ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
College of Humanities
(See English in the Academic Programs section for information on degrees)
A student who has taken and passed (with a grade of C or above) any English course not described as repeatable for credit in this Bulletin, may only repeat the course with consent of the instructor.
Undergraduate Courses
49 Intensive Learning English (3)
Prerequisite: score of T141 or lower on EPT; students must be entering freshmen. Development of sentence, paragraph, and essay writing abilities to the level required for admission to ENG 50. Units and grades earned do not count toward meeting graduation requirements. ABC/NC grading.
50 Writing Skills Workshop (3)
Prerequisite: score of T150 or lower on EPT. Development of sentence, paragraph, and essay writing abilities to the level required in the college writing class. Units and grades earned do not count towards meeting graduation requirements. ABC/NC grading.
110 English for the Deaf (3)
Training in expository-argumentative composition for deaf students. Emphasis on organization and development of the paragraph and essay, and on correct written English idiom. ABC/NC grading. May be repeated for a total of nine units. Fulfills ENG 114 requirements for deaf students.
111 Reading Comprehension Laboratory (1-3)
Individualized assistance and practice in college-level reading skills (comprehension, library research, vocabulary, and textbook reading). Emphasis on personalized audio-visual instruction. May be repeated for a total of three units. CR/NC grading only.
112 Reading and Writing Techniques (1)
Prerequisite: consent of instructor. Individualized instruction for students desiring specialized assistance in reading and/or writing skills. Students may work on one or a combination of the following areas: reading and study skills, comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, development of basic writing and composition abilities. May be repeated for a total of six units. CR/NC grading only.
113 English Skills Workshop (1-3)
A workshop in improving general English skills including reading, writing, and study techniques. Designed for students who want to develop better organization, composing, and editing skills, and who want to develop special skills to master college-level writing and test-taking requirements.
114 First Year Written Composition (3)
Prerequisite: see Written English Requirements in this Bulletin for 114 eligibility. Training in expository-argumentative composition, emphasizing work on clear and effective sentences and the organization and development of paragraph and essay. Must be taken before student has completed 30 units. ABC/NC grading. [CAN ENGL 2]
115 Reading for Rate and Comprehension (1)
Effective silent reading skills. Instruction and class practice methods of increasing speed and comprehension, developing recall and interpretation skills, efficient study techniques. Open to all students. May be repeated for up to three units. CR/NC grading only.
116 Intermediate Composition (3)
Prerequisite: ENG 114 or equivalent. Development of college-level reading and composition skills; heavy emphasis on the revision process.
150* The Study of Literature (3)
Literary standards of evaluation; methods of analysis; selected readings from the novel, short story, drama, essay, and poem.
151* The Short Poem in English (3)
Major English and American poems ranging from medieval songs to the work of such poets as Lowell and Auden. [CAN ENGL 20]
152* The Novel in English (3)
Major English and American novelists and variations in the genre between Defoe and Faulkner.
153* The Drama in English (3)
The nature of dramatic literature in the English language. The changing conditions of form and subject matter in the development of dramatic literature from earliest examples to the modern.
154 Masterworks of Literature in English (3) [GE]
Critical appreciation of literary masterworks in English by representative authors selected from the vast array of literature in the English language.
155 Contemporary Literature (3) [GE]
Selected poetry, fiction, and drama of the late nineteenth century to the present. Open to all students.
158 American Literature (3) [GE]
Selected masterpieces of American literature.
159 Beginning Shakespeare (3) [GE]
A first course in Shakespeare, both for potential English majors who have only slight acquaintance with Shakespeare's work, and for non-majors who are not yet conscious of themselves as heirs of Shakespeare's language and culture, and beneficiaries of his dramatic gifts.
200 Writing Logically (3) [GE]
Prerequisite: ENG 114 or equivalent. Introduction to thinking critically and arguing logically in written discourse: analysis of issues, critical assessment of written discourse, construction of written arguments. Development of thinking and writing skills necessary to handle issues which confront us daily.
English as a Second Language
English as a Second Language (ESL) courses are designed for foreign students, resident students, and citizens who are non-native speakers of English and who have been in the U.S. for fewer than six years. Such students have typically had a majority of their pre-college academic work in a language other than English. The ESL courses are: ENG 201, 202, 204, 207, 208, 209, 210, 310, 410, and 411. Students are admitted to these ESL classes through a qualifying score on the SFSU English as a Second Language Placement Test or by completion of the prerequisite SFSU ESL course.
201 English as a Second Language: Intensive Academic English 1 (4)
Prerequisites: qualifying scores on EPT and ESLPT. First semester of a two semester intensive course designed for freshman immigrant ESL students to develop academic English skills and proficiency for university course work. Includes reading, vocabulary, test-taking, and writing. Classwork, three units; laboratory, one unit.
