DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS – SUMMER SEMESTER 2008

Summer Session I (5/12/08-6/20/08)

3730-011 FOLKLORE, MTWR 3:20-5:00, UH 4280 COMPORA
This web assisted course examines different types of folklore   and its importance in culture.  This course primarily focuses on the work of noted American Folklore scholar Jan Harold Brunvand, though other perspectives are examined.  This course delves into many different genres, such as  folk music, folk games, religious and familial traditions, riddles, games, poetry and proverbs.  Special emphasis is placed on urban legends and folklore in popular media.  The course requires a research project in which students gather and research folklore, along with possible short writing assignments, quizzes, and an exam.

3750-011 WOMEN AND LITERATURE, MTWR 9:50-11:30, UH 4280 GREGORY
The last ten years has witnessed the explosion of “chick lit”: genre fiction written by women that tends to focus on single “chicks” in their twenties and thirties looking for love and professional fulfillment in a socially elite urban world. Although contemporary chick lit tends to follow a fairly rigid formula, the genre raises broad and important questions about the relationship between women writers and their female audience. Through an examination of some of the early women authors who developed the key literary conventions still deployed by contemporary chick lit, we will explore what it means to be a “chick” writer and reader. We will read Jane Austen and Harriet Jacobs; we will explore feminist and postfeminist models of femininity in literature; and we will investigate cultural phenomena such as Sex in the City parties and Oprah's Book Club.

3790-011 FOUNDATIONS OF LITERARY STUDY, MTWR 8-9:40, UH 5260 FREE
The new title and description of this course, “Foundations of Literary Study: “An overview and introduction to the discipline of literary study, its history, its methods, and its specialized language,” clarify its relationship to the English major and to the study of the humanities in general. The course introduces you to various approaches to the reading and criticism of literary texts and to the language used in discussing texts. It also gives you some practice in using these approaches and language. There will be a mid-term and final examination, both of which will test your ability to interpret and analyze texts using the terminology in the Guide . In addition you will be asked to write an eight to ten page paper.

3810-011 SHAKESPEARE I, MTWR 1:30-3:10, UH 4480 WIKANDER
This course offers an introduction to Shakespeare as a dramatic artist through close analysis of selected plays with special emphasis on Hamlet . Requirements include two 5-page papers, a final exam, and participation in presentation of scenes for class discussion.

4070-011 WRITING WORKSHOP IN POETRY, MTWR 1:30-3:10, UH 2210 GEIGER
This workshop-format course is for the practicing poet. Each class will begin with a serious discussion of a poetry-related topic, or a reading assignment, and advance into the actual workshop itself. Students will work towards achieving a final unified portfolio of completed poems (a chapbook). Grades will be based on that portfolio (chapbook) and on class discussion and participation.

4090-011 CURRENT WRITING THEORY, TWR 5:00-7:10, SA 1340 EDGINGTON
In this course, we will focus on past and current theories in the field of writing studies. Throughout the semester, students will read literature and research in such areas as process writing, literacy studies, writing and technology, writing and the community, social issues and writing studies, and motivation for writing. In addition to classroom discussions, students will be expected to participate in small group and online discussions and produce several academic papers, research texts, and reflective essays. The purpose of the course is to help students begin to understand their own writing theories and practices and how these can be used in future work and education environments.

4280/5-011 AMERICAN FICTION: 20 TH CENTURY, MTWR 9:50-11:30, UH 2210 LINDSAY
We will be reading (mainly short stories) from the following authors: Sherwood Anderson; Ernest Hemingway; Katherine Anne Porter; and Flannery O'Connor. We will read novels by William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. There will be one paper (7-10pp) analyzing a short story. The final will consist of two parts. Part I will be an hour long essay exam. You will be given the essay questions ahead of time. I will pick one on the scheduled day of the final. Part II will be short paragraph identifications of passages from our reading. You will have to discuss the significance of passages that we have discussed in class.

