English Courses

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ENGL 103 Understanding Poetry
CRN: 24811, 24814
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-1:40 S2
Instructor: Morinana Delgdo Hernandez cdelga34@uic.edu
This course will look at the several shapes that poetry can adopt. We will consider poetry as architecture, as logic, or as an urban love song, while reading old wandering poets like Basho and contemporary explorers of grief like Diana Khoi Nguyen. We will look at living American poets, and read other international poets in translation, like Duo Duo and Jeong Ho-seung. The course involves the practice of writing poetry, beginning with exercises and analysis of published models and advancing toward student creation of their original works of poetry in class.

ENGL 105 Understanding Fiction
CRN: 21671, 21672
Days/Time: TR 10:45-1:15 S2
Instructor: Miles Parkinson mpark101@uic.edu
The detective stands as the defining figure in popular culture from at least the 1930s to the present. In this course we will be looking at the ways that detective fiction structures our perception of reality through its truth procedures, its modes of identification, its everyday language and its plotting. The purpose of this class is twofold: to acquire a deep familiarity with the mechanics of detective fiction from its origins to the present; and to practice close reading as the method of literary scholarship. Accordingly, the majority of our focus will be on close-reading the primary texts themselves. Texts to include: “The Purloined Letter” (1844), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), Murder on the Orient Express (1934), The Long Goodbye (1953), The Crying of Lot 49 (1965), The Shadow Knows (1974), among others. The assessments will be weekly reading response papers, and two short close reading papers engaging with the material from the class.

ENGL 118. Introduction into African American Literature
CRN: 23195
Days/Time: MTRF 9:00-11:55 S1
Instructor: Ainsworth Clarke ac57@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis: The Undead Version
CRN: 24272, 24273
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-11:40 S2
Instructor: Kris Chen kchen96@uic.edu
In this course, we will focus on the theme of “the undead” to explore various ways to read, analyze, interpret, and write critically about literature and media. In doing so, we will explore how stories become “meaningful” depending on how we look at it and which questions we ask as we encounter it. We will, in other words, learn about and apply different theoretical approaches that might be described as “lenses” through which we view a text and that reveal different “truths” about it. Specifically, we examine undead stories through the theoretical lenses of cultural studies, Marxism, post-colonialism, and feminism.

ENGL 209 English Studies II: 17th Century to Today
CRN: 24812, 24813
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-11:40 S2
Instructor: Hyacinthe Damitz zimran3@uic.edu
This class will be surveying English Literature from the 17th Century to the present day. With such a long time frame, we will do our best to trace the state of literature across the years, starting with the Restoration Poets and tracing poetry, short stories, and the novel as they emerge and evolve through the various literary periods, from the Romantics to the Victorians, and from the Modernists to the Postmodernists. In doing so, we will examine works from writers like Jonathan Swift, William Wordsworth,  Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Herman Melville, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot, to name just a few, to see how literature has changed through the years. Looking not only at the way that the forms of poetry and prose have shifted, we will also be tracing the way that themes and questions root themselves in the literatures of various times, and how those themes transform as literature progresses through the years. By the end of the semester, you will have encountered many of the canonical works of the timeframe, as well as some lesser known literature throughout, with the intent to understand some of the formal and thematic work that was going on during the various periods we moved through. This course will be reading heavy, given the large swath of time we are examining, and focuses on close reading and analysis of the literature we are examining. This analysis will culminate in two 5-7 page close reading papers over the course of the semester.

ENGL 230 Introduction to Film and Culture
CRN: 24460 Global
Days/Time: T 1:00-2:45/ R 1:00-3:45 S1
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 270/ITAL 270 Italian American Experience
CRN: 24914
Days/Time: Asynchronous S10
Instructor: Maria Fabbian cfabbian@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in Writing Center
CRN: 24279, 24280
Days/Time: MW 2:00-3:50 S2
Instructor: Vainis Aleksa vainis@uic.edu
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two to three hours per week starting Week 2 of the semester. Students continue to meet in class analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership. May not be repeated for Credit.

ENGL 291 Introduction to Writing of Fiction
CRN: 24281
Days/Time: TR 1:30-4:00 S2
Instructor: Rebecca Fishow rfisho2@uic.edu
This course is an introduction to the art and craft of writing fiction. We will study the fundamentals of literary storytelling, with emphasis on the mechanics of characterization, point of view, plot, theme, and other elements of literary craft. During the first half of the semester, you will read and discuss short stories by established authors. Rather than analyzing these texts for cultural significance or meaning, we will be learning to “read like writers,” with a goal of gleaning insight into how stories work from the ground up, and how the “moving parts” of fiction form something complete and meaningful. In addition to these readings, during the first half of the semester you will participate in craft lectures and respond to in-class creative writing prompts. This analytical and imaginative work will transition into an in-person workshop in the second half of the semester. You will have the opportunity to submit at least one original short story to your peers, who will provide substantive feedback and constructive criticism to help you further refine your writing. You will be expected to provide thoughtful commentary on your peers’ work, just as they do for your work.

