Fall 2026 Course Descriptions

ENG 100 Intro to College Writing 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites:  

CRN: 40211 DAY/TIME: MWF 2:30 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Michael Bell

English 100 is an introduction to college-level written communication, which involves skills in reading, critical thinking, research, writing, and study itself. This course is an opportunity for you to further develop your ability to read for understanding, generate ideas in response to your reading, and communicate those ideas clearly, fairly, and accurately.

To be successful in any field of study, be it biology, business, or art, you will need to communicate your unique perspectives, so my goal is to help you become a more creative, curious, and engaged thinker and writer, with more confidence in your power to generate and fulfill ideas. You will be exploring a variety of texts, questioning these texts and our own responses to them through discussions and activities, and writing with fluency and control using the conventions of standard written English.

You will be writing in several contexts, but the emphasis will be on work that develops ideas through analysis of your reading. You will emerge from this course a stronger writer and reader with enhanced perspectives on a variety of issues both personal and public, and hopefully you’ll enjoy reading and writing more than ever, with a renewed curiosity about the world and how you can write about it. 

ENG 101 Writing Your Way Through WWU 5cr

View CRNs and DAY/TIMEs on Browse Classes in Web4U. 

Notes & Prerequisites: May not be taken concurrently with ENG 100. GUR: ACOM.

A writing course designed to prepare students for college-level creative, critical, and reflective writing. Because writing looks and works differently in different contexts, this course teaches the rhetorical competencies that students need to write across multiple disciplines. The course introduces students both to the processes of building and analyzing ideas, and to ways of communicating those ideas in context-specific genres for targeted audiences. This course has the immediate goal of preparing students to succeed in their writing at Western, but it will also serve them personally and professionally. Students needing to satisfy Block A of the communications section of the General University Requirements, which ENG 101 does, are required to do so prior to completion of 45 credits. Students with a 4 or 5 AP score are encouraged to take this class so they can learn to adapt their test-taking skills to college coursework.

OVERRIDES / CAPACITY OVERRIDES ARE NEVER GRANTED FOR ENGLISH 101.

200-Level English Courses

ENG 201 Writing in Humanities: Writing with Impact 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101 or 4/5 AP English Language Exam.  

CRN: 40531 DAY/TIME: MWF 2:30 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Fai Inthajak

Writing with Impact means transforming ideas into communication that makes a difference to the reader and achieves a specific goal. Through a series of written and multimodal projects, we will investigate complex social issues, articulate persuasive claims, and adapt our writing for diverse audiences. A key feature of this course this quarter is a virtual cross-cultural exchange, where students will collaborate on projects with peers from Thailand, gaining firsthand experience in navigating global perspectives and communicating across linguistic and cultural boundaries. 

ENG 202 Writing About Literature 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101.  

CRN: 40110 DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00 PM - 2:20 PM Instructor: Allison Giffen

In this class we will focus on how to perform effective literary analysis as we read some fascinating examples of U.S. literature written from the late 18th and 19th century. In our reading, we will explore issues of race, class, and gender as we look to the ways in which U.S. writers engage in the process of constructing, challenging, and revising notions of national identity. We will do a lot of writing, formal and informal, as we investigate a variety of literary genres, reading them in their historical and cultural context. We will work to develop the analytic skills necessary to perform effective literary analysis. We will focus on learning how to craft questions that lead to productive and interesting lines of inquiry; how to develop persuasive arguments, and how to integrate textual evidence into those arguments. 

CRN: 40213 DAY/TIME: MWF 2:30 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Tony Prichard

This course will examine short fiction from the past two centuries in order to develop a conversation about the relationship between literature and culture. In tandem with these short fiction pieces we will examine critical writings about genre, narrative and the construction of dominant language and culture. Specifically with these weird fictions our project will consider the ways in which literature and language can critically intervene in the production of cultures outside of dominant culture.

All course readings will be accessible through Canvas and will include stories by Poe, Dickens, Fitzgerald, and Wharton.

CRN: 40308 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM Instructor: Michael Bell

A writing course designed to help students develop the skills of close reading and careful analysis of literary texts, with particular attention to how language, style, and form contribute to a text’s social or political claims. Introduces students to the challenge of situating themselves in relation to a literary text and the critical conversation about that text, and crafting multi-draft critical essays with a focused, arguable thesis supported by thoughtful sequence of claims and carefully selected textual evidence.

CRN: 40530 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Christopher Wise

In this courses, students will analyze and interpret various literary genres, including poetry, plays, films, as well as literary fiction and nonfiction, with the goal of preparing students for advanced work in literary study, especially writing college-level essays in literary criticism. In addition to studying prominent works of literature, student papers may sometimes be workshopped in class. Students will be required to regularly attend class, perform all reading and film assignments, and turn in all formal and informal assignments. Laptop or cellphones usage is not permitted during class. Students are required to bring writing paper and pens to class, as informal written assignments will often be turned in during class.  

CRN: 41012 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM Instructor: Dennin Ellis

This writing-intensive course takes an approach of narrative theory – the study of stories, what they are, and what they’re good for – to help students develop the skills necessary to better understand and talk about the stories they encounter in their daily lives (both real and fictional). In particular, we will be taking a look at texts that aspire to be literary (in terms of complexity, use of literary devices, etc.) regardless of what medium they are; over the course of the quarter, we will be looking at a film, a graphic novel, a short prose novel, and more. Students will be encouraged to think about these texts not merely as ‘works of art’ that we’re assessing for educational purposes, but as carefully-crafted messages from authors to audiences meant to educate, persuade, make judgements about, explore ethical issues with, and consider how we interpret and act within the world around us. A series of shorter writing assignments and group/class discussions will culminate in a final essay in which students will choose their own literary text to analyze, break down and rebuild – in other words, coming up with a thesis that answers the question of ‘what is this story good for?’ and then extrapolating that answer through carefully considering both what lies within the text, as well as what contexts we need to view it through, whether social, political, cultural, ethical, etc. 

CRN: 41203 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00 PM - 1:50 PM Instructor: Simon McGuire

A writing course designed to help students develop the skills of close reading and careful analysis of literary texts, with particular attention to how language, style, and form contribute to a text’s social or political claims. Introduces students to the challenge of situating themselves in relation to a literary text and the critical conversation about that text, and crafting multi-draft critical essays with a focused, arguable thesis supported by thoughtful sequence of claims and carefully selected textual evidence.

CRN: 41409 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM Instructor: TBD

A writing course designed to help students develop the skills of close reading and careful analysis of literary texts, with particular attention to how language, style, and form contribute to a text’s social or political claims. Introduces students to the challenge of situating themselves in relation to a literary text and the critical conversation about that text, and crafting multi-draft critical essays with a focused, arguable thesis supported by thoughtful sequence of claims and carefully selected textual evidence.

ENG 203 Wrtg for Public&Prof Audiences 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101  

CRN: 41827 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Nicole Brown

This course helps students build on their experience with academic writing to learn about rhetorical practices related to public and professional writing. Writing for public and professional audiences involves negotiating a range of motives and possibilities. In this course, students experiment with writing in mixed media, including text, image, video, and audio.

ENG 234 African American Lit (FYE) 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: This is a first-year experience course reserved for incoming students in the Fall 2026 academic quarter.  

