Course Title: Effective Writing
Course Code: ENG100H5F
Instructor: Amanda Wetmore
Course Description: This course will provide an intensive introduction to writing mechanics and composition for students of any discipline, emphasizing clarity of thought and concision in style. We will begin the course by exploring the basics elements of grammar and the mechanics of the sentence, eventually moving on to structuring the larger building blocks of thought: the paragraph and the thought-piece or essay. At this latter level we will emphasize the processes of writing: brainstorming, outlining, drafting, editing, rinse, repeat, as well as best writing strategies (time management, etc.). Overall, this course will stress using writing as a means of thinking.
Required Reading: All readings will be distributed digitally by the instructor.
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: TBD
Method of Instruction: Since class sessions will be three hours, we will divide our time between lessons, in-class exercises, quizzes, discussions, group activities, and writing and editing sessions. There will be no required textbook, but I will provide required readings and resources online through the portal. These will include writing resources that I have devised, as well as selections from famous style writers (Strunk & White, Lynne Truss, William Colomb, Stanley Fish, Richard Lanham, etc.). We will also learn by example by reading a variety of short pieces, from great essayists to daily columnists. Your homework will involve writing one-to-two paragraph reaction pieces to these weekly readings, which will be edited and collected as part of you final writing portfolio. You must also provide brief responses (one-two sentences) to various prompts on a discussion board on portal, forcing you to become comfortable with daily composition on a small scale, and to practice clarifying and condensing your thoughts into 180 characters.
Method of Evaluation:
A drafted grade-breakdown is as follows:
5% Discussion board posts (30 "posts" minimum)
10% Grammar & mechanics quizzes
25% Daily in-class writing exercises and activities
15% First composition (including outline, draft, edits, final)
20% Second composition (including outline, draft, edits, final)
25% Final Writing Portfolio
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Course Title: The Short Story
Course Code: ENG213H5S
Instructor: Daniela Janes
Course Description: This course examines the development of the short story from the nineteenth century to the present. We will explore stories drawn from a range of national literatures, including several works that will be studied in translation. The goal of the course is to develop your knowledge of the literary short story by examining major writers, and to build a sense of historical and theoretical context. We will consider the short story in terms of the formal features of the genre, and will seek to define some of the essential characteristics of the short story as more than, simply, a story that is short.
Required Reading:
Some of the authors to be covered include Atwood, Baldwin, Carver, Chekhov, Chopin, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Joyce, Kafka, Kincaid, Lawrence, Mansfield, de Maupassant, Melville, Munro, O’Connor, Poe, and Woolf.
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”; Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”; Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”
Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion
Method of Evaluation: in-class exercises (5%), two tests (50%), essay (35%), informed participation (10%).
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Course Title: Toronto's Multicultural Literatures
Course Code: ENG271H5F
Instructor: Siobhan O'Flynn
Course Description: Toronto has been called the world’s most multicultural city. Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey estimated that 2,537,410 foreign-born individuals live in the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), accounting for 46% of the total CMA population and making this the largest percentage of any CMA in the country. With almost half of Toronto’s citizens tracing direct connections back to other countries around the globe and over 200 languages spoken in the GTA, Toronto is arguably the most multicultural city in Canada. ENG271 will introduce students to seminal Canadian works of multicultural literature that imagine new mythologies, stories and alternate histories within the city, and to new contemporary works introducing new voices, themes, and counter-stories reflecting on our complex society today and imagining possible futures.
Required Reading:
978-0-394-28182-7 ONDAATJE, MICHAEL / IN THE SKIN OF A LION
978-1-55152-226-5 CHARIANDY, DAVID / SOUCOUYANT
978-0-7710-8722-6 VASSANJI, M.G / NO NEW LAND
978-1508-22961-2 KAUR, RUPI / MILK & HONEY
978-0-446-67433-1 HOPKINSON, NALO / BROWN GIRL IN THE RING
978-0888-99964-1 TAMAKI, MARIKO / SKIM
Various poems by a range of authors TBA.
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Ondaatje, Chariandy, Vassanji
Method of Instruction: Lecture, Discussion
Method of Evaluation: short assignments, essay, informed participation, exam
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Course Title: Feminist Approaches to Literature
Course Code: ENG275H5S
Instructor: Margeaux Feldman
Course Description: This course has three main objectives. The first is to provide an understanding of the complex history of feminism from the first wave to our contemporary moment. The second is to introduce students to some of the major women writers living today and think about how their writing is informed by first, second, and third wave feminism. And the third is to offer an introduction to feminist theoretical perspectives (note: you do not need to have any previous experience with theory in order to succeed). Some of the questions driving the course are: What is feminism and why is it still such a contentious topic in the 21st century? How might a feminist approach inform our reading practices – both inside and outside of the university? How might literature challenge or shape our understanding of feminism? What does feminism have to teach us about ideology, fantasy, pleasure, and trauma? In what ways does feminist theory and feminist literature illuminate or participate in racism, sexism, colonialism, homophobia, transphobia, and other intersecting forms of oppression? .
