generation, such as William Burroughs, Peter Orlovsky, Gary Snyder, Carolyn Cassady, Joyce Johnson, and Elise Cowen. In addition, this course will explore the literary, political, and social precursors that gave rise to the Beats, as well as the influence that the Beats had on 1960s politics and popular culture. Finally, the writing of the Beats will be considered through the broader contexts of gender, religion, social status, and economics. Other or on demand and other or on demand. 3
An introductory literature course responsive to current interests or controversies.
Introductory level course covering topics of special interest to first year students. Offered only as a First Year Seminar.
Focuses on writing development for academic success and citizenship, emphasizing rhetorical analysis, information literacy, and academic and public discourse. Honors students only.
Students examine the role of the writer in society and map their own possible career paths as writers.
In this course students will read a broad selection of the most exciting and important literature produced in the United States from its beginnings to 1865. In small, discussion-based class meetings and regular writing assignments, students will analyze the diverse ways that U.S. authors have innovated in response to the culture at large and to the traditions of literature that came before them. In close readings of fiction, life writing, poetry, essays, and more, students will pay particular attention to how differences in power among social groups (such as class, gender, or race) have shaped the nation's literary history.
In this course students will read a broad selection of the most exciting and important literature produced in the United States from 1865 to the present. In small, discussion-based class meetings and regular writing assignments, students will analyze the diverse ways that U.S. authors have innovated in response to the culture at large and to the traditions of literature that came before them. In close readings of fiction, life writing, poetry, essays, and more, students will pay particular attention to how differences in power among social groups (such as class, gender, or race) have shaped the nation's literary history.
EN214 introduces students to digital humanities, a field merging technology with literature, history, and culture. The course explores how tools like generative AI transform research and creativity, focusing on natural language processing, data visualization, and cultural analysis. Students will engage in hands-on activities, applying AI and other emerging information processing tools to analyze texts, map trends, and visualize data, while critically examining ethical implications. Weekly topics and real-world case studies provide a comprehensive view of digital humanities applications. By course end, students will have foundational knowledge and practical skills to integrate technology into humanities research and creative projects
This course offers students an introduction to narrative representations of illness, health, and healing. Students consider works of literature, literary theory, and film in their narrativization of the dynamic between patient and clinician, the role (and limitations) of empathic recognition, the ethical issues in healthcare settings, and rhetorical constructions of normalcy, disability, disease, agency, and well-being. The course introduces students to literary traditions as well as to journalistic and narrative methodologies that inform a humanistic approach to stories about the science of health and medicine.
The diverse course covers major works and authors from the beginnings of literature in the British Isles up until the end of the 18th century. Authors included are major writers Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, as well as other authors such as Amelia Lanyer, Margery Kempe and Olaudah Equiano. Emphasis will be put on the historical and sociological environment as well as the literary and thematical developments that each work demonstrates. The course may focus on such themes or events as women's roles, human rights, the Atlantic slave trade and colonization.
An introduction to major developments in the literatures of England from 1798 to the present alongside the socio-political debates that influenced them. Though intended as an overview of more than two centuries of literature, the course focuses on how differences in power between various social groups within England and across the world intimately informed the period's cultural output. The readings consist of a diverse range of genres - lyrical poetry, realist novels, abolitionist lifewriting, travelogues, stage comedies - that engage with key issues that will shape class discussions and lectures, including colonization, urbanization, rising literacy rates, technological advancements, and more.
This course will focus on how environmental writers challenge and change how we perceive human ecological relationships to the natural world. We will address the following questions: How have writers challenged us to think about our place in a shared world and our responsibilities toward our ecological communities? How have writers attempted to awaken us to our connections to the natural world and the non-human other? How do these connections feed our mind, body, and spirit? We will also consider their warnings of what happens when we ignore our ecological selves, our ecological communities, and our ecological responsibilities.
Instruction and practice in writing expository essays. Analysis of selected readings on a common theme or subject area. Fall and Spring and every 2-3 years. 3 Credits
Focuses on how to write and produce basic documents, from research and progress reports to brochures and manuals.
A consideration of accepted business communication conventions: correspondence, memoranda, survey reports, proposals, interim reports and project reports.
Students practice the interpretation and critique of art, literature, film, television, visual media, streaming media, and other forms of performance and popular culture while examining the critic's role as cultural arbiter, aficionado, and creator. Students consider the role of the critic in media organizations and society at large as well as critique as an act of meaning-making. Students think through writing for different audiences interested in criticism, including academic, professional, and popular audiences, and other communities of interest.
Introduction to critical methods of interpreting literature through examination of works by major authors.
