English Writing Courses

The English Department offers more courses that satisfy the Intensive Writing 1 and Intensive Writing 2 Proficiencies than any other department on campus. Most students at PC take their Writing 1 course in the English Department, and a substantial number also take their Writing 2 courses here. Our writing courses — taught by both our Ordinary and Adjunct Faculty — are not primarily about grammar and mechanics; they are small-group seminars that use writing as a means of learning about a particular topic. Along the way, students develop skills in rhetoric and argumentation that they will apply to any discipline they choose to study. The courses for Fall 2023 are listed below.*

Writing 1 Courses

ENG 101-001 | TWF 08:30AM-09:20AM | 1446 | Jenny Platz
Digital Identity
Every day we encounter digital texts such as social media, YouTube, video games, Netflix shows, and films. Often, interaction with digital texts is unavoidable, as we spend ever-increasing amounts of time on our phones, tablets, or computers. With constant contact with the narratives of digital texts, how are our identities shaped and conflated with the digital media that surrounds us? How do we represent ourselves through digital media? How do others narrate their selves through digital texts? What are the social, cultural, and political implications of creating an online, and therefore public, story of the self? This class seeks to answer these questions through rhetorical examination, and writing about identity and digital media.

ENG 101-002 | TWF 09:30AM-10:20AM | 1447 | Jenny Platz
Digital Identity
Every day we encounter digital texts such as social media, YouTube, video games, Netflix shows, and films. Often, interaction with digital texts is unavoidable, as we spend ever-increasing amounts of time on our phones, tablets, or computers. With constant contact with the narratives of digital texts, how are our identities shaped and conflated with the digital media that surrounds us? How do we represent ourselves through digital media? How do others narrate their selves through digital texts? What are the social, cultural, and political implications of creating an online, and therefore public, story of the self? This class seeks to answer these questions through rhetorical examination, and writing about identity and digital media.

ENG 101-003 | MR 10:00AM-11:15AM | 1448 | Milena Radeva-Costello
Philanthropy, Altruism, and the Gift
This course aims to develop your writing skills through a variety of writing and reading assignments, draft workshops, and class discussions. We will read a plethora of literary texts and popular essays on the topics of community, altruism, service, and democracy. We will discuss the very possibility of giving that philosopher Jacques Derrida questions in Given Time. With Willa Cather’s novel My Ántonia, we will explore immigration, hospitality, and pioneer culture. We will ask what it means to give, what motivates donors, how philanthropy affects its beneficiaries, if private giving challenges the practices of democracy, and what is the place of the Catholic idea of caritas in modern welfare society. Finally, in this course, you will analyze arguments rhetorically, perfect your grammar, punctuation, paragraph coherence and sentence organization skills, use the resources in the library to write persuasive argumentative essays, and document your sources in the correct MLA citation style.

ENG 101-004 | MR 08:30AM-09:45AM | 1449 | Milena Radeva-Costello
Philanthropy, Altruism, and the Gift
This course aims to develop your writing skills through a variety of writing and reading assignments, draft workshops, and class discussions. We will read a plethora of literary texts and popular essays on the topics of community, altruism, service, and democracy. We will discuss the very possibility of giving that philosopher Jacques Derrida questions in Given Time. With Willa Cather’s novel My Ántonia, we will explore immigration, hospitality, and pioneer culture. We will ask what it means to give, what motivates donors, how philanthropy affects its beneficiaries, if private giving challenges the practices of democracy, and what is the place of the Catholic idea of caritas in modern welfare society. Finally, in this course, you will analyze arguments rhetorically, perfect your grammar, punctuation, paragraph coherence and sentence organization skills, use the resources in the library to write persuasive argumentative essays, and document your sources in the correct MLA citation style.

ENG 101-005 | MWF 11:30AM-12:20PM | 1450 | Eleanor Rowe-Stefanik
Stories We Tell About Ourselves
This course is aimed at teaching you how to write accomplished, well-argued and succinct essays addressing the varying media you will come across in your college and post-college careers. It features many different kinds of readings and objects in an attempt to teach you elements of style, grammatical conventions, and how to write rigorously, sharply and with aplomb. It satisfies the Writing 101 Proficiency Requirement, and should prepare you to discuss and analyze almost any form of text or media that comes your way. To this end, this course has a broader theme of self- making in our contemporary period, where we spend so much of our time trying to present the version of ourselves we find most useful, appealing and interesting to the world: how do we express ourselves, while still remaining professional and, if necessary, dispassionate? How do we write for ourselves? How do we write with others, think with others, and disagree with others? How do we avoid writing for others who might have marginalized voices?

