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English 1A: Composition I: See MySJSU for selection of sections.

English 1B: Composition II: See MySJSU for selection of Sections.

English 7: Critical Thinking

Nature and meaning of critical thought, Western and non-Western. Relationship between logic and language. Examination of contrasting arguments on related subjects as a means for developing skill in analysis of prose. No credit in the English major. G.E. Area A3.
Prerequisite: ENGL 1A.

TR 1:30-2:45: Professor Strachan; F 9:30-12:15: Professor Strachan; MW 3-4:15: Professor Heisch; MW 7:30am-8:45: Professor Cox

English 10: Great Works of Literature

Emphasis on critical appreciation of fiction, drama, and poetry and various literary forms. No credit in the English major. G.E. Area C 2.

TR 1500-1615: Professor Chow; M 1900-2145: Professor Wilson; MW 1030-1145: Professor Sams

English 22: Fantasy and Science Fiction

Students will examine works of literary fantasy and science fiction to understand them as expressions of human intellect and imagination; to comprehend their historical and cultural contexts; and to recognize their diverse cultural traditions. Both contemporary and historical works will be studied. No credit in the English major. G.E. Area C 2.

TR 1200-1315: Professor Strachan;MW 0900-1015: Professor James; R 1800-2045: Professor Harris (this section cancelled)

English 22: Fantasy and Science Fiction

This course will explore utopian and dystopian worlds as they manifest in Science Fiction from Plato’s Republic to Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. Specifically, we will look at the ways in which the creation of fantasy worlds operates as a means for both social critique and as a device to bring about social change. I have selected readings from a range of historical periods, as well as authors from a variety of cultural backgrounds to give us an opportunity to compare diverse perspectives. I also include a unit on graphic novels, which make a significant contribution both to the genre of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I am looking forward to reading and discussing these novels each week, and I welcome students of all levels and backgrounds! No credit in the English major. G.E. Area C 2.
F 0900-1145: Professor Eastwood (this section cancelled)

English 56A: Survey of British Literature to 1800

This course is a survey of British Literature from its earliest works through the eighteenth century. The goals of the course are to help students to gain an overview of the major literary periods, genres, authors, and works of English literature. We will discuss these texts from a variety of perspectives, including the dynamic relationship between heroes and villains throughout early English history, considering what these representations reveal about the various societies that produced them.
T 1900-2145: Professor Eastwood

English 56A. English Literature to the Late 18th Century: Beowulf to Burney.

Considering the relationship between that which is “new” and that which is “old” in approaches to poetry, T.S. Eliot once wrote, “we often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of [a good poet’s] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.” This course gives you an introduction to the best literature of medieval and early modern England: from Beowulf, subject to so many 21st Century reimaginings, through Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Pope, Swift and Johnson. We’ll bring a wider perspective to that survey than once prevailed, giving you a chance to hear the voices that might once have gone unheard in such surveys once upon a time: Margery, Queen Elizabeth, Aphra Behn, Ann Radcliffe. Here’s your chance to begin laying the groundwork for understanding where the modern literature you love all began!

TR 0900-1015: Professor Fleck

English 68A: American Literature to 1865

A survey of major and significant texts, movements, and writers exemplifying the literature of the United States of America, covering the period from the Columbian contact to around the end of the Civil War. 

TR 1300-1445: Professor Chow

English 68A: American Literature to 1865

This is a survey course that begins with Native American narrative and proceeds through American literature of the colonial, revolutionary, early national, and romantic periods. Authors are Bradford, Rowlandson, Bradstreet, Kemble Knight, Equiano, Wheatley, Freneau, Tyler, Foster, Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Jacobs, Douglass, Whitman, and Dickinson. Grade is based on participation, 10 in-class writing assignments, midterm, final, one analytical paper (5-6 pages). 

MW 0900-1015: Professor English

English 68B: American Literature from 1865

Survey of American literature, Emily Dickinson to the present.