CRN: 42831 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00 AM - 11:20 AM Instructor: Jamie Rogers

This course offers a survey of African American literature across major figures and forms, from the Antebellum period to the present. We will engage with slave narratives, Reconstruction writings, poetry, neo-slave narratives, speculative fiction, contemporary critical fabulation and more. Our authors will include writers such as Phyllus Wheatley, W.E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrion, Octavia Butler, and Saidiya Hartman. Students will be invited to analyze and interpret our texts through formal and informal writing and discussion, and to practice applying formal, historical, cultural and theoretical methodologies. 

ENG 239 Latina/o Literatures 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites:  

CRN: 42832 DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00 PM - 2:20 PM Instructor: Jose Roach Orduna

Analysis, interpretation and discussion of a range of texts in English and in translation by Latina/o authors.

ENG 282 Global Literatures 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites:  

CRN: 41546 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM Instructor: Jennifer Forsythe

Analysis, interpretation and discussion of a range of texts in global literatures with attention to cultural contexts. 

300-Level English Courses

ENG 301 Wrtg&Public: Writing for Social Change 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101, or ENG 201, or ENG 203; junior status; or instructor permission. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Thursday May 14 at 4:30pm.

CRN: 40076 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM Instructor: Melissa Guadrón

Writing for Social Change  

Writing professors (myself included) like to say that writing does work. What we mean is that humans (consciously or not) use writing as a means to accomplish an end, whether that be describing how to do something, explaining what something means, convincing someone to behave in a particular way, or invoking specific feelings and emotions in others (or ourselves). In this public writing course, we will share one overarching goal for our writing—accomplishing positive social change.  

Put differently, in this course, I invite you to take on the role of the academic citizen by asking you to join me in answering the question, “how can I, as someone who has the privilege to learn and research within the university, put into practice the skills and knowledge I’m gaining to make the world a better place for others?”    

In this section of English 301, you will select and research a social issue that is important to you, ultimately producing three public-facing documents aimed at audiences who have the means and ability to produce change. Along the way, we will engage with rhetorical theory, writing studies, cultural studies, and digital media studies to build knowledge, attunement, and a skillset that will give you the confidence to work toward tangible social change from within and outside of the academy. 

ENG 302 Technical Writing 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101, or ENG 201, or ENG 203; junior status; or instructor permission. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Thursday May 14 at 4:30pm.

CRN: 40244 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Geri Forsberg

English 302, the English department’s introductory 300-level course in technical writing, is a 5-credit workshop that requires 15 hours of work per week. It strongly emphasizes the writer-reader relationship in various academic and non-academic writing scenarios. As a writing intensive course, it equips students with practical skills such as identifying an audience, developing objectives for their written documents, organizing the content of their documents, and revising documents for readability. Students will master the art of writing memos, resumes, letters, proposals, white papers, infographics, and visual presentations. They will also learn to work in small groups and collaborate on writing. The culmination of this course is a digital professional portfolio that showcases the writer’s technical writing skills, providing tangible evidence of their newly acquired abilities in technical writing, critical thinking, and collaboration.

CRN: 40291 DAY/TIME: TR 4:00 PM - 5:50 PM Instructor: Geri Forsberg

English 302, the English department’s introductory 300-level course in technical writing, is a 5-credit workshop that requires 15 hours of work per week. It strongly emphasizes the writer-reader relationship in various academic and non-academic writing scenarios. As a writing intensive course, it equips students with practical skills such as identifying an audience, developing objectives for their written documents, organizing the content of their documents, and revising documents for readability. Students will master the art of writing memos, resumes, letters, proposals, white papers, infographics, and visual presentations. They will also learn to work in small groups and collaborate on writing. The culmination of this course is a digital professional portfolio that showcases the writer’s technical writing skills, providing tangible evidence of their newly acquired abilities in technical writing, critical thinking, and collaboration.

CRN: 40299 DAY/TIME: TR 8:00 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Rachel Sarkar

English 302 addresses the essential elements of technical writing—or writing in action. My underlying objective for English 302 is to explore the power of language to change people, events, and self. We’ll explore ways to use writing skills to accomplish personal, professional, and ideological goals. In the process, we’ll also consider the use of humor, empathy, ethics, and storytelling in technical writing.  

CRN: 40368 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM Instructor: Nicole Brown

Students engage with the rhetorical and technical practices for creating artifacts that help people do things with technology, such as usability testing, screencasting, web authoring, document design, and information architecture. The course covers a variety of technical genres and focuses on the ethical and social implications of a technical writer’s choices.

CRN: 40394 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00 PM - 1:50 PM Instructor: Melissa Guadrón

Solving Problems with Technical and Professional Communication

In this section of English 302, we will gain an understanding of technical writing as written, visual, and aural communication designed to solve problems. Along the way, we will examine how technical writing has the power to shape community knowledge and action—for better or worse—through its style, structure, and word choice. Additionally, we will take a hands-on approach to technical writing by immersing ourselves in processes of audience-centered design to identify and solve user experience (UX) issues with everyday tasks and technologies.  

Because, for many, this is an introductory course to technical and professional communication, my goal is for students to understand how to read and translate technical writing for themselves and others; how to write and design clear, concise, and accessible audience-centered content; how to engage with the rhetorical and ethical implications of the ways we use language to prompt specific actions and thoughts; and how to identify, diagnose, and propose creative solutions to technical problems. 

ENG 307 Seminar: Medieval 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Restricted to English literature majors and teaching endorsement majors. Opens to English creative writing and film and media studies majors on Monday, May 18 at 10am. All major restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40981 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM Instructor: Amy Amendt-Raduege

The Middle Ages spanned 1000 years of some of the most dynamic and fascinating growth in world history.  In this iteration of the class, we focus on the literature and culture of England, but this tiny island offers us a microcosm of the  medieval period at large.  We wrestle with ideas of kingship and heroism with Beowulf, watch the rise and fall of nations with Gildas and Bede, struggle with the purpose of life with the Wanderer and the Seafarer, and laugh at the double meanings of riddles.  We’ll also experience tangible aspects of the period in the form of physical artifacts:  you’ll get to touch a real medieval manuscript and even make your own masterpiece.  The wonders of the medieval world await. 

ENG 308 Seminar: Early Modern 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Restricted to English literature majors and teaching endorsement majors. Opens to English creative writing and film and media studies majors on Monday, May 18 at 10am. All major restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 42833 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Jennifer Forsythe

A research and writing intensive course in the context of the literary history of the Early Modern period. Students will develop the skills to research and write about literary texts and participate in the critical conversations about them. (Only one of ENG 308 and ENG 318 may be taken for credit in English majors and minors.)

ENG 309 Seminar: The Long 18th Century 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Restricted to English literature majors and teaching endorsement majors. Opens to English creative writing and film and media studies majors on Monday, May 18 at 10am. All major restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40982 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM Instructor: Laura Laffrado

CONTENT: This courses focuses on the time period that scholars have recently named the long eighteenth century—that is, the era that extends from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century. These are such dynamic years in the literature of what becomes the United States. We will read literary works by people of various races, ethnicities, religions, and economic positions that explore vital issues of the day such as liberty, literacy, revolution, and science. We will examine the various ways in which a dominant rich male Whiteness is challenged as America and American identities are formed and defined.  

ASSIGNMENTS: In this course you will write both extensively and intensively, producing multiple drafts of papers, revisions, and finished essays. We will devote class time for instruction and practice in disciplinary research methods and writing strategies. Students will write short responses to the reading, shorter essays, and one twelve-page critical research paper that engages with current scholarship on an eighteenth-century text or texts assigned for class. Much reading, writing, and thinking will be asked of you, along with steady attendance, a participation grade, group work, and various out-of-class assignments.

