Student resources
Getting library help is often your first step in any writing assignment. This set of links will help you get started.
Writing Center
This free, one-on-one tutoring center will help you focus and revise your compositions. Here are some resources.
Writing Center
This free, one-on-one tutoring center will help you focus and revise your compositions. Here are some online handouts to get you started.
Hours
Click on the link to bring up the current Writing Center hours.
navigating the center
Don't know how to schedule an appointment? Confused as to what you should bring to your Writing Center consultation? Everything is answered here.
How to study
If deadlines make you tear out your hair, here is a nice place to start. Check out the study guides, sample timetables, handouts and links at this Writing Center page.
Undergraduate Course Descriptions
FALL 2013
202-001
Introduction to Journalism
Jeff Neely
MWF 8:00-8:50
MO 201
This course will teach you about the craft of journalism and what it’s like to be a journalist. It is a very hands-on course. You will work outside of the classroom, on campus and in your community, to learn new things, speak to new people and develop compelling news stories. While the course is rooted in print journalism, you will also learn the basic multimedia skills required of a 21st-century journalist. In addition, you’ll learn the importance of deadlines, accuracy, newswriting style and ethical practice.
202-002 MW 2:00-3:15
202-003 MW 3:30-4:45
Introduction to Journalism
Roger Laverty
SB 220
Introduction to news values, style, and writing. Focus is on writing leads, nut grafsandbasic newsstories under deadline pressure. Also included: note taking, interviewing, radio and broadcast journalism, online journalism, and an introduction to feature writing.
204-001 MWF 8:00-8:50
204-005 TR 8:00-9:15
Introduction to Professional Writing
Amanda Cosgrove
MO 204
Introduction to Professional Writing is an introductory survey of concepts in professional writing, including audience analysis, research methods, visual thinking, and the composing process. This course includes a service-learning component.
204-002 MWF 9:00-9:50
204-003 MWF 10:00-10:50
Introduction to Professional Writing
Anirban Ray
MO 204
This course prepares you to face workplace challenges that require professional communication skills in terms of writing and presentation. It will enable you to develop critical appreciation for core technical concepts including audience, context, persuasion, and purpose in writing situations with an emphasis on ethics in communication. You will be exposed to writing a variety of business collaterals, such as resumes, memos, proposals and reports in different contexts and for different purposes. Most importantly, you will find opportunities to collaborate with peers to share expertise, knowledge, and experience in a service-learning framework. By the end of this course, you will learn to design effective technical documents to solve problems with attention to text, visuals, format, usability, and citation. Text: Johnson-Sheehan, Technical Communication Today. 4th ed.
204-004
Introduction to Professional Writing
Sarah Hallenbeck
MWF 1:00-1:50
MO 204
Students in this course will learn the rhetorical, ethical, and design considerations that inform effective professional and technical communication. Working in both print and multi-media contexts, they will develop strategies for conducting workplace research, performing audience analysis, and evaluating document usability. Students will produce a range of documents, including memos, proposals, instructions, and public relations materials. Much of their work will be conducted in a service-learning context in which their efforts will engage a wider public beyond the classroom. Text: Gurak and Lannon, Strategies for Technical Communication in the Workplace.
204-800
Introduction to Professional Writing
Anthony Atkins
Online
This is an introduction to the facets of professional writing: career considerations, document design, research, and using technology. This course also contains a service learning component that will also serve as an applied learning component to the course. Students will gain experience writing career documents like resumes and cover letters, but also be exposed to the principles of document design. Students will also conduct research and gain experience using communication and presentation technologies.
Students should have a basic knowledge of computers. Students should know how to access and use BlackBoard and MS Word. Students should know how to save and name documents including creating or saving as pdf. Students should also know how to use their email accounts with fluidity (attaching documents, etc.). You do not, however, need access to special or addition programs. UNCW provides TealWare via the web so that you can access programs like MS Publisher, if needed. Students should also plan to have Internet access throughout the course.
Visit the bookstore for required texts
205-001
Introduction to Literary Studies
Mark Boren
MWF 10:00-10:50
MO 201
In this course we’ll refine our critical reading skills, sharpen our research, writing, and speaking skills, and learn major theoretical approaches to the study of written texts, including psychoanalysis, feminism, new historicism, deconstruction, and post-colonialism. In understanding how texts generate their (often contradictory) meanings, we’ll also see how those approaching texts are themselves “written” by both the texts before them and the cultural contexts in which they are themselves inscribed. In traditional literature classes, one often finds oneself in discussions of “what a text means,” but in this class we’ll shift our exploration of texts, focusing more on “how a text means” and “how we as readers are constructed to read in certain ways.” Through the analysis of poetry, of fiction, and of non-fiction, and through the methodical study of critical essays on those primary texts, we’ll learn the intricacies involved in negotiating the world through language. Students will produce a variety of essays, including research essays.
205-002
Introduction to Literary Studies
Barbara Waxman
TR 9:30-10:45
MO 202
Together we will explore some methods and theories of literary criticism—some ways of reading and some invention strategies for developing essays about literature. We’ll apply these to fiction, poetry, and drama. We’ll also consider why literary criticism matters. Our class will look into some strategies of literary research and will have instruction with an expert librarian in Randall Library. Warm-up writing exercises, brainstorming for essay topics, a conference with the instructor, workshops, and peer-editing sessions will also help you with your writing.
Let’s develop a comfortable community of readers and writers as we examine poems by Oliver, Clifton, Yau, Suarez, Pastan, and others in Schakel & Ridl’s 250 Poems: A Portable Anthology. We’ll also discuss: Terrence McNally’s short play, “Andre’s Mother”; a novel by Ann Hood, The Red Thread; Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray; and Peter Shaffer’s prize-winning play, Equus. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers will also be required, as will Steven Lynn’s Texts and Contexts: Writing about Literature with Critical Theory.
