Courses in English

Fall 2021 Courses

Below are descriptions of the courses at Penn State Altoona for the coming semester that can count to satisfy the requirements of the English major and 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 (Davis)

If you like to write stories and poems, then this is the class for you. We’ll read the work of some of the best contemporary authors, and then try our hand at the craft of turning the material world into words. This workshop will focus on fiction and poetry and will involve a great deal of drafting and critiquing before a final creative writing portfolio is prepared. (A Gen Ed—Arts course.)

ENGL 50: Introduction to Creative Writing (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 190Q: Medievalism (Stoyanoff)

In 1987, Leslie J. Workman defined medievalism as “the study of the Middle Ages, the application of medieval models to contemporary needs, and the inspiration of the Middle Ages in all forms of art and thought.” There are a number of popular medievalisms with which students are likely familiar, such as Game of Thrones, but there are also more nefarious medievalisms that have begun to spring up in recent years, especially White Nationalist movements in the US and in Europe. Understanding the literature and culture of the Middle Ages helps us to shed light on such medievalisms – good and bad. In this course, we will begin by studying some medieval literature to observe the forms, themes, and tropes popular during this period. Then, we will begin making connections to the medievalisms of the early modern period, which perhaps defines “medieval” better than the Middle Ages themselves (think Renaissance Festivals). Finally, we will explore medievalism in its most popular contemporary forms – the fantasy genre and role-playing games (tabletop and videogames). This last section of the course will also address medievalisms found in White Nationalist propaganda and rhetoric, encouraging students to use what we learn to debunk and push back against such rhetoric.
(Does not fulfill inter-domain requirement for English majors but can count as English elective at any level.)

ENGL/INART/AFAM 141N: (2 credits, plus 1 in spring 2022; spring course is only 5 weeks) African American Read-in Engaged Learning Experience – Theme: The Other African Americans: African Immigrants Writing America (Wesley)

This course allows students to study literature in connection with an annual public two-day event held during Black History Month at Penn State Altoona. The African American Read-In (AARI) is a celebration that promotes both literacy and a wider appreciation for African American literature, culture, and art. Students enrolled in the 2-credit Fall AARI course will study materials related to the annual theme and create original projects to present at the Spring AARI. Students will complete all 3 credits by also enrolling in the 1-credit 5-week Spring AARI course, which concludes with the presentation of the AARI events in mid-February. As shapers of the program, class members will also have a voice in designing, promoting, and delivering the program as well as a stake in its overall success. In the 2021-22 course, we will explore major voices in immigrant African Literature in the American Diaspora, stories of the other African American—black, African, and American—and their stories that negotiate the landscape of their old lost world in the discovery of their new world of America. We will study the diversity of African immigrant voices, emerging and major, established voices in poetry, fiction, and memoir. We will focus on literary styles, influences, the fusion of craft that is American and African, and the many contributions to American literature made by these writers. Some of the works we will read are by first generation African immigrants or the children of African immigrants, some of them millennials, whose stories may be new to the American literary landscape, yet very similar to the traditional African American experience. The course will give students an opportunity to appreciate the connection we all share as a country of immigrants, our various voices that tell the human story even while understanding some of the cultural and social forces that make all of us one. If you enjoy crossing borders and learning about other cultural traditions, this course will take you into the Africa that is next door to you, and this course is for you. (ENGL/INART/AFAM 141N meets with ENGL/INART 496. Instructor sign-in required for 496 – contact Professor Patricia Jabbeh Wesley at [email protected].)

ENGL 142N//SC 142N: Science in Literature (Rotunno and Siegfried)

Approach great fiction and thought-provoking readings about current science as well as past thoughts! Join Drs. Rotunno and Siegfried for this interdomain course (GH & GN), entitled Science in Literature, that will explore scientific questions such as: how do we define “human”? What are the personal, political, and social responsibilities of a scientist? Should we use clones? Is your identity dictated by your genes? What can we learn from those termed “neurodivergent” or those born with “mutations,” and what exactly do we mean by those terms? Will Artificial Intelligence lead us to learn more about ourselves? And the big question, underlying the course itself: what can science and art learn from each other? (Does not fulfill inter-domain requirement for English majors but can count as English elective at any level. Cross-listed with SC 142N.)