TR 1030-1145: Professor Karim

English 71: Introduction to Creative Writing

In this course, we will read, discuss and write poetry, creative nonfiction and short fiction. The course will be taught using a combination of discussion and writing workshops. The craft of writing will be analyzed. We will ask: What do writers do? How do poets and story-writers write? In the writing workshops, creative work by class members will be analyzed and critiqued for revision. Students will have the opportunity to hear from and discuss writing with several published writers. Course texts include ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere; James Thomas & Robert Shapard (Editors), Flash Fiction Forward; Judith Kitchen (Editor), Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction; Neil Astley (Editor), Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times; and Kimiko Hahn’s The Narrow Road to the Interior. English major elective that also satisfies G.E. Area C 2.

M 1800-2045: Professor Evans

English 71: Introduction to Creative Writing

Writing in various literary genres; emphasis on eliciting and developing talent in various kinds of creative writing. English major elective that also satisfies G.E. Area C 2.

TR 1200-1315, TR 1330-1445: Professor Maio

TR 1500-1615, R 1800-2045: Professor Miller

MW 1200-1315: Professor Taylor

MW 1330-1445: Professor Harrison

Online: Professor James

English 78: Introduction to Shakespeare

What made Shakespeare great in his own time? What makes Shakespeare meaningful today? This course offers an introduction to Shakespeare by giving us a chance to read plays from each of the genres, learning the features of each kind of play and appreciating what made them successful with Elizabethan audiences and continues to make them compelling in our global economy. We’ll laugh with Beatrice and Benedick, stand in horror of Macbeth, and weep with Lear. A fun, whirlwind tour through some of Shakespeare’s best work. No credit in the English major. G.E. Area C 2.
TR 1030-1145: Professor Fleck

English 100W: Writing Workshop

English 100W is an integrated writing and literature course designed to provide English majors with a firm foundation for the professional study of literature. Over the course of the semester, students will engage in all phases of those reading, thinking, researching, and writing processes that produce clear and purposeful critical essays that demonstrate an understanding of and illuminate for others how literature contains and conveys its effects and meanings. Approximately one half of the semester will be spent on the study of poetry. Prerequisite: Passing score on WST.
TR 1030-1145: Professor Harris

TR 1330-1445: Professor Eastwood

English 100W: Writing Workshop

We will learn to write eloquently as we analyze poetry, fiction and drama. Extensive study of metrical forms, short fiction, and a drama review of a San Jose State Production: either The Mummified Deer or The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Prerequisite: Passing score on WST

F 0900-1145: Professor Stork

English 101: Introduction to Literary Criticism

Students will be exposed to important critical concepts as well as various historical and contemporary approaches to literature, such as formalism, structuralism, cultural studies, new historicism, post-structuralism, Marxism, post-colonialism, feminism, etc. Students will learn to apply these approaches to works of literature through various assignments, including presentations, short essays, and a research paper. Prerequisite: English 100W

TR 1030-1145: Professor Chow

English 101: Introduction to Literary Criticism
Do you see hidden meanings in literary texts? Billboards? Movies? Advertisements? Can you come up with 3 variant meanings for Ezra Pound’s poem, “In a Station of the Metro”? There are many possible readings of all literary and visual texts. Even your own identity governs your interpretation of the material. What kind of critic are you? For this course, we will discover and apply critical models to various literary, visual, and digital texts. Critical models will include foundational twentieth-century theory as well as contemporary approaches to literature (feminism, Queer theory, Marxism, post-colonialism, and more). Though we will apply these critical models to texts across several historical periods and literary genres, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness will be our ur-text. Prerequisite: English 100W

TR 1200-1315: Professor Harris

English 101: Introduction to Literary Criticism

Study of various historical and contemporary approaches to literature, such as New Criticism, Structuralism, Cultural Studies, New Historicism, Post-structuralism, Marxism, Feminism, Post-colonialism, etc. An emphasis will be placed on learning to apply these different methods of interpretation through a workshop format. Prerequisite: English 100W

F 0900-1145: Professor Silver

English 103: Modern English Grammar

A detailed study of modern English grammar from a transformational grammar perspective. Taught by someone who enjoys grammar!