205-003
Introduction to Literary Studies
Staff
TR 3:30-4:45
MO 202
205-004
Introduction to Literary Studies
Keith Newlin
TR 11:00-12:15
MO 202
How does one find something interesting and informative to say about a work of literature? And how does one convey that interpretation effectively in writing? This course seeks to answer those two questions by introducing students to the theories and methods of literary criticism and by providing an opportunity for detailed attention to the process of writing and revision. We will begin by examining a variety of interpretive strategies for reading literature; and then we will write a series of papers applying what we have learned to several literary works. Text includes: Gibaldi, The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed.; Lynn, Texts and Contexts, 6th ed.; Treadwell, Machinal; Alger, Ragged Dick.
205-005
Introduction to Literary Studies
Katherine Montwieler
TR 2:00-3:15
MO 202
This course serves as a critical introduction to the vast terrain of literary studies and scholarship. We’ll begin mapping our way with an atlas that defines and demonstrates the classic terms used to explore literature analytically. Following our foray into close reading, we’ll explore what happens when we shift our subject positions; in particular we’ll be examining how specific ideological structures inform what and how we see, and how we can begin to become aware of those invisible structures. In addition to studying the terms and concepts of literary scholarship, our time in the course will be devoted to praxis. We’ll interview current scholars in the field, analyze our own critical methodologies, and speak with counselors in career services about how the skills we’re learning in this and other liberal arts classes transfer to a professional context.
211-001 TR 11:00-12:15
211-002 TR 12:30-1:45
British Literature to 1800
Michael Wentworth
MO 207
As a survey of British literature from Beowulf (first recited in the eighth century) to the death of Samuel Johnson (1784), the course will consider such major authors as Geoffrey Chaucer, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Johnson; a broad variety of genres, including narrative poetry, utopian fiction, tragedy, comedy, Christian epic, travel narrative, biography, and the periodical essay; topical and thematic concerns such as wit, imagination, art and nature, reason and passion, life choices, happiness, gender roles, marriage, and crime and punishment; such concerns as the value and purpose of literature, strategies of interpretation, and various factors that figure into the enduring permanence of our featured writers; and the relevance of selected works to other works of literature students have read, the current arena of local, national and international affairs, contemporary popular culture, and other academic courses students have taken. In addition to such standard canonical texts as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Ben Jonson’s Volpone, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost, we will also be reading and discussing a number of texts with which you are most likely familiar such as Mary Astell’s “Some Reflections upon Marriage,” Daniel Defoe’s “The Cons of Marriage,” Aphra Behn’s prose novella Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave, Eliza Haywood’s prose novella Fantomima; or, Love in a Maze, Jonathan Swift’s “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” and Samuel Johnson’s prose novella The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. Text includes: Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (translated into modern English by Nevill Coghill); The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1B: The Sixteenth Century and the Early Seventeenth Century; The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol C: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century.
212-001
British Literature since 1800
Alex Porco
MWF 10:00-10:50
MO 210
This course is a survey of British literature from the Romantic period through to the early twenty-first century. By the course’s end, students will be familiar with major authors such as Wordsworth, Keats, Radcliffe, DeQuincey, Browning, Rossetti, Yeats, Eliot, Ford, Mansfield, Joyce, Beckett, and Smith. We will engage with canonical and non-canonical texts in a wide variety of modes, genres, and media, including lyric, dramatic, and narrative poetry; the gothic and graphic novel; autobiography, the essay, and the manifesto; and, finally, cinema and popular music. Throughout the semester, we will make a point of always considering how aesthetic value, literary form, representational strategies, and language practices develop in dynamic relation to historical, political, and material contexts of production and reception— for example, the Industrial Revolution, nationalism and colonialism, shifting gender roles, the emergence of “popular culture”, World Wars I and II, the decline of the British Empire, postmodernism, and globalism.
223-001
American Literature to 1870
Mark Boren
MWF 11:00-11:50
MO 201
This course will survey significant works of literature produced in the United States prior to 1870. We will look at a smorgasbord of early religious treatises, gothic novels, political tracts, memoirs, and Romantic poems—all of which helped to shape who we—as a nation—are today. This course will situate the texts studied in political, social, and cultural contexts, and highlight the construction of individualism, race, and gender.
223-002
American Literature to 1870
Christopher Gould
TR 12:30-1:45
MO 101
The course surveys major authors in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from the colonial period to 1870.
Every student keeps a reading journal and writes two analytical essays, each of which comprises 20% of the semester grade. Final exam and a series of reading quizzes each account for 20%. Text: McQuade, et al. The Harper American Literature, 3rd ed.
224-002 TR 9:30-10:45
American Literature since 1870
Christopher Gould
MO 101
The course surveys major authors in fiction, poetry, and drama from 1865 to the present.
Every student keeps a reading journal and writes two critical essays, each of which comprises 25% of the semester grade. The average of reading-quiz scores accounts for the remaining 25%. Text: McQuade, et al. The Harper American Literature, 3rd ed.
World Literature since 1600
Paula Kamenish
TR 11:00-12:15
MO 104
This course explores representative works of world literature from Asian, African, European, and South American traditions since 1600. Featured authors include Cao Xueqin, Voltaire, Basho, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Ellison, Tolstoy, Tagore, Kafka, Borowski, García Márquez, and Achebe.
We will look at common themes, the techniques of storytelling, the use of metaphoric language, how literature relates to the other arts and to political, social, philosophical, or religious ideas. You will learn to trace a chronology of world literature from the 1600 to the present while making comparative explorations between national literatures. Requirements: active class participation, reports, quizzes, two writing projects, final exam. Text: The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Shorter 2nd edition, vol. 2.
