0 credits
7 hours (6lecture, 1 lab)
Prerequisite: ESL/ESR 099  

Basic Writing I is designed to introduce and develop college level writing proficiency through careful attention to the writing process. Emphasizing both the writing process and skills needed for timed and high stakes essays, such as the CUNY ACT, this course will prepare students for college level writing. Students will learn to employ argument in the short essay form to clearly express ideas in support of a position written in edited U.S. English.

Please see the Introduction to English 099 Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
4 hours
Open to new students only.  

In this course students focus on the process of writing clear, correct and effective expository essays in response to materials drawn from culturally diverse sources. A minimum of one contact hour per week contains curriculum designed to improve basic skills deficiencies in writing by reinforcing grammatical concepts. Emphasis is placed on using various methods of organization appropriate to the writer's purpose and audience. Students are introduced to argumentation, fundamental research methods and documentation procedures. Students write frequently both in and out of class. Admission to this course is based on college placement test scores.

Please see the Introduction to English 101 Sheet for important information related to this course.

0 credits
5 hours (4 lecture, 1 lab)
Prerequisite: ESL/ESR 099  

Basic Writing I is designed to introduce and develop college level writing proficiency through careful attention to the writing process. Emphasizing both the writing process and skills needed for timed and high stakes essays, such as the CUNY ACT, this course will prepare students for college level writing. Students will learn to employ argument in the short essay form to clearly express ideas in support of a position written in edited U.S. English.

Please see the Introduction to English 099 Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
4 hours
Prerequisite: CSE095/099 if required, ENA/ENG/ESA099 if required, exemption or Pass on the ACT Writing and Reading Tests. 

In this course, students focus on the process of writing clear, correct and effective expository essays in response to materials drawn from culturally diverse sources. Emphasis is placed on using various methods of organization appropriate to the writer's purpose and audience. Students are introduced to argumentation, fundamental research methods and documentation procedures. Students write frequently both in and out of class. Admission to this course is based on college placement test scores.

Please see the Introduction to English 101 Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course is a continuation of English 101. Students will reinforce and extend their abilities to write correct, well-organized essays using various rhetorical strategies and stylistic techniques. Poetry and at least one other literary genre from among fiction, drama and the nonfiction essay will be studied. Students will be introduced to a variety of writing strategies used in composing interpretive and analytical essays. Writing assignments will include a critical research paper.

Please see the Introduction to English 102 Sheet for important information related to this course.

2 credits
2 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course takes up the skills needed to prepare and write a formal research paper. The students learn and practice the skills involved in research reports for such major disciplines as the social sciences, humanities, human services, and English. These include: choosing and appropriate topic and limiting its focus; using library reference materials; outlining and taking notes; using quotations and paraphrases; preparing footnotes and bibliography; and, finally, incorporating these skills in the development of a typed manuscript.

Please see the Introduction to English 103 Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101 

This course is designed to reinforce and add to the skills developed in Composition I. Emphasis will be placed on those skills central to planning, composing and revising essays of argumentation and critical analysis. Students will also work on developing greater variety and brevity of style and will write a series of essays, including precis, analyses and critiques, based on related readings. A final term paper will contain an independent evaluation of secondary sources.

3 credits
3 hours
Pre or Co-requisite: CSE095, ESL/ESR099 

This is a grammar and syntax course. The course focuses on the grammatical structures necessary in academic discourse. The course begins with a review of the English verb system and covers preposition use, English word order, adverb, adjective, and noun clauses, reported speech, article usage, complex conditionals, and passive voice. Additional topics may be selected in response to particular needs and interests of the students in the class.

