Graduate Courses, Spring 2005

English 509: Sociolinguistics and the Teaching of Writing
Professor Donald McCrary
Thursdays
6:10 pm to 8:00 pm

This course examines the social foundation of language and the linguistic foundation of social life. More specifically, the course explores how language and society intersect to construct and, in many ways, control both individual and group identity. The relationship between language and society has relevance to the teaching of writing in that both teachers and students possess socially constructed knowledge of language that undergirds their understanding of writing competence. The course explores how sociolinguistic constructions such as class, race, gender, academic discourse, and education might impact upon writing performance. The course analyzes sociolinguistic theory and practice, including the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Shirley Brice Heath, Lisa Delpit, David Bartholomae, Claude Steele, and Sandra Lipsitz Bem.

English 520: Nonfiction Writing Workshop
Professor Harriet Malinowitz
Wednesdays
4:10 pm to 6:00 pm

This course will focus on writing the personal essay. The first few weeks will be devoted to reading personal essays by established authors and analyzing their form, their style, the rhetorical strategies they employ, and their use of language. Then we will move on to a workshop format in which students' essays are read and discussed in detail. Each student will be expected to produce two developed 10-15 page personal essays (or one longer piece) by the end of the term. Readings will include works by Phillip Lopate, George Orwell, Mary McCarthy, James Baldwin, Vivian Gornick, Patricia Williams, Adrienne Rich, Virginia Woolf, Edward Said, Ellen Willis, Gayle Pemberton, Richard Rodriguez, and others.

English 523: Fiction Writing Workshop
Professor John High
Tuesdays
6:10 pm to 8:30 pm

During the semester we will explore improvisational techniques of writing in order to scrape beneath the veneer of fictional form and to more fully engage the texts that matter in our lives & stories. What is the illusion of form, and how do characters via our self-imaginings masquerade behind the screens of fiction? How do techniques of rupture & interruption expose a deeper awareness of craft & content? We will work with automatic writing, detective scripts, and fictional autobiographies, experimenting as well with exercises in which we play with fictional diaries and epistles. We will also explore writing in the form of short-shorts, found artifacts, and postcard stories. As the semester progresses we will dovetail into the illusion of film as text, writing mini-paper-movies for our "detective potboilers" and emerging characters. Each week will include group discussion concerning the intentions of our individual writing, in-class writing games and informal critiquing of our explorations with improvisational forms. Andrei Tarkovsky's " Sculpting In Time," John Berger's "Ways Of Seeing," and selected writings of Simone Weil will be among the course reading, and there will be home viewing of films to be announced. The goal of the course includes completing a portfolio of our work, and a revised text for a class anthology, group reading & party.

English525: Playwriting Workshop
Professor Dennis Moritz
Wednesdays
6:10 pm to 8:30 pm

Art originates in the subjective, a personal take. Each artist approaches art differently, making a voice or style, be it AR Gurney, Sam Shepherd, Ntosake Shange, or Susan Lori Parks. Miles Davis said, "It is the style, I only listen to the style." Through a series of exercises and readings we will work to catch our first impulses and intuitive responses as we write, craft and structure, and proceed from there. Since these are performance or theater works, we will emphasize words as spoken or acted. Writings will be experienced out loud and up on their feet. The course will emphasize process and expect product.

Dennis Moritz has written over thirty theater pieces that have received professional productions. Venues in New York City include the Joseph Papp Public Theater (New Works Project), BACA Downtown, the Nuyorican Poets Café, St. Marks Poetry Project and HERE Center for Contemporary Arts. Venues in Philadelphia include The Painted Bride Arts Center, Freedom Theater, MTI, Walnut Street Theater, Theatre Double and Theater Center Philadelphia. His play, "Just the Boys" was published by Scribners in Action: the Nuyorican Poets Theater Festival. His book Something to Hold On To (Nine Theater Pieces) was published by United Artists Books. Dennis was an artistic director and resident playwright of Theatre Double Repertory Company for seven years. His works have been supported by many granting agencies. He has been a long time member of the New Works Project at BACA Downtown and the Joseph Papp Public Theater. Dennis was a founding member of the Theatre Double Children's Repertory Company, writing many pieces performed by the ensemble.

English 571: The Eighteenth-Century English Novel
Professor Srividhya Swaminathan
Mondays
4:10 pm to 6:00 pm

Politics, satire, romance, and violence--the eighteenth century novel has it all. Authors experimented with literary form, taboo subjects, and character construction. The central question developed in this course will be: How did the novel emerge as the dominant literary form in eighteenth-century Britain? Beginning with Aphra Behn's controversial novella,Oroonoko, students will trace the various types of novels to gain popularity. This class will cover a bestseller list like no other! Authors include Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Fanny Burney, Henry Fielding, and Jane Austen. This course will cover the movement from romance to epistolary to bildungsroman to gothic traditions. Research requirements for the course include a term paper, an in-class presentation, and an annotated bibliography. Students will also have the opportunity to exercise creative writing talents in developing and constructing assignments.

English 624: African American Short Fiction
Professor Louis Parascandola
Wednesdays
6:10 pm to 8:00 pm

This course will examine twentieth century masterpieces of African American short fiction. We will begin with Harlem Renaissance authors Zora Neale Hurston and Claude McKay, work through key figures including Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Alice Walker, and end with up-and-coming talents like Z.Z. Packer. Author Randall Kenan (Let the Dead Bury Their Dead) will be visiting during one class period to read and discuss his work.

English 700: Practicum in Teaching Composition
Professor Xiao-Ming Li
Thursdays
4:10 pm to 6:00 pm

This class was cancelled and did not run.

Intended as a source of support and forum for discussion for novice writing instructors, this course will focus on practical approaches to everyday issues in the classroom. The primary texts for this course will be two textbooks and a collection of student papers, supplemented by articles written by so-called "experts." The class is to be organized around three major components in the teaching of writing: classroom discussions and exercises, writing assignments, and responding to students' writing. Each participant will assemble a portfolio that consists of a syllabus, two writing assignments, two classroom exercises, and one student profile. The portfolio is due at the end of the semester, but will be examined and swapped with your peers in the class throughout the semester.

English 707: Methods of Research and Criticism
Professor Sealy Gilles
Mondays
6:10 pm to 8:00 pm

This course has two goals: to introduce students to the pleasures and challenges of reading theoretically, and to train students in research methods appropriate for graduate level work. We will be concentrating on three critical approaches: gender theory, new historicism, and post-colonialism. Students will be asked to apply these theories to two primary texts, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko (1688) and James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), as well as poetry selections from across the literary spectrum. As we test abstract critical theories against these fascinating and problematic novels, each student will develop an individual research project, including a proposal, an annotated bibliography based on a theoretical point of view, and a research essay. As individual projects develop, students will receive coaching in library skills, research, documentation, and presentations.