A pop-quiz like none other: Students in professor Marlo Belschner's Shakespeare class attempt to find their way out of an escape room designed by the professor.
ENGL 110G. Composition and Argument 1.0 course credit
A writing and reading course designed to help students analyze and evaluate what they read, recognize and use a variety of rhetorical modes and argumentative strategies, improve their critical thinking skills, and arrange their thoughts into well-organized, concise, thesis-focused essays.
ENGL 120G. Composition and Literature 1.0 course credit
A writing and reading course designed to help students analyze and evaluate what they read, recognize and use a variety of rhetorical modes and argumentative strategies, improve their critical thinking skills, understand and implement the special argumentative strategies of literary analysis, and arrange their thoughts into well-organized, concise, thesis-focused essays.
ENGL 180G. Introduction to Literature: Special Topics 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
A general literature course for non-majors, ENGL 180 seeks to encourage life-long reading through appreciation of literary language and form. The course emphasizes examination and comparison of literary genres, structure and form in fiction and poetry, and New Critical analysis (point of view, plot, setting, characterization, diction, imagery, metaphor and symbol, theme, etc.). In addition, the course will place a particular topic or sub-genre in the context of pertinent historical and cultural settings, while examining categorical assumptions about “popular” and “serious” literary treatments. Recent course offerings include: “”Folktale, Myth, Legends, and Fable,” “Sherlock Holmes and Victorian Detective Fiction,” “21st-Century Young Adult Literature,” “Illinois Authors,” “Pithy, Punchy, and Paunchy: Detective Fiction.” Satisfies the General Education requirement for “Beauty and Meaning in Works of Art” component. Co-requisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120. May be repeated only with permission of the instructor. One ENGL 180 course may be counted toward English major credit.
ENGL 188. Special Topics 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
Experimental/pilot courses. May be repeated for credit with permission of instructor.
ENGL 200. Introduction to English Studies 1.0 course credit
A gateway to the English major, this course is designed to introduce majors to the broad range of scholarship and practice within the discipline of English. Included will be emphasis upon close reading and research skills, as well as overviews of the history of the discipline, creative writing, literary criticism and theory, and vocational paths. Co-requisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 201. Grammar 1.0 course credit
A course that gives students practice in fundamental English grammar. Emphasizes basic skills, not theory.
ENGL 210. Creative Writing 1.0 course credit
Practice in the writing and critical analysis of imaginative literary forms, especially poetry and fiction. Satisfies the General Education requirement for “Beauty and Meaning in Works of Art” component. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 220. British Survey I 1.0 course credit
A historical survey emphasizing literary and cultural developments in English literature from the Medieval through the Neoclassical periods. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 221. British Survey II 1.0 course credit
A historical survey emphasizing literary and cultural developments in English literature from the Romantic through the Modern periods. This course is a continuation of ENGL 220 but may be taken alone and without regard to sequence. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 224. American Survey I 1.0 course credit
A historical survey emphasizing literary movements and cultural and developments in the literature of the United States. Readings will include: Native American creation myths; explorer narratives; poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from such writers as Bradstreet, Mather, Edwards, Franklin, Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Whitman, and Dickinson. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 225. American Survey II 1.0 course credit
A historical survey focusing on poetry and fiction written after the Civil War and before American involvement in the Second World War. Included are works from such writers as Jewett, Wharton, Twain, James, Chopin, Crane, Pound, Robinson, Frost, Anderson, Stevens, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Du Bois, Hurston, and Faulkner. Emphasis on literary, cultural, and historical movements. The course is a continuation of ENGL 224, but may be taken alone and without regard to sequence. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 250. Special Topics 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
May be repeated for credit.
ENGL 288. Special Topics 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
Experimental/pilot course. May be repeated for credit with permission of instructor.
ENGL 290. Writing and Literature in Context 0.25 to 0.5 course credit
A course designed to explore writing and literatures in the framework of travel. These courses include both classroom and off-campus experiences in order to deepen a student’s understanding of place’s relationship to the creative arts. Recent course offerings have included “Classical Japan” and “Literary Scotland.”