3 credits
3 hours
Pre or Co-requisite: ENG101  

This course is designed to analyze the Bible critically as a literary compilation with particular consideration to the following forms: myth, epic narrative, drama, poetry, prophecy and parable. Questions of literary history, canonicity, authorship and source materials are considered. Various translations (e.g., King James, Coverdale, Jerusalem) may be examined comparatively for their use of language. Selections for study are chosen for their impact on subsequent literature, as well as for their artistic merit.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101 

This course emphasizes writing various types of hard news stories for mainstream and community newspapers. Students also learn how to use different interview styles to cover a variety of newsbeats. Students will be involved in writing for the college newspaper. Field trips to newsrooms will enable students to write reports on potential careers in news writing.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101 

This course emphasizes writing various types of hard news stories for mainstream and community newspapers. Students also learn how to use different interview styles to cover a variety of newsbeats. Students will be involved in writing for the college newspaper. Field trips to newsrooms will enable students to write reports on potential careers in news writing.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101 

This course introduces student to the essentials of radio news writing. Students learn how to prepare for radio news interviews, how to outline, write and edit radio news spots of various styles, how to proofread stories to avoid violating FCC regulations. This course also focuses on writing for community-based radio stations. Students will visit a community radio station and will write about careers in radio journalism.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101 

The Seminar in Teaching Writing combines three hours of class discussion of theory and practice of teaching writing with one hour of actual classroom experience as a participant observer and as a tutor. In class, students will discuss readings on writing theory and practice teaching and tutoring methodologies. Students will work with students in a composition or basic writing class. They will observe the class during the first half of the term and during the second half they will tutor under supervision.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course is a survey of African-American literature from its beginning to the present day, including the slavery era, the era of accommodation and protest, the Harlem Renaissance, the integrationist movement, the era of black aestheticism, and the post- 1960's decades. Writers to be studied might include Wheatley, Douglass, DuBois, Hughes, McKay, Brown, Wright, Brooks, Walker, Ellison, Baldwin, Hansberry, Baraka, Morrison, Naylor, and Wilson, among others.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course will explore the diverse voices of writers in the United States through a consideration of cultural context. Literature to be discussed may include the contributions of African-American, Asian-American, Euro-American, Latino/a-American, and/or Native-American writers. Such themes as cultural dislocation, and re-envisioning identity will be highlighted.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course is designed to familiarize the student with the ways in which the role of women has been portrayed in literature. By identifying various stereotypes and certain recurrent themes, students will be made aware of how literature reflects and sometimes determines societal expectations. Works by both male and female authors will be examined including such authors as Henrik Ibsen, D.H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Sylvia Plath, Mary Gordon, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course will explore the unique experience of the woman writer. Studying works written by women from a variety of cultures, races and classes will reveal how being a woman has influenced the woman writer's creative interpretation of the human condition. Maya Angelou, Charlotte Bronte, Maxine Hong Kingston, Emily Dickinson, Tillie Olsen, and Leslie Marmon Silko will be read.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course examines the contributions to American literature made by Chicana, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican women writers in the United States over the last thirty years. It surveys the variety of Latina writing and explores the ways in which Latina writers represent community, class, race, gender, culture, nation, and ethnicity in their works. Poetry, fiction, essays, autobiographical prose, and dramatic works by authors such as Julia Alvarez, Gloria Anzaldua, Sandra Cisneros, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Cristina Garcia, Cherrie Moraga, and Nicholasa Mohr will be studied.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course will examine the development and conventions of the short story providing analysis of representative short stories in the context of their biographical, social, intellectual, and artistic backgrounds. Stories will be chosen to reflect a diversity of cultural, racial and ethnic experiences. Such authors as Eudora Welty, Anton Chekhov, Richard Wright, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, Gloria Anzaldua, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Yukio Mishima, Nadine Gordimer, Gloria Naylor and Bharati Mukherjee will be studied.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course will introduce students to literature in which sexuality provides the dominant themes, motifs, or images. Issues such as sex as a metaphor for violence, pornography vs. eroticism, and the Idealized Lover may be discussed. Authors examined might include Chaucer, Bernard Malamud, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, Donald Goines, Alta, and Victor Hernandez Cruz. Works such as For Colored Girls..., Lolita, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Color Purple, and The Picture of Dorian Gray may be included.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course introduces students to humor in literature from the Classic period to the present in the genres of drama, poetry, and fiction and provides them with interpretive skills required for an appreciation and understanding of the texts. In reading the work of such authors as Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Ishmael Reed, and Fran Lebowitz, the class will define and examine examples of humorous literature such as satire, romantic comedy, parody and farce.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course introduces students to ways of reading, discussing and writing about novels through a close reading and analysis of their elements, and a consideration of their social, cultural and artistic contexts. Novels from a diverse range of sexual, racial, class and ethnic perspectives, from the 18th century to the present, will be selected, including such writers as Jane Austen, James Baldwin, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, Yasunari Kawabata, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Mark Twain and Richard Wright.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course will explore the literature and experiences of lesbian and gay writers. Examining these works will reveal how sexual orientation influences the authors' creative interpretations of themselves, their culture, and the world at large. Themes of growing up gay, coming out, families, relationships, communities, homophobia, AIDS, aging, loss and renewal are explored. Such writers as Brown, White, Lorde, Leavitt, Gomez, Beam, Baldwin, Kramer, Anzaldua and Sarton will be studied.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

