Sample Syllabi

The syllabi linked below represent some of the courses I have taught in recent years. While most of the included material is mandated by departmental policy, I believe that these documents reflect my pedagogy and high expectations. However, I have included brief notes under each to summarize the approach to the course and rationale for that apporach. 

 

ENGL 1102 Composition II (web-based) 

This second-semester writing course is focused on literature and research. A few years ago, I made the decision to separate those two elements. I found that teaching my students to write a literary research was limiting the range of skills and intellectual approaches we could be developing. I begin the course with an overview of the kind of reading, thinking, and writing that I expect. I introduce them to rudimentary semiotics and then transition from image-based discussions and basic analyses into close readings of poems. We then take a step back and apply our semiotic approach in a problem-based scenario. For their multi-stage research project, which spans nine weeks, I have the online students identify a problem or concern from their own experiences with online courses, or I have them speculate about a potential problem or concern they could face, such as employer perceptions of online coursework. We work together to narrow down this subject into topics and further refine those into driving questions that will guide our research. Once students have submitted a prospectus for their research, we return to literature and work on our skills of close reading and synthesizing ideas while reading plays. The idea here is to use the literature as kind of intellectual play ground. We test out new ways of reading and responding in a low-risk enviroment using works that often deal with marginalized characters. We use this module in the course to read closely and critically while looking for patterns, which is a strategy they will need to employ in the next phase of their research projects. We spend approximately three weeks synthesizing research from various aspects of their topics. This culminates in an annotated bibliography and peer review. Students then begin to work on drafting their papers. We conclude our literary studies with fiction, returning again to close reading and critical analyses while introducing cultural perspectives on gender, race, class, disability, and other broad theoretical perspectives. Students then return to their research projects to review and revise their drafts before submitting the project for a grade. The final exam asks students to draw upon the work completed for the course as evidence in arguing for a specific course grade. 

 

ENGL 1102 Composition II (traditional)

This course is much like the web-based version; however, students collectively choose a subject in which they will all identify topics for research. In recent semesters, students have research and written about technology in the classroom and workplace, social media, and marketing/branding at their institution. Having all students write about similar topics under a subject heading has allowed for more focused critiques that go beyond surface level correctness to addressing more fundamental questions about depth in the content of the essays because these students are becoming more knowlegeable about the subject and can draw on their new learning to help teach others. 

 

ENGL 2111 World Literature I (web-based)

This course explores literature from The Epic of Gilgamesh through Shakespeare. My approach to this course is thematic, focusing on The Epic, Rules, Stories, and Selfhood. Within the module on The Epic, students read excerpts from The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, and Don Quixote. We make connections to more modern works and discuss how the notion of the epic or some aspect of it has changed over time and across cultures. Next students read texts dealing with rules: The Decalogue, Bhagavad Gita, and other works that lay out rules for living in ancient cultures. The third module of the course deals with myths and stories, which often result from folks who do not follow the rules previously set forth. Included here are Aesop's Fables, New Testament Parables, The One-Thousand and One Nights, and excerpts from other texts. Finally, the course concludes with readings related to selfhood. In this unit we explore Dante's Inferno, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and other more contemporary texts. Students are encouraged to tie the readings to what they have read before and what they know outside of college, which leads to interesting discussions about video games, music, and films that have connections to older canonical texts. The capstone for this course is a creative project that asks students engage with a text in artistic ways that are critically grounded; students must make their works creative but they must ground those works in close readings of the texts and secondary research materials related to those texts. 

 

ENGL 2112 World Literature II (traditional)

This course focuses on literature from 17th through the 20th Centuries. This course focuses on horror as a theme. It includes readings and discussions of the origins of horror as an aesthetic concern, beginning with Robert Pinsky's discussion of Dante's Inferno Canto XXVII and culminating in Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods. Students read excerpts from canonical texts and watch films that have been matched to allow for discussions of the role of horror in art and human life. This allows us to engage in a variety of ideological issues, from representations of women to disability as a marker of difference to class struggles. Students are encouraged to bring in outside knowledge and texts to bolster in-class discussions. The course concludes with a project that asks students to identify a contemporary text with "monstrous" origins (think: Jaws and The Leviathan). Students must discuss the heritage of the contemporary text and the significance of its ancestors in the context of the horror aesthetic.