Communication Courses | English Courses

COMMUNICATION COURSES

COMM 104: Fundamentals of Oral Communication
Instructor: Dan Tinianow
Course Description:
Public speaking is an essential skill in almost any pursuit in life. It is also one of the most commonly occurring fears. The fundamental skills of public speaking are preparation and practice. The course assignments will enable you to develop as a skilled public speaker.
Required Text:
Lucas, Stephen E. The Art of Public Speaking. 9th Ed.  ISBN: 13 9780073228655

COMM 226: Mass Media in Society
Instructor: Dan Tinianow
Course Description:
The media are present in every aspect of our lives and impact almost every part of our consciousness. This course will prepare you to discuss media and their role in society from an informed base.
Required Text:
Media & Culture.    ISBN: 13-978-0312-455866

COMM 238: Intro to Writing for Print Media
Instructor: Christine Law
Course Description:
An introductory course to journalism and other print media. Students gather news and write news stories; analyze coverage of national events; and write in other print media genres. An emphasis is placed on style,
biases, ethics, and diversity in sources. Also listed as ENGL 238.
Required Texts:
Rich, Carole. Writing and Reporting News: A Coaching Method. 5th Ed.
Suggested Texts:
The Associated Press Stylebook, Pocket Dictionary

COMM 244: Interpersonal Communication
Instructor: Christine Law
Course Description:
An introductory course that aims to increase the knowledge, skills, and confidence of students when they communicate in diverse interpersonal situations. Investigates elements important for effective communication in situations such as interviews, public speaking, social conversation, and small groups.
Required Texts:
Canary, D. Cody, M. and Manusov, V. Interpersonal Communication                            
Carnegie, Dale. Quick & Easy Way to Effective Speaking

COMM 264B: Living in the Information Age
Instructor: Dan Tinianow
Course Description:
Technology is meaningless without considering its human impact. This course will explore how communication technology impacts individuals, society and culture. What does it mean to the individual and to society to be living in the information age?
Required Texts:
Human Communication on the Internet. ISBN: 0205360319
Bucy, E. Page. Living in the Information Age: A New Media Reader (with InfoTrac®), 2nd Ed. ISBN: 10: 0534633404
Gauntlett, David. Web.Studies. ISBN: 0340814721

COMM 288: Communication Theory I
Instructor: Mary Wilson
Course Description:
An introductory survey of fundamental content in communication. The focus is on the practical usefulness of a social scientific approach to the study of communication (description, explanation, prediction, and application).
Required Text:
Griffin, Em. (2003). A First Look at Communication Theory. 6th Ed. McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 0073010189

COMM 344: Gender and Communication
Instructor: Mary Wilson
Course Description:
This course focuses on the interactive relationships between gender and communication in contemporary American society. Your experiences, insights, questions, and ideas are a key part of this course. We’ll consider not only what is in terms of gender roles, but also what might be and how we, as change agents, may act to improve our individual and collective lives.
Required Text:
Ivy, Diana and Backlund, Philip. (2004). GenderSpeak: Personal effectiveness in gender communication. 3rd ed. NY. McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 0072483938

COMM 487A: Classical Rhetoric and Criticism
Instructor: TBA
Course Description:
The disciples of classical rhetoric, Aristotle, Plato, and Cicero, drew a map of the contours and connections of human persuasion and communication that we still navigate by today. This course will begin by examining the rhetorical and critical theories of the ancient world and then move forward through time to trace how those foundational concepts impacted the development of persuasive techniques up to the present day. Also listed as ENGL 487A.
Required Texts:
Benson and Prosser. Readings in Classical Rhetoric.
Dues and Brown. Boxing Plato’s Shadow.
Safire, William. Lend Me Your Ears (updated and expanded edition).

