Course Descriptions
Main Page | Composition | Degrees & Programs | Academic Support | Courses | Faculty | Course Descriptions

Upper Division Courses - Summer 2008

Please note: the following list is subject to change and may not be comprehensive. Please check the online course listing for the full roster along with information on class days/times and room numbers. The course location is at UHD Main Campus unless otherwise noted. 

Course Titles

ENG 3302 - Business and Technical Report Writing (Summer I)

ENG 3305 - Essay Writing (Fully Online) (Summer 9-Week)

ENG 3309 - Creative Writing (Summer I)

ENG 3309 - Creative Writing (Summer II)

ENG 3311 - Studies in Poetry (Summer I)

ENG 3312 - Studies in Fiction: The Short Story (Summer I)

ENG 3312 - Studies in Fiction (Summer II)

ENG 3313 - Studies in Dramatic Literature (Summer I)

ENG 3317 - Theories of Rhetoric (Summer II)

ENG 3318 - Studies in English Grammar (Summer I)

ENG 3324 / HUM 3304 - American Ethnic Heritage (Summer I)

ENG 3333 - Writing for the Media (Summer II)

ENG 4341 - Advanced Postcolonial Studies (Summer II)

ENG 6319 - Language Development and Variation: Implications for Educators (Summer 9-Week)

 

Course Descriptions

English 3302 - Business and Technical Report Writing

Wayne Schmadeka, Ph.D.

Summer I

MTWR 8:00 - 10:00 am (CRN 30222)

MTWR 10:15 am - 12:30 pm (CRN 30227)

Prerequisite

Three credit hours of English literature.

Description

Students will study and practice writing the types of documents frequently used in the workplace, including cover letters and resumes, proposals, progress reports, formal reports, and PowerPoint presentations.

Objectives

•   Research, design, create, and prepare informal and formal documents suitable for the workplace
•   Balance visual and verbal elements of communication in documents and oral presentations
•   Use current technology to search for and report information
•   Edit documents for correctness
•   Respond usefully to others' writing

Major assignments include writing

•   Cover letters and resumes in response to job announcements
•   A proposal for a recommendation/feasibility report
•   A progress report
•   A recommendation/feasibility report

Recent examples of reports include

•   Recommending construction of a pedestrian walkway from an off-campus parking lot to the UHD campus
•   Evaluating whether it is better for a student to remodel her existing home or build a new home
•   Soliciting funds from the Gates Foundation for an HIV prevention program in provincial China
•   Recommending upgrading HISD Police vehicles with state-of-the-art communications equipment

Textbook

Jones, D., and Lane, K.  Technical Communication.   7th ed.  New York : Pearson Education, 2002.  ISBN: 0205325211.

---------------------------

English 3305 - Essay Writing (Fully Online)

Dagmar Scharold

Summer 9-Week

CRN:  35074

In this course, students will study, analyze, and practice advanced rhetorical principles in non-fiction, with a view to increasing clarity, effectiveness and precision in academic style. The prerequisites for English 3305 are Sophomore Literature and junior standing. This semester, we will focus on the topic of education and writing in the social sciences. We will also use the APA style for formatting and documentation of sources.

Required Texts

•  McCourt, Frank (2006). Teacher Man. Scribner Publishers. ISBN: 0743243781.

•  Galvan, Jose L. (2006). Writing Literature Reviews: A Guide for Students of Social and Behavioral Sciences. 3rd Edition. Pyrczak Publishing. ISBN: 1-884585-66-3.

Online Time Available per Week

Traditionally, a university student is expected to spend 2 hours outside of class for each hour spent within class. Therefore, approximately 9 hours a week should be devoted to our online class. This course is divided into units, with each unit covering 2 weeks of the semester. During the summer semester, each unit will begin on a Monday and end on a Sunday, at midnight. Time-management skills are essential.

Scheduled Attendance Times or Places, If Any

There will be no scheduled face-to-face meeting times during the summer semester. I will be on the UHD campus Monday-Thursday. Please call me to schedule an appointment so that we can meet face-to-face, via telephone, or through the Chat function in VISTA.

