Courses in English

Spring 2022 Courses

Below are descriptions of the courses at Penn State Altoona for the spring 2022 semester that can count to satisfy the requirements of the English major and minor, as well as the Professional Writing minor. Many of them also fulfill requirements of the Secondary Education/English major, the Letters, Arts, and Sciences major, and the Integrative Arts major. Some fulfill general education and B.A. Humanities or Arts requirements. Or you might find them interesting enough to take as electives.

Note: These are not the standard course descriptions you'll find on the Penn State website. These were written by the faculty members themselves and will give you a much better idea of what to expect in each course.

Courses

ENGL 50 Introduction to Creative Writing (Jabbeh Wesley)

This is a class where learning is fun, where you will work on your own writing in a circle of student writers, where the major text is your own work. The course will focus on two genres of the creative process: poetry and fiction writing. It is a student-centered workshop or seminar course that will both inspire you and help shape you into a better writer. The course should test your ability to make words do what no words have ever done before. You will be required to come up with your own original poetry and one short story while at the same time critiquing fellow students’ poetry. There will be immediate feedback, mentoring, and tutoring. You will have a new opportunity to see writing as craft and as art by carving up your own images, using all of the tools you need to write with the passion that makes good literature enjoyable. (A Gen Ed—Arts course.)

ENGL 139 African American Literature (Simpson)

What is a “talking book”? What is it that’s “African” in African American literature? What makes it uniquely “American”? What characteristics define this literary tradition, and how have its innovations enlarged the scope and achievement of American letters as a whole? Explore these and other questions as we survey major writers and works in the African American literary tradition. We’ll consider a broad range of oral and written forms, including folk tales, spirituals, rap lyrics, sermons, slave narratives, plays, poems, and fiction. Authors we’ll study include Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Yusef Komunyakaa, and more! (A Gen Ed—Humanities course, and a United States Cultures course.)

ENGL 180 Literature and the Natural World (Davis)

Come read the new and the old, stories and poems about the beginning of the world and the end of the world, told by talking crows and bachelors who go to the woods to live deliberately. Investigate the species these writers name, the topography that shapes their way of seeing the world. Thoreau will be there. Annie Dillard will be there. Whitman will be there. Elizabeth Bishop will be there. And a host of other writers who wanted to save the world, to celebrate the world, to embrace nature in its many and myriad manifestations. (A Gen Ed—Humanities course).

ENGL 209 Journal or Magazine Practicum—Hard Freight (Lang and Murphy)

Have you always wanted to see your name on a masthead? Then join the staff of Hard Freight! This one-credit experiential course offers students hands-on experience in the development and production of the online campus literary magazine. Students will participate on editorial boards, in the advertising and marketing of the magazine, and in coffee-house events created to celebrate the artistic efforts of students on campus. (Mode: Asynchronous web. Students may take this course as many as eight times in their career.)

ENGL 211W Intro to Writing Studies (King)

In Spring 2022, Introduction to Writing Studies will be offered remotely through the Digital Learning Cooperative to students at all Penn State campuses. On Mondays and Wednesdays, students will build skills in three types of rhetorical analysis and production: the textual analysis of a landmark piece of public address (and your own attempt at speechwriting); the genre analysis of a contemporary style guide (capped off by a book review); and the visual analysis of a multimedia text of your choosing (followed by your attempt to pitch your classmates on a story of your own creation). On most Fridays, students will participate in Q&A sessions with practicing professional writers in a variety of academic and non-academic pursuits. These conversations will provide the launching pad for your final project: a well-designed and well-sourced (and potentially collaborative) journalistic investigation into “what writing looks like” on your campus. Our primary texts will be Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action (3rd ed.), ed. Jim Kuypers, William Strunk and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style, Arthur Plotnick’s Spunk and Bite, and John Lewis et al.’s Run, Vol. 1. (NOTE: ENGL 211W is a required course for the Professional Writing minor. It is not a substitute for ENGL 15 – Rhetoric & Composition. Please contact Professor Kyle King at [email protected] with any questions.)

ENGL 213 Introduction to Poetry Writing (Jabbeh Wesley)

English 213 is an Introduction to poetry writing class that will allow you to write and enjoy writing poetry more than you did in the general introductory creative writing class. Our focus in this course is the writing of serious contemporary poetry, including spoken poetry. Feel free to write music in place of poetry, but let me know if you choose that genre of poetic expression. There will be assigned readings, discussions of readings, critiquing of other students’ work, etc., but everything you do in this class will help you write poetry with seriousness. There will be experimentation; therefore, everything you write will be valuable in this class. You are required to come up with ten of your own original poems. Your grade in this course will depend on your growth as a writer, and not on how perfectly you can write. There will be immediate feedback, mentoring, and tutoring to help you grow within our small classroom community of writers. All readings in this course will help you discover and connect in order to shape your own writing into enjoyable pieces. (NOTE: This course meets concurrently with ENGL 413; students who qualify for Advanced Poetry may contact Professor Patricia Jabbeh Wesley at [email protected] for more information.)

