Course Descriptions - English

This composition course is for students who need a more intensive review of standard American written English (grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure) than English 1201 alone provides. The course also introduces the processes and strategies of essay writing from first thoughts through revision to the final, edited college-level essay.Prerequisite: College required assessment for placement OR prior successful completion of English 0900

This composition course is a supportive class to be taken concurrently with English 1200, College Writing I. It focuses on the processes and strategies of essay writing from first thoughts through revision to the final, edited college-level essay in a very small group and individualized setting. The course goal is success in the attached, co-requisite section of English 1200, College Writing I.

This course is a supportive class to be taken concurrently with English 1203, College Writing II. It focuses on the processes and strategies of argumentative research writing from exploration and curiosity to primary and secondary research to early drafts through extensive revisions and expansion to the final college-level term paper in a very individualized, small-group setting. It may also assist students who need a more intensive review of MLA format and citations (or other citation format, as appropriate) than English 1202 alone provides. The course goal is success in the attached, co-requisite section of English 1203, College Writing II.

This course offers students the opportunity to improve their writing skills and adapt them for professional communication. Students will focus on assessing purpose, audience, credibility, style, clarity/correctness, and format to determine appropriate approaches to a range of written and electronic communication, including memos, letters, employment documents, and proposals/reports.

This class provides extended practice in critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. Students will develop an effective writing process and work to achieve college-level competence in reading and responding to texts, visuals, events, and ideas in a variety of written formats, with an emphasis on the academic essay. Audience awareness, interpretation and analysis, logical reasoning, and persuasive and argumentative skills will be developed. MLA style documentation of primary sources will be included.

This class provides extended practice in critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. Students will develop an effective writing process and work to achieve college-level competence in reading and responding to texts, visuals, events, and ideas in a variety of written formats, with an emphasis on the academic essay. Audience awareness, interpretation and analysis, logical reasoning, and persuasive and argumentative skills will be developed. MLA style documentation of primary sources will be included.

This class focuses on the research process, textual analysis of primary and secondary sources, rhetorical strategies for argument and persuasion, and successful integration of sources into a longer academic paper utilizing MLA (or other, as appropriate) documentation format. The class may be disciplinary, interdisciplinary, or topical in content.

This class focuses on the research process, textual analysis of primary and secondary sources, rhetorical strategies for argument and persuasion, and successful integration of sources into a longer academic paper utilizing MLA (or other, as appropriate) documentation format. The class may be disciplinary, interdisciplinary, or topical in content.

This workshop offers students the opportunity to gain practical editorial experience by working on the college literary/arts magazine. As members of the editorial staff, students will solicit, select, and edit stories, essays and poems for publication. May be repeated for credit.

This course provides an introduction to writing in standard journalism modes, which may include news, features, editorials, sports, reviews, and blogs. Contemporary practices, issues, and ethics of the profession are also covered.

This class is designed for students who want to try creative writing, perhaps for the first time, and learn more about the creative process. No previous creative writing experience is necessary. Coursework will include reading, writing, and discussion of both student and professional work in at least three of the following genres: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction (or memoir), and drama. The focus of the class, students' creative work, will be presented and critiqued in a workshop environment.

This course further develops writing skills as applied to technical subjects for a specialized or lay audience. Credit does not apply to the 40 MnTC (Minnesota Transfer Curriculum) credits required in the A.A. (Associate of Arts).

This course will introduce students to the diverse body of literature known as graphic novels. While emphasis will be placed on works that are specifically considered graphic novels, it may also include the study of other comics-strips and books that have significantly contributed to the development of the form. Students can expect to be exposed not only to a wide range of graphic novel types, such as autobiography, journalism, history, humor, dramatic fiction, manga, and superheroes, but also to a deeper understanding of the methods of telling stories that are unique to comics.

This course is designed for people interested in more intensive work with creative writing projects. The emphasis could range from poetry to story or nonfiction writing.

This course will provide flexibility in offering an in-depth review of topics of immediate importance and topical interest. These topics will go beyond the introductory courses in examining specific aspects of the subject matter.

This course offers beginning instruction in the art of writing creative non-fiction, which includes the personal essay, literary journalism, and other hybrid forms, as well as memoir writing. Students will read and analyze the work of professional writers, explore a variety of techniques for discovering material and topics, and experience workshop peer review of their work.

This course offers beginning instruction in the art of writing fiction. Exploring techniques for generating material, engaging in writing exercises, and critically examining contemporary short fiction are important aspects of this course. Students will develop a portfolio of their writing and will critique others' work in a writing workshop environment.

Beginning instruction in the art of poetry. Exploring techniques for generating material, engaging in writing exercises both in and out of class, and discussing examples of contemporary poetry are important aspects of this class. Students will draft a collection of poems and critique others' work in a writing workshop environment.

This course is designed to introduce students to a variety of literatures and to means to credibly examine that literature. It thus includes literary terms, critical approaches and their application to literature.

This course introduces students to Japanese literature in translation. The reading may be organized either by historic periods or topically. The selected texts may come from various time periods. The reading may include oral traditions, mythology, spiritual texts, historical documents, poetry, song lyrics, theatrical plays, novels, short stories, or manga. This course may address issues of historical context, gender, class, and race as a way of understanding Japanese literature.

This course will introduce students to selected American writers of the twentieth and/or twenty-first centuries and their works. The course may be organized either by historic periods or topically.

In this course, students will have the pleasure of reading, discussing and evaluating children's literature ranging from the picture book to the young adult novel. Students will explore the history of children's literature, critical responses to it and its specific role for children and adults. Students will examine works from the genre that might include picture books, chapter books, folktales, fantasy, realistic fiction, historical fiction, poetry and nonfiction with an emphasis on how the genre and its themes have evolved over time, paying particular attention to how those themes address the role of children in society. This course will appeal to students, parents and educators.

