Graduate Courses

In 1999, Cynthia Selfe’s Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century urged teachers and researchers in English Studies to “pay attention” to rapidly changing attitudes regarding new media literacies and corporate, government, and educational involvement in establishing and fostering a national technological infrastructure. She argued that English teachers in particular needed to cultivate a critical technological literacy, understanding not only the impact of using new technologies, but the philosophical, pedagogical, and sociological impacts as well.

After more than ten years since the publication of Selfe’s influential manuscript, this course begins by asking whether English Studies is “paying attention” to the implications of increasingly ubiquitous technologies in meaningful and productive ways. In an attempt to answer that question, the course will survey a broad range of seminal and contemporary research on technology in English Studies. At the same time, we’ll explore “Web 2.0” applications, social network sites, and mobile computing platforms with the goal of developing critical understandings of how these technologies will affect our students, our field, and the future of literacy.

The story goes that when Vladimir Nabokov was invited to join the English Department at Harvard, the linguist Roman Jakobson protested: “What’s next? Shall we appoint elephants to teach zoology?”

Affectionately nicknamed, “The Elephants Teach,” this course is open to all graduate students in English Studies who wish to examine the pedagogical issues specific to the teaching of creative writing at the college level, with a focus on both theory and practice. Readings will explore the theoretical, ethical, historical, and practical and will likely include The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing (Mark McGurl), Can It Really Be Taught?: Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy (Kelly Ritter), The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880 (David Gershom Myers), The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry Writing (Richard Hugo), and Writing Memoir (Abigail Thomas), as well as pedagogy papers published annually by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and material on electronic reserve.

This 605 will include lectures and discussion on the fundamentals of teaching everything from a multi-genre introductory course in creative writing to an advanced writing workshop in a specific genre. Assignments will give students the opportunity to 1) articulate their own teaching philosophies, 2) develop lessons in creative writing via several class presentations, 3) practice evaluating creative writing, 4) teach a short unit in a Ball State undergraduate creative writing classroom (and reflect on those experiences in the seminar), and 5) produce a (useful!) portfolio of teaching materials (including syllabi, course policies, writing exercises, and assignments).

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent B. Leitch, et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. ISBN # 0-393-97429-4

This discussion-based seminar will examine major developments in Western literary theory and criticism from the ancient Greeks through New Criticism. We will read key primary texts, identify trends, and explore factors that contributed to shaping those trends.

1. Abstracts for major critical reading (12, each devoted to one reading from the 24 meetings so marked), due when the reading is scheduled for discussion. Maximum 1 page each. Grading criteria: coherent explication of the work; focus, clarity, coherence, and style. The paper does not expand upon (although it certainly may imply) your own position on the relevance or value of a critical theory. For suggestions, see commentary on abstracts under Assignments on Blackboard. [Provide advance electronic postings on Blackboard or copies for classmates.] You will be expected to contribute to the class discussion based on your supplementary reading as well as on the primary reading.

2. Two reports, each based on a question or issue raised by the reading, one emerging from early readings, the other from later readings. One report must apply theory to a literary text. The other may examine implications of a particular theory, perhaps citing later theorists who pursue those implications; or it may compare two or three theorists in the same or different periods. Maximum 4 pages each. Grading criteria: critical excellence, appropriate use of theory and texts, clarity, coherence, and style; adherence to time limit. Due as scheduled--you will have 5 minutes to summarize your report for the class. Discussion will not be restricted to those 5 minutes. [Provide electronic postings or copies for classmates.]

3. Seminar paper, 15 pages, of publishable quality, on topics to be negotiated. In addition to submitting the written text, you will make a formal 20-minute presentation to the class based on your written text. [You can read no more than 10 pages in 20 minutes.] Written texts are due 20 April, presentations as scheduled. Grading criteria: critical excellence, appropriate use of theory, appropriate use of research materials, clarity, coherence, and style; clarity and style of presentation, adherence to time limit.

This course will offer an intensive overview of the key movements in 20^th and 21^st-century literary theory. We will read primary texts by a wide range of theorists and experiment, through a series of short response papers, with applying them to a text. Our goal with these short papers will be to investigate the readings enabled by a particular theoretical perspective and to compare those possibilities across theoretical paradigms. In addition to these short essays, students will also produce a longer seminar-length paper and complete at least one in-class presentation on contemporary literary theory. As this is a seminar-style course, regular and spirited class participation will be mandatory.

