Instructor-Provided Class Descriptions for Summer 2009

Please click on the following selections or scroll down to view descriptions.

Undergraduate Classes | Writing Programs Classes | Graduate Classes

Undergraduate Classes

ENG 114: English Grammar and Usage
Instructor: Lupco Spasovski
Section Line Number: 46177
Time: 9:25-11:05 MTWTHF

Description: Course Description and Objectives
ENG114 lays the foundation for the study of grammar by analyzing English as an instrument of communication and important social tool. First, it will provide you with the critical knowledge in understanding language as human behavior. This course will also help you analyze language as an organic system of interrelated parts that perform highly complex tasks of communicating human thoughts and intentions. ENG114 approaches grammar as a process and not a product and engages you to critically think about English grammar and usage. Here are some of the questions we will try to elucidate during the next semester: How does our language work? What are some social judgments that accompany our uses of language? Are grammar rules imposed on us? Is grammar a mere taxonomy of hard and fast rules? How can we actively participate in shaping English? In addition, this course will introduce you to the standard grammar terminology and familiarize you with the insights from modern linguistics. We will examine the complex interaction between language rules and behavior and study the structure of English, from the lowest levels of grammatical organization to the highest, starting with an analysis of words and working up to the level of the sentence.

ENG213: Introduction to the Study of Language
Instructor: Lupco Spasovski
Section Line Number: 46176
Time: 9:25-11:05 MTWTHF

Description: Course Description and Objectives
This course is a general introduction to linguistics. It includes an overview of basic concepts and methods for the study of language by introducing some of the core areas of linguistics research: phonetics and phonology (the sound system), morphology (the structure of words and word-formation processes), syntax (the structure of phrases and sentences), semantics (how words relate to meaning), sociolinguistics (language varieties), and language acquisition. By learning how language works, you will better understand the interrelatedness of language, innateness, and social setting. Also, you will gain insight into the relationship between language form and function and develop a scientific perspective on some commonly held prejudices and misconceptions about language.

ENG 354: African American Literature: Post Harlem Renaissance
Instructor: Allison Parker
Section Line Number: 46207
Time: 1:15-2:55 MW

Description: This class addresses African American literary works that mainly were created after the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. In the process of doing so, we will examine a variety of textual representations of African American identity, race in America, slavery, resistance to slavery, white supremacy, African American masculinity, African American femininity, biracialism, racial oppression, and racial justice. We will also investigate the relationship of these texts to epochal events in American history, such as the Civil War and the Great Migration. In addition we will explore several genres of literature, including autobiography (Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X), novella (Nella Larsen), novel (Ernest Gaines and Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison), drama (Lorraine Hansberry), and film (Imitation of Life, 1959). We will also, more briefly, consider African American art, music, and dance, especially in relation to African American literature.

ENG 354 : African American Literature: Harlem Renaissance to the Present
Instructor: Dr. Lynette D. Myles
Section Line Number: 45057
Time: INTRT

Description: This online course will examine the African American literary tradition from the Harlem Renaissance to the present. The course will focus on major black literary works and African Americans’ contribution to the canon of American literature. Students will look at the major periods in twentieth- and twentieth-first century African American literature, and understand how these periods reflect historically with African American culture. The course readings will include a selection of novels and short stories along with other materials that will help fill in the historical and cultural context of such works. Through individual analysis and informative discussions, students will also use the literature as a way to investigate critical issues on race, gender, and class.

ENG 364: Women and Literature: Arab Women's Literature
Instructor: Dr. Heather Hoyt
Section Line Number: 45196
Time: INTERNET

Description: Earn HU credit
• “Who is an Arab woman?”
• “What does it mean to be ‘Arab’?”
• “How does Arab identity define Arab women’s literary works?”
These are a few of the questions we will examine in this course. We will read a variety of contemporary novels, short stories, poetry, and memoirs by and about Arab women. Our exploration of these literary works will be complemented by critical, political, and cultural essays—both historic and recent—by several leading Arab feminists. We will see how a wide representation of age, nationality, religious affiliation, cultural identity, and historical context extends the term “Arab woman” well beyond the stereotypes often associated with it. The complexity of each writer’s context and that of her work will be examined in relation to her style and the literary argument she poses to her audience.
Requirements:
This online course will focus on critical discussions about the literature and complementary feminist criticism. The course grade will consist of discussion, quizzes, a mid-term exam, and a final essay.
**Authors of various works will be invited to join our virtual conversations.
READINGS:
The Girls of Riyadh, Rajaa Alsanea
The Poetry of Arab Women, Nathalie Handal
The New Belly Dancer of the Galaxy, Frances Khirallah Noble
I Sweep the Sun off Rooftops, Hanan Al-Shaykh
Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing (2nd Ed.), Margot Badran & Miriam Cooke