In this course, students are introduced to the drama. The characteristics of the form will be examined. Examples of the genre from major periods of its development will be studied, including plays by a range of culturally diverse authors such as Sophocles, William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Henrik Ibsen, Eugene O'Neill, Lillian Hellman, Lorraine Hansberry, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett, John Guare and August Wilson.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This survey course examines a selection of Shakespeare's writings. It also looks at Renaissance social, intellectual, and cultural contexts in order to help students understand Shakespeare's world. The course concentrates on various sonnets or poems and a representative selection of plays from the history plays, comedies, "problem plays," tragedies, and romances. Whenever possible, through visits to the theatres or film viewing, students are introduced to the "living Shakespeare".

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course will offer an introduction to literature written by and about immigrants in America. Attention will be given to the immigrant's experiences and struggles as seen in novels as well as poems, stories, and plays. The works of such major writers as Willa Cather, Arthur Miller, James T. Farrell, Mario Puzo, Philip Roth, Alex Haley, William Saroyan, Rene Marques, Paule Marshall, Claude McKay, and Maxine Hong Kingston will be considered.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This is a consideration and analysis of a selected number of major Afro-American fiction writers from 1952 to the present. Emphasis will be placed on both the survival of older fictional concerns (e.g., racism, violence, the search for identity) and the appearance of new trends (e.g., the employment of folklore materials, the revitalized use of Black dialects, the emergence of a group of women writers). Works by such authors as Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, John Williams, Toni Morrison, Albert Murray, Alice Walker, Ernest Gaines and Ishmael Reed will be read.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course introduces students to the formal conventions of poetry as well as the basic elements that work to create a poem. Poems from different countries and different historical periods will be explored, at times from different critical perspectives. Works by such poets as William Shakespeare, John Donne, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, Langston Hughes, e.e. cummings, Federico Garcia Lorca, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Gary Soto will be discussed.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course is designed to introduce students to poetry writing. In writing and revising poems, students will utilize a variety of writing styles. For example, they will practice formal modes such as sonnet, blank verse, and sestina, and they will also write free verse. In order to locate stylistic and thematic approaches for their own poems, students will read and discuss poetry in a variety of styles and historical modes. They will have the opportunity to hear poets read works and discuss the writing process. Engaging frequently in peer critiquing of each other's work, students will also develop criteria for evaluating their own poetry and for doing revision. By the end of the semester, they will learn how to submit poetry for publication.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course studies the similarities and differences between literature and film. By comparing and contrasting literary works (complete and excerpts) with films, the course illuminates the methods, structures and contents of the two media, as well as their relationship. Writers to be considered may include Shakespeare, Keats, Dickens, Dickinson, Wright, and West; films to be viewed may include those made by Griffith, Chaplin, Eisenstein, Riefenstahl, Flaherty and Resnais.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course introduces students to creative non-fiction writing, writing that uses true events for literary effect. In writing and revising creative non-fiction, students will learn and practice a variety of forms, including personal essay, memoir, literary journalism (or narrative non-fiction), and biography. Students will work to improve their technique and develop individual voices, but will also work in groups to discuss ways to improve their work. They will read works by published authors and will also learn how to submit their own work for publication.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course studies the work of a single major author. Students will examine the author in depth, exploring the writer's career, major works, literary influence, and cultural context in order to understand his or her contribution to literary history. The author selected might be Chaucer, Milton, Austen, Dickens, Whitman, Dickinson, Wright, Faulkner, Hughes, Soyinka or Morrison.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course focuses on the technical and stylistic elements of crafting fiction with the goal of creating fully revised, original short stories. The course utilizes draft sessions addressing the critical elements of fiction and the revision process. The course readings will emphasize world writers of the short story, and the course may include field trips to hear published writers reading their work. The final portion of the course will address the preparation of short stories for professional submission.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course is designed to familiarize students with various types of children's literature, including folklore, modern fantasy, picture books and realistic fiction. Students also learn how to evaluate the literary standards and pluralistic character of the literature and how to choose books to share with children from pre-school through elementary school. Through a study of works from such authors as Hans Christian Andersen, E.B. White, Virginia Hamilton, Pura Belpre, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Julius Lester, C.S. Lewis, Jamake Highwalter, A.A. Milne and Maurice Sendak among others, the basic themes of children's literature will be explored.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG102   

