English — Course Information

Graduate courses in English are open to regularly matriculated (degree-seeking) MA candidates in English, and to others (graduate students in other programs, non-degree-seeking students, and qualified seniors) with approval of the Graduate Program Director in English.

English graduate seminars award 3 credits. Ten to twelve different seminars and workshops drawn from the following list are scheduled for each semester and two to four during the summer. Since specific texts and approaches to the material may vary greatly in any given semester, prospective students should consult current course descriptions for details. Current descriptions are available from the Department shortly before pre-registration each semester.

For the English Graduate Program Handbook and the semiannual departmental publications on current and upcoming offerings, write to: Graduate Program Office, Department of English, UMass Boston, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125-3393; or check the English Department website.

Courses

ENGL 459
Seminar for Tutors

ENGL 459 may count for credit toward the composition track. It is recommended for students who may be interested in teaching but have not had prior teaching or tutoring experience in this area. This course will involve the discussion of alternative approaches to the grammatical, rhetorical, and stylistic problems occurring most frequently in student writing. It will address various ways of helping students to generate ideas, to revise, and to gain control over their organizational and linguistic difficulties. Enrollment is required of English Department tutors.
Prerequisite: Interested students should contact the English MA office to arrange an interview and obtain permission to enroll.
3 Credits
Ms Auerbach, Ms Zamel

ENGL 600
Studies in Criticism

Study of the nature and function of literature, the terms and methods of analysis and evaluation of literature, and the various approaches possible in the criticism of literature.
3 Credits
Mr. Bruss, Ms Nixon, Mr Schwartz

ENGL 601
Studies in Poetry

This course approaches poetry from a number of angles, including—and emphasizing—the writing of it. Experienced poets are encouraged to enroll, but students need not have written poetry before: the point of the course is to learn more about how poetry “works” by experimenting with the techniques used by poets we read and discuss in class. To this end, a large portion of the course focuses on matters of form; there are also units on diction, image/metaphor/symbol, narrative poetry, “political” poetry, and other topics. Historical discussion of some of these subjects occurs from time to time. While all students are required to write some poetry for the course, no one is penalized for an inherent lack of poetic talent. Some assignments offer a choice between a poetic and a critical response to a topic, and the final project for the course may be either a long critical paper or a substantial collection of poems written and revised during the semester.
3 Credits
Ms Annas, Ms Nurhussein, Mr O’Grady, Ms Peseroff, Mr Schwartz

ENGL 602
Studies in Fiction

Studies in the nature of prose fiction and its major kinds; topics in the history and sociology of narrative fiction, such as the working class novel, the short story, the prose romance, the historical novel; and studies of representative British and American types in international contexts.
3 Credits
Ms Annas, Ms Brown, Mr Crossley, Ms Dittmar, Ms Klimasmith, Ms Nixon, Ms Srikanth

ENGL 603
Studies in Drama

A course for those who want a broad view of the sweep of Western drama, offering a study of the art of drama as it has evolved from classical Greece. Representative plays are drawn from various periods (medieval, Renaissance, Augustan, romantic, and modern) and from the major modes (tragedy, comedy, farce, realism, expressionism, and the absurdist and social theater). Selected critical works are also considered.
3 Credits
Ms Fay, Mr Maisano, Ms Nixon

ENGL 604
Studies in Satire

An exploration of individual works of satire and critical theories about the mode: pre-modern and modern selections from Swift, Pope, Shaw, Waugh, F O’Connor, N West, Eliot, and others.
3 Credits

ENGL 608
Introduction to Critical and Research Methods

This course introduces the beginning graduate student to research strategies, provides an introduction to bibliographic, textual, and a range of critical methods, contrasting, for instance, the historical method with new historicism. The aim is to explore the kinds of interpretations each critical method enables and limits. This course also explores both literature and literary scholarship and teaching as material practices and explores the consequences of different ways of conceiving of those practices. (Course offered in the fall only.)
Prerequisite: Admission as a regular MA candidate.
3 Credits
Ms Fay, Ms Klimasmith