TEXT: Broadview Anthology of American Literature, Vol. A, Beginnings to 1820 

ENG 310 Seminar: The Long 19th Century 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Restricted to English literature majors and teaching endorsement majors. Opens to English creative writing and film and media studies majors on Monday, May 18 at 10am. All major restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40983 DAY/TIME: MWF 2:30 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Katherine Anderson

The “Other” Victorians  

Course Description:

Contemporary American culture tends to assume the Victorian era in Britain (1837-1901) was stuffy, conservative, and obsessed with propriety – a dark time of oppression and repression very far from our own enlightened, progressive, and modern twenty-first century. This is a vast and reductive oversimplification. While it’s true that after the more freewheeling eighteenth century, new codes of public propriety arose in Britain, that’s only one small part of a much more complex cultural story.  

The nineteenth century was an age of change, filled with challenges to established cultural norms in Britain and beyond: the Industrial and Darwinian Revolutions, the abolition of slavery, anticolonial rebellion, and women’s rights, among others. In 1964, scholar Stephen Marcus published The Other Victorians, a groundbreaking examination of Victorian sexuality, pornography, and flagellation that insisted upon acknowledging the revolutionary underside of Victorian culture. As Marcus’s work made clear, humans have always existed with a spectrum of desires and viewpoints, and many of those who lived and wrote in the nineteenth century did so while breaking the hegemonic cultural rules. Their literature, like their lives, was subversive, sometimes kinky, and frequently just plain weird. They too were Victorians.  

In this class, we’ll investigate a fuller historical and human dimension of nineteenth-century Britain and the British Empire via some of the fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art produced by these “other” Victorians: people who pushed boundaries, rebelled against societal norms, and critiqued the dominant culture. In doing so, we’ll analyze evolving conceptions of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, disability, and other forms of personal identity in a time of cultural change, as well as evolving forms of literature, including the Gothic, realism, detective fiction, science fiction, the dramatic monologue, and maybe even a little pornography.

Course Objectives:  

As a Literature and Culture Requirement seminar for the English major, this course provides deep analysis of the literature, history, and cultural context of nineteenth-century Britain and the British Empire and is intended to help you prepare for academic writing in 400-level seminar courses in English. Because literature is not written in a vacuum, the reading assignments in this course also go beyond the literature itself, including the scholarship you need to practice responsible analysis of historical texts. Writing assignments are designed to help you hone your analytical abilities, scholarly voice, and research skills. We’ll also allocate class time to learning and practicing those skills.  

Texts will include (some of) the following:  

• Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre  
• Mary Seacole, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands
• Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
• Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness  
• Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm  
• Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray  
• And required short texts that will be available as pdfs on Canvas.

ENG 311 Seminar: The 20-21st Century 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Restricted to English literature majors and teaching endorsement majors. Opens to English creative writing and film and media studies majors on Monday, May 18 at 10am. All major restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40984 DAY/TIME: MWF 8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Tony Prichard

Can humans think of intelligent life in non-anthropomorphic ways? In this course we will examine three of the other intelligences that literature has presented over the past century, specifically animal, artificial, and alien. We will explore the ways that these literary encounters with the “non-human” both shape and reshape the human and the concept of humankind itself.

Required Texts

• Butler, Octavia. Dawn.
• Cisco, Michael. Ethics: A Novella About Birds.
• Flusser, Vilem. Vampyroteuthis Infernalis: A Treatise, with a Report by the Institut Scientifique de Recherche Paranaturaliste.
• Khaw, Cassandra. The Salt Grows Heavy.
• Morton, Timothy. Humankind: Solidarity with Non-Human People.
• Naylor, Ray. The Tusks of Extinction.
• Okorafor, Nnedi. Lagoon

ENG 313 Critical Theories & Prac I 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40077 DAY/TIME: MWF 8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Jeremy Cushman

The thing about engaging with what gets called ‘theory’ or ‘philosophy’ is that it gives us the chance to jump into a heated and certainly long-running squabble. And it’s a squabble that shapes how you understand and respond to the different worlds in which you act. This is a squabble that, to say the least, matters.

So this class is all about giving you the chance to work out the possible ways ‘theory’ or ‘philosophy’ can help you make different, maybe even more useful kinds of sense of the differing ‘texts’ you encounter. That is, I want the class to help you practice reading all the varied kinds of material that matters to you with this ancient squabble called ‘theory’—material like Marvel movies, long emails from the university’s president, short stories, intimidating healthcare documentation, a Netflix series, and so on. Theory, even (and I think especially) theory that predates Christianity and the Enlightenment, has an awful lot to say to us about the critical ways we make meaning out of the ‘texts’ or material that matters to us.        

We’ll jump into this squabble around 500 BCE and try to make some sense of the people who get called the ‘Pre-socratics,’ or the Sophists. We don’t have much from these writers and thinkers, just torn fragments of text and notes that some of their students left behind. But what we do have is wonderfully weird and sometimes profound. Their work seemingly anticipates what much of our own current squabbles about truth, justice, and living in right relationship with the others and with the natural world.

Then we’ll turn to philosophers who, many say, have structured what we call the Western Tradition: Plato and his student Aristotle. The squabble between the Sophists and Plato/Aristotle is legit. So we’ll dwell here for a bit before turning to people that began to transform this squabble into wildly influentially ideas about political institutions, and people who used these squabbles to invent lasting interpretations of Christianity that impact you whether you know it or not.    

After that, we’ll quickly (because we don’t have time to go slow) make our way though others that jumped into the squabble as it carried on. These are thinkers, writers, ‘theorists,’ and ‘philosophers’ that, while you’ve maybe never read them, they’ve helped shape your underlying understanding of identity, reason, love, religion, history, and other giant conceptions that allow us to interpret our world one way rather than another.  

Texts: There’s no required texts to buy for the course because our original sources are in the ‘public domain,’ and I’ll be sending along the more contemporary essays about these texts.

ENG 314 Critical Theories & Prac II 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 41670 DAY/TIME: TR 4:00 PM - 5:50 PM Instructor: Christopher Wise

This course will be focused on deconstruction with special reference to the following philosophers and critical theorists: Nietzsche, Saussure, Freud, Heidegger, Derrida. Attendance is mandatory with significant in-class writing. No electronic devices will be permitted in the classroom.  

ENG 321 Survey: The 20-21st C. 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 41001 DAY/TIME: MWF 2:30 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Dennin Ellis

Comics Studies

This course will absolutely not teach you how to draw a perfect foot. Certain professional comics artists can’t even do that, and his name is Rob Liefeld. Instead, we will embark on a serious, rigorous, and occasionally unhinged investigation into the mixed-media miracle we call comics – a form that has been dismissed as “kiddie stuff,” “funny pages,” and “wait, you study that for a grade?” long enough. Spoiler: your parents’ skepticism is wrong, comics are art, and we have peer-reviewed journals to prove it. Comics Studies is a legitimate, thriving, and increasingly indispensable field of inquiry - no, really, jobs exist for this – because the combination of text and picture demands a new form of literacy. You can’t simply read left to right and call it a day. You must learn to read silence, shape, scale, closure, the gutter, and why that one panel of a doorknob is loaded with existential dread.