ENGL 491 Advance Writing of Fiction
CRN: 21363, 21364
Days/Time: TR 10:45-1:15 S2
Instructor: Christopher Grimes cgrimes@uic.edu
This fiction workshop is structured around the idea that we’re here to champion one another’s work. There are no required texts, just the manuscripts we produce. The vibe: totally chill–it’s a summer course, after all. Vacay travel plans and the like accommodated over Zoom. In other words, while attendance is pretty mandatory, in-person attendance is optional. Pre-requisite ENGL 291.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 24466 Global
Days/Time: M 12:0-1:50 S1
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 16259
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-11:40 S2
Instructor: Gen Kwon ykwon42@uic.edu
Every day, our choices shape who we are: who we gravitate toward, what we pick out at a thrift store, and the pet peeves that make us cringe. Our writing, too, reflects these patterns. In this course, you will experiment with different genres—interview transcripts, personal essays, short stories, and argumentative essays—and pay close attention to the patterns that emerge. What surprises you? What feels natural? How does your body react to each genre—does one make you tense up, another let you breathe? Have you unknowingly borrowed speech habits and rhythms from your family, friends, or beloveds? What does authenticity even mean when we write?
Through reading, discussion, and four core writing projects, you will explore these questions, cultivating a relationship with language that serves you throughout your college career and beyond. Most of all, you will begin to wonder: What is my voice?

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 24462 GLOBAL
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15 S1
Instructor: Katherine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 24463 Global
Days/Time: MW 10:00-11:50 S1
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 17707
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-11:40 S2
Instructor: Zara Imran zimran3@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 22870
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-11:40 S2
Instructor: Frida Sanchez-Vega fsanch7@uic.edu
This course will explore the relationship between humans and nature in the Anthropocene era. How have humans viewed their relationship with nature throughout history? To understand this, we will view texts from evolutionists, environmentalists, philosophers, anthropologists, and indigenous ways of knowing. As a student in this class, you will be asked to think critically about how humans went from thinking about being of nature to being above nature. These inquiries will be paired with discussions of general skills in reading, research, and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 23385
Days/Time: TR 1:30-4:00 ONLINE S2
Instructor: Gordon Middleton amiddl5@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 18181
Days/Time: MWF 4:00-5:40 ONLINE S2
Instructor: Seunghyun Shin sshin68@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 24464 Global
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:50 S1
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
Pending

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100-500 Course Descriptions

ENGL 101 The book was better: Literature and Adaptations
CRN: 20578, 22330
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Rana Awwad rawwad2@uic.edu
From modern twists on classic novels to blockbuster comic book superhero franchises, adaptations are practically everywhere on the screen. In this course, we will explore the cultural phenomenon that is film and TV adaptations and the original works that make them possible. Together, we will look at different genres and mediums, from poetry and novels to comic books and manga, analyzing the various creative decisions that go into making an adaptation. This class ultimately revolves around a few questions: What role do book and movie adaptations play in the consumption and sharing of stories? What makes certain narratives so frequently reproducible? What does this all say about our cultural moment in media? And, of course, is the book actually better?

ENGL 101 Understanding Literature and Culture
CRN: 25642, 25644
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Mary Anne Mohanraj mohanraj@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 103 Understanding Poetry
CRN: 22348, 22349
Days/ Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In this course, students will read a wide array of English, American, and transcontinental poetry (and some critical writings) comprising several genres and periods, though the bulk of our readings will derive from the modern to the present eras. Taking a cue from a poem by Charles Baudelaire, this section of English 103 will explore the theme of “correspondences”. Students will be encouraged to think about how the poetic works we read “correspond” to each other in a variety of ways (e.g. theme, form, genre, et al.) In addition to becoming familiar with these concepts, students can expect to acquire proficiency in recognizing and understanding various poetic tropes and conventions and in analyzing elements of form and prosody (meter and rhyme). Through informal and formal written responses, students will also learn to compose coherent arguments about a literary text or problem and to select effective textual evidence to support those arguments. Students enrolled in this course should expect to do a substantial amount of reading and to come to each class fully prepared to engage those readings through class discussion and/or short response papers which may be shared with the class. Other course requirements include two formal analysis papers, a midterm exam, quizzes, short discussion introductions, and a poetics or original poem statement to be shared in class.

ENGL 103 Language, Attention, Truth: Understanding Poetry
CRN: 20645, 20646
Days/ Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Mishka Ligot kligot2@uic.edu
In our rapidly developing moment that’s nauseatingly oversaturated with algorithms, disinformation, and overstimulation, what does poetry do and what can we do with it? How can we make sense of a practice and tradition that’s deemed both lofty/pretentious/inaccessible and simple/instinctive/vapid? This course is interested in discovering how poetry can recuperate our attunement to language, attention, and truth, especially in an age that seems to run counter to these concepts.
Across the semester, we’ll be reading a wide and diverse range of poetry across periods and places, from Li Bai’s Sichuan of 700 AD to Gwendolyn Brooks’ Chicago of the 1960s, and learn how humanity has continually made sense of the changing world through poetry. This course will pay a special focus to contemporary Anglophone poetry, as well as global poetry in English translation when applicable. Through rigorous close reading and generative discussions, we’ll be exploring the various formal building blocks of poems (such as the line, image, metaphor, sound, meter, form, etc.), and observe how these elements and conventions persist, adapt, or even mutate across temporal, spatial, and cultural contexts.
In this course, students can expect to learn how to analyze poems on both formal and thematic levels, then articulate their unique interpretations of literary texts through evidence-based arguments. Requirements for this course may include weekly assignments, a short report/presentation, a midterm exam, and a final project with critical and creative options. Students will also be given opportunities to explore and learn from Chicago’s rich and vibrant literary scene through extra credit work.

