Course Syllabi

A course in expository writing with emphasis on writing processes and effective rhetorical choices concerning audience, purpose, genre, and style. Student will examine the relationships among language, knowledge, and power, and gain facility with critical reading and writing. Students will also learn to approach writing as a vehicle for learning and communication, addressing the types of writing they will encounter in college as well as in professional and civic environments.

A course in academic writing and critical thinking skills. This course is an intensive study of and practice in the strategies and techniques used for developing research-based expository and persuasive texts, emphasizing research methods and the process of inquiry. This course prepares students to enter upper-level academic discourse communities.

A course in college-level expository and persuasive writing with emphasis on writing processes, and effective rhetorical choices concerning audience, purpose, genre, and style. It gives students guided practice in critical reading of articles, speeches, and other non-literary texts. It also helps students with planning, drafting, revising, and editing essays in various rhetorical modes.

A course in advanced college-level persuasive and research-based writing with emphasis on critical thinking skills, research methods, and the process of inquiry. It helps students make arguments in various settings by practicing effective reading and writing strategies, evidence discovery, claim support, and argument response. This course prepares students to enter upper-level academic discourse communities.

A course in basic technical writing, including memos, status and progress reports, application letters, and resume writing in the context of technical fields of study.

A literary study of the Bible with emphasis on the Old Testament. Not a course in theology or denominational interpretation. Emphasis on the Bible's social and historical backgrounds, literary genres, characterization, poetic imagery, and writers.

A literary study of this region and its influence on American culture. Students will explore what significant authors have written about the West in works of both fact and fiction. In addition, students will discuss the importance of distin- guishing literary western writing from popular works.

An introduction to the myths of ancient and medieval cultures of Europe, the Mideast, and Far East, as well as the Americas and regions of Africa. Explores similarities and differences in various cultures' quests for meaning: of human nature and mortality, of gods and immortality, of the origin and structure of the universe, of the exemplary lives of heroes and heroines, and of the ordering of communities.

A study of stories, customs, beliefs, music, ceremonies, arts and crafts, home cures, ways of cooking, and farming which people (the folk) have found useful or satisfying enough to pass on for generations. Students will have the opportunity to learn to recognize folklore and to understand that it is not merely "'cute' or 'picturesque' but is central to humanity."

A course designed to introduce the students to interpretive concepts of literature and to develop their enjoyment and understanding of it.

This course explores theories and strategies of instructional practices associated with composition pedagogy, collaborative learning, and writing center research. The course includes classroom-based work and field experiences. Students will observe writing classrooms, the Writing Center and/or community sites, and participate in tutoring or mentoring in writing.

The study of the components of the English Language; this will include phonetics, phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax.

This advanced interdisciplinary writing course emphasizes major contemporary public issues. In this course, students will learn techniques of analyzing and writing persuasive arguments addressing topics of current public interest. Included in this course is the practice in and study of the logic by which writers construct arguments; the various means that writers use to persuade an audience; and the conventions of evidence, claims, and argument in persuasive discourses. Papers are research-based.

The study of science fiction as literature, including historical development and related genres, through short stories, novels, and film.

The literature of major authors in the light of their cultural backgrounds. Presents writing from early Greek times through the Renaissance periods.

This course is a critical examination of selected classics of world authors from the 17th century to modern times.

A chronological survey of English Literature from the Medieval period through the 18th century. Works studied will include Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and selections from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Alexander Pope.

A chronological survey of English Literature from the Romantic period to the present. Major authors will include Wordsworth, Browning, Joyce, Woolf, and Samuel Beckett.

A critical examination of the literature of cultures whose origins lie outside the Western tradition, including various minority cultures in the United States.

This course will introduce the works of Mexican-American writers of the Southwest and explore how Chicanos have used creative writing to reflect upon and express their experiences as people of Mexican descent living within the United States. Works include poetry, fiction, and essays viewed in their relationship to American cultural heritage and to contemporary culture.