Department of English

Spring 2027 Elective Course Descriptions

Spring 2027 Electives

ENGL 130: Myth, Legend, & Pop Culture

Instructor: Maggie Myers
Attributes / Flags: Solidarity & Kinship Flag, Humanities Elect/Integrations

  • Section 1 (CRN: 18539): MWF 10:00 AM - 10:50 AM (In-Person)
  • Section 2 (CRN: 18540): MWF 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM (In-Person)

The story of King Arthur is one of the most enduring legends to come out of the Middle Ages. From flour to film and books to video games, Arthur has long since stretched past his quasi-historical roots and taken his place in popular culture. In this course we will explore not only Arthur’s chronicle origins but his development through romance and into contemporary popular culture. We will examine both Arthur and his Round Table as both colonizing forces and colonized rebels; as hardened warriors and chivalrous knights; as relics of a forgotten past and as real and relevant figures today.

ENGL 202: Intro to Creative Writing

Instructor: Kristen Renzi
Attributes / Flags: Creative Persp / Explorations, Humanities Elect/Integrations, Writing Flag Core

  • Section 1 (CRN: 17596): MWF 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM (In-Person)

In this course, you will write non-fiction, prose, drama, and poetry; while doing so, I will ask you to experiment with a wide variety of styles and approaches. You will also explore the craft and concerns of writers from diverse traditions through reading assignments and writing prompts. We will practice the pleasures of reading and writing as we read our class texts—both those we read from outside our classroom and those we write ourselves. Throughout, we’ll develop and honor our particular voices, experiences, and imaginations.

ENGL 221: Poetry

Instructor: Yalie Kamara
Attributes / Flags: Humanities Elect/Integrations, Oral Communication Flag

  • Section 3 (CRN: 11024): MWF 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM (In-Person)

Course description coming soon.

ENGL 306: AI Literacy & Writing

Instructor: Renea Frey
Attributes / Flags: None Listed

  • Section 1 (CRN: 18591): TR 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM (Hybrid: In-Person & Online)

This hybrid (in-person and online) course approaches questions of what it means to write and be a writer in an age of artificial intelligence from an inquiry-based perspective. Students examine how generative AI is reshaping writing, authorship, creativity, research, language, and professional communication while developing critical and ethical approaches to using AI tools.

ENGL 309: Creative Writing: Poetry

Instructor: Yalie Kamara
Attributes / Flags: Creative Persp / Explorations, Humanities Elect/Integrations, Writing Flag Core

  • Section 1 (CRN: 14462): MWF 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM (In-Person)

In this course, we will be exploring the content and craft of poetry through both the study and practice of this genre of writing. The semester will be divided into modules which will facilitate examinations of poems organized by theme which will allow us to: 1) contemplate varied modes of storytelling, and 2) provide opportunities to consider how intentional aesthetic choices shape dynamic poems.

ENGL 310: Creative Writing: Fiction

Instructor: Kristen Renzi
Attributes / Flags: Creative Persp / Explorations, Humanities Elect/Integrations, Writing Flag Core

  • Section 1 (CRN: 15766): MWF 10:00 AM - 10:50 AM (In-Person)

This course will enable you to study—through reading published works of fiction, composition of your own fictional works (and fragments of fiction), and peer collaboration/exchange/evaluation—the craft of fiction writing, at whatever level of experience/expertise you find yourself. Emphasis will be placed throughout the course on active engagement with your peers' work.

ENGL 312: Scientific & Technical Writing

Instructor: Jeffrey Gerding
Attributes / Flags: Humanities Elect/Integrations, Medical & Health Humanities Minor, MHH - Narrative & Artistic Exp, MHH - Upper Division Elective, Writing Flag Core

  • Section 1 (CRN: 15082): TR 02:30 PM - 03:45 PM (In-Person)

This is a course designed for students training for professions that require conciseness, clarity, and brevity in communication. The effective scientific and technical writer is constantly placed in the challenging position struck between the inherent messiness of language and the objective ideals of scientific professions; as such, it is important to focus on user-centered design, usability, and effective workplace document structures.