We will also learn about how comics have a history – a messy, contested, frequently hilarious one, from 19th-century European picto-narratives and American newspaper strips, through the moral panic of the 1950s (they thought Batman and Robin were gay! And that it was a problem!), to the underground comix movement of the 1960s, the graphic novel boom of the 1980s, and the current global explosion of digital and printed work. That is literary history – just with more ink stains.

Yes, we will read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. It’s brilliant and foundational. It’s also not the last word, because comics are too wild, too global, and too weird to be tamed by a single cartoon philosopher. From there, we’ll develop a working visual grammar capable of analyzing comics as expression, literature, and language, reading Thierry Groensteen (who asks the formal questions), Charles Hatfield (who asks the sociocultural questions) and Hillary Chute (who asks the political questions). And we’ll go far beyond the superheroes of your (and my) childhood. This course gives global comics its rightful due. We will read Japanese manga. We will read French and Belgian bande dessinée. We will even learn to pronounce those words.

You will make your own comic. Not a sketch. A complete, intentional, panel-by-panel, word-and-image comic of your own devising. You will learn to think like a cartoonist: as a writer, a designer, a rhythm-keeper. You don’t need to draw well. I can’t, so you don’t need to, either. And apparently, neither does rich and famous comics artist Rob Liefeld. You do need to think clearly about what each line, each space, each silence is doing. Ugly drawings that know what they mean are infinitely preferable to pretty drawings that do nothing.

Satisfies your 321 English major requirement; also satisfies a deep, primal need to get back at every adult who told you comics are for babies. Warning: after this class, you may find yourself reading the IKEA assembly instructions as a bleak existential graphic novel. I am not responsible for this side effect. 

ENG 334 Texts Across N. Am and Eur 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101 or equivalent.  

CRN: 41205 DAY/TIME: TR 4:00 PM - 5:50 PM Instructor: Greg Youmans

"Surrealisms"

This course explores the origins, legacies, and ongoing significance of what was probably the most influential avant-garde movement of the 20th century: surrealism. We’ll begin by looking at some of the defining texts of the movement, including Sigmund Freud’s writing on drives, dreams, and the unconscious, as well as Andre Breton’s 1924 surrealist manifesto. After that we’ll engage with a range of artists working across media, including film and the visual arts but mainly literature, moving chronologically all the way to the present. Some of the artists whose work we may explore are Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Aimé Césaire, Věra Chytilová, Leonora Carrington, Jan Švankmajer, Satoshi Kon, César Aira, and Boots Riley. 

ENG 336 Scriptural Lit: 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101.  

CRN: 43600 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Christopher Loar

In this course, we'll examine the Hebrew and Christian scriptures not as sacred texts but as literature. The Judeo-Christian Bible is a complex anthology, consisting of many different genres and literary modes. This anthology has, of course, had a profound effect on the course of world history. It is also absolutely fascinating to read, offering a remarkable range of characters and events.

This course will emphasize the Bible's narrative texts. (We have to limit our attention somehow--it's a huge book, impossible to treat thoroughly in ten weeks.) We will, however, consider a range of strategies for reading these stories. We'll spend most of our time on the Hebrew Scriptures, or Tanakh (which Christians refer to as the Old Testament), but we will spend some time with the Gospels as well. We will consider these narratives with an eye to their context and to the editorial practices that brought them together. We'll also consider the ways that their meanings continue to evolve and to respond to the contemporary world.

On successfully completing this course, you should have a much better understanding of the literary forms and styles found in these scriptural writings, and you should be able to read and understand them from a range of perspectives.  

The course does not assume any prior knowledge of the Bible. It also, of course, welcomes students from any religious or spiritual background, including those with no experience or knowledge of any religious tradition. All students, whatever their background, will find this a welcoming course.

Course requirements will include a variety of writing assignments and regular engagement in the classroom. 

ENG 344 Film and Media Across North America & Europe: 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101  

CRN: 42706 DAY/TIME: MWF 8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: TBD

+ Film Viewing DAY/TIME: M 4:00 PM - 6:50 PM 

Analysis primarily of films and media of North America and/or Europe, with engagement in issues of multiculturalism, gender, and cultural diversity. Repeatable as a film studies elective with different topics to a maximum of 10 credits, including original course. May be taken only once for GUR credit.

ENG 347 Studies in Young Adult Lit 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202 or instructor permission.  Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am.  

CRN: 40399 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Sean Golden

Studies in Young Adult Literature will be about journeys. The lives of young adults are often framed as journeys. They go through incredible pivotal moments at such young ages because childhood is a fleeting temporality that happens so quickly! Each week (or two) we will spend time examining how specific moments of a young person’s life are constructed through literature and media. We will look at each work in its cultural context, discussing how such issues as race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, science, technology, and popular culture influence the production of the text. These texts frequently address issues that are controversial. In taking this course, you do not have to adopt any particular way of thinking. However, you do need to listen and respond to others’ ideas with sensitivity and respect. 

ENG 350 Intro to Creative Writing 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40111 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00 AM - 11:20 AM Instructor: Jose Roach Orduna

Examines the fundamentals of at least two genres, such as fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, or poetry. The course will include both lectures, focused on model texts, and workshop-style discussions, focused on student work. 

CRN: 40583 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Lee Gulyas

This course will introduce you to the process of writing—the reading, drafting, craft elements, analysis, extensive revision, focus, and discipline that are essential. You will explore, develop, rethink, and revise with the final goal of a portfolio of creative work. This is a skills class, one that will require practice and participation. We will work in poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction.

Assignments include: exercises, readings, analysis, discussions on a variety of topics, and extensive revision of your own drafts into your final portfolio, held together by an analytical discussion. 

CRN: 41672 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM Instructor: Cori Winrock

Examines the fundamentals of at least two genres, such as fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, or poetry. The course will include both lectures, focused on model texts, and workshop-style discussions, focused on student work. 

CRN: 41673 DAY/TIME: TR 4:00 PM - 5:50 PM Instructor: Simon McGuire

Examines the fundamentals of at least two genres, such as fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, or poetry. The course will include both lectures, focused on model texts, and workshop-style discussions, focused on student work. 

ENG 351 Intro to Fiction Writing 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 350. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40386 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00 AM - 11:20 AM Instructor: Kami Westhoff

This course is designed to introduce you to the craft and culture of writing fiction as well as the complex world of critique and workshop. We will read the work of established authors, studying the ways they make their writing successful through unique use of voice, description, language, dialogue, setting, character development, and experimentation. While reading and studying these authors, you will begin your own journey into short story fiction writing with the help of various writing exercises and assignments, revision, and most importantly, your imagination and individuality. 

CRN: 40429 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM Instructor: Kami Westhoff

This course is designed to introduce you to the craft and culture of writing fiction as well as the complex world of critique and workshop. We will read the work of established authors, studying the ways they make their writing successful through unique use of voice, description, language, dialogue, setting, character development, and experimentation. While reading and studying these authors, you will begin your own journey into short story fiction writing with the help of various writing exercises and assignments, revision, and most importantly, your imagination and individuality. 

ENG 353 Introduction to Poetry Writing 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 350. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40078 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00 PM - 1:50 PM Instructor: Nancy Pagh

“Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought,” Audre Lorde teaches us; “it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change.”

In this class we immerse ourselves in reading and writing poems and in the practice of keeping an observational journal.  Exploring different measures of that “skeleton architecture,” we focus on honing our ability to notice, and we study and listen to poems from a diverse range of writers—including our peers—paying attention to how words and the poem-shapes they inhabit can matter and compel change.  We explore contexts for writing (how to practice, how to revise, how to understand craft, how to participate in or push against tradition and form, how to find community) as we generate material and shape it into poems.