202 English as a Second Language: Intensive Academic English 2 (4)
Prerequisites: ENG 201. Continuation of ENG 201. Second semester of an intensive course for freshman immigrant ESL students to develop academic English skills and proficiency needed for university work. Includes reading comprehension, critical reading, critical thinking, grammar editing, and composing. Classwork, three units; laboratory, one unit.
204 English as a Second Language: Reading and Study Skills (3)
Prerequisite: qualifying score on the SFSU ESLPT English as a Second Language Placement Test. Helps non-native speakers of English develop the reading, study, and test-taking skills required in university work. Provides an orientation to university norms and expectations. Repeatable once for credit. ABC/NC grading.
207 English as a Second Language: Writing Laboratory (1)
Prerequisite: qualifying score on the SFSU ESLPT English as a Second Language Placement Test or recommendation from SFSU ESL instructor. Focuses on improving grammatical accuracy and fluency in compositions. Teaches students proofreading techniques and helps them develop a variety of grammatical structures. Designed to be taken concurrently with ENG 209, 310, 410, or 411. CR/NC grading only. Repeatable for credit.
208 English as a Second Language: Grammar for Writing (3)
Prerequisite: qualifying score on the SFSU English as a Second Language Placement Test. Helps non-native speakers of English improve their grammatical accuracy in written work. Among structures typically reviewed are verb tenses, articles, and verb complements. ABC/NC grading only. Repeatable once for credit.
209 English as a Second Language: Composition 1 (3)
Prerequisite: qualifying score on SFSU English as a Second Language Placement Test or recommendation from instructor of ENG 202, 204, or 208. Provides non-native speakers of English with extensive practice in writing and critical reading; an introduction to expository-argumentative writing and the composing process. Fulfills first year written English requirement. ABC/NC grading. Repeatable once for credit.
210 English as a Second Language: Oral Communication (3) [GE]
Prerequisite: qualifying score on the SFSU ESLPT English as a Second Language Placement Test or recommendation from instructor of ENG 202, 204, or 208. Provides non-native speakers of English with opportunities to practice oral communication in pairs, groups, and in presentations to the whole class. Emphasizes development of skills in listening, speech delivery, and preparation and presentation of informative and persuasive speeches. Fulfills G.E. Segment I: Oral Communication requirement. ABC/NC grading.
214 Second Year Written Composition (3) [GE]
Prerequisite: grade of C in ENG 114 or equivalent. Continued training in expository-argumentative composition and critical reading skills through the study of literature; special attention to logic, style, and rhetoric. Must be taken after student has completed 24 units and before completing 60 units. ABC/NC grading.
310 English as a Second Language: Composition 2 (3) [GE]
Prerequisite: qualifying score on the SFSU ESLPT English as a Second Language Placement Test. Provides non-native speakers with continued practice in expository argumentative composition and critical reading of nonfiction pieces. Special focus on supporting arguments with outside sources and on developin individual revising strategies and research skills. Fulfills G.E. Segment I: Written Communication requirement. ABC/NC grading. Repeatable once for credit.
396 Portfolio: An Evaluative Tool (1-3)
Topics to be specified in Class Schedule. An opportunity for students enrolled in field work or related courses in English to develop a portfolio based upon work and personal experiences. A variety of writing forms with the use of other media may be emphasized. May be repeated when different topics are studied.
397 The Journal (1)
Practice in using the journal to define, analyze, and comment upon combinations of work and personal experience. Enrollment by interview only. May be repeated for credit.
410 English as a Second Language: Elements of Writing—Bilingual (3)
Prerequisite: junior standing, and qualifying score on the SFSU ESLPT English as a Second Language Placement Test or ENG 310. Composition for bilinguals (permanent residents, visa holders in U.S. seven years or more, American and foreign-born citizens). Review and practice of the critical reading, writing and thinking skills necessary for academic writing, including text-based essays, research reporting, and the interpretation of literature. Satisfies upper division literacy requirement; does not serve as prerequisite for ENG 416. ABC/NC grading.
411 English as a Second Language: Literature and Composition (3) [GE]
Prerequisite: junior standing and qualifying score on the SFSU ESLPT English as a Second Language Placement Test or ENG 310. Advanced composition based on critical reading of literature. Designed for non-native speakers of English. Satisfies upper division literacy requirement and General Education Segment II: Humanities requirement; does not serve as a prerequisite for ENG 416. ABC/NC grading.
414 Elements of Writing (3)
Prerequisite: junior standing. Undergraduate students must have taken JEPET before enrolling in this course. Extensive practice in expository writing; satisfies upper division written English, not General Education or major-field requirements. ABC/NC grading.