MW 0900-1015: Professor Stork

English 103: Modern English Grammar

Course material covers standard American English sounds, word forms, sentence patterns, regional and social dialects, issues of usage and/or correctness, punctuation, and those aspects of its historical development that are pertinent to its current forms and functions.

MW 1500-1615: Professor Cox

English 103: Modern English Grammar

A survey of the growth and structure of modern English, including its phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Attention to social and regional varieties, with implications for language development and literacy among native and non-native speakers.

R 1600-1845: Professor Baer

English 105: Advanced Composition

The theme of this course will be exploring our unique personal heritage through writing essays. We will incorporate research methods, from interviewing family members to tapping genealogical databases to visiting libraries, to help us answer the question: where did I come from? Prerequisites: Six units of lower-division composition and completion of the Written Communication II requirement (100W). Repeatable once for credit.

TR 1300-1445: Professor Miller (this course cancelled)

English 106: Editing for Writers

Copy editing, substantive editing, and document design. Review of grammar and punctuation to ensure technical mastery and ability to justify editing decision. Prerequisites: English 1A and 1B.

MW 1330-1445: Professor Baer

English 107: Technical Writing

Research methods, audience analysis and development of reader-based techniques. Writing based on models from scientific and technical discourse. Prerequisites: English 1A and 1B. Note: offered only in Spring

MW 1200-1315: Professor Harrison

English 112A: Children’s Literature

Study of literature for elementary and intermediate grades, representing a variety of cultures. Evaluation and selection of texts.

MW 1030-1145: Professor Rice; TR 1500-1615: Professor Hager

English 112A: Children’s Literature

Have you ever picked up a book you read as a child and were suddenly transported back in time? This course seeks to uncover the brilliance, literary technique, complexity, social relevance, and merit of readings from elementary to intermediate grades. Most readings will be chapter books, but we will also evaluate other styles such as nursery rhymes, picture books, and fairy tales. Papers, projects, and presentations will constitute the majority of your grade. Overall, please note this is a literature course, not a methodology course.

M 1800-2045: Professor Sprugasci

English 112B: Literature for Young Adults
The goal of this course is to acquaint students with as many YA books and authors as possible; we will read six novels as a class: After the First Death, Speak, Whale Talk, Witness, Prisoner of Azkaban, and First Crossing (a collection of short stories). The texts for the class, Literature for Today’s Young Adults and Adolescents in the Search for Meaning: Tapping the Powerful Resource of Story, introduce YA literature from several genres and provide author resources. Book Talks and a unit plan or annotated bibliography project are two other course requirements that will further students’ knowledge of the expansive range of YA Literature.

W 1600-1845: Professor Browne

English 115: The Bible as Literature

In this course we study the Bible from the perspective of literature, reading extensively from this signature work of Western Civilization.We examine key portions of the Bible, exploring its array of subjects, themes, literary styles and genres, and its vast influence on much of Western Literature. Students will write three essays—two connected to TANAK (or the Old Testament) and one related to the Christian Foundational Writings (or the New Testament). In addition to these essays, there will be a midterm, final exam, and weekly Sustained Silent Writing. No “respectable” English major should graduate without familiarity with the Bible!

MW 1500-1615: Professor Warner

English 117: Film, Literature, and Culture

An exploration and comparison of narrative in world literature and film, the class will focus on texts that “create and define cultural identity, explore cultural interaction, and illustrate cultural preservation and cultural difference over time.” English major elective and single-subject credential requirement that also satisfies upper-division G.E. area V.