An opportunity to develop the student's writing ability and critical sense; work of students and professional authors will be analyzed.
Examines the craft and theory of memoir through wide-ranging readings and intensive practice in writing and workshopping personal narratives.
A course focused on memoir and narrative journalism; students analyze and create short works of nonfiction.
Developing the student's skill in the creation of poetry; attention to contemporary trends in American poetry.
Conversation with practicing poets; preparation of a small booklet of poems.
Training in developing, reporting, writing and editing straight news, feature, profile, and interpretive stories.
Provides advanced training in finding, researching, developing, and writing feature stories for newspapers and magazines. [Cross-listed with CM-268]
LASC Categories: WAC, TLC Training in copy selection, copy editing, story placement, headline writing, layout, and use of style books. [Cross-listed with CM-270] Every 2-3 years.
Provides laboratory sessions in all aspects of journalism for advanced writers; emphasis on publication.
Includes fundamentals of news judgement, events coverage, sourcing, interviewing, writing on deadline, fact checking and basic editing.
Introduces students to the journalistic art of sportswriting, reporting, and interviewing for various media.
LASC Categories: WAC, QAC This course will provide theories and strategies for writing in digital environments, with special emphasis on the rhetorical conventions for online communication and the design of digital information. Increasingly, information is presented in digital format, which assumes different user experiences than those normally associated with print media. The goal of this course is to explore the expectations and requirements of digital writing, how writers and readers negotiate information in non-physical spaces, and how specific characteristics of different digital environments shape what we can say, and how we say it. Other or on demand and other or on demand. 3
Ideas of medieval christianity, courtly love, and chivalric honor as they appear in lyric poetry, drama, and Arthurian romance.
LASC Categories: TLC This course traces the development of the Arthurian legends from their Celtic origins up through the modern period. Every 2-3 years. 3 Credits
The non-dramatic literature of Tudor England; emphasis on More, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, the earlier works of Shakespeare, Donne and Bacon.
Prose and poetry of the era with special attention to the major works of Jonson and Donne. Every 2-3 years.
The major figures of the Enlightenment with particular emphasis on satire: Dryden, Pope, Swift, Johnson, and Boswell. Every 2-3 years.
Theoretical and critical approaches to classic and contemporary texts written for young adults aged pre-teen to late teen.
Purpose, range, and developments in the novel of the eighteenth century: Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, and others. Every 2-3 years.
Representative nineteenth century novelists: Austen, Bronte, Dickens, Thackeray, Eliot, Hardy, Conrad, and others. Every 2-3 years.
Selected works of major British novelists from 1900 through World War II: Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf, Forster and others. Every 2-3 years.
Poetry and prose with special emphasis on the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and Keats.
Study of selected prose and poetry of the major writers of the Victorian period.
Ranging from Frankenstein's monster to Count Dracula, nineteenth-century literature generated some of the most enduringly influential monsters in pop culture. This course approaches the period's Gothic texts as both generative sites of literary innovation and reflections of the anxieties that captivated the culture that produced them: fears about new technologies, changing mores around sex and gender, responses to an increasingly globalized world, and more. Our approach to the Gothic and monstrosity will be informed by considerations of power: we will discuss how issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, nationality, and more inform how society constructs some bodies as "monstrous."
An introduction to writing about, for, and with communities. Students learn to successfully complete individual or group community writing projects, which begin when relationships are built with community organizations to identify a communication need. Then, in collaboration, possible solutions are identified to address the communication need with the goal of developing and delivering a document for use by the partnering community organization that helps to solve the problem. As a result, students develop practical writing experience and an ability to act as a writing consultant.
European novelists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including Dostoyevsky, Mann, Camus, and others. Every 2-3 years.
An examination of later works by authors studied in Continental Novelists I. Every 2-3 years.
In this course students examine narratives of United States immigration in literature, film, and history. The immigrant narrative is both a foundational American story and also a story of the outsider to American culture. Students explore how authors navigate these conflicting poles, and how they complicate myths of the U.S. as a melting pot and land of opportunity. Topics for discussion include: assimilation and pluralism; citizenship, class, ethnicity, gender, language, nationality, race, and religion; diaspora; labor; nativism and xenophobia; and the social, legal, and political history of American immigration.
The theories and development of realism, naturalism, expressionism, folk drama; representative plays from Ibsen to O'Neill. Every 2-3 years.
The dramatic works and aesthetics of Beckett, Pinter, and other selected dramalists of the contemporary theatre. Spring only and every 2-3 years.
Close analysis of the development of British and American poetry from the late nineteenth century to World War II.