ENGL 223N Shakespeare: Page, Stage, and Screen (Stoyanoff)

This course will explore the relation between literary analysis and both film and theatrical performance by asking students to approach a limited set of plays from multiple perspectives, using texts, film, and theatrical performance to integrate these methodologies. Students will work closely with Shakespearean texts, practice textual and poetic analysis, and will also examine critically different forms of performance: film and live theatre. In particular, the course will explore the interrelation of these elements, revealing a deeper imaginative understanding of works that continue to influence English-speaking literature and culture.

ENGL 225N / WMNST 225N Sexuality and Modern Visual Culture: Sex Sells ... So What, Exactly, Are We Buying? (Rotunno and Page)

Our world bombards us with images, and we contribute to that barrage each time we post a picture. This class will engage you in vital discussions about those images as well as those that came before us and continue to shape what we see and create today. At its core, this class will be driven by our discussion of visual presentations that use “sex” to “sell” us a story; that story might be about what family is or should be, about what political activism looks like, about how a society thinks about love, beauty, hate, even its future hopes or its present fears. To spur those discussions, we’ll offer you a rich, diverse historical background in visual representations that reflect how Western society, from the mid-19th-century to today, has viewed itself through the lens of sexuality, which always intersects with race, gender, gender identity, and class. For example, the terms “feminist” and “homosexual” were invented by the Victorians and reflect profound shifts in conceptions of identity. Another 19th-century invention was the idea of the literary and artistic “avant-garde” as a minority contingent with politically and/or aesthetically advanced views. These ideas of minority culture were deeply enmeshed with one another and still have effects on our world today. Discussions of these ideas then, hopefully, can help us all navigate the flood of images that today’s media presents as well as the self-images we cast into the world. NOTE: This course can be used as a prerequisite for a 1-credit study abroad (to LONDON!) opportunity that will occur—circumstances allowing—in late May 2022.

ENGL 237N Reading and Writing Documentary Poetry (Davis)

Poetry presents a unique way to discover the human voice within the headlines. This course will guide you through the process of creative writing as one way to better understand and explore current events and the stories we hear from history. We will both read and write in the tradition of "poetry of witness," also known as documentary poetry. Using visual images from print journalism, historical texts, or documentary films as a starting point, in this class we will discuss and practice how to identify topics that interest and how to best engage the world around us through poems. We will also look at the work of poets who have done documentary poetry well and will practice a variety of simple yet effective methods to build the bridge between the poetic, the personal, and the political on the page. (Can count toward the Professional Writing minor.)

ENGL 245/WMNST 245 Intro to LGBTQ Studies – “Gender: Beyond the Binary” (Brooke Findley)

The topic of the course for this semester will be “Gender Beyond the Binary.” We will examine constructs of gender in the present day, as well as at different times in history and in different places around the world, always with the goal of thinking about gender as a more-than-binary system. We will read a mix of literature, theory, and history. Readings will include a range of literary works that make us think hard about gender, some comparatively recent (for example Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg; The Argonauts by Maggie Smith), and some much older (for example: Silence, a 13th century French romance attributed to Heldris of Cornwall). We will also learn about the many facets of queer theory, and will read theoretical works by Judith Butler, Kate Bornstein, and many others; and we will study a few films such as the classic documentary Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston). Since the course is offered as an introduction to LGBTQ studies, we will also cover some major moments in LGBTQ history in the United States, such as Stonewall and the AIDS epidemic.

ENGL 250 Peer Tutoring in Writing (Lang)

Students enrolled in this course will study theories of peer tutoring in order to prepare to work as paid writing consultants in Penn State Altoona’s Writing Commons, located in Eiche 127. Our primary textbook is Leigh Ryan and Lisa Zimmerelli’s Bedford Guide to Writing Tutors, and we will read supplemental texts by foundational writing center rhetors like Stephen North, Muriel Harris, and Ben Rafoth. The course is divided between theory (i.e. responding to tutoring pedagogies and teaching strategies) and the practice of tutoring itself. If you are contemplating graduate school, a career in education, or employment as a professional writer—or if you are simply a strong writer and would like to help others—consider taking this course. (Counts toward the Professional Writing minor. Instructor’s signature is required for enrollment. If you have questions or wish to enroll, contact Jeannette Lang at [email protected].)

ENGL 413 Advanced Poetry Writing (Jabbeh Wesley)

This advanced poetry writing course will meet concurrently with ENGL 213. (Students may take this course twice in their career. Instructor’s signature is required for enrollment. Email professor Jabbeh Wesley at [email protected].)