This course covers the development of early British Literature from the Anglo-Saxon era to 1660. Authors include, among others, the Beowulf poet, Chaucer, Mary Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. In addition to exploring evolving literary genres and styles, students will study key social, political, and cultural influences on the works and their historical periods. They will also study and reflect on the emerging women voices of the age.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG102  

This course covers major writers, genres and themes in British literature from 1660 to the present. This includes Restoration, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Victorianism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. Attention will be given to social, intellectual, cultural and ppolitical contexts in order to help the students understand the works. In addition to reading major authors from John Dryden to Zadie Smith, the course may examine ballads, slave narratives, journalism, diaries, pamphlets, and other genres.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG102  

This course examines the development of an American literature from the colonial/contact period to the emancipation of African Americans at the end of the United States Civil War. It surveys a broad range of writers, texts and themes that have shaped American identities. Fiction, poetry, essays and autobiographical prose by authors such as Douglass, Dickinson, Emerson, Franklin, Rowlandson, Wheatley, and Winthrop will be studies.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG102  

This course examines the development of literature written in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the present. The course covers major literary movements such as Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism and highlights the diverse political, social, and cultural contexts involved in shaping them. Genres such as fiction, poetry, essay, drama, and autobiography by authors such as Hemingway, Toomer, Miller, Morrison, and Silko will be studied.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG102  

This capstone course introduces students to postcolonial literatures of the Anglophone diaspora. Texts may include literary works from Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Ireland, and New Zealand. Students will examine world literatures in their historical and cultural contexts. In some semesters, the course may focus on one particular geographical region and/or ethnic group.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: CSE099, ENA/ENG/ESA099  

This course examines political and/or protest art as expressed in literature, song, drama, and other arts. Issues in New York that stirred or are stirring artistic responses will be given special emphasis. Activities will include visits to museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Museum of Modern Art, to galleries in Greenwich Village or Soho, to Ellis Island, to Broadway and off-Broadway productions and to individual communities.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENA/ENG/ESA099  

This course surveys the depiction of various types of violence and the use of violence as a theme or metaphor in North American literature, art, and popular culture. Emphasis is placed on New York City as a laboratory and resource for researching considerations of violence in poetry, drama, fiction, film and other visual art forms as well as popular culture (e.g., lyrics, comic strips, advertising, horror and suspense stories).

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: ENG101  

This course introduces students to the elements of creative writing by using New York as a writer's laboratory. Field trips to city places such as schools, streets, parks will lead to writing that uses these places and the people in them as themes. Students will write a variety of creative pieces-sketches, brief narratives, poems, dramatic dialogues dealing with this glimpsed New York life. Reading of and visits with New York writers writing on New York themes will complement these activities.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.

3 credits
3 hours
Prerequisite: CSE099, ENA/ENG/ESA099  

This course is designed to introduce students to the literature of the city. Students will explore important urban themes, social issues and cultural developments in the short stories, essays, poems, autobiographies, plays and novels of major city writers such as Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Thomas Mann, James Baldwin, Frank O'Hara, Grace Paley, Anna Deveare Smith, Chang-Rae Lee, John A. William, Hanif Kureishi and Oscar Hijuelos. Also popular art forms such as journalism, song lyrics and film may be examined. Students will read and discuss issues of contemporary urban literary magazines like New York Stories. There will be one or more field trips.

Please see the Introduction to English Literature Electives Sheet for important information related to this course.