ELWS Courses
Explore literature, language, and writing through in-depth critical analysis and creative production. Our courses help you to excel in the skills employers are seeking: critical thinking, oral and written communication, and teamwork.Creative Writing
Introduces the genres of imaginative writing (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and hybrid), and examines the origins, conventions, and cultural meanings of creative writing. Cross-cultural readings demonstrate how human experiences and values are shaped by human agency and social context. Emphasizes critical reading and thinking, creative and reflective practice, workshop, and revision.
Reviews the elements, origins, conventions, and cultural meanings of poetry. Readings across a wide spectrum of cultural and aesthetic backgrounds will cover fixed and open forms, as well as the theories that drive concepts such as imagery, figurative language, the poetic line, form, and the cultural place of poetry. Emphasizes critical reading, workshop, and revision.
Reviews the elements of fiction, and examine the origins, conventions, and cultural meanings of fiction. Readings will cover literary fiction, flash fiction, and multiple genres. Emphasizes critical reading, workshop, and revision; focuses on details of well-crafted fiction, including plot, character, and style.
Promotes understanding creative nonfiction genres and writing processes in their cultural/historical contexts. Develops the skills to analyze, critique, and contextualize creative nonfiction theories and texts from across cultural traditions. Applies concepts of genre and craft through various creative nonfiction projects, such as memoirs, a variety of essays, and literary journalism.
Introduces the history and conventions of the novel. Students will read, analyze, and practice various genres. Invites writers to explore various structures.
Cultural Studies
Studies written and visual genres about diverse U.S. culture in order to explore the structures that serve to the advantage of certain social groups and to the disadvantage of others.
Interrogates social and political contexts in which language circulates. Students systematically investigate structural relationships of power and language use across a range of U.S. identities and communities.
Introduces students to the study of visual rhetoric through film, music, television, varied texts, and digital media. Students will develop analytical skills, apply cultural theories, and write detailed analyses of popular culture texts.
Studies gender as it is constructed, performed, evaluated, and negotiated through language. Examines multimodal texts as catalysts for discussions about gender and its intersections with other aspects of human identity and areas of culture that stem from identities. Explores gender and society moving from theoretical understanding to practical interpretive application.
Introduces students to a range of postmodern and queer theories of gender construction/sexuality as represented in literature, film, and a variety of other cultural texts. Begins with the history of heterosexism and questions modern society’s treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. This course welcomes everyone, whatever their identity.
Experience-based Courses
Introduces the theory, practice, and pedagogy of writing centers and provides practical experience through Community-Engaged Learning opportunities at SLCC’s Student Reading & Writing Center (SWRC).
Introduces the theory and practice of production, circulation, and distribution of printed and digital writing. Provides experience with publication software and equipment. Students will assist in publication projects.
Introduces the theory and practice of producing literary arts magazines. Provides experience with publication software and equipment. Students will serve as editors, designers, and publishers of the SLCC student literary magazine, Folio.
General Education Written Communication
Develops composition skills to prepare for college reading and writing experiences. Emphasizes rhetorical knowledge and skills; critical thinking and reading; information literacy; and adapting to college. With peers, students read and write for specific purposes and audiences, develop flexible writing processes, and meaningfully revise drafts.
Continues development of composition skills to prepare for academic reading and writing experiences across the disciplines. Emphasizes academic inquiry, research, and persuasion. Students continue to practice writing and revision processes, collaborate with peers, and write for specific purposes and audiences.
Continues development of composition skills to prepare for professional writing in technical and scientific fields, and contextualizing assignments in the workplace. Students practice writing and revision processes to produce diverse workplace documents, collaborate with peers, and adapt rhetorical strategies to cultural, social, and political contexts.
Integrated Reading and Writing (IRW)
Develops strategies for college reading, writing, and learning. Explores language, literacy, and personal academic goals. Activities take students step by step through college learning processes.
Develops processes and strategies for college reading, writing, studying, information literacy, digital literacies, and research. Helps students become active participants in their own learning.