230-001
Women in Literature
Janet Ellerby
MW 2:00-3:15
MO 106
Literature reflects cultural conflicts. Far from resolved, roles for women in society continue to evolve. For this course, we will read fiction, poetry and nonfiction that address women’s increased assertiveness, independence, and the vulnerability that comes with new roles for women. We will confront violence against women, both in the home and in the community. What happens when women resist traditional gender roles, when they refuse to tend hearth and home or to remain quiet and compliant? The books we will read address triumph and tragedy in unique ways, but these are not all sad stories; in fact, they are inspiring books about strength, compassion and ethical vitality. Texts include: Erdrich, The Round House; Morrison, Home; Sachs, The Secret of the Nightingale Palace; Rogan, The Lifeboat; Walker, The Age of Miracles; Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forever; Finney, Head Off and Split. Work to include: Informal responses, 2 essay tests, 1 formal paper.
230-002
Women in Literature
Barbara Waxman
TR 2:00-3:15
MO 101
How are gender roles depicted in literature across cultures? How do gender, class, race, age, sexual orientation, and culture shape characters’ identities and readers’ reactions to the characters? What are some of the stereotypes of women and men interrogated in the literature and why are these stereotypes harmful? What are some key themes in literature by women? How does literature by women both reflect society and try to change society? These are some of the questions we explore together in this discussion class. Assignments include one literary analysis, an artifact paper, and two essay exams (a take-home midterm and a final exam). A wide variety of characters, tantalizing plots, and transporting settings will make our readings entertaining and thought-provoking, especially when our community of readers consider the characters’ fates and what the authors have to say about creating a meaningful, happy life. Readings will include some of the following: Cisneros, The House on Mango Street; Bender, A Town of Empty Rooms; Sachs, The Secret of the Nightingale Palace; Morrison, A Mercy; Pearlman, Binocular Vision; Abu Jaber, Crescent, and Garcia, The Lady Matador’s Hotel.
The Bible as Literature
Lewis Walker
TR 9:30-10:45
MO 207
This course examines the Bible as a literary work, or, more accurately, as a collection of literary works. Through readings in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Apocrypha, we will consider matters such as genre (for example, narrative poetry, history, letter, parable); style (for example, diction, metaphor, simile, symbol); historical and geographical context, authors, and organization; literary and cultural influences on the Bible; and the canon. Written work includes brief responses; reading quizzes; two tests and a longer paper of 1500-2000 words. Oral participation is expected. It is absolutely essential that everyone who enrolls in the course acquire both of the assigned texts. The only acceptable version of the Bible for class use is The New Jerusalem Bible (the hardback edition with full footnotes—not the paperback version and not any other Bible). Texts include: Gabel, Wheeler, and Citino, The Bible as Literature, 5th ed.; Wansborough, ed., The New Jerusalem Bible.
290-002
Themes in Literature: Science Fiction
John Clifford
TR 11:00-12:15
MO 210
Through a variety of stories, novels, and films, we will explore popular themes in Science fiction, including Alien Encounters, Artificial Life, Time, Dystopias and Apocalypses. We will read classic writers: Bradbury, Le Guin, Asimov, Dick, Heinlein ad well as such recent masters as Octavia Butler and Cormac McCarthy. Two short papers and two exams.
290-300
Themes in Literature: American Culture
Michael Mills|
MWF 10:00-10:50
TL 2014
We will be exploring the often paradoxical nature of American Culture as both a unifying and alienating force and how contested political and sociological assumptions have and will continue to shape the concept of America and Americans. Some of the texts we will be exploring will include Delillo’s White Noise, Palahniuk’s Fight Club, and Russell’s Swamplandia! as well as other readings illustrating the dizzying spectrum of literary viewpoints that seek to define the term Americana.
302-001
Journalism Workshop
Jeff Neely
MWF 9:00-9:50
MO 201
Pre-req ENG 202 or consent of instructor. Continuation of ENG 202. The focus of this course is covering a beat and writing news stories on a regular deadline. The aim of this course is to give you an idea of what it’s like to work in a real newsroom. You’ll pitch and develop your story ideas. You will hone your skills of interviewing, conducting research and cultivating sources. You’ll grow in understanding what your readers expect and how to ask the right questions. We will work openly as a class to workshop your stories and the ongoing development of your beat. You will also continue to develop the multimedia skills and familiarity with AP style introduced in ENG 202.
303-001
Reading and Writing Arguments
Anthony Atkins
MW 3:30-4:45
MO 205
Significantly, almost every day we are faced with decisions. How do we make those daily decisions? In what ways are we persuaded by language, words, images, gestures, and social situations? Importantly, how can we make ourselves more conscious of the ways that the world of words operates on us, and how can we use words and language to express our own views of the world, the nation, and the surrounding communities in which we live? This course will introduce students to the numerous schemes of argument from Aristotle’s classical style of argument to I. A. Richards semantic triangle to Stephen Toulmin’s Theory of Practical Reasoning. This course will also address the cascading differences between persuasion and argument as well as detail rhetoric’s role in both the art and science of consuming and producing language. Visit the bookstore for required texts
304-001 MWF 8:00-8:50
304-002 MWF 9:00-9:50
Victor Malo-Juvera
MO 202
This required course for those seeking secondary English licensure will focus on preparing students to teach writing at the secondary level. Theoretical foundations and instructional strategies will be examined and students will produce model texts in the following genres that are ubiquitous in secondary schools: research, comparison/contrast, response to literature, persuasive, expository, and biography. We will also discuss skills such as vocabulary, grammar, brainstorming, prewriting, and basic paragraph structures. Scaffolding instruction, peer editing/review, alternative forms of assessment, and culturally relevant instruction will play critical roles in this course. Discussions will also cover requirements for on demand standardized writing assessment and how the Common Core State Standards and End of Course exams may impact future writing instruction.
305-001
Professional Reviewing: Everybody’s a Critic!
Shirley Mathews
MWF 1:00-1:50
BR 160
In this course, everyone is a critic. Students will have an intensive hands-on experience in the fundamentals of how to think and write critically – and fairly – about plays, restaurants, concerts, music, photography, movies and other creative endeavors, all with an eye to producing professional-quality – and publishable – work. Emphasis is on background research that will strengthen the perspective and credibility of the student’s finished review. Students do not need experience in any of the areas they will review, but all students will need a willingness to learn about unfamiliar topics and to think about them analytically. No formal text is required, but students will need to budget about $60 (or more) for expenses involved in reviewing assignments.