ENGL 104 Understanding Drama
CRN: 26201
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Sophocles, Chekhov, Brecht, Beckett, Fornés, and Nottage, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 105 Understanding Fiction
CRN: 33744, 33745
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Miles Parkinson mpark101@uic.edu
The detective stands as the defining figure in popular culture from at least the 1930s to the present. In this course we will be looking at the ways that detective fiction structures our perception of reality through its truth procedures, its modes of identification, its everyday language and its plotting. The purpose of this class is twofold: to acquire a deep familiarity with the mechanics of detective fiction from its origins to the present; and to practice close reading as the method of literary scholarship. Accordingly, the majority of our focus will be on close-reading the primary texts themselves. Texts to include: “The Purloined Letter” (1844), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), Murder on the Orient Express (1934), The Long Goodbye (1953), The Crying of Lot 49 (1965), The Shadow Knows (1974), among others. The assessments will be weekly reading response papers, and two close reading papers engaging with the material from the class.

ENGL 105 Understanding Fiction: Crying Wolf or Boiling a Frog?
CRN: 11129, 20595
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Gordon Middleton amiddl5@uic.edu
Politics has always had a home in literature but it is prose fiction that can most deeply immerse us in new and forgotten worlds. These stories can serve as reminders and as warnings to present and future political moments. Through fiction, we can relive some of the political horrors of the last century with stories set in communist-era central Europe, and dictatorship in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We’ll also read some counterfactual political what-ifs set in this country and others. Authors may include Han Kang, Chinua Achebe, Valeria Luiselli, Sandra Cisneros, Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood, Julio Cortázar, Vladimir Nabokov, Roberto Bolaño, Anna Burns.
This class runs on student engagement with the texts. Expect to improve your writing and discussion skills. Even if you are training to be an engineer, lawyer, or media consultant, being able to discuss a text is a vital career skill. You’ll learn to be as technical in discussing fiction as you would discussing a technical whitepaper or a legal brief. Analysing literature can be as much of a game — and as fun — as the fiction itself.

ENGL 131 Temporality in Cinema: Understanding Moving Image Arts
CRN: 47486
Days/Time: M 3:00-5:45/W 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Ryan Nordle rnordl2@uic.edu
Cinema is the artistic medium of time. The relation that cinema has to time is unique, in that every component of the art object (plot, image, sound, setting, editing, mise-en-scène) is created in and expressed through time. Many films try to preserve our sense of temporality by presenting us with a linear plot that coincides with the story; others distort our understanding of time by presenting the story to us atemporally. In this course, we will look at both temporal and atemporal films and see what an analysis of film form can tell us about our social, psychic, and phenomenal relationship to time. Your grade will include a midterm and final exam, screening notes, short bi-weekly quizzes, and a strong emphasis on active participation in class discussions. Screenings to include Modern Times (1936), Meshes of the Afternoon (1944), Fireworks (1947), The Big Clock (1948), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), La Jetée (1962), Band of Outsiders (1964), Playtime (1967), Where is the Friend’s Home? (1987), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Groundhog Day (1993), Chungking Express (1994), The Drive Time (1995), Memento (2000), In the Mood for Love (2000), Time Code (2000), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Birdman (2014), Tenet (2020), The Zone of Interest (2023). Readings to include Siegfried Kracauer, Sergei Eisenstein, Sigmund Freud, Mary Ann Doane, Todd McGowan, Andre Bazin, Rudolf Arnheim, Laura Mulvey, Philip Rosen, Walter Benjamin, et al.

ENGL 132 Understanding Film
CRN: 47454
Days/Time: T 3:30-4:45/R 3:30-6:15
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
This course is an introduction to the academic study of film, looking at cinema as an art form, a social and cultural institution, and an industry. We will watch, discuss, and write about a variety of movies, examining their formal aspects (their individual parts and how they are put together), their significance (what they mean), and how they relate to their historical context (when, how, and why they were made). We will build an analytical “toolkit”– narrative, mise en scène, editing, cinematography, sound, film theory, and film genre–to critically examine movies such as Stagecoach (1939), Memento (2000), Vertigo (1958), Double Indemnity (1944), Do the Right Thing (1989), Children of Men (2006), The Conversation (1974), Alien (1979), and Jennifer’s Body (2009).

ENGL 135 Understanding Popular Culture
CRN: 47462
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
This course focuses on stand-up comedy as a popular genre with a particularly dynamic relationship between performer and audience. In the first section we’ll examine storytelling in stand-up. In the second section we’ll shift to satirical argument. And in the final section we’ll explore joke telling. Mostly what we’ll do in this class is analyze stand-up comedy with the purpose of getting up in front of the class and doing a version of all this stuff ourselves. With this purpose in mind, you’ll present three times this semester: you’ll tell a story, present a satirical argument, and tell a string of jokes. These presentations will function as public speaking practice and as exams that represent your engagement and understanding of each section. My hope is that this course will help you become more comfortable with public speaking and maybe even more artful about it too.