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ENGLISH COURSES

ENGL 124: Freshman Seminar
Instructor: Robert Dunn
Course Description:
Gives the well-prepared student an opportunity to read and evaluate more challenging material and write more sophisticated papers than is characteristic of those written for the College Writing sequence. Admission is by invitation based on performance on a placement test and the consent of the instructor. A grade of B or better enables the student to meet the entire College Writing requirement in one quarter.
Required Texts:
Salinger, J.D. Franny and Zooey.
Anonymous. Way of a Pilgrim.
At least one additional book to be selected.

ENGL 150H: Adventures in Literature: Heroes
Instructor: Lora Geriguis
Course Description:
From Beowulf, who dared to battle the monster Grendel empty-handed, to Ralph, who faced his savage enemies unarmed on a island set aflame, heroes have inspired human creativity from the beginning of time up to the present day. This course will examine various works of English and American literature that alternatively celebrate, contemplate, and castigate heroes as personifying excellence and exceptionality while battling the worst in human nature.
Required Texts:
Beowulf, “Dream of the Rood”, Judith, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pilgrim’s Progress, Oroonoko, Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative, The Legend of Sleepy Hallow, and Lord of the Flies.

English 211: Survey of British Literature II, 1600-1800
Instructor: Lora Geriguis
Course Description:
Greedy heirs, an innocent Eve, impatient lovers, beset maidens, and enslaved princes all populate English literature of the 17th and 18th centuries. This course will introduce students to the major works, authors, and themes of the late Renaissance, Restoration, and Enlightenment periods. We will be nibbling poems, digesting narratives, gulping a novel, and staging classroom performances of scenes from a play. In the process we will trace how the English transformed superstitions into science and posed themselves to become the superpower of their day.
Required Texts:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature (volume 1)
Richardson, Samuel. Pamela.

ENGL 238: Intro to Writing for Print Media
Instructor: Christine Law
Course Description:
An introductory course to journalism and other print media. Students gather news and write news stories; analyze coverage of national events; and write in other print media genres. An emphasis is placed on style, biases, ethics, and diversity in sources. Also listed as COMM 238.
Required Texts:
Rich, Carole. Writing and Reporting News: A Coaching Method. 5th Ed.
Suggested Texts:
The Associated Press Stylebook, Pocket Dictionary

ENGL 246: Literary Forms and Ideas/Introduction to Acting
Instructor: Marilynn Loveless
Course Description:
Fundamental acting preparation, including performance exercises, breathing and diction techniques, text interpretation and scene rehearsal. Open to freshman students with permission of the instructor.
Required Texts:
To be announced.

ENGL 405D/505D: Scriptwriting
Instructor: Marilynn Loveless
Course Description:
Advanced theoretical and practical application of scriptwriting techniques.
Required Texts:
To be announced.

ENGL 410D/510D: Gender Wars in English Poetry of the 17th & 18th Century
Instructor: Lora Geriguis
Course Description:
“Nothing so true as what you once let fall,/’Most Women have no Characters as all’”--Alexander Pope, 1735. English poetry of the early modern period was the battlefield for a war fought between the sexes. On one side, male poets press women to abandon the very modesty with which men define them. On the other side, female poets assert their dissatisfaction with the pedestals men first set them on and then try to pull them off of. We will examine the work of both male and female poets of the 17th and 18th century to see how it reflects the social and economic changes which mark this period of English literary history.
Required Texts:
Rumrich and Chaplin. Seventeenth-Century British Poetry: A Norton Critical Edition.
Fairer and Gerrard. Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology.