ENG 101-006 | MWF 12:30PM-01:20PM | 1451 | Olga Limnios
The Power of Narrative
Have you ever wondered why you remember a movie or a book plot better than you do your last lecture? The answer is not in the nature of the information but in the form in which it was delivered. Our brains are created to process and retain stories much more effectively than information in any other form. By examining the structures, types, and uses of narratives in multiple non-fiction and fiction contexts, you will learn to craft your own argumentative pieces that are engaging, relatable, and meaningful.

ENG 101-007 | TR 01:00PM-02:15PM | 1452 | Emily Pittinos
What is Place, Really?
Throughout this course, we will ask ourselves: What is place, really? Sure, it’s a space, a landscape, and a climate in every sense of the word. But, is a place also its people? Its moment in time? How does a person’s experience affect their interaction with a place? Is one place the same place to everyone? We will attempt to answer these questions by reading, discussing, and writing in response to texts that look at place through both personal and theoretical lenses. These texts will engage with ideas surrounding the tourism industry, environmentalism, urban planning, gentrification, the housing crisis, and more. The semester’s work will include writing inspired by personal experience and an immersive research project that incorporates our college’s archives and a site visit within Providence.

ENG 101-008 | MWF 12:30PM-01:20PM | 1453 | PC English Faculty
Writing Seminar

ENG 101-009 | MWF 12:30PM-01:20PM | 1454 | Katherine Nadeau
Into the Darkness: A Study of Evil and Villainy
In our culture today, we are fascinated by villains and tales of evil. Many find fictional villains to be even more compelling than the heroes they fight against, and the true crime genre has exploded in popularity. In this class, we will explore this fascination with evil and villainy. Where does it come from? What does it reveal about us? What lessons about society and human nature can we take from it? How have villains and the representation of evil changed over time? How do they reflect and effect our morals and values? These are just some of the questions we will explore together as we learn and practice the fundamentals of academic writing at the college level.

ENG 101-010 | TWF 08:30AM-09:20AM | 1455 | Shawn Flanagan
Dropped Calls: Technology, Society, and Social Justice
Communication technologies have made it easier for everyone to communicate and have improved interpersonal communication, right? The U.S. has effectively ended segregation and vastly improved socio-economic inequality with respect to race and gender over the past fifty years, or has it? Our class will consider these claims and others related to social justice and the impacts of technology on our lives in the content and activities of this course. As we discuss issues presented in class content, we will explore the questions these materials raise and the rhetorical strategies they employ (through discussions, short essays, and on-line forum writings) as they complicate our own understanding, experience, and world view. These initial observational/reflective writings in the first half of the semester will give way to research writing assignments that focus on academic research as a process and culminate in a final research project that includes both a presentation and research paper.

ENG 101-011 | MWF 01:30PM-02:20PM | 1456 | Eleanor Rowe-Stefanik
Stories We Tell About Ourselves
This course is aimed at teaching you how to write accomplished, well-argued and succinct essays addressing the varying media you will come across in your college and post-college careers. It features many different kinds of readings and objects in an attempt to teach you elements of style, grammatical conventions, and how to write rigorously, sharply and with aplomb. It satisfies the Writing 101 Proficiency Requirement, and should prepare you to discuss and analyze almost any form of text or media that comes your way. To this end, this course has a broader theme of self- making in our contemporary period, where we spend so much of our time trying to present the version of ourselves we find most useful, appealing and interesting to the world: how do we express ourselves, while still remaining professional and, if necessary, dispassionate? How do we write for ourselves? How do we write with others, think with others, and disagree with others? How do we avoid writing for others who might have marginalized voices?