ENGL 135 Understanding Popular Culture: Monsters, Martians, and Mobsters: Reflections through Popular Culture and Fandom!
CRN: 49452
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Doug Sheldon sheldond@uic.edu
FIRE…BAAAAAD!, BRRAAAAIIINSSS!, HANDS IN THE AIR!
You’ve heard these outbursts over and over on TV or in movies. But where do they come from?
When we think of popular works, we tend to think of clichés, shallowness, or low-brow entertainment. Well, dear reader, I gotta tell ya, that is FALSE! We will examine how horror, sci-fi, detective fiction, comic books/graphic novels, film/tv, and other genre outlets of cultural and intersectional production are some of the MOST effective in moving us!
We will explore popular forms that have crossed genre boarders to show how we humans answer those great questions about, well, being human! Come find out how the 19 year old daughter of social radicals wrote a novel about what follies men will allow to prove their manhood. Or how a court-martialed cadet at West Point, who was also kicked out of the University of Virginia because of gambling debts, invented the detective story. See how the legacy of both these authors pops up again and again on television and in film (you can’t escape them!). And there’s way more where that came from!
But hey! Who started theses genres anyway and how did they catch on? What ideas are represented though examinations of time, space, institutions, and print? What do we see of ourselves in these popular representations? How are communities formed around these genres? How do fans participate in their celebration and creation? Let’s find out!

ENGL 153 English Grammar and Style
CRN: 49590
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jeff Gore jgore1@uic.edu
Although we regularly understand grammar as a set of prescriptive (or even annoying) rules, during the Renaissance, grammar was understood as the “art of speaking and writing well.” In this course, we’ll work to get the best of both perspectives so that rules will become tools to help you speak and write more effectively. Parts of the course will be comparable to the drills that athletes practice (such as free throws for a basketball player or kata for a practitioner of karate). You will learn to recognize parts of speech in terms of their functions in sentences and to describe them by name. You will practice using different sentence forms in order to appreciate how they allow you to convey different kinds of thoughts and feelings. You will exercise your mastery of these forms by producing short essays that emphasize different grammatical forms, and you will examine works by professional writers in terms of their grammatical and stylistic choices. By the end of the semester, you should be able to use grammatical and stylistic terms to discuss what makes writing more effective, and you should have enough practice with these grammatical forms that better writing comes more naturally to you.
**Highly Recommended for Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing students”

ENGL 154 The Will to Wonder: Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 47489
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
instructor: Jennifer Torres jtorr74@uic.edu
It’s all a bunch of rhetoric–no really, it is! Have you ever considered why you think about certain things? The world we live in is constantly influencing our thoughts and actions–that’s the reason you may end up at the movies on a Tuesday night versus studying for that test you have the next day. Everything around us–people, media, discourse– is persuading us to think some thing or some way. UNTIL… we learn to pause and reflect on what all this rhetoric is trying to do and why. In this class, we’ll learn about the various rhetorical strategies used in this world and how language continuously shapes the way we think. We’ll learn to think for ourselves and privilege doubt as a method that allows us to wonder–wonder what else may be possible once we become more autonomous and independent rhetorical beings that rule our own minds!

ENGL 154 Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 47490
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: James Sharpe jsharp21@uic.edu
Rhetoric is how people “do things” with language (and, we might say, how people “do language” with things). This course will introduce you to some of rhetoric’s foundational concepts and frameworks (rhetorical theory), consider how they’ve changed over time (rhetorical history), and guide you into their skillful application to contemporary situations (rhetorical criticism). We will ask ourselves questions about, for example, how to cope with the overwhelming amount of “information” today, why it’s so hard to meet people, what the “apps” have done to dating culture, how to get better at “verbal self-defense,” and what to make of a political culture that seems dominating by “sh*tposting,” “ratioes,” and bad-faith troll matches on social media platforms. These are all questions about rhetoric, but almost all questions in rhetoric are tangled up with other disciplines—philosophy, political thought, literature, media studies, journalism, the sciences, computer engineering, and more. This course will encourage you to approach your major and your personal interests in potentially new ways. There will be weekly homework assignments, but all homework will be geared toward your major assignments so none of it will be “wasted.” Your final project will ultimately be shaped in large part by your own curiosity, our conversations, your homework, and some input from me.

ENGL 207 Introduction to Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 47518, 47519
Days/Time: MWF 11-11:50
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
The focus of this class will be narrative technique. How do we tell a story? Each week we will read from a different novel to examine the author’s storytelling technique. We will also read selected works of literary criticism on these novels to better understand the larger ideas that readers have taken from these stories. These larger ideas or themes are intended to overlap a bit. All six novels were chosen because they highlight a story about someone who doesn’t fit in.
In addition to the assigned readings listed in the syllabus, you will be asked to complete in-class writing assignments that engage with a specific set of questions about the week’s readings. You will also be asked to write three short papers. One of these is a creative project. I will ask you to write a short story that blends your real-life experience into a fictional narrative that describes a struggle to fit in. The other two papers are more traditional literary analyses. One is a character analysis that examines a person from one of the books we have read. The other is a narrative analysis that examines two works of criticism on a novel we have read and compares your reading experience to those of the critics whose work you have read.