This section of 353 primarily makes use of The Poetry Foundation and other sites for assigned reading materials.  Grading is based on preparation, participation, generation of exploratory drafts, revisions, and a reflective essay about learning in the course. 

ENG 354 Intro to Creative Nonfict Writ 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 350. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40079 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Elizabeth Colen

In this introductory course, students will analyze all aspects of creative nonfiction, including characterization, voice, point of view, setting, structure, conflict, theme, and image, as well as the sonic qualities of language; learn how these tools are combined to best effect in the service of building a creative work of nonfiction; develop a language for discussing the interplay of a writer’s craft and content; and engage with weekly writing exercises. The final project will be a portfolio that includes 10-15 pages (2500-4000 words) of fully revised, well-crafted work. 

ENG 364 Introduction to Film Studies 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101  

CRN: 40240 DAY/TIME: MWF 8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Jamie Rogers

+ Film Viewing DAY/TIME: W 5:00 PM - 7:50 PM 

This course is an introduction to the rich world of the cinematic arts. We will begin with the presumption that film is both an art form and a commodity industry, and that in both cases, it shapes our cultural and political worlds (whether deliberately or not). We will practice techniques of film analysis through the study of filmmaking strategies, including editing, sound, mise-en-scène, cinematography, color and lighting, etc. We will also consider the role of distribution, industry norms, and reception. We will place particular emphasis on considerations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, ability, and national identity within film analysis and the film industry.  

Course work will include a variety of formal and informal writing assignments, exams, and the option of a creative project.  

The required textbook is The Film Experience: An Introduction by Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2021

CRN: 41549 DAY/TIME: TR 8:00 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Eren Odabasi

+ Film Viewing DAY/TIME: T 4:00 PM - 6:50 PM 

This course is designed to provide an introduction to the key components of film expression such as cinematography, sound, editing, and production design. We will closely analyze several canonical films from around the world, utilizing the fundamental concepts and definitions covered in the course units. Furthermore, we will explore cinema’s relationship to other arts and various media forms. There will also be a video production project that will further enrich our understanding of how films are put together.  

More specific course objectives:

• Enrich your ability to look and listen closely to motion pictures
• Understand and apply a range of critical and cultural theories to the study of cinema
• Explore a range of film genres, national cinemas, historical periods, and auteurs, with an emphasis on expanding the frame from Hollywood to a more diverse world cinema
• Engage with local film cultures and other communities rooted in cinephilia

Textbook:

David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Jeff Smith. Film Art: An Introduction, 13th edition. New

York, NY: McGraw Hill Education, 2024.

You are welcome to use an older edition, a used copy, or the e-book version.

Films:

• Anatomy of a Fall, 2023, d. Justine Triet
• Julieta, 2016, d. Pedro Almodovar
• Run Lola Run, 1998, d. Tom Tykwer
• Shanghai Blues, 1984, d. Tsui Hark
• All The Beauty and the Bloodshed, 2022, d. Laura Poitras
• Old Joy, 2006, d. Kelly Reichardt
• Miracle in Milan, 1951, d. Vittorio De Sica
• Close-Up, 1990, d. Abbas Kiarostami
• Dance, Girl, Dance, 1940, d. Dorothy Arzner

ENG 371 Rhetorical Theory 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 101, ENG 201, or ENG 203; junior status; or instructor permission. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Thursday May 14 at 4:30pm.

CRN: 42255 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00 AM - 11:20 AM Instructor: Jeremy Cushman

Together, we're going to practice and reflect on the rhetorical ideas, competencies, and practices that permeate 21st-century knowledge work and advocacy. And we’ll do so by engaging in the long, long development of Western rhetorical theory, allowing us to better articulate the strange and complex ways persuasion emerges and happens, oftentimes beyond our own intentions. Persuasion happens. All the time. Our job in this class is to explore how and why… and when and where and what!  

To engage in this exploration, we’ll work closely with four “approaches” to rhetorical theory and practice: 1. Classical Rhetoric; 2. Current-Traditional Rhetoric; 3. Ecological Rhetoric; 4. New Materialist Rhetoric. We can use these approaches to ask good questions about the ways persuasion functions in terms of everything from gender, personality, and family all the way to advertising, architecture, and online arguments.  

Such engagement, I hope, will help you better approach the ways persuasion and advocacy emerge for, allowing you to better respond to and participate in that which matters to you. I also hope the class pushes you to invent powerful and personal responses to that rather tired question about what a degree, or even a single class, in the Humanities is good for.

Texts: There’s no required texts to buy for the course.  

400-Level English Courses

ENG 403 Film and Media Theory 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 364 or instructor permission.  

CRN: 42834 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM Instructor: Felicia Cosey

+ Film Viewing DAY/TIME: W 5:00 PM - 7:50 PM 

This course introduces major theories and critical approaches in film and media studies, focusing on leading criticisms from the mid-20th century to the present.  We will examine theoretical frameworks that have shaped how we analyze, interpret, and understand film and other audiovisual media.  

Throughout the quarter, we will explore a range of critical perspectives, including realist film theory, ideological approaches, feminist film theory, postcolonial criticism, and more recent developments in film practice and digital media theory.  We will consider questions such as: How do formal elements and technological aspects of film construct meaning? How do ideological frameworks and cultural contexts shape both filmmaking and spectatorship? How can we critically examine representations of gender, sexuality, race, and other identities on screen? What is the relationship between film and media and broader social, political, and technological forces?

The goal of this course is for you to develop a toolkit for analyzing moving images and to hone your skills in analytical viewing, critical thinking, and academic writing about film and media.

Coursework will include short assignments, discussion facilitation and analysis, and a final research paper applying a theoretical concept to a film or media text of your choice.

Required Text:  

Corrigan, Timothy, Patricia White, and Meta Mazaj, eds. Critical Visions in Film Theory. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011.

Content Warning: Some films screened may contain mature themes or graphic and disturbing content.  

ENG 418 Sr Sem: Haunting the Dead 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: Senior status; ENG 313 or ENG 314; and one course from: ENG 307, ENG 308, ENG 309, ENG 310 or ENG 311. Opens to literature juniors on Monday May 18 at 10am. 

Restricted to English literature majors and teaching endorsement majors; major restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am.

CRN: 40332 DAY/TIME: MWF 2:30 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Amy Amendt-Raduege

Haunting the Dead

Ghosts have always walked among us. Or perhaps more accurately, stories of ghosts have always walked among us: as far as we can tell, ghost stories are the oldest recorded stories in the world. What can we learn, by listening to these tales of the dead? What secrets lie hidden about our deepest, most secret fear and beliefs? What traits are unique to a specific culture, and which are universal? We begin by exploring ghost stories and traditions around the world, and then move on into the stories that haunt our own times. Ghost stories written by living authors and current folklore reveal that far from outgrowing our ancient beliefs, we humans continue haunting the dead. 

ENG 418 Sr Sem: Revenge! 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: Senior status; ENG 313 or ENG 314; and one course from: ENG 307, ENG 308, ENG 309, ENG 310 or ENG 311. Opens to literature juniors on Monday May 18 at 10am. 

Restricted to English literature majors and teaching endorsement majors; major restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am.

CRN: 40333 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00 PM - 1:50 PM Instructor: Jeremy Cornelius

Revenge!