Required Reading::
Alison Bechel, Fun Home
Marie Calloway, what purpose did i serve in your life* (blackboard)
Diary of a Teenage Girl (dir. Phoebe Gloeckner)*
Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist and Difficult Women* (blackboard)
Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be?
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey*
Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts
Leanne Simpson, Islands of Decolonial Love*
Sarah June Woods, “THIS IS WHAT A GIRL FEELS LIKE” and SEA-WITCH (blackboard)
Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy*
Trigger Warning: Many of the texts we will be discussing describe acts of sexual and physical violence, graphic sex, and racialized violence. I have marked these texts with asterisks and am happy to provide more information via email. Please note that it will be hard to succeed in the course if you have to skip all of these readings.
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
Erin Wunker, Notes From a Feminist Killjoy
Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist (selections) and Difficult Women (selections)
Shelia Heti, How Should a Person Be?
Method of Instruction: Lectures, discussion, and group work
Method of Evaluation: Group Podcast, Short Response Papers, Final Essay, Informed Participation, and Discussion Questions
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Course Title: Fanfiction
Course Code: ENG276H5S
Instructor: Anna Wilson
Course Description: This course investigates fanfiction - amateur, unauthorized stories about characters from literature or popular media - from a variety of theoretical standpoints, including gender and sexuality studies, and critical race studies. It also considers the literary history of fanfiction from its roots in the 18th century to the modern day, and the influence of fanfiction on new media, including mashup and remix culture. We will read a wide variety of fanfiction stories, old and new.
Required Reading::
A course reader will be distributed at the beginning of the class; this may include some online readings. Readings will include a variety of fanfiction stories and a selection of secondary readings including articles and book chapters of fanfiction and media criticism.
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: TBD
Method of Instruction: Lecture and class discussion.
Method of Evaluation: Assignments will include a comparative essay about two fanfiction stories, an assignment in which students may write their own short fanfiction and a reflection, a mid-term and a final exam. The exams will include multiple choice questions, short answers, and short essays.
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Course Title: Video Games
Course Code: ENG279H5F
Instructor: Siobhan O'Flynn
Course Description: In 2017, video games are a globally dominant form of art & entertainment, now surpassing both movies and books in terms of annual revenue. Game studies is now a robust area of critical inquiry and theorization on both form and content with roughly 40 years of academic critical analysis of the distinctive characteristics of games (ludology). This course will introduce students to key theorists in of games in narratology, post-classical narratology, and game studies as they have evolved since the 1990s and the emerging inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches to the study of video games. We will also consider the game aspects of prose fiction (short stories), interactive fiction, hypertext, and films. We will discuss the still ongoing debate between ludologists and narratologists and innovations in the ‘story-game,’ games as procedural rhetoric, games and ethics, games and empathy. Most importantly, we will play games, from casual to AAA games such as Bioshock. Students will also be introduced to building in Twine, an online interactive fiction / story game platform.
Required Reading:
Essays will all be digital & accessed either via Blackboard or online sources. Essays will include seminal texts by key theorists such as:
Jesper Juul, Eric Zimmerman & Katie Salen, Espen Aarseth, Nick Montfort, Gonzalo Frasca, Ian Bogost, Lisbeth Klastrup, Jane McGonigal, Astrid Enslinn, Anastasia Salter.
Short Stories: drawn from Julio Cortazar, Jorge Luis Borges, Lydia Davies & others.
Games: games selected will be playable across platforms - so they must be playable on laptops or mobile (OS/iOS; Android; Mac/PC); titles will be downloadable likely via Steam or HumbleBundle. The goal will be to keep cost to a minimum & I will be checking sales/deals & notifying via Blackboard announcements.