ENGL 609
Graduate English Colloquium

This course meets in public afternoon colloquia at regular intervals (every two to three weeks) throughout the fall semester and in tutorials scheduled in alternative weeks or after the public sessions. The public sessions are led by members of the graduate faculty, while the tutorials are conducted by the graduate program director. The colloquia concern issues of interest to scholars, teachers, and writers in English, including representative texts, literary genres and practices, pedagogy, and creative writing. The course increases students’ familiarity with a variety of forms and periods, introduces problems of literary history and cultural context, and demonstrates various approaches to advanced work in literature, composition, and creative writing. Texts are selected by the colloquium faculty.
(Course offered in the fall only.)
Prerequisite: Admission as a regular MA candidate.
1 Credit

ENGL 610
The Teaching of Composition

This course defines the role of composition in the English curriculum in both college and secondary schools; develops a philosophy of language as a foundation for a method of composing; studies psychological and linguistic aspects of the composing process. The course is offered once each year.
3 Credits
Ms Goleman, Ms Kutz

ENGL 611
The Teaching of Literature

This course develops a theory and practice for the teaching of literature, applicable to both secondary and post-secondary education. The class reads, discusses, and analyzes sample presentations on literary texts in a variety of genres. The course serves teachers, prospective teachers, and non-teachers who seek an introduction to literature from pedagogical points of view.
3 Credits
Mr Crossley, Ms Nixon, Ms Rudnick, Ms Srikanth, Mr Stoehr

ENGL 612
The Teaching of Shakespeare

This course combines intensive study of a few selected plays and poems with approaches to the teaching of Shakespeare, approaches which emphasize the speaking, hearing, and acting of the texts as well as such practical pedagogical issues as teaching challenging material, the value of performance, and which edition to use. The aim of the course is to transform students of Shakespeare into teachers of Shakespeare and to transform current teachers of Shakespeare back into students. Portions of the course are devoted to workshops affording opportunities to practice these approaches and to see them practiced.
3 Credits
Mr Maisano

ENGL 618
Life Writing

This course takes as its province a wide range of biographical forms, ranging from biography, autobiography, and the memoir to personal essay, letters, case studies, and the obituary. Works may range across centuries, languages, and cultures, or be narrowly grouped. Both critical analysis and practical experiments in life writing may be required.
3 Credits
Ms Annas, Ms Kutz, Mr Stoehr

ENGL 621
Introduction to Linguistics

The course raises the question of the relationship between language and thought; it surveys the application of linguistics to the study of literature, the analysis and teaching of syntax and grammar, and the fields of psychology, sociology, and biology.
3 Credits
Mr Bruss, Ms Kutz

ENGL 623
The Nature of Narrative

This course explores a variety of ways in which modern and contemporary fiction challenge traditional narrative forms. While comparative study of experimentation is the course’s main concern, it also examines theories of narration (narratology) as these illuminate the art, reception, and ideologies of twentieth-century fiction.
3 Credits
Ms Dittmar, Mr Fulton, Ms Kutz

ENGL 628
Comparative Studies of Two Writers

A comparative study of two major American, British, or postcolonial writers. The pairing of two writers provides a comparison of works that present affinities and oppositions in social context or theme so as to pose theoretically interesting questions for discussion, critical analysis, and further research.
3 Credits
Ms Brown, Ms Fay, Ms Klimasmith, Mr Maisano, Ms Penner

ENGL 630
Chaucer

A study of Chaucer’s major works in Middle English. Special attention will be given to such considerations as Chaucer’s poetic development, his relations to his sources, medieval literary theory, and the social, political, and religious backgrounds.
3 Credits
Ms Shaner

ENGL 631
Medieval to Renaissance Literature

A course in the transition from medieval to Renaissance literature. A study of the transition in prose from homiletic writings and the romances through Elyot, Ascham, and Lyly; in lyric and narrative verse from Chaucer and the Scottish Chaucerians through Sidney; and in drama from the morality and mystery plays through Hamlet.
3 Credits
Ms Shaner