In this course, we will focus on revenge by looking at ancient Greek and early modern drama, gothic fiction, and horror films. Our class discussions will consider revenge in its thematic resonances across these genres alongside readings in different critical theories. In the context of early modern English history, private revenge was outlawed by Henry VII at the end of the fifteenth century in order to subdue the conflicts over the throne after the Wars of the Roses. Given long histories of civil strife leading up to and throughout the English Renaissance, revenge tragedy showcases the complications around managing vengeance on internal and external levels, which additionally appear across early modern conduct manuals and medical tracts. As theater became increasingly popular in this period, themes of revenge frequently appeared in stagings of early modern drama. These spectacular stagings of revenge tragedy are rife with displays of horror, violence, and terror on stage, leaving audiences with high body counts and psychological scars. In Shakespeare’s earliest known tragedy, Titus Andronicus, understanding the horror aspects can provide insight into analyzing revenge narratives in films such as Wes Craven’s Scream trilogy.  

Throughout class discussions will dig into the philosophical underpinnings of revenge in debates ranging across law, medicine, and literature. Engaging with these debates, our discussions will focus on representations of revenge in different historical periods. Readings include work by well-known authors such as Shakespeare as well as his contemporary playwrights, including Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Middleton alongside contemporary films such as A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Us, and Candyman. Additionally, we will read The Black Vampyre by Uriah Derick D’Arcy (1819) to discuss the histories of revenge in gothic  vampire narratives. Critical work for the course delves into revenge by thinking through different modes of power surrounding race, gender, sexuality, and disability. Assignments include group class facilitations, weekly writing projects, and a final research paper as well as small group work throughout the quarter. We will also hold an end-of-term symposium for everyone to present their exciting research on revenge!

Reading List:

Literature:

• The Oresteia by Aeschylus
• Thyestes by Seneca
• Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare
• The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd
• Edward II by Christopher Marlowe
• Hamlet by Shakespeare  
• The Revenger’s Tragedy by Thomas Middleton  
• The White Devil by John Webster  
• The Black Vampyre: Legend of St. Domingo by Uriah Derick D’Arcy

Film:

• Last House on the Left, dir. Wes Craven  
• Scream 1, 2, and 3, dir. Wes Craven  
• The Revenger’s Tragedy, dir. Alex Cox
• Kill Bill, Vol. 1 & 2, dir. Quentin Tarantino
• A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, dir. Ana Lily Amirpour  
• Us, dir. Jordan Peele
• Candyman, dir. Nia DaCosta
• Pretty Lethal, dir. Vicky Jewson
• Hamlet, dir. Aneil Karia 

ENG 423 Major Authors: Ella Higginson5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 202; plus three from: ENG 307, ENG 308, ENG 309, ENG 310, ENG 311, ENG 313, ENG 314, ENG 317, ENG 318, ENG 319, ENG 320, ENG 321, ENG 331, ENG 333, ENG 334, ENG 335, ENG 336, ENG 338, ENG 339, ENG 341, ENG 342, ENG 343, ENG 347, ENG 364, ENG 371. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 41550 DAY/TIME: TR 8:00 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Laura Laffrado

Ella Rhoads Higginson: Major Works                                        

This course looks at the writings of once celebrated but then long forgotten author Ella Rhoads Higginson, the first prominent literary writer from the Pacific Northwest and the first Poet Laureate of Washington State. Higginson was celebrated for her award-winning fiction, her lyric poetry which was set to music and performed internationally, and her prolific nonfiction. During the turn from the nineteenth century into the twentieth century, readers around the world were introduced to the then-remote Pacific Northwest region by Higginson’s descriptions of majestic mountains, vast forests, and scenic waters, as well as the often difficult economic circumstances of those dwelling near Puget Sound.  

We will read her major works in the order she wrote them, pay attention to their interactions with the larger culture, watch her create characters who help define the Pacific Northwest, and ask why Higginson became so famous. We will consider issues of gender, race, region, and identity, among others. We will also periodically meet in the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies and do some hands on archival work with the Ella Higginson Papers. 

ENG 427 Queer Studies 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: One course from: ENG 227, ENG 313, ENG 314, ENG 351, ENG 353, ENG 354 or equivalent prerequisite coursework and instructor approval; and junior status. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 42836 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM Instructor: Lee Gulyas

This section of Queer Studies will focus on a sliver of contemporary creatives from our neighbor to the North—Canada. The inscription on the U. S. side of the Peace Arch Monument (on the border between Blaine, Washington and Surrey, British Columbia) reads “Children of a Common Mother” because both countries share historical roots from the British Empire. Given our shared origin, what commonalities and differences exist in contemporary queer spaces? How are the cultural and scholarly conversations different? What can we gain from examining literature of our neighbor, and historically, our closest political ally? Since this is a WP3 class, your assignments will cover a range of skills and contexts. 

ENG 441 Language and the Sec Classroom 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 302 or ENG 371; ENG 347; ENG 350, ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354; two from: ENG 307, ENG 308, ENG 309, ENG 310, ENG 311, ENG 317, ENG 318, ENG 319, ENG 320 and ENG 321. Major restricted.

CRN: 41677 DAY/TIME: MWF 8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Anthony Celaya

This course will explore language structure and use in the Secondary Language Arts classroom, including cultural and equity issues, dialect and discourse style bias, ESL learners, and the challenges of standard grammar and conventions. We’ll spend some time addressing linguistic fundamentals as a means of understanding language diversity. This methods course requires the same kind of individual initiative, dedication, and professionalism that you will apply to your future work as a teacher.

In this course, we will examine language in context. Therefore, students will be asked to write regularly practicing and applying what we learn in class within the context of writing. Additionally, students will be asked to critically engage with the language practices they experience and witness outside of class over the course of the quarter.  

ENG 442 Topics in Literacy 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: One course from: ENG 202, ENG 203, ENG 301, ENG 302 or ENG 371; or instructor permission. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Thursday May 14 at 4:30pm.

CRN: 43601 DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00 PM - 2:20 PM Instructor: Matt Homer

This course examines the theories, research, and practices of visual literacy exploring how images and other visual methods of literacy influence communication and advocacy. The visual has long played a significant role in shaping both literacy and meaning. We will discuss the cultural, political, and ideological dimensions and impacts of visual literacy. Drawing from scholarship in rhetoric and writing studies, technical communication, cultural studies, communication, visual culture, art history, design, and film, we will consider the theoretical dimensions of visual literacy, and we will also compose a number of visual productions. In doing so, we will come to a better understanding of the complex considerations and processes involved in seeing as a way of knowing, imaging as a way of producing subjectivity, and spectatorship as symbolic action. 

ENG 443 Tch Eng Lang Arts in Sec Sch I 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 302 or ENG 371; ENG 347; ENG 350; ENG 441 or concurrent or MLE 444 or concurrent; and two courses from: ENG 307, ENG 308, ENG 309, ENG 310, ENG 311, ENG 317, ENG 318, ENG 319, ENG 320 and ENG 321. Major restricted.

CRN: 40500 DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00 AM - 11:20 AM Instructor: Anthony Celaya

In this course, we will engage with a variety of theory, research, methods, and resources for the teaching of writing within a secondary English language arts context. Together we will write in a variety of genres, including multimodal genres. We will collaborate and work together as we develop a teacher-writer practice to support our development as writers and skills as writing teachers. Additionally, throughout the course we will practice designing, delivering, and revising writing activities and assessments.