4850/5-011 VIRGINIA WOOLF, MTWR 11:40-1:20, UH 2210 FREE
Virginia Woolf is an extremely important writer because of the quality of her work but also because of the important issues she raises concerning gender, psychology, culture, and literary form. She has significant things to say about the status of women, the woman as writer, and the uniqueness of the female point of view. As significant are her contributions to the idea of the novel, its structure, its subject matter, and its management of perspective. Discussion will focus on three novels, Mrs. Dalloway , To the Lighthouse , Orlando , and an extended essay: A Room of One's Own . There will be a term paper, a mid-term test, and a final examination.

Summer Session II (6/23/08-8/01/08)

3010-021 CREATIVE WRITING, MTWR 11:40-1:20, UH 4540 BRADLEY
In this class students will develop writing skills by studying narrative and poetic conventions, reading exemplary poems and stories, and analyzing works in progress. Students are required to write fifteen pages of fiction and five poems. Students will also complete short writing exercises and are required to critique each other's work. However the class is not a competition ; it is a supportive, nurturing environment for helping us all to become better readers and writers.

3060-021 SCREENWRITING, MTWR 1:30-3:10, UH 4480 BRADLEY
This course involves practical analysis of screenplays, emphasizing story structure and characterization. By reading scripts and viewing films, students will explore how narrative strategies in film differ from strategies used in fiction or stage plays. Students will complete exercises in developing character, use of setting, dialogue, pacing action, and arranging scenes BEFORE writing an actual script. With a practical understanding of how characters are created and stories are told with pictures, students will write a brief script to be critiqued by the class. All students should acquire software for standard screenwriting format.

3150/5/7-021 LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES, MTWR 8-9:40, UH 4280 COLEMAN
This course focuses largely on human communication via speech and text. Neither is taken in isolation, however. Speech is one medium, in the real world, integrated with gesture, eye contact, body posture, movement, physical interaction with one's surroundings, and so on. Texts can be seen as having analogous components; for example, even an unillustrated book communicates something by the fact that it is unillustrated (that it is not to be understood in the same way as a comic book or graphic novel) and that it is bound as a book (that it is not to be read in the same way as, say, an article in Maxim magazine). Students will learn (1) about language as an ancient non-real-world explanation for human communication and (2) how we can instead see human communication in integrated, real-world terms . There are required readings for each class. Assignments include homework (which involves observing people communicating in real-world situations), a midterm exam, and a final exam (the exams contain multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions testing memory / comprehension of basic and advanced course concepts). Students are offered three grading options: (1) homework, class attendance/participation, midterm, and final; (2) midterm and final exams only; or (3) final exam only. Interested students are encouraged to contact the professor for details (Douglas.Coleman@utoledo.edu).

3600-021 AMERICAN LITERARY TRADITIONS, MTWR 11:40-1:20, UH 4480 REISING
Rather than surveying the entire range of American literature, this course will focus on important examples of non-fiction, fiction, and poetry from the nineteenth and twentieth century. Writers to be studied include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Richard Wright, Ken Kesey, and Tom Robbins. Students will write two papers and take a final examination.

3720-021 LITERATURE AND MYTHOLOGY, TWR 5:15-7:25, UH 2210 TURLEY
This course begins with an overview of selected creation myths and then specifically explores Western myths from Greek and Roman society using a wide variety of such genres as the epic (e.g. The Iliad ), poems, art, and drama. The course then further explores how archetypal characters and concepts as well as universal motifs of mythology shape events and characters through the ages. Students will be expected to identify these motifs (e.g. the hero's quest and cycles of nature) and recognize archetypal characters such as the guide, the temptress, the scapegoat etc. using some contemporary models. Some sources will be Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Virgil, and Joseph Campbell. Students will write one paper, take quizzes and examinations as well as participate in class discussion.

4860/5-021 EDGAR ALLAN POE, MTWR 1:30-3:10, UH 4280 REISING
We will read widely in Poe's short stories, poetry, and essays. Students will give a class presentation, write two short essays, and take one exam.