ENGL 207 Words and Power: An Introduction to Literary Theory
CRN: 47524, 47525
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Sunil Agnani sagnani1@uic.edu
The Greek philosopher Socrates found writers to be so dangerous he wanted them exiled from his ideal Republic. But what did he fear in a reckless imagination and a creative re-making of the world? Recently in the 20th century both totalitarian and democratic regimes have had ways of regulating words, spreading myths (“fake news”), and mitigating dissent. This course explores links between literature and the world it describes, focusing on the question: what are the links between words and power? The focus will be on four broad eras: (1) classical Greece (Plato & Aristotle) as we think of how the sophists related to public debate; (2) Enlightenment/18th century Europe, where challenges to monarchical and despotic power found expression in a new type of writing on art and literary texts (Hume, Burke, de Staël); (3) the 19th century (Marx, Baudelaire, Nietzsche); and finally (4) the modern/contemporary era, where a range of literary theories re-visit this question (Saussure, Roland Barthes, Benjamin, Foucault, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak). The goal is to provide students with an analytic “toolkit” that can be used to think critically not only about literary texts, but also about “social” texts, society and cultural works. All readings will be available as PDFs.

ENGL 207 Introduction to Interpretation and Critical Analysis: The Modernist Edition
CRN: 47526, 47527
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert jruper1@uic.edu
As a gateway course to the major in English, the main objective of English 207: Interpretation & Critical Analysis is to provide an overview of the methods of literary and cultural theory and criticism that you will come in contact with and utilize as serious students of literature and culture. Thus, this course is meant to be an introduction in how to read and write critically about literature and other cultural productions using multiple theoretical perspectives. As students acquire more knowledge about critical methods, they will aim to become more adept not only at investigating issues of form and interpretation but also applying various strategies of rhetorical analysis. Although the course is conceived as a window into majoring in English, I am expecting that my students, no matter what their primary area of study, will gain a great deal by learning to look at various kinds of texts, both literary and popular, through the multiple critical lenses we will explore.
In this section of English 207, we will be using F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as our starting point in order to explore how practitioners of various schools of literary criticism—psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, reader-response, deconstructive, new historical, queer theory, critical race studies, and post-colonial theory—make sense of and find pleasure (and displeasure) in this frequently taught American novel. Although I anticipate that most—if not all—of my students will be familiar with Fitzgerald’s work, I expect that we will all find something new–and even surprising– in it by taking another closer look armed with new questions.
As the semester progresses, students will be required to try their hand at various critical approaches using other modernist fiction assigned for the course (including Nella Larsen’s Passing), their own favorite works of literature, and trending popular media. Prerequisite(s): Completion of the University Writing requirement or concurrent registration in ENGL 161. Recommended background: 3 hours from ENGL 101-123.

ENGL 207 ENGL Interpretation and Critical Analysis: Detective Fiction
CRN: 47516, 47517
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: David Schaafsma schaaf1@uic.edu
In this course we’ll focus on the genre of detective fiction to explore various ways to read, analyze, interpret, and write critically about literature. In doing so, we will be taking on the role of detectives as we try to figure out how literature becomes “meaningful” depending on how we look at it and which questions we ask as we encounter it. We will, in other words, learn about and apply different theoretical approaches to literature, approaches that might be described as “lenses” through which we view a text and that reveal different “truths” about it. Our readings will include those that uncover the racial and gender diversity of authors and characters in the detective fiction genre

ENGL 207 Introduction to Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 47522, 47523
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Mark Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 207 Introduction to Interpretation and Critical Analysis: Detective Fiction and the Search for a Truth
CRN: 47520, 47521
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Todd Destigter tdestig@uic.edu
In this course we’ll focus on the genre of detective fiction to explore various ways to read, analyze, interpret, and write critically about literature. In doing so, we will be taking on the role of detectives as we try to figure out how literature becomes “meaningful” depending on how we look at it and which questions we ask as we encounter it. We will, in other words, learn about and apply different theoretical approaches to literature, approaches that might be described as “lenses” through which we view a text and that reveal different “truths” about it. Our readings will include those that uncover the racial and gender diversity of authors and characters in the detective fiction genre.

ENGL 208 English Studies I: Beginnings to 17th Century
CRN: 47528
Days/Time: MW 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Alfred Thomas alfredt@uic.edu
This course introduces the most significant works of literature written in England from the beginnings to the early seventeenth century. We shall begin with the heroic epic BEOWULF, which survives in a unique manuscript from around 1000 CE., and end with the later plays of Shakespeare. In between we shall consider the trilingual world of medieval and Renaissance England where Anglo-Norman French, English, and Latin all coexisted and exemplified by the LAIS of Marie de France, the English Arthurian romance SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT, THE CANTERBURY TALES of Geoffrey Chaucer and Sir Thomas More’s UTOPIA (1516). The goal of the course is to give the students an in-depth and broad exposure to some of the most influential works of literature ever written and to allow them a deeper appreciation of modern culture both in the United States and Great Britain.

ENGL 209 English Studies II: 17thC to Today
CRN: 47533
Days/Time: MW 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Anna Kornbluh kornbluh@uic.edu
This course tracks how literary forms emerged and changed in response to events like the expansion of global capitalism, the development of mass literacy, revolutions and the rise of democracy, and the growth of cities. We will study authors from England, the British Colonies, and the United States, and focus on the development of the novel as the literary form unique to modernity. We will also practice close reading to carefully appreciate the specific formal strategies involved in writing literature.

ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare
CRN: 47458, 47459
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Alfred Thomas alfredt@uic.edu
In this course we shall examine several of Shakespeare’s plays through the cinematic lens of distinguished film directors from across the Anglophone and non-Anglophone world. These plays will include TITUS (American, 2000) directed by Julie Taymor; RICHARD III (British, 1995), directed by Richard Loncraine, set in a 1930s fascistic Britain; HAMLET (Russian, 1964) directed by Grigorii Kozintsev which draws on the experience of Stalinism to highlight the political aspect of the original play; and THRONE OF BLOOD (Japanese 1957), directed by Akira Kurosawa, in which the Scottish setting of MACBETH is transposed to feudal Japan of the sixteenth century. Organized chronologically, close readings of these plays will be accompanied by full screenings of the films with a view to exploring the similarities and differences between the original plays and their cinematic adaptations. The overall goal of the course is not only to introduce some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays but also to appreciate his political and cultural relevance in an increasingly violent world. Written in a Tudor-Stuart state where religious freedoms were curtailed and playscripts were increasingly subjected to close scrutiny and censorship, Shakespeare’s drama sheds light not only on the oppressive political conditions of early-modern England but also on the rising threat of authoritarianism in twentieth- and twenty-first century America and Europe.

ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare: The Raw and the Cooked
CRN: 47460, 47461
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Jeff Gore jgore1@uic.edu
This course will pair Shakespeare’s early experimental works with the more refined comedies and tragedies from the height of his career. We will juxtapose the early slapstick (“raw”) humor of The Taming of the Shrew with the more sophisticated (“cooked”) gender-bending dialogue in Twelfth Night in order to understand different approaches to dramatic comedy and different forms of social negotiation. We will take a similarly comparative approach to “the raw and the cooked” with tragedy. T. S. Eliot referred to Shakespeare’s early tragedy Titus Andronicus as “one of the stupidest. . . plays ever written,” but recent writings on gender, race, and trauma challenge us to examine more deeply the play’s cannibalism and escalating cycles of revenge. When we turn to the author’s later masterpiece Hamlet, we will certainly encounter the play’s philosophical questions (“To be or not to be,” etc.), but we will also consider the lead character’s bawdy humor and hapless efforts to avenge his father’s murder. These pairs will help us understand different approaches to story telling, from Shakespeare’s early years as an experimental “upstart Crow” (as he was called by a jealous rival) to later years of his career when he was most devoted to refining his craft.
General Education Categories: Understanding the Past & Understanding Creative Arts

ENGL 223 Introduction to Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: What’s “English” about English Literature?
CRN: 47474
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Natasha Barnes nbbarnes@uic.edu
This course will examine the fluid notion of post colonial literature, a corpus of writing that was first used to describe the fiction of writers from formerly colonized nations. We will see how “first wave” authors like Chinau Achebe (Nigeria) and Jean Rhys (Dominica) developed an aesthetic to counter colonial descriptions of their social world in classic English texts such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. We will also be examine “new” iterations of post colonial aesthetics with the growing movement of Scots/Gaelic literature through writers like Naill O’Gallagher. With authors like Marlon James, Nalo Hopkinson and Ramabai Espinet we will also pay attention to the ways that migration, transnationalism and globalization continues to change our understanding of the novel in English.

ENGL/GLAS/MOVI 229 Introduction to Asian Film
CRN: 43803
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor; Mark Chiang mchiang@uic.edu
This class will introduce students to a broad cross-section of Asian and Asian American cinematic history. The class will focus less on the technical elements of film than their social and historical contexts. All of the films in the course depict the legacies of colonialism and the disruptive impacts of modernization on Asian societies in the 20th century. Coursework will include essays and short writing assignments, as well as a final project. Films for the class will include work by directors such as Wayne Wang, Jia Zhang-ke, Wong Kar-wai, Satyajit Ray, Juzo Itami, Lino Brocka, Park Chan-wook, Deniz Erguven, Gurinder Chadha, and Justin Lin, among others.

ENGL/MOVI 230 The End of the F**ing World?!?!: Apocalyptic Cinema
CRN: 47484
Days/Time: M 3:00-4:15/ W 3:00-5:45
Instructor: Harry Burson hburson@uic.edu
Cities are on fire! Planes fall out of the sky! A new pandemic emerges! AI threatens to replace and eventually destroy us all! Oligarchs dismantle governments as they build bunkers! The doomsday clock ticks ever closer to midnight! The twenty-first century has been defined by overlapping crises and, consequently, a marked rise in apocalyptic discourse across the globe. As our newsfeeds become increasingly filled with dystopian imagery, this course examines the frequent depiction of the end times in science fiction films. Surveying a variety of cinematic doomsday scenarios—including nuclear annihilation, robot rebellions, zombie outbreaks, and authoritarian coups—we will explore how sci-fi movies provide insight into the shifting cultural imaginary of total annihilation. Ultimately, we will consider how apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies might help us make sense of our current situation. Films will include: Godzilla (1954), La Jetée (1962), Soylent Green (1973), Terminator 2 (1991), 28 Days Later (2002), Children of Men (2006), and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

ENGL 232 Film History I: 1890-WWII
CRN: 12114, 12118
Days/Time: MW 1:00-2:50
Instructor: Harry Burson hburson@uic.edu
Co-Instructor: Brianne Neptin bnept@uic.edu
An exploration of film history from the late 19th century to the late 1940s. The journey begins with the eruption of a vigorous early cinema based on variety, spectacle, and sensation. This is followed by the rise of story-based movies and the emergence of the film director to better tell those stories. The less rigid structure of the early film industry opens up a space for women filmgoers and filmmakers, and scattered queer filmmakers challenge sexual orthodoxies. In the 1920s, filmmakers in Germany fashion dazzling images to express the psychological and political turmoil of their time, while Soviet directors use dynamic editing to make revolutionary films in tune with their revolution-forged society. The coming of sound provides filmmakers with new expressive tools and spurs a trend toward realism, culminating in the Italian neorealist movement, which creates a more open form of film storytelling whose influence is still felt today. Films currently planned for screening include: Corner in Wheat (D.W. Griffith, USA, 1909), Shoes (Lois Weber, USA, 1916), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, Germany, 1920), Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1925), Mädchen in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, Germany, 1931), Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, USA, 1941), Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1948). This course is cross-listed as AH 232 and MOVI 232.