306-001 MWF 10:00-10:50 MO 106
306-002 MWF 11:00-11:50 MO 210
Essay Writing
Hannah Abrams
“A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.” --Virginia Woolf. Students in this course will explore the compelling form of the familiar essay. Reading may include selections from The Art of the Personal Essay, Best American Essays, The Seneca Review, and The Artful Edit. Expect writers to range from George Orwell to David Sedaris, subject matter to move from the death of a moth to a man that works as a Macy’s Christmas elf, and style to stretch from the polemic to the braided lyric.
Dynamic discussions of the texts will not only generate a shared critical lexicon, but shape readers into writers. Workshops and drafting will evolve students into editors. And, in the end, through research and a variety of exercises on form, students will produce their own portfolio of powerful personal essays.
306-003
Essay Writing
Kimi Faxon-Hemingway
MWF 1:00-1:50
MO 202
307-001
Advanced Composition Studies
Don Bushman
MWF 9:00-9:50
MO 102
This is a writing course about the subject matter of writing. We will read, talk, and write about writing—how people do it, how people learn to do it, how it’s taught, how it’s assessed, and what place it has in our culture. We will immerse ourselves in the ongoing conversation (case studies, research papers, scholarly essays) that has taken place among composition theorists during the last 50 years and look at how our understanding of composing has changed over that time. Along the way you will be asked to consider your own education as a writer and your own writing processes—and to compare them to what current research tells us about the variety of writing processes and practices in writers of every stage, from developing to professional. Required will be numerous informal reading responses, three summary essays, and a seminar paper. Text: Villanueva Cross-Talk in Comp Theory, 3rd ed.
309-001
Technical Writing
Colleen Reilly
TR 2:00-3:15
MO 204
Students in this course learn to identify how documents can be improved and to clearly express their plans for revisions orally and in writing. Along the way, they will acquire an interest in and appreciation for the conventions of English grammar, punctuation, and usage. Students work on the fundamentals of writing in order to develop the language and analytical skills necessary to edit technical documents, which include the forms, manuals, policy handbooks, websites, and other texts used in business, academic, and nonprofit organizations, and to argue successfully for the changes they make or recommend. Projects prompt students to edit documents at all levels, addressing everything from the sentences to the overall structure and visual design.
310-001 MWF 10:00-10:50
310-002 MWF 11:00-11:50
Theory and Practice of Editing
Shirley Mathews
BR 160
Instruction in strengthening the backbone of writing. Course work includes extensive practice in the fundamentals of punctuation and grammar, editing, copyediting and rewriting, all done with an eye to preparing work for publication. Privacy and libel law are examined. Text includes: Creative Editing; Media Writer's Handbook, and The Associated Press Stylebook.
311-001
Professional Magazine Writing
Jeff Neely
MWF 11:00-11:50
MO 202
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the style of writing used in magazines. Specifically, this course emphasizes the art and craft of writing feature stories, the bedrock of magazine journalism. Whereas “hard” news articles provide a reader with a straight-to-the-point account of the facts, feature stories use narrative devices, such as voice, imagery and theme, to engage an audience in longer pieces that dig deeper into their subject matter. However, like any form of journalism, writing is only part of the process. Much of your time in this course will be spent outside the classroom gathering information, immersing yourself in the topics you write about. In this class, you will learn how to develop and focus story ideas, blend background research with source interviews and observations, and utilize the key components of feature writing to tell a vivid and compelling story by deadline.
312-001 TR 9:30-10:45
312-002 TR 11:00-12:15
Writing for Business
Michelle Manning
SB 220
Professional writing is not just about crossing all our T's and dotting all our I's properly. Writing on the job requires knowing the types of documents that are familiar to our bosses and coworkers, so they can find information quickly. Each of these documents has certain conventions and requirements we need to master to communicate effectively - and efficiently - in the workplace. In this course, we will focus on analyzing and producing rhetorically effective workplace writing with an eye to audience awareness, using different genres, and developing a professional tone throughout. Students will work individually and collaboratively on projects ranging from letters and resumes to reports and proposals. The course is suitable for students of any major who want to improve their professional writing skills and thus their career potential. By the course’s end, students will produce writing artifacts suitable for inclusion in their professional portfolios and will participate in the English in Action Showcase held at the end of the semester.
313-001
Writing about Science
Sarah Hallenbeck
MWF 11:00-11:50
MO 204
In just a few hundred years, science has utterly transformed our world and the lives of its inhabitants. Yet few people today understand science, and those who do often struggle to translate new research for broad audiences. In this class we’ll explore the political, ethical, and practical implications of this struggle, developing strategies to increase public understanding of science through writing. From scientific literature reviews directed at researchers to feature articles in the popular press to curated museum exhibits for children, we’ll explore the different acts of “translation” that science writing entails. Students from all majors are encouraged to take this course and undertake research projects in areas that interest them, such as marine biology, psychology, and technology.
314-002
Writing and Technology
Anirban Ray
MWF 12:00-12:50
MO 204
This course will call upon our fundamental assumptions on writing and technology and how one influences the other in a “cumulative feedback loop.” As personal computers, the Internet, and Web 2.0 have occupied an important position in the spheres of human communication and guided interactions, their roles in meeting our everyday communication practice cannot go unchallenged. Through working with various instantiations of technologies, we will critically explore the intersections of writing and technology and how they inform our daily production and consumption of information. Evolution of writing, the breakout of the visual, the interface culture, and the Kindleization of books are some of the concepts we will discuss and tackle in this course. We will adopt and debate over numerous open source applications to be used in this course for both individual and collaborative ventures. By the end of this course, you will learn to make critical choices about adopting, assessing, and using the Internet and computer technologies for everyday communication situations.