T 1900-2145: Professor Brada

English 123C: South Pacific Literature

Writers from the South Pacific (including Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, and other island nations) have produced one of the most vibrant literatures written in English over the past century or so. This class will survey that literature, focusing mostly on its fiction. Depending on what is available in print, we will read six or seven novels or story collections by authors such as Miles Franklin, Joseph Furphy, Patrick White, David Malouf, Peter Carey, Witi Ihimaera, Keri Hulme, Albert Wendt, Sia Figiel, and others, as well as some poetry. English major elective that also satisfies upper-division G.E. area V.

TR 1500-1615: Professor Mesher

English 125A: European Literature, Homer to Dante

Study of European literature from Homer to Dante. Two critical essays, midterm and a final.

W 1900-2145: Professor Wilson

English 129: Introduction to Career Writing

This course provides an introduction to writing as a profession. Students will practice a variety of written genres for a variety of purposes and audiences. Students will also plan, write, and publish two newsletters.

MW 0900-1015: Professor Cox (this course cancelled)

English 130: Writing Fiction

A workshop for students with experience writing fiction. Each participant will submit two new short stories for consideration by the class and a substantial revision in lieu of a final exam. Other requirements include assigned readings of published stories and thoughtful criticism of classmates’ work. Course may be repeated once for credit. Prerequisite: English 71 or instructor permission.

MW 1330-1445: Professor Taylor

English 130: Writing Fiction

The focus of this course is inventing and crafting fiction. Our primary focus will be the short story, but we will also address the novel and flash fiction. Through work-shopping your pieces, as well as discussing the pieces of published writers, we will speak to the observable and the subtle aspects of fiction, for good writing entails both skill and mystery. Students will have the opportunity to discuss writing with several published fiction writers. Course texts include Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft (7th Edition, 2003) and ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Course may be repeated once for credit. Prerequisite: English 71 or instructor permission.

TR 1330-1445: Professor Evans

English 131: Writing Poetry

This upper-division course will emphasize the metrical and formal techniques of lyric poetry, particularly the Greek ascending meters and the Italian and French rhyming forms such as the sonnet, villanelle, terza rima, ottava rima, etc.—although the brief narrative modes will be treated as well, including the ballad form, the sestina, and blank verse. Students will have the opportunity to write well structured vers libre also. Graduate students will do extra work, including the writing and presentation of a paper on the craft of a major modern poet. Prerequisites: English 71 or English 132, graduate standing, or instructor consent. May be repeated once for credit.

TR 1030-1145: Professor Maio

English 133: Reed Magazine

Established in the 1920s, Reed is one of the oldest student-edited literary magazines west of the Mississippi. In this course we will cover all aspects of the editorial process, from solicitation and selection of material to production and distribution. This year we will also examine the trend toward web publishing of literary journals and the establishment of online literary communities. Open to all majors. May be repeated once for credit.

M 1600-1845: Professor Taylor

English 135: Writing Nonfiction

Advanced writing workshop in creative nonfiction. In this class we will experiment with four subgenres of nonfiction: the personal essay, travel writing, profile, and feature article. Prerequisite: One of the following: English 71, 100W, 105, 129, or instructor consent. Repeatable once for credit.

T 1800-2045: Professor Miller

English 142: Chaucer

An introduction to Chaucer’s Middle English and his major works. Extensive historical and literary backgrounds to the fascinating 14th century. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

MW 1200-1315: Professor Stork (meeting time updated 1/12/08 )

English 143: The Age of Elizabeth

“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too!” These famous and rousing words, spoken by Queen Elizabeth I on the battlefield at Tilbury, exemplify the deft manner in which the Virgin Queen represented herself to her people—turning her culture’s assumptions about gender to her advantage by linking herself with a tradition of masculine power and monarchal authority. This course provides students with the opportunity to study this fascinating and enduring figure from the early modern period. Students will examine ways the Queen represented herself (in speeches, portraiture, and court entertainments) as well as the variety of ways she was represented by the major poets and playwrights of her day (including Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare).

TR 1500-1615: Professor Eastwood

English 144. Shakespeare I: Shakespeare, Early and Late.