ENGL 633
Shakespeare

Consideration of Shakespeare’s dramatic art as an art of coaching an audience (and readers) in how to respond to and understand his make-believes. Multiple plotting, recurring situation, contrasts and parallels in character and character relations (especially the use of theatricalizing characters who stage plays within the play), patterns of figurative language, repetition of visual effects—these and other such “structures” will be considered as means whereby Shakespeare coaxes and coaches the perception of his audience, shapes the participation of mind and feeling, and, especially, prepares audiences for comic or tragic outcomes. The plays are studied in the light of ongoing critical and/or theoretical debates.
3 Credits
Mr Maisano, Mr Tobin

ENGL 634
Elizabethan and Jacobean Literature

The seminar focuses attention on a select number of English Renaissance works, representing various literary genres, ranging from the age of Elizabeth through the Jacobean era into the Caroline period. Writers such as Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, Elizabeth I (and other woman writers), Marlowe, Jonson, Drayton, Daniel, Donne, Marvell, Webster, Marston, Middleton, Ford, Chapman, and Milton are studied in the light of 1) modern critical and scholarly approaches to Renaissance themes and styles, 2) literary manifestations of Neoplatonism, Neostoicism, and political theory, and 3) parallels with developments in the graphic arts (emblem literature, visualized mythology, and the movement toward mannerist and baroque forms). Although the seminar concentrates on a select number of texts, it also provides an overview of the English literary Renaissance and its connections with the continental Renaissance. In short, the seminar serves as both a general grounding in and a specialized study of a major literary period.
3 Credits
Mr Maisano, Mr Tobin

ENGL 635
Metaphysical Poetry

A survey of the major English poets called “metaphysical” in their historical context: Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Marvell.
3 Credits
Mr Maisano, Mr Tobin

ENGL 637
Milton

A study of the poetry and major prose, with particular attention to Paradise Lost; Milton’s style, his relations to traditional literary forms, his thematic concerns; an examination of Milton criticism.
3 Credits
Mr Tobin

ENGL 639
Eighteenth Century Studies

Study of the Enlightenment in Britain, with emphasis on the major Augustan satirists—Dryden, Swift, and Pope—and on prose writers such as Defoe and Fielding, and critics such as Addison and Johnson.
3 Credits
Ms Nixon

ENGL 640
The Rise of the Novel

This course investigates the invention of a new literary form: the novel. Readings will range from the late seventeenth century to early nineteenth century, including authors such as Behn, Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Inchbald, and Austen and sub-genres such as the sentimental novel and gothic tale. The course will trace developments in the novel’s formal structure (such as the narrator), question the goals of the novel (such as “realism”), and connect the novel to cultural practices (such as crime and courtship).
3 Credits
Ms Fay, Ms Nixon

ENGL 641
Studies in Romanticism

This course examines the different literary movements that make up the Romantic Period (generally 1780-1832). It offers a comparative study of canonical Romantic Period writers and those writers who raised other kinds of questions. In so doing, it explores what it was like to live and write in the culture of this period and asks: What are the stresses on literary production, and what are the terms of aesthetic, subjective, and imagistic difference between male and female writers?
3 Credits
Ms Fay

ENGL 642
Victorian Literature

Studies in the careers and works of major authors such as Carlyle, Tennyson, Dickens, George Eliot, Ruskin, and Wilde, with brief excursions into the works of others. Major themes include the relations of art and society and the problems of faith and doubt, science, and imagination.
3 Credits
Ms Fay, Ms Penner

ENGL 644
Studies in the Modern British Novel

This course concerns the development of modern fiction in the first half of the twentieth century. It focuses on literary developments that shaped the novels of the period in relation to their social, political, cultural, and intellectual contexts, both in Britain and abroad. Among the influences affecting this body of fiction are the two World Wars, social changes consequent to industrialization, Britain’s weakening hold over its empire, and the emergence of international modernisms as new modes of expression and inquiry for literature and other arts.
3 Credits
Ms Dittmar

ENGL 645
Modern Poetry

A study of major figures such as Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Williams, Stevens, H.D., Frost, Brooks, Plath, Bishop, Langston Hughes, Ted Hughes, Ginsberg, and currents such as Imagism, surrealism, projectivism, confessionalism, and Beat in modern British and American poetry.
3 Credits
Ms Annas, Ms Nurhussein, Ms Peseroff