314-002
Writing and Technology
Jeremy Tirrell
TR 12:30-1:45
MO 204
Students in this course will explore how digital technology shapes composition practices through critical engagement with new media formats. Students will have the opportunity to use a variety of network services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Drive to analyze and produce multimedia works including interactive maps and online advocacy networks. Much course interaction will take place through a companion website that supplements class meetings with interactive features. This course includes both individual and group projects, and some student work will take place in public online formats.
315-001
Topics in Writing and Rhetoric: Writing about Music
Nicholas Laudadio
TR 9:30-10:45
MO 205
In this course, we will be exploring what it means to write and think critically about music and music culture. Through close analysis and historical and contextual research, we will examine the institutions, lifestyles, and industries that make up popular (and not so popular) music. While students are not expected to come to the course with prior musicological knowledge, I do expect a willingness to engage with the more technical side of music writing.
316-001
Analyzing Style
Diana Ashe
MW 2:00-3:15
MO 204
One of the five canons that ancient rhetoricians sought to master, style makes or breaks writers in every branch of the profession. In this course, we will consider style from two angles: first, we’ll focus on the style of models both ancient and contemporary in the published realm, then we’ll focus on our own style by creating, refining, and reflecting upon extensive writing portfolios. Along the way, we’ll break down stylistic elements by part of speech—and by figure of speech—until we have a toolkit positively bursting at the seams with possibility. Text includes: Sin and Syntax; It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences.
317-002 MW 3:30-4:45
Writing about Film
Tiffany Gilbert
MO 207
This course concentrates on analyzing and writing about film. We will practice and perfect writing a selection of film-based genres including reviews, critical essays, and personal responses. This particular course iteration will focus on adaptation. To put it another way, what does it mean to change a particular work from one genre to another? What does “fidelity” mean in adaption? To whom/what must the filmmaker be “faithful”? Is “fidelity” or faithfulness to the original desirable? To this end, we will read one or two popular works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and examine their cinematic transformations.
Writing about Film
Nicholas Laudadio
TR 2:00-3:15
MO 201
In this course we will begin with the basics of film language/terminology and then move through several different genres of filmwriting: reviews and contextual/critical essays. We will discuss the mechanics of and practice writing in most of these formats, but there will be a particular focus on the critical/analytical essay and film review. While much of this class concerns itself with film studies and history, it is at heart (and in practice) a writing course, and therefore a writing intensive course.
319-001
Document Design
Colleen Reilly
TR 11:00-12:15
MO 204
This course involves students in document design as a contextual and rhetorically situated process. Building on skills learned in ENG 204, students will learn approaches to document design that involve research into situated contexts of use and audience-document interactions. Students will analyze the design of existing texts and graphics and produce appealing and effective print and electronic texts and graphics for a variety of purposes, contexts, and audiences. Projects include developing business cards, logos, product labels, and instructions.
321-001 TR 8:00-9:15 MO 104
321-002 TR 11:00-12:15 MO 201
Structure of English Language
Daniel Noland
In this course you will become an expert in themetalanguage of the structures of English, particularly the syntactic ones. You have been a master of most of those structures since early childhood; we need to concentrate on making this knowledge conscious, giving you the ability to describe what you know, and making predictions based on that knowledge. In addition, some of the structures that we deal with in here may be new to you. This deeper understanding of your language should carry over into several related areas, and learning how to apply syntax to your own interests is one of your responsibilities. You need no special linguistic training to succeed. Text: Börjars and Burridge, Introducing English Grammar. 2nd ed.
323-001
History of English Language
Daniel Noland
W 3:30-6:15
MO 202
This course, an introduction to the history of the English language, will focus on the internal (sounds and structures tures) and external (social, political and military) manifestations of that history. Our first task is to acquire the abilities necessary to describe and discuss English. This class will demand a great deal of you in time, energy and intellectual curiosity. In return, you'll see English in a new light. This subject is my favorite and is surprisingly fun to study. Text: Mitchell, A Guide to Old English.
Shakespeare: Early Play/Poems
Lewis Walker
TR 8:00-9:15
MO 207
This course covers seven plays chosen from those written in the first part of Shakespeare’s career to represent the major genres of tragedy (Romeo and Juliet), history (Richard II, Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2), and comedy (A Midsummer Night’s Dream); and selected sonnets. We will give attention to matters like cultural context, gender, genre, and performance. Reading quizzes, informal response papers, oral presentation, critical paper of 2000 words, midterm and final exams. Text: Bevington, ed., The Complete Works of Shakespeare, 7th ed.
335-001
Restoration and 18th Century Literature
Alex Porco
MWF 9:00-9:50
MO 210
The long eighteenth century (1660-1800) is an especially tumultuous period in English literary history. Political intrigue and conspiracies, the Great Plague and Great Fire of London, advancements in philosophy and science, exploratory voyages into Asia and Africa, the re-opening of theatres, the rise of newspapers and periodicals, and vigorous public debate over the roles of women in the public and private spheres— all of this is reflected in the diverse creative, critical, and curatorial practices of the period. On a lighter note, the poetry and prose of the long eighteenth century are also filled with comedic wit, irreverence, scatology, and transgressive aesthetics/ethics. So, be sure to bring along a good sense of humor. Emphasis will be placed on literary and popular forms: the novel, satire, travelogue, epistle, heroic couplet, dictionary, biography, ballad opera, and print journalism.
Potential readings include Behn’s Oroonoko, Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, Wycherley’s The Country Wife, and Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters, as well as poetry by Dryden, Pope, Johnson, and Gray. Participation during class discussions is essential to success in the class.
336-001
British Romanticism
Katherine Montwieler
TR 9:30-10:45
MO 201
The French Revolution shook Europe in 1789, and only a few miles away, the citizens of Great Britain nervously watched, debated, championed, and condemned the actions of their sister nation. Throughout the dawn of the nineteenth century, politicians and writers debated the rights of men, the rights of women, slavery, and ever-expanding urbanization and industrialism in pamphlets, poetry, and novels. In this class, we’ll be reading some wonderful (and in many cases, newly rediscovered) poems, novels, and essays that deal with—either explicitly or implicitly—the effects of the various social revolutions that rocked the world during this tumultuous period of literary history. We’ll explore the literature in the context of its historical moment as we attempt to untangle the connection between Romanticism and Revolution.