-----------------------------

English 3309 - Creative Writing

Jane Creighton

Summer Session I

MTWR 12:30-2:30

This course will introduce you to basic components of fiction and poetry, so that you might get a sense of both genres and find out what you delight in doing. The course involves a good amount of reading and writing. The one, of course, feeds the other, particularly as you learn to read poems and stories for the pleasures of understanding how they are put together. Good reading will suggest ideas for your own writing. You have very particular ways of looking at--and being moved by--the events of your world. In this course you will explore the muscular possibilities of language, developing the precise ways you can use it to say what you most want to say.

-----------------------------

English 3309 – Creative Writing

Robin Davidson

Summer Session II

MTWR 12:30 – 2:30

CRN:  40186

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück writes, "I thought once that poems were like words inscribed in rock or caught in amber…Poems do not endure as objects but as presences. When you read anything worth remembering, you liberate a human voice; you release into the world again a companion spirit. I read poems to hear that voice. And I write to speak to those I have heard." In the twenty-first century—an age of e-mail and e-books, video conferencing, laptops, cell phones, and iPods—the human voice as it comes to us in poetry or fiction can be a source of genuine consolation as we navigate the frenetic pace of each day.

English 3309 is the first in a two-course sequence of creative writing classes at the University of Houston-Downtown intended to distinguish literary discourse from the ordinary commerce of our daily lives (e-mail or cell phone text messages). Our four sessions each week will be composed of: (1) lectures on particular topics related to literary craft, an examination of exemplar writings, class discussion, in-class writing exercises, and occasional sharing of your journal musings; and (2) workshops in which you will have the opportunity to experiment in a variety of genres and share your own creative work in response to writing assignments in poetry, memoir, and short fiction. We will also explore the habits of mind which support a writer’s sustained work. A review syllabus is available to students upon request (davidsonr@uhd.edu).

Texts: Pinsky, Robert and Maggie Dietz (Eds.), An Invitation to Poetry: A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology (Norton, 2004); Delbanco, Nicholas, The Sincerest Form: Writing Fiction by Imitation (McGraw Hill, 2003).

Requirements: A journal (writer’s notebook), a Lyric Essay, and a final portfolio consisting of an original manuscript in your preferred genre.

-----------------------------

English 3311 - Studies in Poetry

Robin Davidson

Summer Session I

MTWR 2:45 – 4:45 p.m.

CRN:  30247

The Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva writes, “The whole event of poetry—from the poet's vision to the reader's reception—takes place entirely within the soul, that first, lowest sky of the spirit.” In this course, we will explore poetic craft across a variety of centuries and cultures seeking what Tsvetaeva calls the event of poetry and distinguishing that event from the ordinary commerce of our daily lives (e-mail or cell phone text messages, for example). Our four weekly two-hour sessions will be composed of: (1) a 45-minute period of lecture on a particular topic related to poetic craft, and (2) a one-hour period of examination of one or more exemplar poems and class discussion, to include occasional sharing of your journal musings. As a means of becoming more skillful readers of poetry, we will explore such issues of craft as the tools of poetic language (imagery, metaphor, symbolism, etc.), the construction of the poetic self, formalism and free verse, the tension between epic and lyric poetry, twentieth-century poetry’s relationship with the visual arts, and the art of translation. We will also examine in some detail American poets of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A review syllabus is available to students upon request (davidsonr@uhd.edu).

Texts: Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Volumes 1 and 2, Eds. Ramazani, Ellmann, and O'Clair (Norton, 2003). ISBN 0-393-97791-9 (Vol. 1) & 0-393-97792-7 (Vol. 2).

Requirements: an annotated bibliography, an oral presentation, two critical essays.

