Fall 2019: Core Courses
ENGL 3020 | Fiction | Baumgartner
Prerequisites: ENGL 1020 or equivalent. This course will focus on the study of fiction
as a genre. Special
attention will be given to form and technique in the short story and novel. We will
read and discuss
fiction from a range of cultures and traditions, including a novel by George Saunders
and stories by
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Kate Chopin, Anton Chekhov, James Baldwin, Eudora Welty, Flannery
O’Connor,
Ursula K. Le Guin, Gabriel García Márquez, Andre Dubus, Amy Hempel, and many others.
Required texts:
The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, 8th Edition (Full), edited by Richard Bausch and R.V. Cassill [ISBN13: 978-0-393-93775-6]
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, by George Saunders [ISBN13: 978-1594481529].
ENGL 3141 | Creative Writing I: Poetry | Graves
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1020 or equivalent; and one 2000-level literature course. Creative
Writing I will
focus on poetry this fall. This class is designed to help you learn the techniques,
habits, and discipline of
writing literary poems. We will study in the whole craft of writing poetry, generally
based on the model
used successfully in the other arts, and will learn by observing, imitating, and practicing
the approaches
used by accomplished poets. It is not simply a “writing workshop,” though we will
spend a good deal of
time considering and discussing poems that you write and submit to the class. We will
read great poems
from the past and present, and do our best to write some great poems of our own.
Required texts:
• A Book of Luminous Things, edited by Czeslaw Milosz, ISBN: 0156005743
• The Poetry Home Repair Manual, by Ted Kooser, ISBN: 0803259786.
• Poems: New and Selected, by Ron Rash, ISBN: 978-0062435521
ENGL 4907 | Creative Writing II: Fiction | Baumgartner
Prerequisites: ENGL 3142 or permission of the instructor. In this advanced workshop
course, students will
read contemporary short fiction from a range of cultures and traditions, and have
an opportunity to
write and submit new work of their own. Special emphasis will be given to advanced
issues of form and
technique in the short story. We will observe—and attempt to emulate—the process used
by writers of
successful literary fiction. After we’ve examined some of the finest published stories
around, we’ll shift
our attention to exploring outstanding student fiction submitted for workshop. Although
we will
dedicate a significant portion of the semester to student writing, you should come
prepared to read and
write critically (as well as creatively) on a weekly basis.
Required Texts:
• The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, by Ben Marcus (editor) [ISBN-13: 978-
1400034826]
• The Coast of Chicago: Stories, by Stuart Dybek [ISBN-13: 978-0312424251].