341-001
Postcolonial and Third World Literature
Cara Cilano
TR 12:30-1:45
MO 104
Welcome to the world beyond your world. ENG 341 provides students with the unique opportunity to study contemporary literature about places and by writers outside the US, while it also serves as an introduction to a new conceptual universe. Our course will approach this broad field of interdisciplinary inquiry thematically. We’ll start by exploring resistance through postcolonial manifestos of many varieties. From there, we’ll look at how these literatures narrate moments of historical rupture, question the possibilities of representation, and enact a claiming of place, literarily and literally. Through their sustained engagement in this course, students will recognize how literatures from around the world
develop in relation to historical, cultural, and political developments. Further, students will be able to describe how significant historical events shape literary production and interpretation. Given the survey nature of the course, students will accumulate an array of cultural and historical references through which to understand more generalized concepts and questions. From this array of references, students will be able to consider the implications of an issue in a specific context and in reference to particular literary texts. Students will develop the ability to understand their own cultural realities in relation to the literatures studied in the course. Students will also recognize how the impulse to label or categorize reflects a need to force an artificial cultural certainty.
American Romanticism
Mark Boren
W 3:30-6:15
MO 106
This course will study American Romanticism in literature, focusing on key texts of the genre and, specifically, those things traditionally associated with the field--such as individuality, originality, imagination, the sublime, the gothic--but we will also look closely at other things taking place in those works—specifically, constructions of gender and aesthetics
353-001
Southern American Literature
Marlon Moore
MW 2:00-3:15
MO 101
We will examine the techniques which help define and distinguish the Southern Gothic literary tradition. Students will learn to appreciate how southern writers engage various “divides” through characterization, metaphor, and imagery; such as: the divide of the self; the divide of our country into North and South; the divide between male and female; the divide between racial/ethnic groups; and the divide between good and evil. Requirements: weekly analytical essays, lead discussion as part of assigned group of facilitators, and a research-based term paper. Texts will include Carson McCullers, Ballad of the Sad Café; Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Randall Kenan, A Visitation of Spirits; and readings from the instructor’s coursepack which is available at the UNCW Bookstore.
355-001
Ethnic Literature of United States
Barbara Waxman
TR 11:00-12:15
MO 101
America is a nation of many cultural groups, and authors from these groups contribute significantly to our literary history. These authors depict the border crossings from one culture and language into another and examine the American Dream from many different angles. Books by “hyphenated Americans” define in new ways what it means to be American. Readings include such works as Toni Morrison’s A Mercy (African American), Gish Jen’s World and Town (Chinese American), Nikky Finney’s Head Off & Split: Poems (African American), Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms or People of the Whale (Chickasaw Indian) , Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank (Jewish American), Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Dominican American), Rivera’s Marisol and Other Plays (Puerto Rican), and Cristina Garcia’s The Lady Matador’s Hotel (Cuban American). We discuss these books with the guidance of cultural theorists, new historicists, and feminist theorists. Assignments include 2- page responses, one brief research essay, one artifact project, a take-home midterm, and a final exam. Together we experience the diverse voices and the many faces of America through these examples of award-winning ethnic American literature.
357-001
African American Literature to 1945
Marlon Moore
MW 3:30-4:45
MO 101
This course provides an advanced survey of literature by Americans from the African Diaspora from its antebellum beginnings to the end of WWII. It covers a wide variety of works from major authors, and provides a model for approaching literature from a variety of literary and socio-cultural perspectives. Writers will most likely include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Nella Larsen, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright. Requirements: weekly response essays, discussion leadership on two occasions, midterm exam, and a research-based term paper. Text includes: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Trials of Phillis Wheatley and Gates and McKay, Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 2nd ed.
Studies in Short Fiction
John Clifford
TR 12:30-1:45
MO 210
A discussion oriented class focused on an analysis of short fiction written since 1945. We begin with an anthology of classic American stories by such masters as Cheever, Ellison, Updike, Carver, Le Guin and Oates. In the second half we will read O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and the O’Henry Prize Stories from 2012. Two short papers and two exams.
380-001
Literature for Children
Meghan Sweeney
MW 3:30-4:45
MO 201
In this course, we will become acquainted/reacquainted with a variety of children¹s literature of different genres. By engaging with topics such as family strife, playfulness, and the extraordinary, we will scrutinize not only our notions of a literature for children but also our (often romanticized) notions of what it means to be a child. While the course can be useful for educators, it is intended for all those who are interested in both a rigorous examination of literature and the cultures of childhood.
Since this is an upper-level English course, writing proficiency and the ability to think critically are expected.
381-001 MWF 11:00-11:50
381-002 MWF 12:00-12:50
Literature for Young Adults
Katie Peel
MO 106
In June 2011, The Wall Street Journal published an article that argued that children’s and young adult literature was “too dark.” This set off a firestorm of debates in Young Adult literature, education, library, and parenting circles. Our course this semester will participate in this conversation as we explore constructions of both young adult literature and the young adult. We will look at the history of young adult literature from the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conduct books, to the post-war phenomenon of the American teenager, to current young adult literature and authors. We will consider issues of genre, publication, marketing, and, of course, censorship. We will discuss the goals of young adult literature, especially when it comes to identity formation, and will pay special attention to how young adult literature handles issues of “otherness,” particularly in depictions of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, and age. This semester we will focus on the various boundaries against which young adult literature pushes, and consider content from the tame to the taboo.