ENGL 234 History of Television
CRN: 29021
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Podrazik podrazik@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 236 Young Adult Literature
CRN: 48468
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Kate Boulay kboulay@uic.edu
This course provides an introduction to young adult fiction, as well as analytical approaches to it, in the United States. Starting with Daddy Was a Number Runner (Meriwether, 1970), we examine how authors address, resist, and/or reinscribe specific discourses about race, age, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc. Over the course of the semester, we chart the ways the texts we read foreground the acquisition of knowledge as central to contemporary (and historical) formulations of youth.

ENGL 237 Graphic Novels
CRN: 48469
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
This class in the Graphic Novel will begin by examining some basic questions such as, “What is a Graphic Novel,” and “How do we read and understand graphic novels.” We will begin by grounding our exploration with texts about comics, such as Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud and Comics. We will then move on and examine questions like, “How have graphic novels reflected our society,” “Is there a literary Canon of Graphic Novels,” and “Why and how have they become an important and recognized literary form?” Readings will focus on work produced since the 1960’s and include both full graphic novels and specific selections. Additionally, while we are mainly interested in American Graphic Novels, we will include some influential works from Japan and Europe. Examples of International graphic novels we may examine for the course include Tintin by Herge, works by Osamu Tezuka (Astroboy), and My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame. American Graphic Novels will include both literary and populist works, such as Maus by Art Spiegelman, The Arrival by Shaun Tan, Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine. Assignments will include online discussion boards, weekly Journals, midterm and final, and an independent research paper/presentation examining a specific graphic novel.

ENGL 237 Graphic Novels
CRN: 47578
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Keegan Lannon klannon@uic.edu
For many people, when they think of comics they think of superheroes. And for good reason: the brightly-colored cast of characters from Marvel and DC have long dominated the American comics market. The expanded film and TV universes have only further reinforced this misconception.
While superhero comics certainly play a key role in the history of comics–especially American comics–they are just one type of graphic narrative available to interested readers. The fully panoply of comics includes three-panel black-and-white daily comic strips, serialized genre comics, thematic anthologies, phone-book-sized graphic novels, long- and short-form webcomics, and many others.
This course is designed for anyone with interests in comics. If you have a weekly pull-list at your local comic shop or if you have never read a comic in your life, you will find something here for you. We will read a wide variety of comics from across the various genres and publication modes that make up the medium. All you need to do is bring your curiosity.

ENGL 238 Speculative Fiction, Sci-Fi, and Horror
CRN: 49739
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Mary Anne Mohanraj mohanraj@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 238 Speculative Fiction, Sci-Fi, and Horror
CRN: 48450
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Margo Arruda marrud2@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 238 Speculative Fiction, Sci-Fi, and Horror
CRN: 49019
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Zara Imran zimran3@uic.edu
Speculative Fiction is a genre that engages with the most pertinent crisis of our times and stages a future that make us think about both possibility/impossibility, desirability/undesirability. The term, first coined by Robert A Heinlein in 1941 as a subset of science fiction that focuses on human rather than scientific problems has come to become a supergenre on its own, often subsuming science fiction in its broad conceptualization. Championed by writers and critics like Merill and Atwood in the 1980’s, its distinction from science fiction hinges on a probability, a possibility of futures that might take shape though have not yet happened. This course will familiarize students with the genre of Speculative fiction; critically thinking about the formation of the genre and its relationship and proximity to genres like science fiction, fantasy, horror, and magical realism. We will be tracking key debates surrounding the definition of speculative fiction and try to historicize its development. The texts that we will encounter in this course will speak to how the act of imagining futures is deeply tied to how one thinks about the way our reality is structured. To that end we will explore and interrogate the legacies of Empire, colonisation, the structures of racism, patriarchy, and the climate crisis.

ENGL 245 Gender and Sexuality in Early British Literature
CRN: 47477
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
This course will consider how premodern literary texts depicted and conceptualized gender and sexuality in Britain between the years 1000 and 1500 (or so), before the introduction of the modern categories we now understand. Engaging these texts may disrupt our expectations: how do the constructions of gender and sexuality that we find in these texts correspond to the twenty-first-century depictions of the “medieval” we often encounter? Course texts will include some canonical works as well as less well-known narratives, such as Silence, a romance in which a couple raises their child, “the boy who is a girl,” as a knight. Theoretical scholarship on medieval and modern sex and gender will support our investigation of these texts. Any texts not written in modern English will be provided in translation.