416 Junior Composition (3)
Prerequisite: completion of 56 or more units and successful completion of ENG 414 or a passing score on JEPET. ENG 410 or 411 do not serve as prerequisites. Development of practical expository-argumentative writing skills for upper division college work. Required for multiple subjects credential, but may not be used to fulfill single subject credential or English major requirements.
418 Advanced Composition (3)
Prerequisites: completion of 60 or more units and successful completion of ENG 414 or a passing score on JEPET or consent of instructor. For any student who wishes to attain a high level of proficiency in expository writing. Emphasis on development of individual prose styles and the orderly presentation of ideas.
419 Advanced Composition for Teachers (3)
Prerequisite: ENG 657 or consent of instructor. Composition practice and theory for aspirant teachers. Focus on the composing process, purpose, audience, types of discourse, rhetorical strategies, syntactic structures, uses of response groups, problems in evaluating texts, and apprentice writers. Instructional methods provide prototypes for future teachers of writing.
420 Introduction to the Study of Language (3) [GE]
Contemporary language study investigating the following relationships: language and culture, language and dialects, language and meaning, language and history, and language and literature. The investigations are carried out through the information and techniques provided by modern linguistic science.
421 The Structure of English (3)
Generative-transformational theory of grammar as compared to traditional school grammars and structural grammars. Background for teaching English language and literature to native or non-native speakers.
422 History of the English Language (3)
The background, sources, and development of English; examinations of writing of the important historical periods of the language.
424 Phonology and Morphology (3)
Theories and techniques of analysis of sound and morphological systems using illustrative examples from English and other languages. Designed for majors in English, language studies, teaching English as a foreign or second language, speech, anthropology, education, social and behavioral sciences.
425 Language in Context (3)
Prerequisites: ENG 114 or equivalent. An introduction to major sociolinguistic concepts. Topics include language planning, multilingualism, language variation, language and gender, intercultural communication, and language minority education.
426 Second Language Acquisition (3)
Prerequisite: concurrent enrollment in a foreign language required for MATEFL students, recommended for others. Introduction to the diversity of variables which affect second (or foreign) language acquisition by adults or children. Required for entrance into M.A. TEFL program. Recommended for EFL/ESL teachers, foreign language teachers, and credential candidates.
429 Stylistics (3)
Prerequisite: ENG 114 or equivalent. Close analysis of syntax, diction, and other devices that contribute to what we call literary "style" in a variety of nineteenth and twentieth century works of fiction and non-fiction.
453 Mass Media of Communication (3)
The significance of drama, radio, press, motion pictures, and television in American life. Analysis and evaluation of the contributions of these media in terms of their use in communication.
480* Junior Seminar (3)
Prerequisite: ENG 214 or equivalent or upper division standing. Practical criticism; techniques in the art of closely reading literature and writing about it in a series of short papers. Majors must complete this course before the end of the junior year.
501 Age of Chaucer (3) [GE]
Fourteenth century English literature. An introduction to major writers of the period (e.g., Chaucer, Langland, Gower, the Gawain-poet).
502* Medieval English Literature (3)
English literature from the beginnings to the Renaissance. Earlier works are read in translation.
503* Studies in Medieval Literature (3)
Topic to be specified in Class Schedule. Intensive study of some important literary figure, mode, or motif of the period. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
504* The Elizabethan Age (3) [GE]
Sir Thomas More, Marlowe, Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other writers of the English Renaissance.
505* Studies in Sixteenth Century English Literature (3)
Topic to be specified in Class Schedule. Intensive study of some important literary figure, mode, or motif of the period. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
509 Age of Humanism (3)
Major authors from the Elizabethan Age to the Restoration considered in terms of the development of literary forms and of changes in the humanist tradition during the seventeenth century (e.g., Spenser, Marlowe, Jonson, Donne, Milton, and Dryden).
510* The Age of Wit (3)
Swift, Pope, Addison, and the circle of London wits and satirists of the early eighteenth century, considered in terms of the radical change in literary forms and ideas and their relationship to changes in society.
512* Studies in Eighteenth Century English Literature (3)
Topic to be specified in Class Schedule. Intensive study of some important literary figure, mode, or motif of the period. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
514* Age of the Romantics (3)
Poetry and prose of Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats.
515 Major Victorian Writers (3)
Poetry and prose of Tennyson, the Brownings, Carlyle, Newman, Mill, Ruskin, Arnold, the Rossettis, Swinburne, Pater, Hardy, Hopkins, Kipling, and Wilde. From high Victorianism through the 1890's.
516* Age of the Victorians (3)
Prerequsite: ENG 114 or equivalent. Poetry and prose of major writers of the period considered in terms of changes in literary forms and ideas and their relationship to changes in society.
520 Twentieth Century British Literature (3)
Major poets, essayists and fiction writers of Great Britain since the turn of the twentieth century; those studied include Hopkins, Wilde, Hardy, Conrad, Ford, Forster, Lawrence, Joyce, Yeats, Woolf, Auden, and some contemporary authors.
