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Approved Core Courses (9 hours required)
English Department
English 8826: Autobiography
This course introduces the students to the genre of Autobiography writing or often termed, Memoir writing. The student will read various styles of memoir writing and will write their own personal stories. Through semester long writing the students are rewarded with chapters for their future memoir.
English 8846 Travel Writing
This course introduces the student to the exciting world of Travel Writing. Through reading and writing of various travel-centered texts, the student will learn what it takes to have a successful career as a travel writer.
English 8866: Modern Familiar Essay
This course takes the student on a personal writing journey. The course introduces students to the “Art of the Personal Essay.” Through reading and writing a variety of personal narratives, the students learn the skills and requirements to write their own personal essays.
English 8870: Seminar: Publishing Non-Fiction
This course introduces students to the exciting and challenging career as a published author. Each student prepares and submits two previously written essays for publication in outside journals, magazines, or literary reviews. Students’ research publications their essay will best fit, write a letter to the editor asking for consideration in their publication, and submit their writings to the publication for publishing. This course takes the student through the necessary steps all published authors go through to draft, revise, submit and re-submit their work for publication.
English 8800: Seminar: Spiritual Nonfiction
In this creative writing seminar, students will study and practice various forms and styles of spiritual nonfiction. The goal will be to publish and/or present at conferences. Students will be encouraged to articulate, for themselves, the meaning and experience of “spirituality,” while crafting pieces in a wide range of nonfictional forms intended for a general, diverse audience. We will also study the contemporary literary market—what spiritual nonfiction is being published, where it is being published, and the audience. The core text for this course will be the Best American Spiritual Writing anthology for that year.
English 8800: Seminar: Experiments in Creative Nonfiction
In "Experiments in Creative Nonfiction," students will move beyond the conventions of the traditional essay and memoir and discover a wider range of narrative and stylistic possibilities for their writing. Students will explore the ways creative nonfiction writers use techniques and strategies usually associated with other genres. For example, from fiction the use of a third person or an unreliable narrator or from poetry passages that move by association, juxtaposition, or in fragments linked by idea. Formally innovative examples of nonfiction will serve as models for inspiration for short writing exercises and longer pieces of creative nonfiction.
English 8966/8800: Narrative Nonfiction
This special topics course is sometimes offered as a dual level course or a seminar. Narrative Nonfiction/Literary Journalism is a hybrid form that combines the methods of traditional journalism (reporting, research, observation, commitment to accuracy, fairness and truth) with techniques and concerns that we usually associate with fiction (characterization, dialogue, point of view, scene-setting, construction of a central narrative). The effect of this combination is a work that has the feel of lived experience, of a real-life story unfolding before our eyes. Students in this course will read historical and contemporary literary journalism, and they will practice writing monologues, dialogue, observed and constructed scenes, profiles, and immersion journalism.
English 8736: Rhetoric
This course is designed to introduce the students to the background of writing and its origins. Each student will learn the history of writing and write papers centered on this topic.
English 8806: English Internship (1-3 hours)
Supervised internship in a professional setting with a local employer or nonprofit organization. Hands-on experience. Work hours, activities, and responsibilities must be specified in a written agreement between the employer and the student in consultation with the internship director. Some internships will be paid and some will not. Permission of internship director required.
Other Approved Courses (up to 6 hours allowed)
English Department
English 8816: Digital Literacies (3)
This course addresses emerging issues about digital literacies such as the rhetoric of technology, technological competency, technology and information ecologies, critical awareness of technology and human interactions, judicious application of technological knowledge, user-centered design, networking and online communities, ethics and technology, and culture and technology.
English 8836: Technical Communication (3)
Technical Communication introduces students to the field of technical communication. Students will study the development of print and electronic genres common to industry settings, the design and production of technical documents, the writing processes and work practices of professional technical communicators, and the roles oftechnical communicators in organizational contexts.
English 8856: Information Design (3)
This course introduces students to strategies for integrating visual and textual elements of technical documents. Instruction will focus on design theory and application through individual and collaborative projects. Students will develop the professional judgment necessary for making and implementing stylistic choices appropriate for communicating technical information to a lay audience.
English 8876: Technical Editing (3)
This course introduces students to the roles and responsibilities of technical editors: the editorial decision-making processes for genre, design, style, and production of technical information; the communication with technical experts, writers, and publishers; the collaborative processes of technical editing; and the techniques technical editors use during comprehensive, developmental, copyediting, and proofreading stages.
English 8800: Seminar: Topics in Language and Literature (approved topics only)(3)
An intensive study of one or more authors, genres, literary movements, or literary problems not covered by regular period or genre courses. (This course may be repeated for additional credits under different topics.) Formerly ENGL 8130 Topical Seminar in English
English 8966: Topics in Language and Literature (approved topics only) (3)
Specific subjects (when offered) appear in class schedules. Complete syllabus available in English Department. Formerly ENGL 4940/8946 Studies in Language and Literature.
Public Administration
PA 8520: Seminar in Grant Writing (3)
This course explores the grant-writing process from initial conceptualization through submission and award to final report. The purposes of the course are to provide graduate students with the expertise and tools needed to fund their own research, to provide effective grant-writing assistance to faculty mentors and other colleagues, and to compete more effectively in the job market and/or for acceptance into doctoral and post-doctoral programs.
Education
TED 8616: Teaching Writing Throughout the Curriculum (3)
This course includes a study of the writing process and its use throughout the curriculum. The research regarding writing instruction is studied and application is made to classroom practice.
Other courses and workshops may be developed and added as warranted.
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