Questions? Contact Dr. Hoyt at heather.hoyt@asu.edu

English 394: Videogame Theory
Instructor: Z. Waggoner
Section Line Number: 45201
Time: Internet

Description: This course targets students who want to better understand the social, cultural, and historical forces implicit in the rapid rise of video and computer gaming. Relying on cultural, rhetorical, and critical videogame theory, the course will examine the aesthetic and technological development of videogame avatars and agents and the role they play in the construction of virtual identity. We will take videogames seriously in this course, carefully studying what makes videogames compelling for millions of people. Through reading about, discussing, and playing videogames, we will seek to gain a better understanding of the history, present, and future of videogame aesthetics and identity.

ENG 487/Adv. CW Poetry (formerly 411) /J. Savard
Not a lecture class (prerequisite ENG 310/Poetry)

Available to students who have already taken the ENG 310 CW poetry workshop.
(First seats are offered to English majors with the Concentration in CW-Poetry.)

You will be reading a few essays about the craft of poetry and several volumes of poetry by
contemporary authors. We will be discussing a number of these every time we meet which will be for three hours each week. You will be writing approximately six poems during the semester, and revising them when required. Each poem will be written in consideration of the specific guidelines provided you. As the poem is your own, some room for moving away from the specifics will always be permitted.

The Advanced Poetry Workshop is dynamic, and we are all needed for that experience. We participate verbally. We are present. You are just beginning to learn about writing and you have also learned quite a bit already. You will be expected to write and speak about poems with enthusiasm and a working critical vocabulary in this class. You will be making the language your own. Feel it, try it out, take it, let it take you.

Agreement in discussion is not necessary; you just need to know why you think and feel that something is working or not in a poem, and to say it with clarity and with insight into the poem’s structure or craft.

A poetry workshop is work. It is also an opportunity and can be a pleasure for you to be discussing poems--- yours, and those by other writers. Remember, you are not "literary critics." My job as instructor: to guide the feedback of the poem in process, as every one who comments has a different point of view. All are important. My being the instructor doesn't mean that I always see everything that is happening in the poem. I try to find most of what is and what is not working, and guide you along those lines to discuss, and then move on through the poem. You probably know, but I guide discussion based on the experience of my writing/ publishing poems, and of my studying and teaching poems for many years. In case there is a confusion here, I want to say: I am not a critic; I am your teacher. You are each others' teacher as well. You walk away with more knowledge about your poem, and you use what is useful, continuing to process your poem. It belongs to you once again to collect, revise, and perhaps send it out into the world again.

Think of this class as a new place, a new time where you are writing poems that you didn't write before and others are working with you to make them stronger poems.
Think that you are bound to learn something new about the whole process, as well as review some points that you already know.

Objecting to the process is not what this course is about. Argument is not what this course is about, though sometimes it occurs, naturally. Revealing and sharing insights about the poem at hand, and also the craft of writing poems in general is what's important.

Please remember when receiving feedback: no one is against you or your poem. A balanced return by the reader of the work is healthy and can lead you to write better poems.
 

Writing Programs Classes

Please click on the following Writing Programs courses to view their description page:

Stretch Program Courses:
WAC 101, WAC 107 (first-year writing)
 

100-level courses:
ENG 101, 102, 105 (first-year writing)
ENG 107, 108 (first-year writing for international students)
 

200-level courses:
ENG 215 (strategies of academic writing)
ENG 216 (persuasive writing on public issues)
ENG 217 (writing reflective essays)
ENG 218 (writing about literature)
 

300-level courses:
ENG 301 (writing for the professions)
ENG 3XX (writing in cyberspace)
ENG 372 (document production)
ENG 374 (technical editing)
 

400-level courses:
ENG 494 (rhetorical theory and criticism)

Graduate Classes