COURSE DESCRIPTIONS Summer 2023

ENG 718: Literature of the Sea

Professor: Keja Valens

Summer I | Online Asynchronous

The Atlantic Ocean laps against the North Shore; it reaches the Arctic, the Caribbean, South America, Africa, and Europe. It is the sea that we encounter in our everyday and across the global literary imagination. It is the site of the adventures of Moby Dick, the horrors of the Middle Passage, and the wonders of Mami Wata. In this course, we will read stories of adventure and disaster at sea, historical and speculative poetic renderings of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Texts will include short stories by Herman Melville, Edwidge Danticat, Thomas Glave, and Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel and novels by Rivers Solomon and Rita Indiana. Students will have the opportunity to consider how to write about, teach, and create digital projects that engage literature of the sea. This is a literary studies course.

ENG 761: Shakespeare Teachers’ Institute

Professor: Jeffrey Theis

Summer II | Institute, August 7-11

Are you a teacher and want to bring new life to how you teach a Shakespeare play? ENG 761, Shakespeare Teacher’s Institute, is for teachers and teachers-in-training and brings Shakespeare’s plays to life through performance techniques and scholarly research. The institute is co-taught with Actors’ Shakespeare Project. Each summer we focus on one specific play. In a low-stakes setting, students will do some acting, work on curriculum development, and write an annotated bibliography based upon scholarly research. You will deepen your knowledge of Shakespeare and develop ways to make him more engaging to your own students. Online discussions and the writing of the annotated bibliography occur in the week/s right after the institute. May be repeated for credit or taken only for professional development points. Email Jeff Theis (jtheis@salemstate.edu) with any questions about the course or to indicate your contact info (mainly email address as well as mailing address). This is a literary studies course that can also be used as a substitute for ENG 821 Contemporary Methods of Teaching Literature, for students in the MAT and MA/MAT programs.

ENG 830: Digital Writing

Professor: Tanya Rodrigue

Summer I | Online Asynchronous

Digital writing is an umbrella term that encompasses writing that is composed with digital tools and often shared in digital spaces. This class will focus on one kind of digital writing, podcasting. Students will analyze podcasts based on a variety of subjects such as music, sports, and true crime, and their corresponding genres such as interviews, discussion, and narrative stories. Students will learn the process of creating a podcast, the technical skills needed to craft professionalsounding audio work, and techniques for distributing a podcast to a target audience. With that knowledge, students will create their own podcasts individually or in small groups, compose and produce a trailer and 1-2 podcast episodes, and share their podcasts in digital spaces. This is a writing course and counts for the Certificate in Writing and Rhetoric.

ENG 745: Introduction to Writing and Rhetoric

Professor: Al DeCiccio

Summer II | Online Synchronous

Welcome to ENG 745: Introduction to Writing and Rhetoric. Studying writing and rhetoric is intrinsically interdisciplinary. Understanding writing and rhetoric can help us to determine what’s real and what’s fake. Practicing writing and rhetoric allows us to contribute to what Michael Oakeshott calls the ongoing conversation of humankind. This course introduces students to the discipline of writing and rhetoric, its formation, histories, theories, and methodologies. Students will study key concepts, theories, and practices as well as trace and explore historical and ongoing conversations in the discipline. ENG 745 is fully online and requires regular engagement with synchronous class meetings and asynchronous course discussions. This is a writing course and is a required course for the Certificate in Writing and Rhetoric.

Fall 2023

ENG 725: Intro to Graduate Studies in Lit

Professor: Keja Valens

M 5-7:20 pm | Hybrid (meets in person every other week) This course introduces students to literary study and creative writing in the context of literary theory. It considers big questions such as: what is literature and what does it do? What is language and how does it function? Who writes and how? Students develop methods of participating in debates relevant to the field, engaging literary theory and criticism, and writing for scholarly audiences. The hybrid nature of this course is to meet face to face every other week and to work asynchronously online in between. In-person meetings on the following dates: 9/18, 10/2, 10/23, 11/6, 11/20, 12/4, 12/18. This is a required course for all programs of study.

ENG 794: Studies in Literature of the World Professor: Stephenie Young

Tu 5-7:20 pm | In-Person

Dictators, Fascists, and Fanatics: Tragedy on Page and Screen They say that bad politics make great literature, so there is never a shortage of amazing stories out there for us to read on the subject. This course focuses on mostly modern tales of dictatorship and disaster through page (novels, short stories, non-fiction) and screen (Hollywood film, documentaries, shorts). By looking at powerful stories, we will study the social structures that create and uphold dictatorships and “the strong man,” discuss the predicament of the citizen who, among other things, must decide between personal ethics and state rule of law, and consider questions about the aestheticization and artistic rendering of public and private/domestic violence. This course will include an out-of-class film component which students can complete from the comfort of their couch!

Readings may include: Voices from Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexievich (Belarus), In the Time of the Butterflies , Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic), The Cellist of Sarajevo, Galloway (Bosnia), The Leopard , Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Sicily), The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector (Brazil), Pedro Paramo, Juan Rulfo (Mexico), On Heroes and Tombs , Ernesto Sabato (Argentina), Blindness , Jose Saramago (Portugal), Persepolis , Marjane Satrapi (Iran),

The Pianist , Władysław Szpilman (Poland), and The Three Theban Plays (Sophocles).