This course focuses on the structure of language as well how its rules and applications affect written communication and authorial choices in professional and academic settings. The course further intends to create confidence in written and oral expression, to support students in business, graphic arts, paralegal, and other programs.

Hmong American Literature explores the works of Hmong writers as represented in the novel, nonfiction, short stories, poetry, drama/film, and Paj Ntaub (stories recorded in tapestry). To a more limited extent, characterizations of Hmong in works by non-Hmong authors may be considered, as well as relevant works by Laotian American and Asian American writers.

This course surveys literature that examines the relation between human beings and the natural world. The primary consideration of this course is how a literary idea of nature has been affected and effected by variations in culture, namely, changes in politics, economics, and technology that in diverse historical contexts have created conflicts between ecological and human interests. Ultimately, this study leads to considering how the green language created by the writers under study has contributed to an eco-critical ethic that allows examination of current ecological sensibilities and the language that represents them.

This course explores women as characters in and writers of literature, including fiction, non-fiction, drama and poetry. The course may also address issues of historical context, gender, class and race as a way of understanding women in literature.

Students will interpret world literature and film (either in translation or originally written in English) that present culturally diverse voices and viewpoints. Special attention will be given to colonial and postcolonial literatures that reflect the immigrant communities of Twin Cities college campuses, such as Egyptian, Finnish, Ethiopian, Hmong, Icelandic, Iranian, Korean, Liberian, Mexican, Norwegian, Russian, Somali, Swedish, and Vietnamese.

This course introduces the student to the writings of African-Americans from the colonial period to the present and explores the contributions of these writers to American culture, letters, and life. The course may be organized either by historic periods or topically.

This course introduces the students to North American Native American Literature. Readings may include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, songs, mythology, and film from traditional and contemporary authors. Special attention may be given to Native American authors with Minnesota connections, such as Louise Erdrich, David Treuer, and Susan Power.

This course examines American texts by and about workers and those concerned with workers. It focuses on how these texts portray work and the ways that work structures personal and social life, as well as on how these texts address and are formed by historical and political events that shape working conditions. The course may be organized historically or topically.

This course introduces students to the literature of utopias and dystopias, literary works about imaginary places, whose intention is to explore alternative models of political, cultural, and societal structures. Utopian/dystopian literatures seek to challenge existing ideas about governments, social communities, and constructions of human identity, but they also offer new, sometimes radical and transformative ideas regarding the reformation of existing human societies.

This course will introduce students to the genres, traditions, and themes that characterize Latinx literatures. Emphasis will be placed on the distinctions and similarities that have shaped the experiences and the cultural imagination among different Latinx communities in the U.S. and throughout Latin America. Genres include, but are not limited to, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and film.

This course will provide students with a chronological overview of American literature, including major writers, literary developments (e.g. sentimentalism, gothic fiction, romanticism, transcendentalism) and key historical and social contexts, from the pre-colonial period to 1860.

This course will provide students with a chronological overview of American literature, including major writers, literary movements (e.g. local color, realism, naturalism, modernism, and post-modernism) and social and historical contexts, from 1860 to the present.

Students will be introduced to the fundamentals of writing theatrical plays. They will be expected to work on several creative projects throughout the semester and to participate in workshops in which they will discuss and critique one another's work. Students may also be asked to complete other writing exercises and to analyze a selection of plays to gain a better understanding of the art of playwriting.

This course is a study of poetry: the reading and analysis of poetic works from a variety of time periods and cultures. Important figures, poetic traditions and movements, formal techniques, and other methods of evoking mood and meaning will be explored through discussion and in both written and oral projects throughout the semester.

This course covers the literature of Great Britain with its historical background from its beginnings to 1785. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, and Swift, among others, are studied in this course.

This course covers the literature of Great Britain with its historical background from 1785 through the 20th century. The literature of the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods are studied in this course.

This course is a survey of drama as literature; plays will be read as literary texts, not as the grounds for specific performances or performance practices. Through their engagements with the dramatic literature in this course, students will be introduced to a diversity of dramatic styles and themes. Attention will also be devoted to the social and cultural contexts in which the plays were written and in which they are read. Course materials may be organized either historically or topically.

This course studies some of the major plays of William Shakespeare (which may include histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances), analyzing the plays from the standpoint of literary interpretation, focusing on poetic style and literary techniques.

The short story is a form that was created and refined by American writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will study American short story writers, their stories, and their views of American life.

This course will introduce students to fantasy as a literary genre. It will expose students to various types of fantasy stories (such as high fantasy, sword and sorcery, urban fantasy, and/or fantasy horror). It will also address how fantasy literature can reflect or comment on issues in the real world, including how various forms of bigotry can be challenged or normalized by fantasy texts.

This course will introduce students to mystery and detective fiction as a literary genre and as popular literature, examining the conventions of suspense writing, possibly including hook, twist, red herring, back story, sub-plot, procedural, clues, and the ethical concerns of investigative methods and civic life. Discussion of various sub-genre styles will engage students in critical thinking applied to historical era, culturally diverse contexts, and gender roles in mystery writing.

This course is intended for students who are in the Creative Writing AFA program and within a semester of completion. This capstone experience will focus on the writing and revision of a demonstrative portfolio of writing within a single genre, multiple genres, or blended genres (poetry, fiction, scriptwriting, and/or creative nonfiction). Students will work individually with faculty to develop and polish their writing for publication submission and movement toward further study and/or career options.Prerequisite: Engl 1900 Introduction to Creative Writing