ENGL 299. Writing Fellows 0.5 course credit
An introduction to the tutoring process, as well as basic pedagogical and developmental strategies for teaching writing. Course requirements will include: readings in composition/tutoring theory and practice as well as tutoring in the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC). Enrollment through nomination and recommendation only. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 301. Creative Nonfiction 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
This course combines the study of the rhetoric and modes of the “fourth genre,” creative nonfiction, with practice of its craft. Examples of memoir, lyric essay, literary journalism, and nature writing will be analyzed even as students learn to write in the same modes. Open to juniors and seniors or by permission of the instructor. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 310. Advanced Creative Writing 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
Students write intensively in fiction or poetry, individually selecting their subject matter throughout the course. Students sharpen their critical skills by evaluating one another’s work and by investigating contemporary writing and publishing. Prerequisite: ENGL 210 or permission of the instructor.
ENGL 337. Genre Studies in British Literature 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
An upper-division course in British poetry, fiction, or drama. Emphasis is on study of characteristics shared by a distinct type and on examination of individual illustrations of type. Recent course offerings have included “Literature and Film,” “Romantic Poetry,” “Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists,” and “Mystery in the 19th Century.” Prior completion of a British literature survey (ENGL 220 or 221, pertinent to the course topic and title) is recommended, but not required. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
ENGL 339. Topics in British Literature 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
An upper-division course concentrating on a particular period, movement, or author in British literature. Recent course offerings have included: “Seventeenth-Century Poetry and the Self,” “Angry Young Men,” “Chaucer,” “Victorian Culture and Literature,” “Early Modern Masculinities,” “On Orientalism,” and “Immigration and Identity.” Prior completion of a British literature survey (ENGL 200 or 221, pertinent to the course topic and title) is recommended, but not required. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
ENGL 347. Genre Studies in American Literature 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
An upper-division course in American poetry, fiction, or drama. Emphasis is on study of characteristics shared by a distinct type and on examination of individual illustrations of type. Recent course offerings have included “Modern American Poetry,” “The Contemporary American Novel,” “Modern American Drama,” and “African American Autobiography and Fiction”; henceforth, “Introduction to Literary Theory” will be offered periodically. Prior completion of an American literature survey (ENGL 224 or 225, pertinent to the course topic and title) is recommended, but not required. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
ENGL 349. Topics in American Literature 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
An upper-division course concentrating on a particular period, movement, or author in American literature. Recent course offerings have included: “Hawthorne and Melville,” “The Gilded Age,” and “American Literature between the World Wars,” and “Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement.” Prior completion of an American literature survey (ENGL 224 or 225, pertinent to the course topic and title) is recommended, but not required. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
ENGL 350. Special Topics in Literature and Related Areas 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
A course permitting the investigation of narrowly defined literary issues, types, modes, and extra literary influences. Recent offerings have included “Literary Representations of Hell,” “Transatlantic Literature of the 1890s,” “World Literature,” and “Modern Poetry.” Prior completion of an English or American literature survey pertinent to the course topic and title is recommended, but not required. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
ENGL 361. Shakespeare I: Comedies and History Plays 1.0 course credit
Studies in the comedies and the history plays. Prior completion of ENGL 220 is
recommended, but not required. Open to juniors and seniors or by permission of the instructor. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 362. Shakespeare II: Tragedies and Romances 1.0 course credit
Studies in the tragedies and romances. Prior completion of ENGL 220 is recommended, but not required. Open to juniors and seniors or by permission of the instructor. Prerequisite: ENGL 110 or ENGL 120.
ENGL 388. Special Topics 0.5 to 1.0 course credit
Experimental/pilot course. ENGL 400. Senior Seminar 1.0 course credit
An intensive study of key literary periods and subjects. Recent seminars have included: “Literature of the American South,” “The Responsible Artist,” “Early Modern Drama,” “Across the Color Line: Fiction of Faulkner, Ellison, and Morrison,” “20th-Century American Women’s Fiction,” “Modernism and Beyond,” “On European Romantic Realism,” and “Toni Morrison.” Required of all senior English majors. Offered in the spring semester.
ENGL 420. Independent Study 1.0 course credit
Students arrange independent study projects with individual instructors. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
ENGL 490. Directed Study in English 0.25 to 1.0 course credit
An experience designed to allow the student to use writing, editorial, and professional skills developed during the major by working on departmental publications or external internships. The course will help prepare the student for employment in various English-related fields. Prerequisite: prior approval of the department and instructor’s consent. May be repeated for credit.