Supports individual goals as a college writer and critical reader. Emphasizes strategies and processes for adapting writing to different college-level audiences, purposes, genres, and fields of study. It is recommended that students take ENGL 1010 in the same semester as this course.
Linguistics
Introduces the study of linguistics through the lens of “bad” language, exploring the constructions that influence how and why language is taboo in different cultures. Provides an understanding of not just how language works, but how people and language influence each other.
Introduces the nature of human language from the perspective of modern linguistics. Focuses on sounds, words, and structure through analysis of data from various languages. May include social and geographic variation, language change through time, first- and second-language acquisition, and language and culture.
Studies prose style through the lens of grammar, focusing on shaping sentences, paragraphs, and longer discourses for rhetorical effect, elegance, clarity, readability, and coherence. Students will gain practical abilities to edit their own and others prose.
Literature
Explores popular US Literature through a study of genre. Uses close reading, analysis, and discussion to investigate complex social issues as represented in multimodal texts. Applies critical and scholarly approaches to build a deeper understanding of how popular US literature and culture influence and shape each other.
Studies the importance of ordinary people and their constructions of cultural meanings. Examines popular creation of material goods, oral traditions, customs, and meaning-making through academic and hands-on methods.
Examines interpretive strategies for reading Shakespeare. Starts with traditional critical positions, then moves to current social, cultural and political reinterpretations. Examines contemporary retellings of the plays.
Explores texts written for children through the elementary level. Emphasizes scope, artistic merit, and selection.
Explores literature across fiction, drama, poetry, and essays through critical analysis and appreciation of diverse texts. Develops a deeper understanding of literature’s role in reflecting and shaping human experience by examining different genres and contexts. Encourages reflective engagement with texts to uncover the intricate interplay of language and life.
Emphasizes reading and analysis of literary texts by ethnically and culturally diverse American writers. Interrogates historical, political, and cultural ideas of diversity through reading a range of genres and builds understanding of how American literature, aesthetics, and values have shifted over the course of our history.
Surveys literature from around the world. Promotes understanding of literary works in their cultural/historical contexts and of the enduring human values that unite different literary traditions. Emphasizes critical thinking and writing within a framework of cultural diversity as well as comparative and interdisciplinary analysis.
Introduces students to major theoretical movements in literary history including Marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism, postcolonialism, feminism, race, gender, and queer theories with an emphasis on discussion and critical reading.
Introduces students to a representative sampling of world literature from ancient times to 1800 in relation to intellectual and historical developments. Exposes students to historically influential literary texts as well as literature that has lived on the margins.
Introduces students to a representative sampling of literature from 1800-present in relation to intellectual and historical developments. Exposes students to influential literary texts as well as literature that has lived on the margins.
Examines range of U.S. women’s voices and explores how racism, sexism, and cultural imperialism affect identity formation and relations between the powered and the disempowered.
Writing Studies
Introduces the academic discipline of Writing Studies where writing is both an activity and a subject of study. Students read and discuss contemporary scholarship and conduct primary research projects. Intended for students exploring a major or minor in Writing Studies.
Studies writing as a human superpower: an artifact, practice, and process that carries great power...and great responsibility. Writing can pause time, heal pain, possess bodies, control minds, and make us immortal.
Considers the public and organizational work of digital writing. Emphasizes the principles and practices of producing, distributing, and circulating various forms of writing within textual networks. Emphasizes collaborative writing and audience-driven revision.
Examines how writing can activate a reader’s moral imagination & can function as an act of social justice. Uses narrative theory to explore the ways in which multiple genres address social justice through reading & writing. Discusses theories & conceptual frameworks of social justice as well as multiple issues: racism, sexism, classism & ableism.
Examines the theories, histories, and critical moments shaping the field and practice of Professional and Technical Writing. Builds skills in communicating across multiple technical genres, applying problem-solving strategies in writing contexts, and using rhetorical analysis to understand and interpret writing. Evaluates how technical writing contributes to and disrupts social inequities.