EN 500. Special Topics in Literature.4 Credits.

Extensive reading and intensive analysis of literature dealing with a single theme or specific problem.

Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed

EN 541. Poetry for Prospective High School Teachers.4 Credits.

This course is an examination of the way poetry operates as a social practice, one that uses many forms and one that has served different purposes at different times. To that end, students examine a range of British and American poetry throughout literary history, in both form and technique, and attempt to situate it culturally. Although this is considered a genre course, it focuses on why students might want to read poetry and what they do with it, rather than defining it as a stable and universal category.

Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Fall

EN 544. Adolescent Literature - Graduate Writing Project.1 Credit.

This course must be completed in conjunction with EN 554, Literature for Youth and Adolescence. The project is designed as an in-depth study across three selected, multi-genre adolescent literature textsin order to research the historical and cultural contexts of the works, providing critical analyses and interpretations within and across genres. The project requires written work of 12-15 pages that demonstrates students' ability to apply literary, cultural, historical and theoretical understandings to literature in ways that exhibit deep interpretive skills, while also reflecting on the process of promoting those same skills in adolescent readers as promoted by the Common Core State Standards.

Corequisites: Take EN 554.
Offered: As needed

EN 551. Advanced Studies in Writing.4 Credits.

This course aims to make students metacognitive practitioners of writing. It is a course in applied linguistics designed to immerse students in English language practice by reading and writing, making them conscious of the grammatical components, structures and semantics involved in producing writing.

Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Summer

EN 554. Young Adult Literature.4 Credits.

This is a multi-genre course that asks students to consider the evolving category of young adult literature with an emphasis on literary and cultural analysis. By pairing primary texts with both seminal and recent criticism, students consider historical and contemporary examples of young adult literature, focusing on questions of coming-of-age, ethnicity, sexuality, canonicity, trauma and identity.

Prerequisites: Take EN 460.
Offered: Every year, Spring