Students will:  

1. Write in a variety of genres.  
2. Read and discuss research, articles, and chapters on methods for teaching secondary composition.  
3. Access a variety of resources when planning and designing writing activities.
4. Design, deliver, and revise writing assignments and writing lessons.  
5. Develop an understanding of compositional strategies beyond scripted curricula and formalized modes.  
6. Discuss, collaborate, and interact with classmates and future colleagues. 

ENG 444 Tch Eng Lang Art in Sec Sch II 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 443  

CRN: 40241 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00 PM - 1:50 PM Instructor: Sean Golden

English 444 is the third class in a three-course sequence that is designed to help you become a thoughtful, knowledgeable, and effective teacher of English language arts at the secondary level. In this class we emphasize the teaching of reading and literature, though oral performance, writing, and media––all will be integrally linked. You will also be asked to consider the role of students’ home and out-of-school literacy practices in their development as readers alongside thinking about your development as a reader. Together we will inquire into theoretical strategies for teaching reading and literature critically and thoughtfully in diverse and multilingual settings.

Course Objectives:  

Investigation of successful application of literary theory in the middle/secondary school through the use of canonical high school texts, but twisting the instruction to feature multicultural and multimodal literature, with emphasis on instructional practice that engages learners in critical response to all literary genres. 

ENG 451 Creative Wrtng Seminar:Fiction 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 351. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40295 DAY/TIME: MWF 2:30 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Kami Westhoff

English 451 is designed to introduce you to the craft and culture of writing fiction as well as the complex world of critique and workshop. We will read established authors of various identities and study the ways they make their writing shine through unique use of voice, description, language, dialogue, character development, and experimentation. While reading and studying these authors, you will begin your own journey into short story fiction writing with the help of various writing exercises and assignments, revision, and most importantly, your imagination and individuality. 

CRN: 40432 DAY/TIME: TR 4:00 PM - 5:50 PM Instructor: Elizabeth Colen

In this advanced workshop in fiction writing, students will closely read and analyze books of short stories written in the last year, engage in weekly writing exercises and imitations, and hone their storytelling skills through the production of at least one fully revised story. The final project will be a portfolio that includes a story of 10-15 pages of fully revised, well-crafted work. 

ENG 453 Creative Wrtng Seminar in Poetry: Received & Invented Forms 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 353. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40262 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Nancy Pagh

“Received & Invented Forms.”  This advanced poetry course explores the relationship between restriction and invention inherent in all creative pursuits, as it pertains to writing poetry.  We begin the course by examining and emulating a range of traditional restrictions—meter and syllabics, comical schemes and repetitive structures, aberrant forms—discovering how traditional “received” conventions can inspire, refresh, or hone the work of a contemporary poet.  We then move on to “invent” our own forms, each student creating a form, writing a poem in it, naming it, and presenting this original set of restrictions as an invitation and playful challenge.

Evaluation is based on preparation and participation; completion of required exercises and drafts; two portfolios of revised, edited, and polished original poetry with reflective memos (a mid-term portfolio working in traditional received forms, a final portfolio showcasing your invented form and work with peer-created form); and a presentation on your invented form. 

ENG 454 Creative Wrtg Sem: Nonfiction 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 354. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40296 DAY/TIME: MWF 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM Instructor: Noam Dorr

An advanced workshop course in the writing of nonfiction, building on skills learned in prior courses. Repeatable with different instructors to a maximum of 10 cr.

ENG 456 Fiction Wrtg: Speculative Fiction 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 351. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 42074 DAY/TIME: TR 8:00 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi

Intensive reading, writing and workshops in speculative fiction (e.g. science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, and slipstream).  

ENG 458 NonfictionWrtg: 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 354. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40304 DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00 PM - 2:20 PM Instructor: Noam Dorr

Intensive reading, writing and workshop in one or more specific modes of nonfiction, such as memoir, travel writing, autobiography and the personal essay. Repeatable with different instructors to a maximum of 10 credits, including original course.

ENG 460 MultiGenre 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 40374 DAY/TIME: MWF 8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Caitlin Roach Orduna

Intensive study of topics in creative writing that cross genre boundaries, or that critique those boundaries. Opportunities to compose experimental or hybrid works. This course has been approved for study abroad. Repeatable with different instructors to a maximum of 10 credits, including original course.

ENG 464 Topics In Film: Film Festivals 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 364 or instructor permission. 

CRN: 40375 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00 PM - 1:50 PM Instructor: Eren Odabasi

+ Film Viewing DAY/TIME: T 4:00 PM - 6:50 PM 

Even though film festivals have been in existence in one form or another for more than ninety years (with the Venice Film Festival, initiated in 1932, often cited to be the first major one), scholarly work on the festival phenomenon is relatively recent. In the early 1990s, with the extremely rapid proliferation of film festivals around the world, many scholars have started to analyze the various types of festivals, the groups of agents who participate in this circuit, and the impact of festivals on filmmaking, film financing, distribution, and reception.

This course offers a comprehensive review of major theoretical and methodological approaches employed in the growing field of film festival research. The first unit of the course is devoted to the theoretical frameworks through which film festivals can be understood as subjects of academic work. The second unit considers the social and political aspects of film festivals, looking at the historical contexts under which major festivals were born and analyzing the influence of external factors on their structures, programming, and development. The final unit examines the economic and institutional dimensions of festivals, with a particular focus on their involvement in the funding, sales, and distribution of films. Various questions about the active role festivals play in forming a world cinema canon and cultivating local film cultures are raised throughout.  

Requirements  

Written requirements include two reading responses (approximately 1000 words each) and a substantial final project, which may take the form of a comprehensive literature review or original research (8-10 pages).

Books

• Ostrowska, Dorota, and Falicov, Tamara L. “Shaping Film Festivals in a Changing World: Practice and Methods.” Amsterdam University Press, 2025.
• Wong, Cindy H. “Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen.” Rutgers University Press, 2011.

Both books are available as free e-books through WWU Libraries, no purchase is necessary.

Films

• Claire’s Camera, 2017, d. Hong Sang-soo
• To Each His Own Cinema, 2007, d. Anthology Film by 34 Directors
• Anatomy of a Fall, 2023, d. Justine Triet
• The Milk of Sorrow, 2009, d. Claudia Llosa
• All The Beauty and the Bloodshed, 2022, d. Laura Poitras
• The Fits, 2015, d. Anna Rose Holmer
• Toxic, 2024, d. Saulè Bliuvaité
• Shanghai Blues, 1984, d. Tsui Hark 

ENG 466 Screenwriting 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 364 or one from: ENG 350, ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354. Major restricted; restrictions lift on Tuesday May 19 at 10am. 

CRN: 42266 DAY/TIME: MWF 2:30 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Felicia Cosey

+ Film Viewing DAY/TIME: M 4:00 PM - 6:50 PM 

In this course, students will learn the fundamentals of screenwriting, while developing their creative voice.  This class provides an introduction to both feature-length and short film screenwriting techniques, equipping students with the skills to craft compelling visual narratives across different formats.  Students will explore the essential elements of screenwriting, including character development, story structure, scene construction, and dialogue.

Through weekly readings, script analyses, and film screenings, students will examine how screenplays translate ideas into compelling visual narratives.  We will study films ranging from classics like Chinatown to contemporary works such as Chronicle and First Cow, analyzing how they employ screenwriting principles.