Food systems are complex and vulnerable, but our lives depend upon their sustainability. In all efforts to support socially just, sustainable food systems, language matters. This course engages students in learning about and writing about sustainable and just food systems. Students will gain an understanding of the interconnected ecological, cultural, political, economic, social, ethical, material, affective, and aesthetic dimensions of food systems; create written deliverables that respond to an authentic community need concerning sustainable and just food systems, address an audience external to the class through their writing, and participate in collaborative, community-based action and service.
Concentrates on poets whose major work was written after World War II: Special attention to authors presently writing and publishing.
American and English novels after World War II with emphasis on living novelists.
A survey of the major trends in twentieth century poetry, drama, and fiction. Every 2-3 years.
Students gain advanced practices and skill in professional writing genres. Rotating topics and genres. Consent of instructor.
The American novel from its origin to 1900.
The American novel from the late nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century.
The course examines major works by American women writers in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama within applicable critical contexts.
An historical introduction to speculation concerning the nature and function of literature: Selections from Plato to Frye. Every 2-3 years.
Selected topics in U.S. ethnic literature, including thematic and comparative approaches,and in-depth studies of a single ethnic literature.
LASC Categories: GP Writing by women from colonized and formerly colonized countries on local and global issues shaping women's lives and creative expression. Every 2-3 years.
A study of the development of Chaucer's versatile art and writings as expressive of the later Middle Ages. Every 2-3 years.
Workshop in which students report, write, and edit the online college news magazine. Participate in all aspects of publication. [Cross-listed with CM-352]
Students analyze and create in-depth journalistic features and nonfiction stories that blend reporting with techniques of fictional storytelling. [Cross-listed with CM-353]
Students analyze and practice writing op-eds and other opinion pieces. Learn to write commentary that is publication ready. [Cross-listed with CM-354]
Students engage in experiential learning, project management, and the application of skills, practices, and knowledges gained through course work in English while collaborating with WSU faculty, staff, community partners, or other students. Students further develop their critical, problem-solving, and communicative skillset while adapting what they have learned to new environments and challenges. May be repeated multiple times.
This course introduces students to the field of disability studies by examining depictions of disability in literature. We will discuss foundational texts and consider key terms including ableism, access, medicalization, representation, and prosthesis. We will also discuss the ways that disability intersects with other aspects of identity such as race, class, gender, and sexuality. Our readings will span multiple centuries and will include poems, memoirs, films, and critical essays by leading disability studies scholars. Together, we will question the construction of bodily, mental, and social norms and analyze how narratives both resist and conform to cultural conceptions of disability.
Major plays. Required of all English majors.
A continuation of EN360; includes the sonnets and less familiar plays. Every 2-3 years.
A critical analysis of plays by the contemporaries of Shakespeare: Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, Jonson, Ford, Webster, and others.
This course traces the literary history of the antislavery movement in the Atlantic World: writing in a range of genres, antislavery writers made a significant contribution to the campaigns to end the slave trade and slavery. These texts also shaped the history and memory of legal enslavement and its aftermath. While the Atlantic system of legal slavery ended in the nineteenth century, an even larger system of illegal slavery still exists, and so the course concludes by considering the work of contemporary antislavery writers and what they might learn from their predecessors.
A study of Milton's work from early poems to Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes; includes some prose pamphlets.
A survey of plays of the Restoration period and the eighteenth century; genres of comedy and tragedy. Every 2-3 years.
The Irish literary renaissance; the origins of the movement; includes Joyce, Yeats, Synge, O'Casey, Lady Gregory, and others.
Student presentations on individual figures and particular problems in literature.
Directed study offers students, who because of unusual circumstances may be unable to register for a course when offered, the opportunity to complete an existing course with an established syllabus under the direction and with agreement from a faculty member.
This course introduces students to the theory and practice of writing consultancy, preparing them to work as peer consultants in the university writing center. Through readings, discussions, role-playing, and hands-on practice, students will explore key concepts in writing theory, collaborative learning, and the writing process. Emphasis will be placed on developing effective communication strategies, fostering inclusive and supportive writing environments, and adapting to the needs of diverse writers. By the end of the course, students will be equipped with the knowledge and experience to provide constructive feedback and engage meaningfully in one-on-one writing consultations. Pre-requisite: Permission of instructor.
An overview of the U.S. legal and justice systems and an examination of ethical issues in mass media. [Cross-listed with EN-416] Every 2-3 years. 3 Credits
An opportunity for further study in a special field of interest under faculty supervision. Consent of instructor.
Course provides an option for seniors to fulfill their university capstone requirement in the discipline. Consent of instructor.