Ways of Teaching Literature
Michelle Manning
TR 8:00-9:15
MO 106
The “I Don’t Like English” Literature Class: Although primarily designed for English Education majors who are working towards teacher licensure K-12, this class is open to all students interested in analyzing how literature is taught. Using an intertextual or “transactional” pedagogical approach to the study of literature, this course seeks strategies to engage even the most reluctant readers in the class by using dark themes as a way to entice resistant readers, especially male students who studies show lag significantly behind female readers. In addition to popular texts, students read challenged, banned or censored selections from all levels (elementary to high school) to reflect on their own individual responses and experiences to literature, to examine the underlying pedagogy of best practices, and then to create lessons incorporating those theories. We will learn the basics of connecting classics to contemporary texts, using more relatable, engaging, and even simpler texts to lead students to a deeper understanding of a more difficult text. By making connections to past texts they have encountered, examining strategies that past teachers have used, and connecting to others in their course community, students will learn how to use innovative and age-appropriate teaching methods.
384-001
Reading Popular Culture
Nicholas Laudadio
TR 3:30-4:45
MO 201
This course will examine the theories and practices involved in critiquing popular culture as an aesthetic and economic phenomenon. Paying attention to the popular in culture and the culture of the popular, we will be exploring a wide range of texts and media--short films, music, advertisements, and television--in an attempt to understand cultural texts as an integral part of our modern intellectual landscape. Please note that we will spend no small amount of time and effort working with the critical and cultural theory that must accompany any focused, scholarly discussion of culture.
387-001 TR 9:30-10:45
387-002 TR 12:30-1:45
History of Literary Criticism and Theory
Janet Ellerby
MO 106
In 1821, when Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” he impressed on his readers the crucial role of the arts in an ethical world. In this course, we will take up Shelley’s ideas as well as those of Plato, Aristotle, Wollstonecraft, Marx, Nietzsche, and Derrida, to name a few. We will delve into issues such as truth, power, identity, creativity, and aesthetics. We will ask our theorists and ourselves, what is the purpose of literature? What is the role of the poet/writer in creating a more ethical world? Why is critical awareness important equipment for living? Taking our cue from theorists like Plato and Emerson, who foreground conversation as the most vital approach to learning, we will make discussion the key mode for this course. Text: The Critical Tradition, 3rd edition. Work to include: Informal responses, 2 essay tests, 1 formal paper.
388-001
Rhetorical Theory to 1900
Anthony Atkins
MW 2:00-3:15
MO 201
English 388: Rhetorical Theory to 1900 will offer a history of rhetorical theory from Tisias and Corax through the 19th century rhetoric of George Campbell, Hugh Blair, and Richard Whatley. We will study the nature of rhetoric for a number of classical figures like Aristotle, Plato, Isocrates, the Sophists, Cicero, and Quintilian. Students will gain experience understanding and thinking critically about rhetorical theory that is active, practical, and useful in everyday situations. Students will explore how classical rhetoric operates in today’s world amidst the technological revolution. Students will be asked to read primary and secondary research on rhetorical theory. Students will be expected to conduct and write research on various concepts, terms, people, and situations that involve the study and practice of rhetoric. Students will also gain experience working with communication technologies. Visit the bookstore for required texts.
390-001
Studies in Literature: Queer Narrative
Katie Peel
MWF 9:00-9:50
MO 106
In this course we will look at literary representations of queer desire and identity, including same-sex desire and non-normative gender identities. We will consider how cultural understanding shapes literary production, evident, for example, in the relationship between the work of the nineteenth-century sexologists and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, as well as how texts provoke social debate. Our focus will be on the narrative production of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer identities and communities, the application of queer theory, and the production of queer narrative. While we will begin with a brief historical survey, most of our readings will be contemporary, and we will spend a significant amount of time on the explosion of queer literature in the young adult literary genre.
Studies in Literature: Counter Cultural Voices in 60’s America
Michael Wentworth
MWF 1:00-1:50
MO 207
Let’s play a little game called “Name that decade.” Ready? Based on the following the clues, “Name that decade.”
Janis, Jimi, Jerry, Lenny, Woodstock, Altamont, the Monterey Pop Festival, the “Summer of Love,” flower children, acid trips, be-in’s, sit-in’s, teach-ins, “Furthur,” “Freedom Riders,” the “Great Society,” the Gemini Program, the Clean Air Act, the Gulf of Tonkin, SDS, FSM, SCLC, CORE, WITCH, AIM, hippies, yippies, “Black Power,” the Black Panthers, the Diggers, Silent Spring, The Feminine Mystique, Easy Rider, Little Big Man, The Graduate, Medium Cool, Bonnie and Clyde, I Am Curious Yellow, Hair
Or how about the following notable quotations:
“If it feels good, do it.”
“Tune in, turn on, drop out.”
”Make love. Not war.”
“End it! And end it now!”
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
“Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last.”
“Now come on all of you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
Got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
Put down your books pick up your gun
Gonna have a whole lot of fun.”
“Hey, Hey, LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?”
Or to provide an historical frame of reference, at the outset of the decade Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson won the national election over Republicans Richard M. Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and, perhaps even more significantly, Elvis Presley completed his army tour of duty in Germany. By the end of the decade, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X had been assassinated, Dwight D. Eisenhower (one of the most notable icons of the previous decade) had died of natural causes, the U.S. was embroiled in the Vietnam War, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization was established under the leadership of Yasser Arafat. Well, it probably didn’t take you long “to catch on.” We’re talking, of course, about the “60’s” in America, a decade you very well may have lived through yourself or heard about second hand from your parents and possibly even your grandparents. While the whole notion of “decades” is admittedly arbitrary and historically naïve, still certain decades in American life over the past century are foregrounded by key developments on the national scene or by a distinctive zeitgeist: “the roaring 20’s”; the Depression years (1930s); the World War II years (l940s); the 50s; and the focus of our course, the 1960s. Compared to the frequent, though oversimplified, characterization of the 50s as a decade of unprecedented prosperity and the accompanying materialistic pursuit of the “good life,” the 60s were marked by radical turbulence and social upheaval that manifested it- self in a broad spectrum of revolutionary movements, ranging from the Civil Rights Movement and the women’s movement—both of which were actually grounded in the 50s—to the anti-war movement, the free speech movement, the Black Arts movement, and the environmental movement. It would, of course, be impossible to amply cover all of the major social, political, and cultural aspects of the 60s over a fifteen-week period. As a result, “this time out” our course will focus on the development of a distinctive counterculture in the 60s and such ancillary topics as rock ‘n’ roll, poster art, underground “comix,” psychedelics, the “summer of love,” the sexual revolution, and alternative social experiments. I hope to make this class as casual and informal as possible. While I will provide a sense of guidance and structure, what matters most in the course is your thoughtful and meaningful interaction with and response to the assigned readings. The course will thus be slanted more toward informal discussion than formal lectures. To facilitate such discussion, I would emphasize the importance of reading critically; if you haven’t already developed the habit, learn to read with a pencil or pen—underlining key points/passages, raising questions, noting personal insights and perceptions, identifying illuminating cross-references with other texts, the current arena of local, national, and international affairs, other academic courses you have taken, and, as relevant, your own personal history.