ENGL 441 Chaucer and Deviance (Stoyanoff)

One of the first recorded uses of the word “deviant” in English shows up in Chaucer’s translation of the influential Roman de la Rose, a thirteenth-century medieval French poem. In this section of the poem, the character simply called “The Lover” exclaims to the allegorical figure of Reason: “That from your school so deviant / I am, that never the more advanced / right now am I, through your teaching” (4789-91). The Lover here exclaims that he’s beyond help, existing outside of Reason’s paradigm. He is deviant insofar as his understanding of love does not meet the accepted norms that Reason is attempting to teach him. Even though Chaucer does not ever explicitly write on deviance, many of his poems depict characters who are in some way or other deviant. From his Legend of Good Women to The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s poetry can at times be obsessed with exploring how society deals with deviance, implicitly asking how we determine what is deviant when the norms of society are in a period of transition as they were in the later Middle Ages. In 2021, we are perhaps experiencing one of the greatest shifts in our understanding of society and its norms since the later Middle Ages. We’ve begun to question assumed and systemic norms that have privileged some over others --- marking those others as deviant in some way. In this course, we will read selections from The Canterbury Tales, The Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde, as well as some of Chaucer’s shorter poems to examine deviance, then and now, and to bring these texts into conversation with similar issues in our current culture and society, using critical lenses from ecological, race, gender, and queer theories, among others.

ENGL 462/WMNST 462 Reading Black/Reading Feminist (Simpson)

I’m not a feminist ... I’m just a strong Black woman” —Queen Latifah

This is a course in Black feminist thought. It might be better titled “African American Women Writers and Intellectuals: Perspectives on Life, Love, Family, Identity, America, and the Future of Us All.” This is a course for anyone interested in powerful and thought-provoking contemporary American novels, short stories, and poems. It’s a course for anyone who wants to gain a fuller understanding of American history, literature, and social thought, particularly Black women’s contributions to them while exploring key questions about gender, race, and power, questions impacting all of us in important ways.

What class members bring to the table is what will determine how our questions are shaped and what we take away from our explorations. What might Black feminist perspectives teach us about what it means to be American, to be human, to be a citizen of this planet? Why are Black women’s perspectives so vital to any comprehensive understanding of the world we live in, our past, and our future as a people? How might this knowledge relate not only to your life, but to other courses you’ve taken, and thus help you to forge connections across disciplines and enrich your own academic experience? Come find out! Interesting reading and lively discussion guaranteed. Course work will include reading responses, reading quizzes, in-class and online discussions, and two essays, one of which will be an extended research project on a topic developed by you in consultation with the professor. (Counts as US Cultures; fulfills women of color sub-requirement for Women’s Studies minor; prerequisite: ENGL 15 or 30 or 137/138)

ENGL 469 Slavery and the Literary Imagination (Petrulionis)

For many Americans, nostalgia has unfortunately substituted for history when it comes to the subjects of slavery and the ensuing Civil War that was fought to end it. As a nation, we have generally been more comfortable either forgetting or re-inventing the past rather than educating ourselves and honoring the many real heroes of this era. Focused as it is on a historical reality, this course necessarily combines literature, culture, and history. We will read a variety of works depicting the ways in which America’s writers have transformed the horror and injustice of slavery into their written words. Readings will include narratives of formerly enslaved people such as Henry Box Brown, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass; political propaganda of abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Henry David Thoreau; proslavery apologists such as South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun; poems, novels, and stories, including gothic landscapes and sensational accounts of mutineers and rebels, by many authors, including John Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, Pauline Hopkins, Charles Chesnutt, Louisa May Alcott, and Herman Melville; and a twentieth-century Nobel Laureate’s imagining of slavery’s tragic and irrevocable disruption of one family’s life (Toni Morrison’s Beloved). As you’ll learn, the story of American slavery is not only one of trauma but also one of extraordinary courage and even triumph. Along the way, we’ll be reading the contemporary memoir by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me.

Also of Interest to English Majors:

AMST 100 Introduction to American Studies (Petrulionis)

This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to American literature, history, and political culture centered on the theme of “Slavery in American Literature and Film.” We will examine the institution of American slavery through various perspectives, including defenses by politicians, ministers, and scientists (such as Thomas Jefferson, Senator John C. Calhoun, Univ. of Penn professor Samuel Morton). We will read about and watch rebellions carried out by enslaved men and women (The Confessions of Nat Turner, Amistad), firsthand accounts of daring escapes (William and Ellen Craft’s Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative), antislavery speeches and stories that span several decades, including works by well-known authors Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau, Harpers Ferry raider John Brown, and the bestselling Between the World and Me by contemporary author Ta-Nehisi Coates. Throughout the semester, we’ll also view films that bring slavery to the “big screen,” assessing how well (or not) filmmakers have handled the responsibility of accurately dramatizing the lives of enslaved African Americans. (Counts as GH, US Cultures)