Films may include: The Great Dictator (Chaplin, 1940, USA), The Godfather Part I and II (Coppola 1972 & 1974, USA), 1900 (Bertolucci, 1976, Italy), The Official Story (Puenzo, 1985, Argentina), American History X (Kaye, 1998, USA), Pan’s Labyrinth (del Toro, 2006, Mexico/Spain), City of God (Meirelles, 2002, Brazil), Ida (Pawlikowski, 2013, Poland); There is No Evil (Rasoulof, 2020, Iran), Tár (Field, 2022, USA).

Check with Professor Young in August 2023 about the final reading and screening list. This is a literary studies course and counts for the Certificate in Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

ENG 822A: Nonfiction Workshop

(cross-listed with ENL 421)

Professor: John Scrimgeour

W 5:30-7:50 pm | In-Person

In this course, students will write in three of the major forms of creative nonfiction: memoir, personal essay, and literary journalism. The course will look at developments in creative nonfiction, such as the lyric essay, the collage essay, and multi-modal composition. Students will have the opportunity to explore the boundaries of the genre through low-stakes writing exercises. Course time will be devoted to discussing student work and readings in contemporary nonfiction. This is a writing course and counts for the Certificate in Writing and Rhetoric.

ENG 827: Scriptwriting

(cross-listed with ENL 420)

Professor: Kevin Carey

Th 5:30-7:50 pm | In-Person

Scriptwriting will focus on the principles and practices of modern dramaturgy as it relates to the writing of film scripts and stage scripts. Characters, story, plot structure, and dialogue will be discussed and analyzed in contemporary and classic film scripts and plays and in the developing works of students. Scriptwriting is a rigorous craft and, at its best, a fine art. It involves practical analysis of short and feature film scripts and play scripts as well as writing assignments which are tailored to help students master the basics of the art. This course can help students to polish up that script/play idea and get it ready to pitch or produce. This is a writing course and counts for the Certificate in Writing and Rhetoric.

ENG 832: Topics in British Literature and Criticism: British Romanticism

(cross-listed with ENL 445)

Professor: Jude Nixon

W 5-7:20 pm | In-Person

ENG 832 and ENL 445 focus on British literary Romantic writers. Emphasis will be placed on individual writers and seminal works, the major characteristics of the literary/cultural period including, but not limited to, the shift from heroic verse to a lingua franca, the turn from religion to myth, and the complex relationship between author and audience. The course will also examine the many historical, cultural, and political forces that shaped the period: the French Revolution; the rise of science; the view of man as divine; the fraternal relationship between humans, each other, and nature; emerging industrialism; ecocriticism. The final grade will be determined from class presentations, class participation, two formal papers (with and without research; with research paper written as publication practice for MA students). Graduate students will be expected to do presentations and research/ lesson plans/digital projects in keeping with their degree programs. This is a literary studies course.

ENG 870: Writing Center

(cross-listed with ENL 302)

Professor: Al DeCiccio

W 1:10-3:30 pm | In-Person

Welcome to the Writing Center Practicum! While the course is required of graduate assistants assigned to the Writing Center, it is also open to other graduate students. The course examines the ways in which collaborative learning can benefit writers, and students practice a range of tutoring strategies. The Practicum explores everything from what makes a successful writing center tutoring session to new media and online tutoring, working with writers in the disciplines, working with multilingual writers, working with graduate student-writers and faculty members, and investigating how different identities surface and play out in the Writing Center. Requirements include regular weekly tutoring in the Writing Center and a research project on Writing Center theory and practice. Prerequisite: Permission of the Instructor. This is a writing course and counts for the Certificate in Writing and Rhetoric.

ENG 770N: Context and Culture TESOL

(cross-listed with EDC 361)

Professor: Amy Minett

Online Asynchronous

This course provides a foundation for understanding the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Local, national, and international contexts are examined and used in investigating various historical and current approaches to teaching linguistically diverse learners. Topics include laws and language policies, cultural identity, language diversity, and culturally responsive and affirming teaching to forge family and/or community relations. This is a TESOL course and can be used as an elective for the Literary Studies and Writing tracks.

ENG 771: Sociolinguistics

Professor: Sovicheth Boun

Mon 4:30-6:50 pm | Hybrid

This course investigates the relationship between language and human society. Students will evaluate current and classic sociolinguistic theory and research and will gather original data in an original research paper. Students will become familiar with a variety of topics applicable to this field including language variety; language and ethnicity; language, literacy and education; language choice; language and gender; and aspects of language and culture. In-person meetings on the following dates: 9/11, 9/25, 10/16, 10/30, 11/13, 11/27, 12/11. This course is a TESOL course and can be used as an elective for the Literary Studies and Writing tracks.

ENG 839: Research in TESOL

Professor: Melanie Gonzalez

Tu 4:30-6:50 pm | Hybrid

This course examines current research methods in the field of TESOL and students will develop the ability to read and conduct classroom research. Quantitative and qualitative methods, such as quasi-experiments, focus group, case study, and action research will be considered. Teacher research in the TESOL classroom will be emphasized. Students will develop a detailed research proposal and conduct a pilot study designed to investigate language acquisition, learning, and teaching. This is a TESOL course and can be used as an elective for the Literary Studies and Writing tracks.