Special attention will be given to the technical aspects of screenwriting, including proper formatting, visual language, and the creation of complex, multidimensional characters.  Students will learn to craft stories with strong dramatic structure and compelling conflicts.

By the end of this course, students will develop a treatment and a polished three-scene sequence as their final project, demonstrating their understanding of screenwriting principles and their ability to construct a cohesive narrative segment.  Workshop sessions throughout the quarter will provide opportunities for peer feedback and revision.

Assignments: Course work will include character development exercises, structural analysis, scene writing, script outlining, and a final treatment and three-scene sequence project.

Required Text: Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field

Content Warning: Some films screened may contain mature themes or graphic content.  

Graduate-Level English Courses

ENG 501 Literary Theories & Practices 5 cr

CRN: 40002 DAY/TIME: TR 8:00 AM - 9:50 AM Instructor: Kathryn Vulic

Course Description: This course is designed to introduce you, a new Master’s-level student, to your new role and program while also preparing you for further graduate-level study. Graduate school, among its many qualities, helps students deepen their knowledge and skills in their chosen field(s), and gives them the tools they need to function as professionals in their discipline. This class will therefore focus on both of these two areas in order to launch you successfully into your graduate program.  

First, we will study a selection of influential critical theories and work with them in projects that give you advanced experience using theory to craft and support arguments. One 10-week course can’t hope to cover all of literary and cultural theory, but you will gain experience with significant representative samples that will help you determine which approaches are most in line with your own scholarly identity. 

Second (and completely related), the course will equip you with the professional skills you will need through and after your graduate program. We will cover how to write for different specific publication or presentation opportunities, but also the less concrete aspects of academic culture that are extremely difficult to learn without the guidance of someone who has prior experience. We will be treating the classroom as a professional workplace so that you can start inhabiting the role of professional scholar from day one. I take my role as professional mentor very seriously, and I expect that class will be a supportive and collaborative space within which we will do our work.  

ENG 506 Seminar in Creative Writing: 5 cr

CRN: 42837 DAY/TIME: TR 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM Instructor: Cori Winrock

Studies in the theory and practice of creative writing that can encompass more than one genre, create hybrid genres, or cross genre lines. May be repeated under advisement.

ENG 509 Internship in Writ, Edit & Prod: Bellingham Review 1-5 cr

CRN: 43385 DAY/TIME: Arrange Instructor: Jane Wong

ENG 513 Seminar in Teaching College Comp 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: appointment as a teaching assistant or instructor permission  

CRN: 42707 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00 PM - 1:50 PM Instructor: TBD

ENG 513 is a graduate-level practicum focused on the teaching of college-level composition. The course engages with the study of “composition” as a complex, evolving practice within the 21st-century classroom. Students will examine the processes underlying composition, how methods evolve across history, how we understand it using critical theory, and its pedagogical implications as they relate to first-year college writers.

ENG 520 Studies In Poetry: The Ghost Archive 5 cr

CRN: 42653 DAY/TIME: TR 4:00 PM - 5:50 PM Instructor: Jane Wong

The Ghost Archive

Victoria Chang writes in Dear Memory: “Nothing is missing… /If I dip my hand in, /I will change history.” This graduate level seminar will explore the layers of writing poetry while deeply engaging and wrestling with the archive. How can we expand the definition of the archive to include the half-lit, the half-recorded, the speculative even, the act of the hand dipping itself? What happens when your archive is a ghost? How can we grapple with the difficulty of research while also placing lyrical pressure on the line? With rigorous attention to the relationship between form and content, we will engage the complexities and intersections of our personal and collective lives through poetic craft. We will write poems in dialogue with prominent contemporary poets such as Diana Khoi Nguyen, Layli Long Solider, Danez Smith, Cecila Vicuña, and more (we will also have guest poets visiting our class). As an active poetry community, we will revisit the stakes of poetry via generative experiments, seminar discussions, constructive feedback, and radical revision strategies.  

ENG 525 Studies in Fiction: Mystery Novella 5 cr

CRN: 41835 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM Instructor: Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi

In this course, you will be asked to write a ninety-page mystery novella. Given the constraints of the quarter, we must employ a writing practice that is fast, tenacious and imperfect. And we must employ a workshop / editorial process that is supportive, nonjudgemental, optimistic, and that celebrates the spirits of “yes and” and “what if.” Because this journey will be demanding, we must extend compassion to the writer (yourself included). We will study and experiment with fundamental elements of the mystery genre (e.g. hook, atmosphere, crime, sleuth, clues, red herrings, cliffhangers, plot twist) to give our works scaffolding and propulsion. 

ENG 570 Topics in Literary & Cultural Criticism: Working Nature: Land, Labor and the Prehistory of Fossil Capital 5 cr

CRN: 43602 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00 PM - 1:50 PM Instructor: Christopher Loar

ENG 570: Working Nature: Land, Labor, and the Prehistory of Fossil Capital

Recent scholarship in the environmental humanities sees a crucial inflection point sometime around the year 1700. In these decades, a few things happened that would have profound implications for the future of the planet:  

• An economy that had depended on solar power (in the form of wind and photosynthesis) began to turn towards mineral energy (fossil fuels, especially coal);  
• An intellectual shift began to reframe nonhuman nature as a resource to be exploited rather than as a divine creation to be stewarded; and  
• colonial settlements beyond Europe, previously tentative and small in scale, exploded into a network of labor camps (also known as plantations) making fortunes from sugar and enslaved labor, supported by settler colonies in North America.  

This seminar explores these transformations by engaging both with recent scholarship in the historical environmental humanities and literary and nonliterary texts from the period.  

Readings are still TBD, but we'll study this period’s reimagining of labor and nature by examining  

• at least one canonical novel (Defoe, Robinson Crusoe);
• at least one lengthy poem about planetary climate (James Thomson, The Seasons);
• at least one didactic poem about slavery and sugar cultivation (Grangier, The Sugar Cane);
• and the work of a range of working class poets (Stephen Duck, Mary Collier, John Clare, and others).  

This course will also draw heavily from critical approaches to labor, land use, and ecology; we'll look closely at work by Carolyn Merchant, Jason Moore, Nancy Fraser, Brenna Bhandar, and others.

Expectations: In this class, you’ll of course be expected to attend class consistently and engage actively in discussions of the reading material. You can also expect to prepare presentations or lead discussion at least once, and to complete a substantial final project (a seminar paper of 15-20 pages, or an appropriately scaled creative project). After completing the course, you’ll have a deeper knowledge of the relationship between labor and nature, the origins of the contemporary world, and critical approaches to these topics. You will have cultivated other professional skills: communicating and synthesizing complex arguments; writing in a variety of scholarly modes; and working collaboratively with colleagues to develop a shared understanding of a complex problem area.

Note: this course will ask us to read texts that treat social and ecological issues that are upsetting (slavery and other exploitative labor practices, for example). But also note: this class is not designed to make us all into doomers or to encourage feelings of despair about historical wrongs. Historical criticism is partly about showing us that other paths have always been possible, and that human beings can be active agents in our own history. We're heirs to many problems that have their origins in the eighteenth century. That doesn't mean we need to be passive in the face of these problems. In this class, we should always remember that criticism can be a step on the path towards hopeful action. 

ENG 690 Thesis Writing 2 cr

Notes & Prerequisites:  

CRN: 40114 DAY/TIME: Arrange Instructor: Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi

ENG 691 Capstone Research and Writing 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 501  

CRN: 43414 DAY/TIME: Arrange Instructor: TBD