ENG 101-012 | MWF 11:30AM-12:20PM | 1457 | Christopher Yates
Living in Metaphor
Melting pots, witch hunts, grassroots, strawmen, lame ducks, mudslingers, landslide victories, figureheads: the deeply figurative vocabulary which we use to discuss politics is well-stocked with both “live” and “dead” metaphors which we too often simply assume rather than pay attention to. Our language for discussing social issues is particularly rife with martial metaphors, from the “war on drugs,” to “fighting poverty,” to the “battle against obesity.” This course will look at a range of texts, from scholarly research to short stories, that consider the ways in which these metaphors shape, enrichen, and limit public conversation and thought, including major works by George Orwell and Susan Sontag.

ENG 101-013 | MWF 01:30PM-02:20PM | 1458 | Christopher Yates
Living in Metaphor
Melting pots, witch hunts, grassroots, strawmen, lame ducks, mudslingers, landslide victories, figureheads: the deeply figurative vocabulary which we use to discuss politics is well-stocked with both “live” and “dead” metaphors which we too often simply assume rather than pay attention to. Our language for discussing social issues is particularly rife with martial metaphors, from the “war on drugs,” to “fighting poverty,” to the “battle against obesity.” This course will look at a range of texts, from scholarly research to short stories, that consider the ways in which these metaphors shape, enrichen, and limit public conversation and thought, including major works by George Orwell and Susan Sontag.

ENG 101-014 | MWF 01:30PM-02:20PM | 1459 | Katherine Nadeau
Into the Darkness: A Study of Evil and Villainy
In our culture today, we are fascinated by villains and tales of evil. Many find fictional villains to be even more compelling than the heroes they fight against, and the true crime genre has exploded in popularity. In this class, we will explore this fascination with evil and villainy. Where does it come from? What does it reveal about us? What lessons about society and human nature can we take from it? How have villains and the representation of evil changed over time? How do they reflect and effect our morals and values? These are just some of the questions we will explore together as we learn and practice the fundamentals of academic writing at the college level.

ENG 101-015 | MWF 11:30AM-12:20PM | 1460 | Olga Limnios
The Power of Narrative
Have you ever wondered why you remember a movie or a book plot better than you do your last lecture? The answer is not in the nature of the information but in the form in which it was delivered. Our brains are created to process and retain stories much more effectively than information in any other form. By examining the structures, types, and uses of narratives in multiple non-fiction and fiction contexts, you will learn to craft your own argumentative pieces that are engaging, relatable, and meaningful.

ENG 101-016 | MWF 01:30PM-02:20PM | 1461 | Shawn Flanagan
Dropped Calls: Technology, Society, and Social Justice
Communication technologies have made it easier for everyone to communicate and have improved interpersonal communication, right? The U.S. has effectively ended segregation and vastly improved socio-economic inequality with respect to race and gender over the past fifty years, or has it? Our class will consider these claims and others related to social justice and the impacts of technology on our lives in the content and activities of this course. As we discuss issues presented in class content, we will explore the questions these materials raise and the rhetorical strategies they employ (through discussions, short essays, and on-line forum writings) as they complicate our own understanding, experience, and world view. These initial observational/reflective writings in the first half of the semester will give way to research writing assignments that focus on academic research as a process and culminate in a final research project that includes both a presentation and research paper.

ENG 101-017 | MWF 11:30AM-12:20PM | 1462 | PC English Faculty
Writing Seminar

ENG 175-001 | MR 02:30PM-03:45PM | 1465 | Chun Ye
Introduction to Literature
This class introduces the major genres of literary expression: poetry, fiction, drama, and creative nonfiction. The literary texts we read for the class center upon issues of race, gender, sexuality, war, and migration and are written by a diversity of contemporary writers, including Joy Harjo, Ocean Vuong, Julie Otsuka, Ilya Kaminsky, David Henry Hwang, and Mira Jacob. Students completing this course should be able to read with engagement and discernment, discuss literature critically, and write analytically and with an awareness of scholarly conversations.

ENG 175-002 | TWF 08:30AM-09:20AM | 1476 | Robert Reeder
Introduction to Literature

ENG 175-003 | TWF 09:30AM-10:20AM | 1482 | Stephanie Boeninger
Introduction to Literature
What relationship does our reading and discussion of literature have to our “real lives”? How does literature represent public events like wars or scientific discoveries? How does it deal with private events like falling in love or losing a loved one? How will “new” experiences like living through the pandemic and constructing a self on social media be expressed in literature?