Specific content will vary in response to particular student and faculty interests.
Provides majors the opportunity to gain practical experience in areas where they may apply acquired critical and writing skills. Consent of instructor
The phonology, syntax, and lexicon of English from its proto-Indo-European origins to its contemporary dialects.
An introduction to graduate-level research and writing.
Current writing theory and pedagogy with emphasis on the college, high school, or middle school classroom.
Examines history of and recent developments in modern rhetorical theory and composition studies.
Analysis of the work and influence of John Donne, Ben Jonson, George Herbert and other metaphysical and religious poets.
This course explores pastoral's emergence as a major genre of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature.
Analysis of Milton's prose and poetry, emphasizing "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," Comus, "Lycidas," Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and Areopagitica.
An in-depth examination and interpretive application of the works of a critical theorist or a critical perspective, to be chosen by the instructor.
Advanced examination of Tudor and Jacobean literature emphasizing More, Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Nashe, Shakespeare, Donne, and Jonson.
Examination of a range of texts, classical and modern, that address both middle-school and high- school (and older) readers.
This course will examine various aspects of Shakespear's plays and poems.
An advanced introduction to writing about, for, and with communities. Generally, students learn to consider the rhetorical, relationship building power of documents, and they specifically apply this understanding by working with an organization to complete a community writing project. For students, a foundation in community writing scholarship, increased genre knowledge, and practical consulting experience are outcomes. Every year.
This course traces the literary history of the antislavery movement in the Atlantic World: writing in a range of genres (journalism, history, fiction, poetry, drama, slave narratives), antislavery writers made a significant contribution to the campaigns to end the slave trade and slavery. While the Atlantic system of legal slavery ended in the nineteenth century, an even larger system of illegal slavery still exists, and so the course concludes by considering the work of twenty-first century antislavery writers and what they might learn from their predecessors. In other words, can we use literary history to make slavery history?
Explores the origins of the novel genre.
Explores British prose fiction of the nineteenth century.
English Theatre introduces the student to the study of Restoration theatre, the tragedies of Dryden, but principally the great comedies of Etherege, Vanbrugh, Wycherley, Dryden, Behn, Rochester, Farquhar, and Congreve; the counter-movement of sentimental comedy that followed from 1710 to the 1750s, notably in the work of Cibber, Steele and Centlivre; and finally the return in the 1770s to "laughing comedy" found in the plays of Goldsmith and the witty comedy of manners in the plays of Sheridan.
Romantic and Victorian Gothic is a subversive arena where major authors explore the issues bedeviling their eras.
An historical and critical survey of the prose and poetry of the nineteenth century including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Arnold and Browning.
A survey of British, American, Irish, and continental drama from Ibsen through O'Neill.
Major aspects of the life and art of Dickens will be examined in a variety of contexts.
A study of the major figures who shaped American and British poetry between 1920 and 1950.
Illustrates how modern poetry differs from that of earlier periods through study of W.B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, and T.S. Eliot.
This course covers the major genres of English medieval literature, such as drama, poetry, debate, prose, and riddles. The major works in medieval literature will be covered including Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Corpus Christi plays. The themes of religion, courtly love, chivalry, women's roles, and class will be considered.
Concentrates on poets whose major work was written after World War II.
The development of Romantic idealism in the origins of American fiction and poetry.
Realism as practiced by Twain and clarified by Howells, following the transition of realism to naturalism under Norris and Dreiser.
The Short Story examines in depth the origin and evolution of the genre of short fiction. Nineteenth and early twentieth century American, British, and Continental European stories are studied to provide artistic, theoretical, and cultural contexts for the development of the genre. By the end of the course, representative modern short fiction from various nations is explored in an effort to situate the genre within emerging philosophies of form and narration.
The development of the American novel from Charles Brockden Brown through Melville and Hawthorn.
Study of myths of ancient Greece and Rome through examination of major primary texts and secondary interpretative texts.
The development of the American novel from naturalism and realism to the latest fiction of the twentieth century.
An advanced study of works by and about women in American literature, including Rowson, Foster, and Brown.
This class explores film's artistic and cultural descent from literature.
Directed study offers graduate students, who because of unusual circumstances may be unable to register for a course when offered, the opportunity to complete an existing course with an established syllabus under the direction and with agreement from a faculty member. variable credits.
An exploration of the works of one or two major authors in depth. Fall and Spring and other or on demand.
Guided exploration of a topic of interest to the student and a member of the English faculty.
An exploration and consideration of a theme or topic of mutual interest to instructor and students.
Guided work relating to the student's thesis.
Source: Worcester State University's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 61