The major movements covered in the course will include: Structuralism, Narrative Theory, Marxism, Poststructuralism, Psychoanalysis, Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, Postcolonial Theory, and Cultural Studies. Our primary text will likely be the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent Leitch, et al.

This graduate-level writing workshop will focus on the writing of real lives and the navigation of those slippery spaces between remembering and forgetting, truth and invention, what to put in and what to leave out. Rather than using a thematic approach to organizing this semester’s reading (e.g., childhood, crisis, or nature), we’re going to diversify our reading according to structure and form. We’ll read greedily with a writer’s attention to style and technique as we get in the practice of asking the questions that are essential in the crafting of real-life material. My hope is that when we apprentice ourselves to the books on our list, we will practice the habit of art, honing our technical skills while we locate the memories and patterns in our lives that might have something important to say about the human condition.

In order to write well, we must read, and so we will split our time between workshops of student work and the discussion of published texts. In addition to essays in the contemporary journal of creative nonfiction The River Teeth Reader (May 2009—“best of the first ten years”), our reading list will likely include: Peggy Shumaker’s Just Breathe Normally, Steve Almond’s Candyfreak, Scott Russell Sanders’s The Private History of Awe, Abigail Thomas’s Safekeeping: Some Stories from a Life, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love (or The Last American Man), Kao Kalia Yang’s The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, and Lee Martin’s Turning Bones.

Course requirements will include two long essays or chapters (and a final revision), regular creative/critical responses to the reading assignments, workshop critiques, and a class presentation.

ENG 618: Materials Development for

Teaching English Language Learners

M, 2:00 – 4:40

Dr. Megumi Hamada

Focus on the use and design of materials to meet the specific needs of language learners at various levels of proficiency in second and foreign language settings. Prerequisite: permission of the department chairperson. Prerequisite or parallel: ENG 520 or equivalent.

ENG 623: Phonetics and Phonology

MW, 12:00-1:15

Dr. Trechsel

Speech sounds and the linguistic methods employed in their description, classification, and analysis as elements in language systems. Relationships among speech sounds in a language. Prerequisite: permission of the department chairperson.

ENG 624: Foundations of Second Language Acquisition

W, 2:00-4:40

Dr. Megumi Hamada

Covers the foundations of second language acquisition theories and research, and introduces various issues related to second language learning and teaching.

Prerequisite: ENG 616, 617; permission of the department chairperson.

ENG 626: Morphology and Syntax

TR, 12:30-1:45

Dr. Trechsel

A detailed examination of the patterns of word and phrase building in natural languages. Emphasizes both formal and functional approaches. Prerequisite: ENG 520; permission of the department chairperson.

There are enormous differences in the ways in which members of different cultures organize and exploit their linguistic resources. These differences are so pervasive that most researchers believe it is not possible to describe a culture without referring to the patterns of language use through which culture is expressed. This course looks at some of these patterns in an effort to describe both the nature of language and culture and the inextricable link between them. Among the topics to be discussed are: the acquisition of language and culture, ethnography of comunication, language ideology, verbal art and performance, narrative structure, language maintenance and death, language contact, bilingualism and code-switching, and cross-cultural miscommunication.

ENG 630: Contrastive Analysis

T, 6:30-9:10

Dr. Elizabeth M. Riddle

Office: RB 297

A comparison of lexical, syntactic, pragmatic (including politeness issues and cross-cultural communication) and discourse characteristics of a variety of languages with those of English as relevant to the teaching of English as a second/foreign language and second language acquisition. Topics in linguistic universals and typology will also be covered. Students will become familiar with important properties of a wide variety of languages. Prior knowledge of a foreign language is not necessary.

ENG 641: Early American Literature

TR, 2:00-3:15

Dr. Melissa Adams

An in-depth exploration of early American literature concentrating on situations of captivity, contact, and cultural exchange from the late seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries. We will read a mixture of real life and fictional accounts of captivity, cross-cultural contact and exchange by authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Aphra Behn, Olaudah Equiano, James Fenimore Cooper, and Catherine Maria Sedgwick in addition to recent scholarship on these issues. Such a variety of readings will help us to account for how authors of American literature began to form a distinct cultural identity and a uniquely “American” literature. Our readings will challenge us to imagine a time before the formation of the United States when land boundaries, religious preferences, and customs and manners were continually fluctuating and when colonial allegiances and local practices were not easily reconciled. We will also consider how cultural and racial others were used to distinguish “us” from “them” and helped to shape strong regional and colonial identities. Finally travel—whether across the Atlantic or through the wilderness—will ground many of our readings. As we proceed we will consider the ways that such movement provokes an emerging “American” identity. This course will introduce historically-derived American studies and transatlantic approaches to early American literature. Students will be expected to assume leadership roles in seminar-style discussions and produce a twenty page scholarly research paper.