ENGL 197I/CMLIT 971: Theme: “Where I Come from, What I Stand On: Stories of Displacement and Migration in World Literature and Film" (Lorensen)

"No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark."—Warsan Shire, “Conversations about Home”

Displacement is a term increasingly used to frame experiences and theories of forced migration across a range of different contexts: conflict and war; environmental degradation and climate change; poverty and livelihood insecurity; also, the impact of development projects, whether related to infrastructure building or urban gentrification schemes. As this list indicates, persons become displaced by the effects of cataclysmic violence but also on account of the long-term destruction of livelihoods and self-sovereign spheres of existence: the far less visible erosion of place under the temporal horizon of a future severed from its past. News media tell this story in the language of “unprecedented crises” and the singularity of spectacular havoc. By contrast, we will ask what predates this onset of violence, giving special consideration to the historical forces of modernity that contributed to the forced migration of people around the world. We will ask how the normative story of migration, mapped onto the temporal arc of departure, journey and arrival, needs to be redefined to represent contemporary experiences of mobility and their obverse: being brutally stuck. In this course, you will have the opportunity to study the global histories, experiences, and voices of those living in, surviving, and shaping a world that moves. For more information and a preliminary reading list, please contact Professor Lorensen at [email protected]. (Does not fulfill the inter-domain requirement for English majors but can count as English elective at any level.)

ENGL 200: Introduction to Critical Reading (Simpson)

In this class we deal with some of the most basic questions about literature: how do we make sense of a work of literature and where does its meaning come from? Is meaning found when a literary work fulfills the author’s intention? Is it found in the text itself? Or do readers make meaning? Is it even possible to know the meaning of a work of literature? How does the author’s culture, or the reader’s, affect how we receive a literary work? We will explore how different approaches to reading literature—New Criticism, Deconstruction, Psychological Criticism, Reader-Response Theory, Feminist Criticism, Cultural Studies, Ecocriticism—deepen our understanding and enjoyment of the works we read. Expect interesting reading, lively discussions, mind-blowing new ideas, and lots of opportunities to explore your inner theorist. You’ll also become a skilled practitioner of MLA style. (NOTE: This is a required course for the English major and is typically offered only in the fall semester.)

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

Have you always wanted to see your name on a masthead? Then join the staff of Hard Freight! This 1-credit experiential course offers students hands-on experience in the development and production of the campus online literary magazine. Students will participate on editorial boards, in the advertising and marketing of the magazine, in the design of the online magazine, and in coffee-house events created to celebrate the artistic efforts of students on campus. (Students may take this course up to eight times in their career.)

ENGL 214: Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Writing (Murphy)

“KER-POW! I was knocked into the present, the unmistakable now, by Joni Friedman’s head as it collided with the right side of my jaw.” This is the first sentence of Lucy Grealy’s memoir, Autobiography of a Face, an excellent example of the creative nonfiction genre. Though based on fact, creative nonfiction employs elements of fiction and poetry. In this class, you’ll write essays in various forms, read published works of creative nonfiction, respond to and create generative exercises, and “workshop” each other’s writings. (NOTE: This course meets concurrently with ENGL 415.)

ENGL 231: American Literature to 1865 (Petrulionis)

Read the founding fathers and mothers of your country; explore the American frontier with various guides—from Native Americans to European explorers/exploiters to kidnapped women; examine the double standard of sexual virtue for early American men and women; learn what it meant in the nineteenth century to be “self-reliant” and to live a “life with principle”; flee slavery with self-emancipating men and women on the Underground Railroad; get buried alive with Poe; chase dark phantoms in forests with Hawthorne; try to figure out what a legal assistant “prefers” not to do; exchange bodily fluids with Whitman; row in Eden with Dickinson. (Counts as GH, US Cultures)

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 the Writing Commons. If you are contemplating a career in education or as a professional writer, or if you are simply a strong writer and would like to help others, consider enrolling in this course. (This course counts toward English major elective credits as well as toward the Professional Writing Minor. Instructor’s signature required for enrollment; email Professor Lang at [email protected].)

ENGL 237N: Reading and Writing Documentary Poetry (Peterson)

Documentary poetry or "poetry of witness" is a kind of poetry that engages the personal but also the historical and public. This specific poetic form offers a unique way to discover the human voice within the headlines and to move beyond our own self-concern into a wider sense of purpose. In this class we will explore topics ranging from family history, labor and migration, the attacks on September 11th and broad areas such as war and climate change. Using a variety of sources material, including documentary photographs, films, historical and archival texts and other objects, we will look at examples of documentary poetry while practicing simple yet effective methods to experiment with writing poems of our own. (Does not fulfill inter-domain requirement for English majors but can count as English elective at any level.)

ENGL 415: Advanced Nonfiction Writing (Murphy)

“KER-POW! I was knocked into the present, the unmistakable now, by Joni Friedman’s head as it collided with the right side of my jaw.” This is the first sentence of Lucy Grealy’s memoir, Autobiography of a Face, an excellent example of the creative nonfiction genre. Though based on fact, creative nonfiction employs elements of fiction and poetry. In this class, you’ll write essays in various forms, read published works of creative nonfiction, respond to and create generative exercises, and “workshop” each other’s writings. (Course counts toward Professional Writing minor. Students may take this course twice in their career. Meets concurrently with ENGL 214. Prerequisite: at least one 200-level creative writing class.)