ENG 175-004 | MR 10:00AM-11:15AM | 1483 | Stephen Lynch
Introduction to Literature
I am hoping to achieve a balance of breadth and depth by covering 6 authors, each for about 2-3 weeks. We will read short stories by Raymond Carver and Flanner O’Connor, poetry by Emily Dickenson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and plays by Shakespeare and August Wilson. Students will write at least one short informal paper each week, plus three longer more formal essays.

ENG 175-005 | TWF 10:30AM-11:20AM | 1484 | Elizabeth Bridgham
Introduction to Literature

ENG 175-006 | MWF 12:30PM-01:20PM | 1489 | Suzanne Fournier
Introduction to Literature

ENG 175-007 | TR 11:30AM-12:45PM | 1490 | Russell Hillier
Introduction to Literature

ENG 175-008 | TR 11:30AM-12:45PM | 1491 | Tuire Valkeakari
Introduction to Literature
Philosopher Plato had little patience with what some ancients and not-so-ancients have called “the lies of the poets.” Why study such “lies,” literary texts, in an academic environment? Let’s find out. We will explore fiction, drama, and poetry, with a particular interest in what these genres are made of and how they work. We will mostly read American authors (e.g. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Julie Otsuka, and Toni Morrison), but two contemporary transnational novelists—Michael Ondaatje and Kazuo Ishiguro—are also included. Students completing this course should be able to read with engagement and discernment, discuss literature critically, and write analytically and with an awareness of scholarly conversations.

ENG 175-009 | TR 11:30AM-12:45PM | 1492 | Raphael Shargel
Reading, Writing, and the Self
What’s the relationship between what you read and who you are? Does what you write reflect what makes you you? In this section, we’ll read, discuss, and write about texts that inspire us to think about identity: who we are, what we are, and why that matters.

ENG 175-010 | TR 01:00PM-02:15PM | 1495 | Russell Hillier
Introduction to Literature

ENG 175-011 | TR 01:00PM-02:15PM | 1497 | Tuire Valkeakari
Introduction to Literature
Philosopher Plato had little patience with what some ancients and not-so-ancients have called “the lies of the poets.” Why study such “lies,” literary texts, in an academic environment? Let’s find out. We will explore fiction, drama, and poetry, with a particular interest in what these genres are made of and how they work. We will mostly read American authors (e.g. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Julie Otsuka, and Toni Morrison), but two contemporary transnational novelists—Michael Ondaatje and Kazuo Ishiguro—are also included. Students completing this course should be able to read with engagement and discernment, discuss literature critically, and write analytically and with an awareness of scholarly conversations.

ENG 175-013 | MWF 01:30PM-02:20PM | 1500 | E.C. Osondu
Insiders, Outsiders, and Otherness
This course will explore questions related to the notions of being “outside” — racially, politically, sexually, etc. Readings will include a novel about modern India, a novel set in pre-colonial Nigeria, two short plays by Lynn Nottage and Terence McNally, and tons of short stories ranging from Hawthorne and Hemingway to Carver, Chekhov, Osondu, and O’Connor.

Writing 2 Courses

ENG 217-001 | MR 10:00AM-11:15 AM | 1506 | Chun Ye
Introduction to Asian American Literature
This course is an introduction to Asian American literature from the mid-20th century to the present moment. Students will read multi-genre literary works by a diversity of Asian American writers, as well as explore the historical, social, and geopolitical dimensions of these texts, investigating issues of immigration, war, race, gender, class, sexuality, and identity formation.

ENG 301-001 | TR 04:00PM-05:15PM | 1509 | Diane Quaglia Beltran
The Review

ENG 301-002 | TWF 09:30AM-10:20AM | 1511 | Shawn Flanagan
Writing Genres

ENG 301-003 | TWF 10:30AM-11:20AM | 1514 | Shawn Flanagan
Writing Genres

ENG 301-004 | MWF 01:30PM-02:20PM | 1515 | PC English Faculty
Writing Genres

ENG 370-001 | MR 2:30PM-3:45PM | 1529 | Tuire Valkeakari
Global & Postcolonial Literature
In this course, we examine literary authors’ depictions of how empires and nations shape history and global and local identity formation. We will mainly read late-twentieth-century Anglophone novels that focus on empire, colonialism, decolonization, postcoloniality, and national or transnational identities. We will discuss literary renderings of such topics as conflict and peace, movement and migration, individuality and community, and the pursuit of existential meaning and human connection in the midst of global change and turmoil. This is a reading-intensive and writing-intensive course. Moreover, regular attendance and active participation will be required of everyone because classroom discussions will be an essential aspect of the learning process. The reward: after you have successfully completed this course, the world may no longer look quite the same as before.