ENGL 646
Literature and Society

A study of literature with special reference to its social and historical circumstances and of the theoretical questions raised by such a perspective.
3 Credits
Ms Fay, Ms Annas, Ms Dittmar, Ms Klimasmith, Ms Penner

ENGL 647
Irish Literary Revivals

A study of Irish literature from 1890 to the present. The writings of the “Irish Renaissance” in part inspired the Rising of 1916, then responded to its effects. Recent Irish writings bear similar relations to the renewed “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. The course examines the relationships between literature and politics in the times of Yeats and Heaney. Other writers discussed: A Gregory, JM Synge, S O’Casey, J Joyce, F O’Connor, S O’Faolain, P Kavanagh, R Murphy, T Kinsella, J Montague, S Deane, D Mahon, B Friel, B Moore, J McGahern, B Kiely, E O’Brien.
3 Credits
Mr O’Connell

ENGL 648
Modernism in Literature

“On or about December 1910,” Virginia Woolf wrote, “human nature changed.” This course examines the trans-Atlantic modernism(s) that arose in the early twentieth century in response to the epochal shifts that Woolf described. We will read poetry, prose, and theory by American and British modernists such as Woolf, Stein, Joyce, Eliot, Faulkner, Toomer, Lawrence, Williams, H.D., and Hurston in the context of historical, political, social, and scientific changes as well as in the context of the cultural changes—in art, music, film, architecture—that surrounded and influenced their aesthetic projects.
3 Credits
Ms Annas, Ms Klimasmith, Ms Nurhussein

ENGL 649
Modern Irish Novel

“What the symbols of the new Irish writers are we cannot tell,” Sean O’Faolain observed in 1936: “Perhaps they are not so much symbols as typical characters, significant situations.” Using as an essential point of departure (and an occasional point of return) James Joyce’s image of the sensitive individual in conflict with the values of repressive Irish society, this course will trace the thematic and the technical developments of the Irish novel during the twentieth century. Focusing on a variety of representative authors and texts, the course will consider the novels with reference to their political, social, cultural, and literary contexts.
3 Credits
Mr O’Grady

ENGL 650
Colonial American Literature

This seminar closely examines texts composed by colonial American women and men who—through their writings—tried to understand their contemporaries and themselves during two periods of cultural change: the Puritan 17th century and the revolutionary 18th century. Included are works by such authors as Anne Bradstreet, Mary Rowlandson, Sarah Kemble Knight, Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Hector St. John de Crevecoeur.
3 Credits
Ms Tomlinson

ENGL 651
Nineteenth Century American Literature

The nineteenth century brought unprecedented growth and change to the United States. Industry, immigration, urbanization, the Civil War, social justice movements, the end of slavery, and reconstruction marked the country’s move from nascent republic to international power. American writers grappled with these changes as they contributed to the development of a national literature: a literature that would, in Walt Whitman’s words, “be both transcendent and new.” This course will consider both canonized and less familiar texts of the period through a variety of approaches, topics, and themes.
3 Credits
Ms Klimasmith

ENGL 652
American Romanticism

Primary focus on the major authors of the “American Renaissance” (roughly 1840-1860), with some attention to their antecedents (earlier writers such as Irving and Cooper). Familiarity with famous works such as The Scarlet Letter and Walden will be assumed at the outset, and such texts will be considered from the perspectives provided by other, less-well-known works by the same authors. An attempt will be made to examine the interconnections between these writers, many of whom knew each other personally, and all of them publishing within a very brief period.
3 Credits
Mr Stoehr

ENGL 653
Major American Novelists

An in-depth study of two or three American novelists, considered comparatively. Possible authors to be studied include Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, James, Wharton, Chopin, Cather, Dreiser, Faulkner, Hemingway, Ellison, Morrison.
3 Credits
Ms Klimasmith, Mr O’Connell, Mr Stoehr, Ms Tomlinson