Films: two from - Memento, Run Lola Run, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Hypertexts: We will play a selection of hypertext titles, including These Waves of Girls, The Jew’s Daughter, Queers in Love at the End of the World, The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Juul, Zimmerman, Aarseth,
Method of Instruction: Lecture, Discussion
Method of Evaluation: short assignments, essay, short story-game, exam
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Course Title: Chaucer
Course Code: ENG300Y5Y
Instructor: Jessica Henderson
Course Description: This course will introduce students to the works of the fourteenth-century poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. From the array of narratives in the Canterbury Tales, the Trojan romance of Troilus and Criseyde, to the dream visions of The Book of the Duchess and The Parliament of Fowls, we will focus on close-reading as a way to approach Chaucer’s Middle English, while learning some of the basics of Middle English grammar and syntax. Chaucer’s works open up discussions about medieval ideas of gender and sexuality, social unrest, religious corruption, the invention of authorship, and (particularly relevant in the current political climate) the diverse and global middle ages. This course will also engage with the material contexts in which Chaucer’s works were originally preserved—namely, medieval manuscripts—and it will encourage students to consider the implications of manuscript culture on written texts.
Required Reading:The Riverside Chaucer (Benson et al.)
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Selections from the Canterbury Tales, The Book of the Duchess, The Parliament of Fowls.
Method of Instruction: Lecture, class discussion, student presentations.
Method of Evaluation: Weekly close reading assignments (30%), Short close reading paper (15%), Short Presentation (15%), Essay Outline (10%), Final Essay (30%)
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Course Title: Jane Austen and her Contemporaries
Course Code: ENG323H5S
Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard
Course Description: A study of selected novels (and fiction) by Austen and her contemporaries as Lewis, Radcliffe, Godwin, Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth, Edgeworth, Scott, and Shelley, in the context of the complex literary, social, and political relationships of that time.
Required Reading: (available at the UTM bookstore)
Austen, Northanger Abbey
Lewis, The Monk
Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Mansfield Park
Austen, Emma
**NOTE: These editions are from the publisher broadview and are bundled together at a discounted price — available only at the UTM bookstore.
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Austen, Northanger Abbey; Lewis, The Monk
Method of Instruction: Lecture and Discussion
Method of Evaluation: Essay, Test, and Exam
WEBSITE: Portal
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Course Title: Canadian Drama
Course Code: ENG352H5F
Instructor: Daniela Janes
Course Description: In this course we will read a selection of Canadian drama across its history, paying attention to the material conditions of production as well as formal developments and stylistic innovations. Students will be exposed to a variety of forms and genres, including radio plays and closet dramas, satires and farces, musicals and dramas, tragedies and tragicomedies, and through our eclectic readings will be given a sense of the shape and development of Canadian theatre.
Required Reading: Students will read a variety of plays, ranging from one-act plays to more substantial works. The course reader covers nineteenth- and twentieth-century plays, including works by Nicholas Flood Davin, Sarah Anne Curzon, Merrill Denison, Herman Voaden, Len Peterson, and Lister Sinclair. Other readings will be drawn from Jerry Wasserman, ed., Modern Canadian Plays, Vol. 1 (5th Edition). Playwrights to be studied include George Ryga, Michel Tremblay, David French, John Gray, Sharon Pollock, Ann-Marie MacDonald and Tomson Highway.
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Plays by Davin, Curzon, Denison (course reader).
Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion
Method of Evaluation: in-class exercises (5%), essay proposal and annotated bibliography (10%), essay (35%), two tests (40%), informed participation (10%).
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Course Title: Austen and her Successors
Course Code: ENG371H5F
Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard
Course Description: “Romance” is a slippery genre. On the one hand, it refers to texts that explore the amatory—love, longing, and desire; and on the other, is connotes texts that swerve away from the realistic and draw broadly on the fantastic (fantasy, the gothic, and science fiction). Through the dual lens of Jane Austen, who offers a social realistic depiction of courtship, manners, and love in her novels, and three novels by Meyers, King, and Collins that draw broadly on the fantastic, this course explores the intermingling of these two modes of romance.
TEXTS:
(Ordered, on 6 April, through UTM bookstore)—to be read in this order:
1) Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey. (1817). broadview.
2) Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. (1813). broadview.
3) Stephenie Meyers, Twilight. (2005). [whatever is the mass market edition]
4) Stephen King, Misery. (1978). Simon and Schuster ISBN 978-1-5011-4310-6
5) Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games. (2008). Scholastic 978-0439023481
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Austen, Meyers, King, Collins
Method of Instruction: Lecture, Discussion, Group Work
Method of Evaluation: Essay, test, informed participation, final exam
WEBSITE: Portal
NOTES:
1) I require that you bring the novel and course pack to class—every class, without exception.
2) I do not allow the use of laptops and smart devices in class except when required for ESL and AccessAbility reasons.
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