What do Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night have in common? And why is one so much more beloved than the other? “Shakespeare, Early and Late” will explore examples of the great playwright’s early efforts, later high points, and final complications of genre. We’ll get a chance to see a great mind at work, improving on earlier efforts—such as Comedy of Errors—to hit a stride in masterpieces—like Twelfth Night. We’ll read several comedies, histories, and tragedies, giving us a chance to enjoy some of the classics we’ve come to love and some works we might not know as well..

TR 1200-1315: Professor Fleck

English 145: Shakespeare in Performance*

In this course, we will examine in-depth several of Shakespeare’s plays, specifically addressing issues of performance and interpretation. Placing each play in the context of its original performance during Shakespeare’s time, and its life on stage and screen in the ensuing centuries, encourages an engagement with the ways in which re-imagining Shakespeare’s works helps them retain their vitality and cultural relevance. Paying particular attention to modern productions, we will analyze the ways in which production elements such as setting, casting, staging, costumes, editing, and individual performances shape and create meaning (or fail to do so) for the audiences of today. Placing these plays within this context of performance will raise larger issues about the complex relationships between the Shakespearean canon and its ever changing audiences. Students will respond to each play through both writing and oral interpretation, integrating speech and dramatic performance with an understanding of the complexities of plot, characterization, and dramatic form. *Required for the English Single-Subject Credential. Note: offered only in Spring

TR 0900-1015: Professor Eastwood

English 149: TechnoRomanticism (aka Romantic-Era Survey)

"IT’S ALIVE!" screams Gene Wilder in exultation of his Monster’s birth in Young Frankenstein. This 1974 spoof on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, is still being referenced in today’s monstrous experimentations with technology. WHY? This course will explore Frankenstein and all of the technological and cultural imperatives that surround the creation of this Daemon. To do this, we need to create our own edition (or version) of Frankenstein, and we must read the other literature surrounding it for evidence of this Fiend’s destructive nature. After all, Charles Dickens will begin writing in the very next decade. Why isn’t he concerned with monsters and technology with the same urgency? You’ve studied this novel in other classes, now come see why. Graduate Students welcome.

Official Course Description: The Romantic-era was perhaps one of the most intellectually and technologically productive eras in all of England: The Industrial Revolution forced citizens to abandon agrarian life and embrace an urban existence that was full of prostitutes, raw sewage, cholera and scientific experimentation. Literature during this time, 1785-1837, reflects the anxiety caused by this shift, but it also reflects an excitement about England’s potentially terrifying future. In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, our hero(es) embody all of these aspects of British life. For this reason, the course will center around the themes prevalent in Frankenstein but with a slight twist. In “TechnoRomanticism,” we’ll create our own modern, annotated version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (complete with film references and any online links, e.g., YouTube, etc.). We’ll read into the Romantic period through this 1818 text and then read Shelley’s second novel, The Last Man, a very futuristic view of the nineteenth century. The course requires that we use wikis, blogs, and forums to create this annotated edition—however, no technology experience is required (several tutorials and unending help will be offered). In the end, we will also be part of the “techno” in TechnoRomanticism.

TR 1500-1615: Professor Harris

English 151: Twentieth-Century Poetry

In this course we will read selected works by a diverse group of Modern poets. We will investigate the work of several poets in depth rather than conduct a shallow survey of the entire field. The poets we will study have influenced all the work written since their time, or whose work introduced something new into the canon of Modern and Contemporary poetry. Included on the reading list are: W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Robinson Jeffers, Hart Crane, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, and James Wright. Students are urged to read as widely as possible, beyond the poets and on the required reading list. The class will be conducted in both a lecture/discussion and a seminar format.We will use Smartboard technology and various sites on the World Wide Web as well as other electronic materials to enhance students’ understanding of these poets and their works. The class is open to undergraduate and graduate students. All undergraduate students will give two individual seminar presentations, based on papers two 2,000 word papers that students will write for the class. There will be a take-home mid-term and take-home final exam. This class is particularly recommend for students interested in Creative Writing. 