ENGL 654
Modern American Fiction

This is a course in the study of significant works of American fiction written in the last century, mostly before WW II. The course discusses major American modernists, such as James, Wharton, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Toomer, Faulkner, Hurston, as well as the critical and cultural contexts in which these works appeared. The focus is on the establishment of American fiction as a major literary form during an era of social flux, economic dislocation, and foreign wars.
3 Credits
Ms Klimasmith, Mr O’Connell

ENGL 656
Contemporary American Fiction

A study of the scope (times and types) and strains (types and tensions) in the post-World War II, postmodern American novel, with special attention to the persistence of realism, the insistent presence of surrealism, and the occasional combination of the two.
3 Credits
Mr Fulton, Mr Melnyczuk, Mr O’Connell

ENGL 657
The Black Presence

Study of selected literary texts of the last two hundred years by major and minor authors who wrote with a special consciousness of the significance of black people in American society.
3 Credits
Ms Brown, Ms Nurhussein, Mr Stoehr

ENGL 658
Regional Literature

This course focuses on regional consciousness in representative works of modern American writers of the South, New England, the West, urban hubs such as New York City, or such cultural hubs as Harlem. Special attention is given to the roles that the sense of history and the sense of place play in the work of writers for whom such settings have proven a source of imaginative creation.
3 Credits
Ms Klimasmith, Mr O’Connell, Ms Tomlinson

ENGL 660
Multi-Ethnic Literature in the United States: Text and Context

This course explores a variety of ethnic literatures written by US writers in the 20th century, within their sociocultural contexts. Students study texts from a variety of disciplinary perspectives: historical, literary, sociological, and cultural. Some of the writers likely to be included are Abraham Cahan and Anzia Yezierska, Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, M Scott Momaday and Leslie Marmon Silko, Maxine Hong Kingston and Frank Chin, Richard Rodriguez and Sandra Cisneros.
3 Credits
Ms Rudnick, Ms Srikanth

ENGL 662
Modern Black Writers

The history of black (North) American literature has sometimes converged with mainstream American literature but more often it has been a separate and distinct tradition. This course considers the origins of this tradition in the slave narratives; its development in the early 20th century; its growth through the Harlem Renaissance; and its flowering in major contemporary writers. The course is also directed towards an understanding of the historical “problems” of Afro-American writers, including the black writer’s relation to white audiences; the aesthetic versus the protest tradition; and the sense of “double consciousness” in black writers.
3 Credits
Ms Brown, Ms Nurhussein, Ms Tomlinson

ENGL 663
The End of the World

This course provides a study of “terminal visions” in myth, fiction, and poetry, with ancillary readings in historical, scientific, and cultural perspectives on end-times. The main focus is literary, but the seminar may also engage apocalyptic themes in visual arts, religious thought, political history, and popular culture. Writers to be discussed include Mary Shelley, HG Wells, Olaf Stapledon, Mordecai Roshwald, Hilda Schiff, Russell Hoban, Tom Robbins, George Stewart, and Otto Friedrich. In addition to some shorter pieces of fiction, some poems from the English Renaissance and essays on apocalyptic issues will also be discussed, as well as representative films and operas.
3 Credits
Mr Crossley

ENGL 668
Perspectives on Composition: History, Theory, Pedagogy

The course is designed as an introduction to the field of composition studies for students in the composition and literature tracks. The course investigates the rise of English as a discipline in the late nineteenth century and the social and political conditions that led to the split between the teaching of reading and writing (that is, between literature and composition). It focuses on why writing became concentrated in the freshman year and how the entry of women into the new American university along with large numbers of middle-class men affected the way oral and written rhetoric instruction was reconceived as freshman English. Understanding this history and politics will facilitate development of an informed critique of composition as it was first conceived and will pose the question: What are the alternatives? With this question, we will turn to composition theory and pedagogy for an introductory study of significant responses to composition’s original gatekeeping mission. The course is designed to stimulate engaged reading and interactive classes so that students will not just “learn” the history, theory, and pedagogy of composition but learn to think historically, theoretically, and pedagogically.
3 Credits
Ms Goleman