-----------------------------

English 3312 - Studies in Fiction: The Short Story

Paul Kintzele

Summer I

Two Sections:

MTWR 8:00 - 10:00 a.m. at UHS at Cinco Ranch

MTWR 12:30 - 2:30 p.m. at The University Center, The Woodlands

"When I started to write, the idea was very small, just an image, not an idea actually. A man who is 30, cooking spaghetti in the kitchen, and the telephone rings -- that's it. It's so simple, but I had the feeling that something was happening there." This class will focus on the distinctively modern literary genre of the short story. We will read a variety of examples, starting from the early 19th century, and as we move forward chronologically and expand out geographically, we will see how new generations of writers tailored the genre to fit their needs. We will investigate why short stories emerged in the way they did in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the particular challenges of writing in this format. Authors may include: Balzac, Chekhov, Poe, Melville, Kafka, Joyce, Woolf, Wright, O'Connor, and Murakami (who is quoted above). Requirements: three essays and occasional quizzes.

-----------------------------

English 3312 - Studies in Fiction

Giuliana Lund

Summer II

MTWR 12:30 - 2:30 p.m., room A619

CRN:  40187

This course introduces students to the interpretation of fiction through the study of short stories and novellas produced in Europe and the Americas from the nineteenth century to the present. It familiarizes students with literary styles ranging from the gothic and fantastic to the realist, modernist, existentialist, magical realist, and postmodernist. Students encounter works from a variety of genres, including fairytales, ghost stories, science fiction, and mysteries. This engagement with diverse works of fiction is complemented by exposure to relevant narrative theories.

-----------------------------

English 3313 - Studies in Dramatic Literature

Dr. L. Bailey McDaniel

Summer I

MTWR 7:45 - 9:45 p.m., room A619

CRN:  30290

This course provides an overview of Western drama from Greek Classical Theatre to the contemporary stage, including various aesthetic movements and forms. Playwrights covered begin with Sophocles and end with Kushner and Moraga. Our principal emphases will be on the continued development of (1) critical, (2) historical, and (3) theoretical skills necessary to the study of drama, performance, and literature in general. For this reason, in addition to our main text that provides an overview of Western drama, we'll also consult outside readings that address theory and performance. As we examine plays, performance histories, and the scholarly discourses surrounding them, we'll consistently investigate how constructs of race, class, sexuality, nation, and gender locate themselves within what we understand as drama and performance.

Class format combines discussion, some group work, and lecture. Assignments will include several brief essays, a longer paper, and a mid-term and final exam.

--------------------------------

English 3317 - Theories of Rhetoric

Anthony Chiaviello

Summer II

MTWR 10:15 am - 12:15 pm, room A619

This course aims to begin at the beginning to introduce and explain the subject of rhetoric and provide examples from a variety of rhetorical schools and eras. This course is taught by Professor Anthony Chiaviello, who has a background in media, PR, journalism, and environmental rhetoric. The course will use Hauser’s Introduction to Rhetoric to explain the nature of rhetoric and The Rhetoric of Western Thought (Golden et al.) to provide examples of rhetoric from antiquity to the present.

-------------------------------

English 3318 - Studies in English Grammar

Dr. John Hudson

Summer I

MTWR 12:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Required Textbook: Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects by Martha Kolln (2007).

This course is designed to give the student a basic but comprehensive introduction to English grammar from a rhetorical perspective. We will explore the impact that our grammatical choices have on our texts, our messages, and our readers. With an increased awareness and understanding of how grammatical choices lead to rhetorical consequences, students will be able to hone their written (and oral) communication skills for current and future work in any field.

Understanding and analyzing grammar requires consistent practice. For this reason, students will be expected to attend all classes and complete homework assignments for reinforcement of the material. There will also be quizzes and two exams in order to evaluate how well the material has been presented, studied and understood. Students are also expected to actively participate in class. Questions, at any time, are welcome and, in fact, encouraged.

-------------------------------

English 3324 / Humanities 3304 - American Ethnic Heritage

Dr. Sandra Dahlberg

Summer I

MTWR 8:00 - 10:00 am (The University Center)

This course examines significant literary works by American Indian and Mexican American authors. By examining cultural artifacts that are both within and outside concepts of national identity, these works will prompt us to re-consider "Americanness" and what we too commonly designate as “American.” These texts examine culturally specific representations of time and place, self and society. This course explores the ways that culturally specific myths, legends, and history central to memory culture are incorporated into written form.  Students will investigate materials that will enable them to contextualize culturally specific archetypes, narrative strategies, and major historical events, such as contact/conquest, removal, allotment, assimilation, sovereignty, and urbanization. In this course we will read four novels (in this order): Song of the Hummingbird by Graciela Limon, Fools Crow by James Welch, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich, and Alburquerque by Rudolfo Anaya. The course will also include some poems, short stories, and supplemental materials.