521* Studies in Twentieth Century English Literature (3)
Topic to be specified in Class Schedule. Intensive study of some important literary figure, mode, or motif of the period. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
522 Irish Literature (3)
A survey of the major writers who emerged in Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century: Lady Gregory, Yeats, Synge and Joyce. The Irish literary revival in the context of Irish social, political, and literary history.
525* Studies in American Literature (3)
Topic to be specified in Class Schedule. Intensive study of special problems or themes in American literature. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
526 Age of the American Renaissance: 1830-1860 (3) [GE]
The achievement of a national literature in the works of such writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville, with appropriate background reading in earlier authors.
527* American Literature: 1860-1914 (3) [GE]
Major American writing from romanticism to realism and naturalism, including such figures as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Henry Adams, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Edith Wharton, and Thore Dreiser.
528 American Literature: 1914-1960 (3)
Study of stories, drama, and criticism by such major American authors as Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Wallace Stevens, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath.
529 American Literature: 1960-Present (3)
Study of poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism by such contemporary writers as Allen Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, Robert Creeley, Alice Walker, John Barth, John Hawkes, Vladimir Nabokov, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, Carson McCullers, Sam Shepard, Edward Albee, and Tennessee Williams.
531 Selected California Literature (3) [GE]
Prerequisite: ENG 114 or equivalent. Survey of California literature from Indian oral traditions through Spanish occupation to U.S. acquisition and the Gold Rush to the first decade of the twentieth century. Non-majors welcomed.
545 American Radical Women Writers (3)
Prerequisite: ENG 114 or equivalent. The tradition of significant literary works by American women writers since about 1840 who have focused on such issues as the rights of women and minorities, abolitionism, socialism and anarchism, and peace. (Also offered as WOMS 545.)
550* The Rise of the Novel (3) [GE]
The emergence of a new genre of English literature in the work of such writers as Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Smollett and the relationship of the new genre to changes in social and philosophical experience.
551* Nineteenth Century English Novel (3)
Developments in the English novel beginning with Jane Austen and continuing through Scott, Dickens, the Brontes, Thackeray, Trollope, Eliot, and Meredith.
552* Modern British Novel (3)
Developments in the British novel from George Meredith to the present; includes Conrad, Hardy, Forster, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf, Waugh, and Amis.
553* Classic American Novel (3)
Prerequisite: ENG 114 or equivalent. Major novelists from Brown and Cooper through Twain, Howells, James, Wharton, Stephen Crane, and Dreiser--including Chopin, Davis, local colorists, Johnson, and Douglas.
554* Modern American Novel (3)
Major novelists from Dreiser through Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner to the present.
555* The Short Story (3) [GE]
The short story as a distinctive literary phenomenon. Brief historical consideration; critical analysis of selected representative modern stories.
556* Modern American Poetry (3)
American poetry from the turn of the century to the present.
557* Modern British Poetry (3)
British poetry from the turn of the century to the present.
570* Medieval and Renaissance Drama (3)
Development of dramatic literature in England from the emergence of the mystery and morality plays through the reign of Elizabeth.
571* The Tragedy of Blood, The Comedy of Humors (3)
English drama in the age of Shakespeare, reflecting the social, moral, and religious disorders of a society heading for civil war.
572* English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century (3)
Developments from the reopening of the theatres in 1660 to the early 19th century. Dryden, Wycherly, Congreve, Sheridan, Goldsmith, and others discussed in relation to the evolution of dramatic forms; heroic tragedy, comedy of manners, sentimental comedy, romantic drama and farce.
573* American Drama (3)
American drama from the beginnings to the present time.
574* Modern British Drama (3)
Representative realistic and non-realistic English drama from Shaw to the present time.
580* Individual Authors (3)
Topic to be specified in the Class Schedule. The works of an individual author (or authors) such as Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Samuel Johnson, Melville, Thoreau, and T. S. Eliot. May be repeated when topic varies.
581* Chaucer (3) [GE]
Prerequisite: ENG 114 or consent of instructor. Study in considerable depth of Chaucer's major works—the Canterbury Tales and the Troilus.
583* Shakespeare: Representative Plays (3) [GE]
Shakespeare and his age; his development as a dramatist and his literary, intellectual, and social milieu. Reading of representative comedies, histories, and tragedies as well as some nondramatic poetry.
584* Shakespeare: Selected Plays (3)
Intensive study of a few plays in relation to the textual problems, dramatic technique, and problems of interpretation they present. Analysis of language, imagery, and structure.
586* Milton (3)
A study of Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and the minor poems and the prose works.
*English courses normally earn three units of credit. However, courses marked by footnote (*) may be offered for more than three units. Consult the Class Schedule.
More English Language and Literature Courses