ENGL L669 (APLING L669)
Writing Theories in Second Language Acquisition

This course considers research and theory in writing and addresses the particular challenges of writing in a second language. Participants examine and evaluate pedagogical approaches in light of research and theory. Emphasis is given to formulating and exploring implications of research and theory for second language and bilingual classrooms.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
3 Credits
Ms Zamel

ENGL 670
Philosophy and the Composing Process

Current rhetorical theory emphasizing the process of composing has developed several models (e.g., pre-writing, writing, re-writing) which are nevertheless linear. But writers and teachers of writing need ways of apprehending the all-at-onceness of composition. This seminar offers opportunities to develop philosophical perspectives on perception and forming; language and the making of meaning; interpretation in reading and teaching. The course explores the pedagogical and practical implications of a broad range of theories of language and knowing by means of experimental writing and by the study of essays, letters, talks, and other materials by scientists, artists, and philosophers. This course is recommended for students choosing to concentrate in composition for the English MA, at or near the start of their programs.
3 Credits
Mr Bruss

ENGL 671
The History of Children’s Literature

This course provides an overview of the field of children’s literature and its development. The subject matter is approached with both critical and scholarly attitudes, and works are examined in historical and cultural contexts. Topics and texts include myth, folk, and fairy tale; range includes children’s books from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, through materials of colonial America, the nineteenth-century moralists and fantasists, to modern classics; consideration of critical theories and questions of pedagogy is included.
3 Credits
Ms Shaner

ENGL L672 (APLING L672)
Theory and Practice of Adult ESL

This course examines new approaches to curriculum development for teaching ESL to adults, focusing on both theory and practice. Starting with an overview of theory in the areas of adult learning, literacy, and acquisition of a second language, the course goes on to link these theories with curriculum models. Students do research in adult ESL classrooms, using ethnographic techniques to analyze classroom interactions as a basis for their own development of curriculum.
3 Credits
Ms Auerbach

ENGL L673 (APLING L673)
The Teaching of Reading in the Bilingual/ESL Classroom

The course focuses on analysis of current teaching theories about ESL and bilingual reading practices as well as an examination of specific reading methodologies, materials, and teaching strategies.
3 Credits
Ms Auerbach

ENGL 675
Reading and Writing Poetry

This is a graduate poetry workshop for both experienced writers and students with little poetry-writing experience. For more experienced writers, the concentration is on developing skills, with a chance to extend range by studying great poems in form and in free verse. For students newer to writing poetry, or students who simply wish to learn more about poetry, this is a chance to develop your skills from the inside, through studying poems by accomplished poets in various forms, including free verse, and through the actual practice of writing in these forms. The main work of the semester is writing poems, but there are assignments requiring a critical response to other poets.
3 Credits
Ms Nurhussein, Ms Peseroff, Mr Schwartz

ENGL 676
Reading and Writing Fiction

This is a graduate fiction workshop for both experienced writers and students with little fiction-writing experience. For more experienced writers, the concentration is on developing skills, with a chance to extend range by studying writers like Mary Gaitskill, Denis Johnson, Geoff Dyer, Lorrie Moore, Steven Millhauser, and Chuck Palahniuk. Fiction-writing assignments are connected to reading assignments.
3 Credits
Mr Fulton, Mr Melnyczuk

ENGL 677
Reading, Writing, and Translating Poetry

This course should be of particular interest both to creative writers and to students with foreign language skills. Students read poetry written in English, poetry translated into English, and selected prose on the nature, practice, and theory of translation. Reading and writing exercises include comparative studies of different translations of the same poem, translations of poems into English, sometimes with accompanying critical commentary; and original poems, some of them “imitations” of poems in other languages.
3 Credits
Mr Bowen

ENGL 681
Advanced Workshop in Poetry

An advanced poetry workshop in which students practice and improve the poetic skills they have already begun to develop by focusing on a pre-approved project for the semester. Class discussion focuses on student work, and individual conferences with the instructor are required. This course may be repeated twice for credit.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
3 Credits
Ms Nurhussein, Ms Peseroff, Mr Schwartz