ENGL 415B/515B – Modern Children’s Literature
Instructor: Winona Howe
Course Description:
This class is designed to introduce students to a wide range of literature written for children. Emphasis will be placed on reading and evaluating modern children’s books (pre-school to reading level 5) through investigation of significant authors and works, diverse genres, problem areas, literary merit, etc.
Required Texts:
Alexander, Lloyd. The Book of Three. ISBN: 0805080481
Fleischman, Sid. Bandit’s Moon. ISBN: 0440415861
Giff, Patricia Reilly. Lily’s Crossing. ISBN: 0440414539
Giff, Patricia Reilly. Pictures of Hollis Woods. ISBN: 0439692393
Holt, Kimberly Willis. My Louisiana Sky. ISBN: 0440415705
Konigsburg, E.L. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. ISBN: 0689711816
Taylor, Mildred. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. ISBN: 0142401129
Tunnell, Michael and James S. Jacob. Children’s Literature, Briefly. 4th Ed. ISBN: 0131734903
Whelan, Gloria. The Indian School. ISBN: 0064420566

ENGL 446Q/546Q: Major Author, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Instructor: Melissa Brotton
Course Description:
The life and poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning will be examined with attention to her early years in a large family, her poetic development and career, her marriage and subsequent motherhood as they relate to her poetry. Who and what influenced her poetry, and how has her poetry, in turn, influenced others? Major poems, Sonnets from the Portuguese, Aurora Leigh, and Casa Guidi Windows will be viewed using various critical perspectives. EBB’s success as an author of literary merit contradicted and yet reproved Victorian sentiments, and her precocious knowledge of classical languages and literature has both fascinated and confounded scholars of her time as well as ours.
Required Texts:
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. San Diego: Wordsworth, 1998.
Donaldson, Sandra M., ed. Critical Essays on Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1999.
Reynolds, Margaret, ed. Aurora Leigh: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. New York: Norton, 1995.
Mermin, Dorothy. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: The Origins of a New Poetry. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1989.

ENGL 285/485: Colloquium
Instructors: TBA
Course Description:
Discussion of issues pertinent to the discipline and with a goal of intellectual engagement. No purchased text is required.

ENGL 487A/587A: Classical Rhetoric and Criticism
Instructor: TBA
Course Description:
The disciples of classical rhetoric, Aristotle, Plato, and Cicero, drew a map of the contours and connections of human persuasion and communication that we still navigate by today. This course will begin by examining the rhetorical and critical theories of the ancient world and then move forward through time to trace how those foundational concepts impacted the development of persuasive techniques up to the present day. Also listed as COMM 487A.
Required Texts:
Benson and Prosser. Readings in Classical Rhetoric.
Dues and Brown. Boxing Plato’s Shadow.
Safire, William. Lend Me Your Ears (updated and expanded edition).

497 Drama Production
Instructor: Marilynn Loveless
Course Description:
Preparation and formal performance of a dramatic production through the English and Communication Department. Students may receive credit for a variety of tasks, including acting, writing, staging, etc. Open to freshman students with permission of the instructor.
Required Texts:
To be announced.

ENGL 605B – Seminar in the Gothic Novel
Instructor: Winona Howe
Course Description:
As a specific sub-genre, the Gothic novel flourished between 1764 and 1820—and has exerted a large influence on literature ever since. Closely allied with Romanticism, the Gothic investigates significant themes such as religion, nature, freedom, loyalty, and mysticism, although the seriousness of the inquiry has often been undercut by the motifs employed. We’ll start by reading the first Gothic novel and chart its development throughout the late18th and 19th centuries.
Required Texts:
Hogg, James. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. ISBN: 0141441534
Lewis, Matthew Gregory. The Monk. ISBN: 0195151364
Maturin, Charles. Melmoth the Wanderer. ISBN: 014044761X
Radcliffe, Ann. The Mysteries of Udolpho. ISBN: 0140437592
Stroker, Bram. Dracula. ISBN: 014143984X
Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto. ISBN: 0192834401

ENGL 606 – COMP THEORY AND PRACTICE
Instructor: Elissa Kido
Course Description:
Designed as both theoretical and practical, this course emphasizes major composition theorists and their research. Students explore writing as a process through frequent writing opportunities. Students analyze theory, research, grammar and writing experiences to discover principles for effective teaching.
Required Texts:
To be announced.

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