ENG 372-001 | TR 11:30AM-12:45PM | 1549 | Stephanie Boeninger
Contemporary Drama
As the most public of literary forms, theatre has long been an important medium through which communities define themselves. Plays often articulate the values of a given community, demonstrating what makes its members different from (and they might think superior to) other ethnic, racial, national, or linguistic groups. This course will examine the way in which theatre has functioned as a tool of national self-definition, particularly in postcolonial nations breaking away from the British Empire. We will focus primarily on the Anglophone dramatic literature of four regions: England, Ireland, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. In our reading, writing, and class discussion, we will address some of the most significant questions that have shaped postcolonial theatrical movements, including:
*Is theatre a democratic form? Does it promote equality and the free exchange of ideas or is it simply a medium through which the powerful elite shape the ideas and attitudes of the less powerful?
*Can postcolonial playwrights ever truly escape from the ethnic and national stereotypes popularized by British theatres (the stage Irishman or the stage African, for example)? *Does the adoption of Western theatrical structures and conventions by non-Western playwrights indicate a new, more insidious form of colonialism, or does it represent an invigorating creative pluralism?
*Can and should theatre be a revolutionary form? What is its relationship to violent resistance and direct political action?
*Do plays by women and other minorities participate in the project of national self-definition or do they attempt to create other, more inclusive ideas of community?

ENG 386-001 | MR 10:00AM-11:15AM | 1554 | Mark Pedretti
Digital Composition
Most of us are aware that “writing” no longer exclusively means words on paper. We increasingly compose in, or in conjunction with, images, sounds, film, maps, and hypertext. The advent of readily accessible digital technologies has made this kind of multimodal composition all the easier. This course will engage with several different media and platforms to explore the rhetorical implications of composing in them. Students will pursue a single research project and remediate it across posters, movies, infographics, websites, interactive maps, and Pecha Kucha presentations. Our goal will be to understand the rhetorical affordances of each mode: What does one accomplish that another cannot? What kind of audience is appropriate for each one? What forms of persuasion is each capable of? How do each of these modes of presentation generate meaning? We will not only be learning to design in these different modes, but reflecting on the design decisions we make along the way.
     Students will develop one argumentative research project beginning early in the semester, and will proceed to present it in different modes over the rest of the term. Each iteration will give us the opportunity to learn technical skills necessary for composing in that particular platform, but also rhetorical skills in adjusting expectations of audience, rhetorical situation, and evidence to work within that particular mode. We will also see the ways in which rhetoric interfaces with design in multimodal composition; when working with multiple media, we make design decisions that require repeated testing and revision.

ENG 400-001 | M 2:30PM-5:00PM | 1555 | William Hogan
Literary Criticism and Theory
An intensive examination of major works of literary criticism, from Plato to the present. Students will learn to write theoretically about literature and will be asked to apply specific critical methods to literary works. Readings may include Plato, Aristotle, Coleridge, Nietzsche, Freud, Derrida, Foucault, Nussbaum, and Cixous. Prerequisite for students writing a senior thesis.

ENG 441-002 | TR 4:00PM-5:15 PM | 1557 | Alexander Moffett
SIL: Utopian/Dystopian Fiction
In this class, we will be closely reading utopian and dystopian fiction of the last one hundred fifty years. In doing so, we will be keeping a sharp eye on the historical context of each of these texts and thinking about the various social and political movements that inform them, including feminism, Christianity, communism, capitalism, and fascism. More generally, we will be considering the conflict between the autonomy of individuals and the control that the modern state exercises over them. The class will study not only works of literature, but also movies, television, and works in other media. Some of the works we will encounter include 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, Parable of the Sower, The Time Machine, and Black Mirror.

*Schedule, courses, and instructors are subject to change.