ENGL 682
Advanced Workshop in Fiction

An advanced fiction workshop in which students improve the writing skills they have already begun to develop by focusing on a pre-approved project for the semester. All students read contemporary fiction throughout the semester. Class discussion focuses on student work, and individual conferences with the instructor are required. This course may be repeated twice for credit.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
3 Credits
Mr Fulton, Mr Melnyczuk

ENGL 691
Final Project in Composition

Provides a structure for students working toward completion of the final exercise (capstone) requirement in composition. A project proposal is required and must be approved by the faculty supervisor of the project and by the Graduate Program Director. Paper plans and drafts are studied and critiqued in regular tutorial conferences with individual faculty supervisors, or examination materials and sample questions are analyzed. The final paper or examination is assessed by graduate faculty readers. Students must successfully complete the capstone essay or examination in order to receive the MA.
Prerequisites: English MA candidacy and satisfactory completion of four courses in the composition track.
3 Credits

ENGL 692
Final Project in Creative Writing

Provides a structure for students working toward completion of the final exercise (capstone) requirement in creative writing and supplements work done in creative writing workshops. A project proposal is required and must be approved by the faculty supervisor of the project, by the Director of Creative Writing, and by the Graduate Program Director. Drafts are studied and critiqued in regular tutorial conferences with individual faculty supervisors. The final manuscript is assessed by graduate faculty readers. Students must successfully complete the capstone project in order to receive the MA.  
Prerequisites: English MA candidacy and satisfactory completion of four courses in the creative writing track and three in the literature track.
3 Credits

ENGL 693
Final Project in Literature

Provides a structure for students working toward completion of the final exercise (capstone) requirement in literature. A project proposal is required and must be approved by the faculty supervisor of the project and by the Graduate Program Director. Paper plans and drafts are studied and critiqued in regular tutorial conferences with individual faculty supervisors, or examination materials and sample questions are analyzed. The final paper or examination is assessed by graduate faculty readers. Students must successfully complete the capstone project in order to receive the MA.
Prerequisites: English MA candidacy and satisfactory completion of five courses in the literature track, including one course in literature before 1850.
3 Credits

ENGL 696
Independent Study

A comprehensive study of a particular area of literature, particular author, or specialized topic not offered in regular seminars. Consultation with the director of graduate studies is mandatory. Students arrange a project with a faculty member who approves a project proposal, providing a description or outline of the research and writing work to be undertaken and a bibliography of reading. The project must be approved by the Graduate Program Director. Project proposals must be submitted by the end of the semester previous to the one in which the study is to take place.
1 to 6 Credits

ENGL 697
Special Topics in Literature and Composition

Experimental new graduate seminars on special subjects are frequently offered under this heading and are announced each semester prior to the advance pre-registration period.

ENGL 698
Intern Seminar

This seminar is for both composition and literature interns during their intern semester. It involves a preliminary summer workshop and weekly meetings and classroom visits during the semester. The course is team-taught by the two internship supervisors, with students divided into a composition and a literature section according to their intern appointment. The seminar develops more fully the pedagogical and content material covered in ENGL 610 and 611. It involves collaborative work (particularly in designing a joint syllabus, reading list, and assignments for the undergraduate composition and literature sections to be taught by interns), classroom research, and reflective reports.
Prerequisites: ENGL 610 or 611 and assignment as teaching intern.
3 Credits
Ms Goleman, Ms Kutz, Ms Nixon, Ms Srikanth

ENGL 699
Master of Arts Thesis

A substantial project of approximately 60 pages in literature, composition, or creative writing. Creative writing students will include a related analytical paper with their manuscript. A thesis proposal is required and must be approved by the student’s faculty supervisor of the thesis and by the Graduate Program Director. In the case of creative writing theses, approval by the Director of Creative Writing is also required. The student works under the supervision of a faculty thesis director in regular tutorial conferences. Students should begin working on their project a full semester before the semester in which the project is due. The thesis will be read by a committee of three graduate faculty members who will judge its suitability as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree. Finally, a thesis defense before the student’s committee and open to all members of the English Department will take place.
Prerequisites: English MA candidacy and satisfactory completion of the course requirements of the track in which the thesis is written—composition, creative writing, or literature.
6 Credits