ENGL 419: Advanced Business Writing (Latterell)

This is a project-based course in writing for the workplace. We will review styles and techniques for effective workplace writing and focus on how to target our writing for professional contexts. From drafting resource guides, promotional documents and writing for social media to producing infographics and short video profiles, my goal for students enrolled in this class is to create sample documents they can use for job interviewing or as a part of graduate school applications. To that end, for the final assignment students will create ePortfolios. An ePortfolio is a highly useful (electronic) platform for presenting samples of your work and highlighting your academic (as well as work-related) resume. (Prerequisite: ENGL 202A, B, C, or D)

ENGL 424: Creative Writing and the Natural World (Davis)

If you like to hike in the woods, learning the names of plants and animals, then this is a class for you. We’ll be reading the work of such important figures in contemporary nature writing as Mary Oliver, Galway Kinnell, and Rick Bass. Then we’ll be writing our own poems and stories about our experiences in the natural world. Be prepared to get your feet muddy and to fill your journal with all you’ve seen! (Cross-listed with ENVST 424)

ENGL 431: Black American Writers (Simpson)

The focus of this course will be the genre of Black Speculative Fiction, considered in its broadest sense to include science fiction, fantasy, Afrofuturism, magic realism, and other non-realist modes. This longstanding and robust tradition is centered on critiquing intersecting ideologies of race, gender, class, and sexuality as well as imagining new possibilities for identity and social justice. In this course, we will read and analyze works of speculative fiction created by African American writers over the past century and work together in a seminar-style collaborative classroom to understand and interpret them. Some authors whose works we’ll read include Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, and Colson Whitehead. Creative works will be complemented by short readings in critical theory as well as brief samplings of film and music.

ENGL 440: Studies in Shakespeare (Stoyanoff)

William Shakespeare. We call him the “father” of English literature even though his primary mode of production, drama, would not have been considered literature in his own day. Why do we still study Shakespeare? What can he tell us about our lives given he was writing over four hundred years ago? We read Shakespeare to learn about early modern England, but we also continue to read Shakespeare to learn about ourselves and to allow our experiences to inform our readings/recreations of his work. In this iteration of this course, we will be “queering” Shakespeare. And this doesn’t mean that we’re just going to make everything gay in Shakespeare! (But, really, a lot of Shakespeare’s work is.) Rather, we’ll begin the semester by reading some queer theory/studies essays to provide us some tools/lenses for reading Shakespeare’s (and some of his contemporaries’) poetry and plays. Additionally, we will read excerpts from the sources many early modern authors, including Shakespeare, turned to --- namely Ovid and Vergil. Queering Shakespeare will allow us to unmoor Shakespeare from the prescribed canonical interpretations, freeing us to rethink what and how these texts continue to create meanings in the twenty-first century. In addition to selections from Shakespeare’s poetry and plays, potential authors may include Christopher Marlowe, Henry Howard, Thomas Wyatt, Aemelia Lanyer, Mary Wroth, Thomas Dekker, and Ben Jonson.

ENGL 471: Rhetorical Traditions: Social Movement Rhetoric and Literature (King)

In this course, we’ll use the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the movement for black lives as case studies to begin to answer two questions: How do people achieve collective change through their words, their bodies, and their actions? How can the writer contribute to, chronicle, or represent social movements? The first half of the course will provide a theoretical base in social movement rhetoric, several case studies in rhetorical studies, and three literary case studies. Then you will establish a research question regarding a social movement and/or literary text(s) of your choosing—not necessarily one covered by our readings. The second half of the course will be divided between independent study meetings and sharing your work-in-progress with your colleagues. Ultimately, you will write a 12-20-page scholarly research paper and present your findings in a public setting. Some likely course texts: excerpts from Charles Stewart, Craig Allen Smith, and Robert E. Denton, Jr., Persuasion and Social Movements, 6th ed.; excerpts from Nathan Crick, The Rhetoric of Social Movements; excerpts from Jonathan Alexander, Susan Jarrett, and Nancy Welch, Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics; excerpts from Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation; John Lewis, the March trilogy; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dear Ijeawele; and Zadie Smith, Intimations. (English majors who plan to graduate in Fall 2021, Spring 2022, or Summer 2022 should register for the ENGL 487W version of this course. English majors should register for the ENGL 471 version if they need the course for a 20th-century 400-level course, a 400-level elective, and/or as part of the minor in Professional Writing. With permission, seniors may take ENGL 487W as part of the Professional Writing minor.)