“When the going gets weird, the weirdturn pro.”
--Hunter S. Thompson
“The answer is never the answer. The need for mystery is always greater than the need for answers.”
--Ken Kesey
“When you don’t know where you’re going, you have to stick together just in case someone gets there.”
--Ken Kesey
Text includes: Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Kotzwinkle, The Fan Man; Ed McClanahan, ed., Spit in the Ocean: All about Kesey; Miles, Hippie; Ohle, Roger Martin, and Susan Brosseau, eds., Cows Are Freaky When They Look at You: An Oral History of the Kaw Valley Hemp Pickers; Roskind, Memoirs of an Ex-Hippie; Hunter Thompson, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream; Hunter Thompson,Gonzo Papers, volume 1: The Great Shark Hunt—Strange Tales from a Strange Time; Tom Wolfe, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
“Always stay in your own movie.”
--Ken Kesey
495-001
Senior Seminar: Hemingway, the Writer and the Myth
Keith Newlin
TR 12:30-1:45
MO 202
This seminar, intended as the capstone experience for English majors in literature studies, will examine the major works of Ernest Hemingway, his aesthetic, his milieu, and the myths that have arisen concerning him. In addition to a generous sampling of his short fiction and major novels, we will read a biography and articles about his works and times. Texts: Complete Short Stories; The Sun Also Rises; A Moveable Feast; A Farewell to Arms; To Have and Have Not; For Whom the Bell Tolls; The Old Man and the Sea.
495-002
Senior Seminar: Gossip and Conspiracies
Cara Cilano
TR 5:00-6:15
MO 207
TMZ. JFK. Gossip Girl. The DaVinciCode. The XFiles.These names and titles are shorthand for this course's two primary topics: gossip and conspiracies.
Commonly viewed as the province of bored housewivesand complete crackpots, gossip and conspiracies appear frivolous at first glance. A closer examination reveals, however, how these two discourses are actually deeply collaborative and invested in the power of narrative embellishment. As they appear in popular culture and fictive genres, gossip and conspiracies do important work to bind groups together, to set values and priorities, and/or to challenge established norms. These two forms of discourse also locate their participants in a broader field of power relations, and such locations can seem to endow participants with a great deal of agency or none at all. At the same time, both gossip and conspiracies act as metaphors for our own interpretive approaches. In this class, we'll explore what it means to read with an inquiring or suspicious mind (cue Elvis).
Students will explore popular examples of gossip and conspiracies, such as those listed above, alongside literary and filmic representations, including Kamila Shamsie's Broken Verses, Stephen Gaghan's Syriana, and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. Students can also expect to participate constantly as both panelists and moderators, and to write frequently. As a capstone experience, this course will be the culmination of students' undergraduate careers as English majors and, thus, will present students with the opportunity to draw fromtheiraccumulated experienceswith literature, theoretical insights, and research methodologies.
496-001
Senior Seminar: ‘Women in the History of Rhetoric’
Sarah Hallenbeck
MWF 10:00-10:50
MO 202
From Aristotle to Ramus to Nietzsche and beyond, rhetoric’s history has largely been peopled by men. Or has it? In this course we’ll consider recent efforts to recover the rhetorical practice and theory of women from ancient times to the present—an endeavor that has led to a virtual reconsideration of what practices constitute “rhetoric” and “persuasion” in the first place. We’ll ask: what strategies have women historically used to ensure their voices are heard, despite their limited power in the public sphere? What sorts of rhetorical theory have they produced, and what theory can be gleaned from their practices? To what extent—and under what circumstances--does one’s gender matter at all to how one speaks and what one says?
In addressing these questions, we’ll look at examples of women’s efforts to speak out on issues ranging from education to suffrage to sexuality. Additionally, we’ll read some contemporary scholarship by feminist rhetorical historiographers who seek to recover these voices. Students will complete several short response papers and will author a conference-length (8-10 page) research paper in which they draw from archival sources to undertake a recovery project of their own. Finally, they will present their research in class and have the option of proposing to present at the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association (SEWSA) conference taking place here at UNCW in April.
496-002
Senior Seminar: Writing and Video Games
Jeremy Tirrell
TR 9:30-10:45
MO 204
Video gaming has assumed a significant position in contemporary culture, spreading into multiple demographic groups and generating sales revenues that rival those of the film industry. No longer the exclusive province of expert players, gaming has become a mainstream activity appearing in casual forms such as Wii Fit, iPhone apps, and Facebook games. This Senior Seminar explores professional and scholarly writing tasks invested in video gaming. It asks students to analyze and create works including journalistic reviews, technical instructions, promotional materials, and researched critical works in print and multimedia formats. Students will practice core rhetorical concepts including audience analysis, document design, and usability. Students need not be experienced gamers to participate in this course—only intellectually curious and willing to share their unique perspectives on this burgeoning cultural medium.
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