ENG 644: Early Twentieth-Century American Literature

T, 6:30-9:10

Dr. Rai Peterson

Office: RB 2110

Examination of literary works and intellectual and aesthetic movements during the first half of the twentieth century. Attention will be given to cultural, political, and intellectual contexts and to current scholarship on the period.

The course will either focus on fiction and poetry of the period, or it will be a more focused seminar on the work of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Students enrolled in the course will participate in determining the material covered.

Students may write one article-length paper or two conference presentation-length papers.

A total of 6 hours of credit may be earned, but no more than 3 in any one semester or term.

In this workshop we will examine four specific issues in the construction of literary histories:

· The economics of publishing and marketing: how commerce affects interpretation

· Literary tourism: how touristic presentation constructs public understanding of texts and authors

The goals of the class are to familiarize you with some of the most important issues of literary history, to help you analyze critically the ways in which literary histories are constructed rather than absolute, to examine how literary history may help us to be better interpreters and teachers of literature, and to give you practice doing the sort of original investigation that literary historians do. The course will be project-driven, not text-driven, but our focus will always return to the implications of literary history for the understanding and teaching of literature. (For instance, we will investigate the marketing of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn rather than discussing the book thematically—though as you will see, how the book was promoted has had a profound effect on how and by whom it has been read.)

In addition to completing the homework, reading, and informal reports which comprise part of your class participation grade, the following graded written assignments are required for this course:

· the final exam essay, which is optional, for those who choose to replace their grade on one of the short assignments.

According to a popular legend, the Victorians were so priggish that they covered the "legs" of pianos with little skirts so as to avoid even an indirect reference to the human body in polite society. This myth, however, has proved to be entirely unfounded. In fact, current research suggests that the human body was a hot topic for discussion in Victorian Britain. Over the course of Victoria's reign, there was a huge increase in self-help literature offering advice to the public on how to manage and maintain their bodies. Cutting edge medical theories appeared in popular periodicals and informed conversations about everything from the role of women to the education of children. The body entered the political arena in debates on issues such as the management of pauper diet and public sanitation. In addition, it was the age of the freak show, which made extraordinary bodies into public spectacles.

In this class, we will look at how a variety of Victorian writers, working in different genres, represented the human body. In so doing, we will think about the cultural assumptions underlying these representations and their relationship to other important Victorian issues, such as gender, health, class, empire, children, sexuality, progress, morality, work and aesthetics. Students will be given the opportunity to discuss a wide range of Victorian texts and to participate in one important branch of the current critical debate on the Victorians.

A tentative reading list includes Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, Villette by Charlotte Bronte, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, some short horror fiction, and poetry by Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Matthew Arnold, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Michael Field and Rudyard Kipling. There will also be additional critical readings on the Victorian body on reserve. Course requirements will include a short paper, a seminar paper, presentations and participation in discussion, both in class and on-line.

Do men and women talk differently? How and why? What are the implications of differences in language use on social relations? How can we research these questions? This course is designed to provide a detailed examination of the relationship between language and gender. Because language use is one of the most important factors influencing our judgments about others, it is important to understand how biological sex and gender roles are involved in those judgments. We will describe and analyze differences in the way that men and women use language (including differences in pronunciation, word choice, grammar, conversational norms, and narrative styles). In addition we will look at cross-cultural studies of language and gender and the patterns of language socialization of girls and boys. Western European assumptions about language use will be assessed in light of this cross-cultural evidence. This course will use the methods and analyses taken from linguistics, anthropology and psychology in an effort to describe and explain the nature of gender differentiation in speech.

In the 20th Century, historical, social, technological, and cultural shifts significantly altered both the practices and the theories of rhetoric. What is the function of rhetoric at the present time? How can we best understand it? How have the ways in which rhetoric is both used and understood changed in the context of massive changes in social organization, developing technologies, and globalized capitalism? In this course, we’ll look at a variety of rhetorical practices—the magazines of the early 20th Century, political speeches, the proliferation of blogs and message boards, protest movements, talk radio/tv—through the varied lenses of contemporary rhetorical theory. Readings from Perelman, Toulmin, Burke, Habermas, Foucault, hooks, and others.

Spring 2010 Graduate Course Descriptions

Past Semesters