MW 1030-1145: Professor Soldofsky (meeting time updated 1/12/08)

English 153A: Eighteenth-Century British Novel

No persons of lively parts and keen penetration would presume to complete a course of English studies without having conducted at least one stage of their intellectual peregrinations in the company of such worthies as Moll Flanders, Pamela Andrews, Tom Jones, Matthew Bramble, and Catherine Morland. Thus, whether it be your intention to try your fortune in the professions, seek ecclesiastical preferment, secure a commission in the service of King George, or contract a favorable match, such a course of studies cannot fail to enlarge your understanding, improve your heart, steel your constitution, and qualify you for all the duties and enjoyments of life. Reading List: Defoe, Moll Flanders; Richardson, Pamela; Fielding, Tom Jones; Smollett, Humphry Clinker; Austen, Northanger Abbey.

MW 0900-1015: Professor Rice

English 163: American Literature: 1865-1910

This course traces the development of American literature from the end of the Civil War through the first decade of the twentieth century. We will study representative works of realism and naturalism, but always within the broader cultural context.We will begin by reading the two great poets of the nineteenth century—Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman—then concentrate on fiction by Mark Twain, Henry James, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, and Edith Wharton. A small portion of our reading will consist of literary nonfiction, short fiction, and primary documents.Your grade will be based on a midterm, final, short paper, research paper, and participation in class discussion.

MW 1330-1445: Professor Silver (this course cancelled)

English 168: The American Novel

This course explores the genre from 1798 to the latter part of the 20th century. Novels will include Wieland, Little Women, Huck Finn, The Marrow of Tradition, My Antonia, The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse-Five, and The Optimist’s Daughter. Grade is based on participation, 8 journal entries, midterm, final, one analytical paper (8-10 pages).

R 1900-2145: Professor English

English 169: Ethnicity in American Literature

This course concentrates on the study of ethnicity as represented and constructed in American literature in relation to the formation of the concept of self, the place of self in society, and issues of equality and structured inequality in the United States; issues to be addressed include race, culture, history, politics, economics, etc., that arise as contexts relevant to the study of literature by and/or about Americans (including immigrants) with Indigenous, African, European, Latino(a)/Hispanic, and Asian backgrounds. English major elective that also satisfies upper-division G.E. area S.

TR 0900-1015: Professor Chow

M 1900-2145: Professor Chow

English 174: Literature, Self, and Society

This discussion course invites readers who like to write (and vice versa). Readings will be drawn from interesting, well written contemporary American literature, presenting multiple perspectives on significant subjects and events or contemplating the world through prisms of race, religion, class, geography, history, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Importantly, none will be “about” any of those things in any single-minded or polemical way: they will be “about” what it means to be alive in the world. G.E. Area S

MW 1200-1315: Professor Heisch

English 177: Twentieth-Century Fiction

Novels and short stories as works of art and as expressions of intellectual and social movements.

TR 1200-1315: Professor ZZ Packer (Lurie Professor )

English 193: Capstone Seminar in Literature and Self-Reflection

A capstone seminar that focuses on the representations of the self from nineteenth-century realism to postmodern fiction. Two critical essays, one seminar project, and one class presentation.
W 1600-1845: Professor Wilson

English 193: Capstone Seminar in Literature and Self-Reflection

As the Capstone Course for English majors, this course allows students to assess and demonstrate how well they have met the department Learning Goals. Students will compile a Portfolio of written work from at least five other courses completed in the major; significantly revise one of those Portfolio selections; write an introduction to the Portfolio that comments on its contents; read and respond regularly to assigned texts; and write a research-informed critical paper. Readingswill include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.

MW 1030-1145: Professor Cox

English 199: Writing Internship

Earn three units of elective credit by completing an on- or off-campus writing or editing internship. Units do not count toward the English major, but they do count toward graduation. Contact Professor Cox for specifics.