Assignments will include 4 short literary analysis papers, in-class essay exams, and an oral presentation on supplemental material.

-------------------------------

English 3333 - Writing for the Media

Anthony Chiaviello

Summer II

MTWR 12:30 - 2:30 p.m.

This course aims to introduce and explain the subject of rhetoric and provide examples from a variety of rhetorical schools and eras. The course will use Hauser’s Introduction to Rhetoric, a textbook that uses a blended, ”classical and contemporary” approach to the use of language and symbols to explain the nature of rhetoric, covering such topics as rhetorical thinking, persuasion, narrative framing, and strategic forms of argument. Through the use of relevant and current examples, the course will illustrate “how knowledge and power shape social and political discourse.” Also, we will use The Rhetoric of Western Thought (Golden et al.), which provides examples of rhetoric from antiquity to the present. In order to “illuminate fundamental rhetorical precepts and their implications” for shaping human communication, the course will involve discussion, essays, short quizzes, and a final essay.

---------------------------------

English 4341 - Advanced Postcolonial Studies

Giuliana Lund

Summer II

MTWR 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., room A619

CRN: 40312

From the dawn of the modern era, European nations took to the seas to explore, to trade, to conquer, and to colonize. The encounters between Europeans and other peoples around the world, sometimes friendly, often hostile, eventually led to the creation of new, hybrid cultures. Postcolonial studies is an academic field that investigates the mixed cultural heritage of previously colonized nations, examining the ways in which the legacy of European domination and the struggle to achieve equality and prosperity continue to shape contemporary societies. The focus this semester is on the history and culture of the Caribbean, and will include literature exploring conquest, slavery, colonialism, poverty, and revolution. Authors will include Nobel Prize winners Derek Walcott and V.S. Naipaul, as well as many other accomplished writers from the islands, such as Jean Rhys, Alejo Carpentier, Frantz Fanon, Jamaica Kincaid, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Edwidge Danticat.

Caribbean literature is not taught frequently at UHD, so students who are interested should not miss this rare opportunity to study one of the great literatures of the world. Students with an interest in African American Studies, Latin American Studies, or World Literature should find this class particularly valuable.  No previous work in postcolonial studies or Caribbean literature is required.

---------------------------------

English 6319 - Language Development and Variation: Implications for Educators

Dr. Michael R. Dressman

Summer 9-week

MW 11:30 a.m. - 1:45 p.m., room A-434

CRN 35070

This is a graduate course (3 semester credit hours) in applied linguistics and is part of the curriculum for the Master of Arts in Teaching degree program. However, the course has wider scope and applicability; it would be useful for anyone interested in language policy issues.

The main objectives of the course are that you will be able to

1) demonstrate a working knowledge of the basic principles and practices of descriptive linguistics, with mastery, in particular, in the areas of phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax

2) speak and write with understanding on major issues in language development, language variety, and language policy

3) engage in research and writing activities appropriate to the course’s level and scope.

It is my intention and hope that you will be equipped to be a contributing member of the academy in language policy matters.

The class time, early in the course, will be spent in lecture, demonstration, and discussion of the fundamentals of linguistic study, with some attention to language variation. Gradually, as the academic term progresses, class time will more and more be devoted to the subjects of language acquisition, dialects/language variation (social, regional, ethnic, etc.), and language policy issues in schools, media, arts, public agencies, and other situations. We will also explore such topics as languages in contact; reading, writing, and speaking in schools; and the practice and meaning of teaching grammar.

The point of this course is not simply to absorb what is said in the textbook and other distributed material. Gaining an understanding of linguistics and the issues of language variation and language policy will be enhanced by the material in the book, but you should feel free to read more widely and add to the general sum of knowledge available to the class.