English Courses

English Composition 1
The Composition Program of the English Department seeks to develop and enhance the ability of students to articulate and
express their own ideas as well as the ideas of others. We emphasize writing skills that draw on critical reading and thinking to enable
students to synthesize and analyze multiple points of view, to support their own positions on various issues, and to adjust their writing
for diverse audiences, purposes, and conventions. Composition 1 focuses on the fundamentals of punctuation, citing works of
literature, and supporting an argument about a piece of literature with the elements within the piece of literature itself and with

reviewed works. Students can expect to be more professional in their writing skills after being a part of this class.

English Composition 2
The Composition Program of the English Department seeks to develop and enhance the ability of students to articulate and
express their own ideas as well as the ideas of others. We emphasize writing skills that draw on critical reading and thinking to enable
students to synthesize and analyze multiple points of view, to support their own positions on various issues, and to adjust their writing
for diverse audiences, purposes, and conventions. Composition 2 focuses on the fundamentals of elements within a piece of literature
(such as rhyme, meter, and structure), creating an original argument about a work, and pulling reviewed sources into their argument to
back it up professionally. Students can expect to be more creative in their professional writing after being a part of this class.

British Literature
A survey of British literature beginning with Beowulf in the old English period, to Chaucer in the Middle English period,
to the Romantic and Victorian periods, and, finally, to modernism and contemporary Anglophone literature. The class discusses and
analyzes such authors as Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, and Milton in the Renaissance and so much more. Students
will be asked to close read a work and analyze it and the author thoroughly in a professionally written paper. Students can expect to

discuss an English work in detail and length with great knowledge after taking this course.

American Literature
A survey of American literature surveys its beginnings to 1860, through the Realist period, and, finally, to the present day.
Significant attention will be given to the writings of women and minorities. Students will be asked to analyze works of literature based
on their rhyme, meter, and structure, and write a paper based on an original argument that they construct. Students can expect to

understand American literature with ease and enjoyment after taking this class.

World Literature
Readings of major drama, poetry, and novels from medieval times to the present, translated from major European and
world languages will be the works analyzed in this class. Authors such as Dante, Voltaire, Mann, Tolstoy, Kafka, Narayan, and Borges
offer varied literary glimpses of foreign worlds. Students will be asked to participate in arguments during class about the works and
will also be asked to compose original arguments in a paper about the works discussed. Students can expect to understand the major
woks discussed with ease after being a part of the class.

Humanities
This course will focus on the impacts of human culture across the western world and how society came to be today.
Students will discuss the Greek, Roman, Jewish, Islamic, and Catholic cultures and how they shaped the world that we know into
being. Students will also be asked to read works of literature, such as epics, from the Greek, Roman, and Catholic cultures. Those
include the Odyssey, the Iliad, and Dantes Inferno. Students will also read sections from the Jewish Bible and the Islamic Koran.
Students can expect to understand and discuss different cultures and their impact on the world over time after taking this class.

Literary Analysis
The purpose of all literature is to tell a good story about struggling characters. The students task will be to analyze these texts and
characters while examining the many aspects of literature like point of view, setting, theme, tone, symbolism, imagery, et al. In this
class students will be conducting close readings of poems, plays, and two novels while analyzing many of the aspects and
characteristics which define them as important pieces of literature. They will also construct papers with original arguments based on
their experience of the elements within the work. Students can expect to understand how to analyze and close read a work to discover
its symbolism and imagery after taking this class.