ENGL 487W: Senior Seminar: Social Movement Rhetoric and Literature (King)

In this course, we’ll use the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the movement for black lives as case studies to begin to answer two questions: How do people achieve collective change through their words, their bodies, and their actions? How can the writer contribute to, chronicle, or represent social movements? The first half of the course will provide a theoretical base in social movement rhetoric, several case studies in rhetorical studies, and three literary case studies. Then you will establish a research question regarding a social movement and/or literary text(s) of your choosing—not necessarily one covered by our readings. The second half of the course will be divided between independent study meetings and sharing your work-in-progress with your colleagues. Ultimately, you will write a 12-20-page scholarly research paper and present your findings in a public setting for friends, family, and faculty. Some likely course texts: excerpts from Charles Stewart, Craig Allen Smith, and Robert E. Denton, Jr., Persuasion and Social Movements, 6th ed.; excerpts from Nathan Crick, The Rhetoric of Social Movements; excerpts from Jonathan Alexander, Susan Jarrett, and Nancy Welch, Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics; excerpts from Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation; John Lewis, the March trilogy; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dear Ijeawele; and Zadie Smith, Intimations. (English majors who plan to graduate in Fall 2021, Spring 2022, or Summer 2022 should sign up for ENGL 487W. English majors should register for the ENGL 471 version of this course if they need the course for a 20th-century 400-level course, a 400-level elective, and/or as part of the minor in Professional Writing. With permission, seniors may take ENGL 487W as part of the Professional Writing minor.)

ENGL/INART 496: (2 credits, plus 1 in spring 2022; spring course is only 5 weeks) African American Read-in Engaged Learning Experience – Theme: The Other African Americans: African Immigrants Writing America (Wesley)

This course allows students to study literature in connection with an annual public two-day event held during Black History Month at Penn State Altoona. The African American Read-In (AARI) is a celebration that promotes both literacy and a wider appreciation for African American literature, culture, and art. Students enrolled in the 2-credit Fall AARI course will study materials related to the annual theme and create original projects to present at the Spring AARI. Students will complete all 3 credits by also enrolling in the 1-credit 5-week Spring AARI course, which concludes with the presentation of the AARI events in mid-February. As shapers of the program, class members will also have a voice in designing, promoting, and delivering the program as well as a stake in its overall success. In the 2021-22 course, we will explore major voices in immigrant African Literature in the American Diaspora, stories of the other African American—black, African, and American—and their stories that negotiate the landscape of their old lost world in the discovery of their new world of America. We will study the diversity of African immigrant voices, emerging and major, established voices in poetry, fiction, and memoir. We will focus on literary styles, influences, the fusion of craft that is American and African, and the many contributions to American literature made by these writers. Some of the works we will read are by first generation African immigrants or the children of African immigrants, some of them millennials, whose stories may be new to the American literary landscape, yet very similar to the traditional African American experience. The course will give students an opportunity to appreciate the connection we all share as a country of immigrants, our various voices that tell the human story even while understanding some of the cultural and social forces that make all of us one. If you enjoy crossing borders and learning about other cultural traditions, this course will take you into the Africa that is next door to you, and this course is for you. (ENGL/INART 496 meets with ENGL/INART/AFAM 141N. Instructor sign-in required for 496 – contact Professor Patricia Jabbeh Wesley at [email protected].)

ENGL 492/WMNST 491: American Women Writers: Coming of Age in American Fiction (Petrulionis)

The “coming of age” story, aka the bildungsroman (novel of education/development), has long been used as a standard plot for fiction writers. Of all the literary genres, it is one of the most important for women writers—since “it often grows out of the author’s own lived experiences, providing a map to where women’s lives have been, and where they are going.” Yet the female bildungsroman has also been called “a contradiction in terms,” since these novels commonly present the lives of female protagonists whose maturation from girl to woman often reflects a “growing down” rather than “growing up,” as young heroines learn to conform to societal gender norms rather than strike out independently in the wide world on a quest of self-discovery, after the manner of young male protagonists like Huckleberry Finn. But these novels depict rebellious heroines who occasionally triumph over restrictive social conventions in surprising ways. In this class, we will read American women’s coming of age novels from the eighteenth through the late twentieth centuries, closely examining how differences in historical era, social class, race, religion, ethnicity, geography, and education affect the vastly different futures conceived for and by young women. We will interrogate how (and whether) these models, especially those from long ago, still mirror social strictures affecting young women today. Our readings will include some of the following novels: Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Frances Harper’s Iola Leroy, Laura Curtis Bullard’s Christine, Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Elizabeth Stoddard’s The Morgesons, Rebecca Harding Davis’s A Law Unto Herself, Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth, and Louise Erdrich’s Tracks.