ENGL 315: Composition Tutoring

Instructor: Elizabeth Maffetone
Attributes / Flags: Solidarity & Kinship Flag, Humanities Elect/Integrations, Writing Flag Core

  • Section 1 (CRN: 11028): TR 01:00 PM - 02:15 PM (In-Person)

Composition Tutoring serves two main purposes: 1) as an upper-level writing course, it gives you opportunities to improve your skills and to gain insight into your writing habits and process; 2) as a course focused on one-on-one tutoring, it offers hands-on training in assisting others to improve their writing. Although the course is clearly beneficial to prospective educators, it provides essential feedback and management skills applicable across career fields.

ENGL 321: History of the English Language

Instructor: Sheena Steckl
Attributes / Flags: Humanities Elect/Integrations, Quantitative Reason Flag Full, Service Learning

  • Section 1 (CRN: 11029): TR 01:00 PM - 02:15 PM (In-Person)

Students will explore how the salmagundi that is the English language originated and how it grew into a language of global communication. While we will give due diligence to the historical origins of English, we will primarily focus on phonetics and sociolinguistics, examining how and why people came to sound the way they sound and say the things they say.

ENGL 337 / ENGL 537: Theories & Research in Writing

Instructor: Renea Frey
Attributes / Flags: Humanities Elect/Integrations, Quantitative Reason Flag Full, Writing Flag Core

  • Section 1 (CRN: 15922): M 04:15 PM - 06:45 PM (In-Person)
Introduces the history and theory of writing studies, major approaches to writing and writing pedagogy, and qualitative and quantitative research methods in composition. Students examine how theories of rhetoric, writing, and learning have shaped the teaching of writing and apply these perspectives to pedagogical practice and scholarly inquiry.

ENGL 450: British Romantic Literature

Instructor: Lisa Ottum
Attributes / Flags: Humanities Elect/Integrations

  • Section 1 (CRN: 11034): TR 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM (In-Person)

Romanticism is notoriously difficult to define. In the past, “British Romanticism” referred primarily to an aesthetic movement. Scholars used the term to classify literature—mostly lyric poetry—produced between 1780 and 1830. More recently, however, “Romanticism” has come to be thought of as a cluster of broader social and cultural movements set in motion by the French Revolution (1798) and brought to a close in England by the Reform Bill of 1832, which modernized the country’s electoral system.

While there are a number of key themes and trends that characterize British Romantic literature, this class will focus on two issues in particular: the Romantics’ fascination with the past and their unique anxieties about the future. To explore how and why history mattered to the Romantics, we’ll first examine how they characterized their own tumultuous present. We’ll then study genres such as the Gothic and the pastoral that invoke more distant eras (some real, some imaginary); as we’ll see, the Romantics often turned to the past to critique the present. Finally, we’ll read samples of “visionary writing” to see how Romantic writers imagined the future. Throughout the semester, we’ll discuss Romanticism’s enduring cultural legacy, including the ways that Romanticism continues to influence our thinking about authorship, art, creativity, progress, and individualism.

ENGL 481: American Foundations

Instructor: Nathaniel Windon
Attributes / Flags: Humanities Elect/Integrations

  • Section 1 (CRN: 18541): W 04:30 PM - 07:00 PM (In-Person)

Like anyone after a breakup, the people of the United States focused on the merits of independence after the Revolution. For this reason, among others, the self-reliant individual became an enduring cultural ideal. Many good things have come from an emphasis on individualism: the protection of personal autonomy, the belief in the inherent dignity of the person, and skepticism of authority. But individualism is also a strange belief for creatures who depend so profoundly on each other from birth to old age. What, then, do we actually owe one another?

In this course, we will take up that question through foundational works of American literature from the Revolution to the Civil War, by writers including Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Apess, Douglass, Melville, Hawthorne, Dickinson, and Whitman. Our premise will be that we might better understand the limits of individualism and come to terms with what we owe one another by working through the question together.