ENGL 245 Love is Strange: The Politics of Desire in Modern Literature
CRN: 47475
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert jruper1@uic.edu
We will begin the work of ENGL 245: Gender, Sexuality, and Literature by tracing the social forces that brought about the “invention” of heterosexuality. By immersing ourselves in this history, we will aim to become better readers of the ways in which late 19th and early 20th century writers of memoir and fiction either resisted or internalized the pathologizing voices of the sexual sciences as these texts framed masculinity and femininity as biologically determined and heterosexuality as the norm. As we close the course concentrating on 21st century queer and transgender speculative fiction about different ways of being in love, one of our overarching projects will be to locate in the literature we read patterns of resistance to both long-standing and relatively new discourses that attempt to put all of us into very confining gender and sexuality boxes. In doing so, we will investigate the ways in which notions of class, race, and ability differences inform various kinds of scientific and literary narratives about gender and sexual normalcy as well as what we have come to understand as “romantic love.” Thus, our inquiry this semester will not only inspire reflection on societal notions of who should love whom but also meditation on possibilities for creating a culture of “ethical eroticism” that encourages mutuality and love in its many possible forms.

ENGL 247 Women and Literature
CRN: 47467
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
In this course we will use the themes of horror and insanity to examine representations of women in literary texts ranging from the nineteenth century to the present day. We will pursue answers to questions such as how does the labeling of women as mentally ill serve to reinforce patriarchal power structures? Can the acts of reading and writing provide an imaginative space to transgress these boundaries? How do stories of ghosts and horror disrupt masculine narratives of normalcy and progress? Through our analysis of a variety of texts—novels, poems, and essays—we will consider how madness is represented as an act of transgression and how ghosts and hallucinations disturb social order. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which writing about the personal and bodily experiences of women influence political action. Some of the authors that we will read include: Angela Carter, Linda Hogan, Dorothy Macardle, Carmen Maria Machado and Helen Oyeyemi. This course is discussion based, and students will be asked to lead the conversation on designated days. Assessments feature a range of analytical essays and in-class reflective and creative responses.

ENGL 247 Women and Literature
CRN: 47465
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
This class invites students to adopt a socio-historical approach to texts written by and about women. While we will survey texts from various genres and time periods, we will begin by reading Ancient Greek drama alongside contemporary renditions of the same work. This comparison will provide a rich foundation for developing evaluation criteria and exploring a central question of this course: what makes a text worthy of study?
Through close readings of our selected texts and supporting documents, we will address, at least tangentially, a range of topics, including censorship, wonder (δεινός), translation, death and dying, immigration, and gender. Authors we will study include Sophocles, Maxine Kingston, Ernest Hemingway, Emma Goldman, Silvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, and Anne Carson.

ENGL 251 Literature and the Environment
CRN: 47638
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Rachel Havrelock raheleh@uic.edu
Contemporary literary works of non-fiction and fiction document and frame social upheaval and rapid environmental change. They also present alternatives and imagine different possibilities for the world. This course will examine environmental writing and the emerging genre of climate fiction (cli fi). Relevant artwork, film, and media will be part of our analysis and discussions.
We will probe the presence of fossil fuels in literature and examine whether novels and short stories present sudden rupture or slow dissolution. We will ask questions about how environmental literature draws from apocalyptic and utopian literature and what this means for representation of a warming planet. Does cli fi produce the same old visions of apocalypse or utopia or does it offer something new? How does literary form and structure change in response to emerging conditions? What worlds end or come into being in literature about climate change?

ENGL 253 Environmental Rhetoric
CRN: 48452
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Kate Boulay kboulay@uic.edu
This course explores how various actors conceive of and (re)present the idea of the environment and the modes they use to do so. What is an environment? Who says? Why? Asking these and other questions, we trace the development of the concept of the environment and the ways it is bound up in and dependent upon a variety of other discourses.

ENGL 269 Intro to Multiethnic Literature
CRN: 47471
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Em Williamson mwill42@uic.edu
In this course, we will develop a greater understanding of how multiethnic writing has shaped American literature as we know it. Through the comparative study of Black, Asian American, Latinx, and Indigenous writers, we will take these literary works from the margins of the predominantly white European literary canon and treat them as central to American literary history. Our analysis will be at once literary and historical, using close reading tools to interrogate how a work of literature emerges from its own historical moments and which of its concerns might linger in this troubling contemporary moment. Our goal when reading these various novels, poems, and short stories will be to examine the ways in which these writers represent American identity through a variety of ethnic prisms in order to see how these representations illuminate and/or complicate our understanding of American identity in the world around us.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47496
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50ONL
Instructor: Gregor Baszak baszak2@uic.edu
Writing well means to use as few words as you can to convey a message. It also means always keeping your audience in mind. Our class will be about these core principles of professional writing and more. You will learn the ins and outs of some core journalistic and public relations genres and assemble a portfolio that you will present on a personal website at the end of the semester. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.
An important note: This is a fully online class that is largely asynchronous, meaning you complete work on your own time by scheduled due dates. We will have one live session on Zoom every week on Fridays during our scheduled class time, but this meeting is about clarifying questions and going more in-depth on the materials we covered that week. Attendance is not required for passing this class, but you will get generously rewarded with extra credit if you do attend frequently, so make sure the course does fit your schedule.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47495
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 47498
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in Writing Center
CRN: 47510, 47511
Days/Time: W 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Vainis Aleksa vainis@uic.edu
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting Week 5 of the semester. Students continue to meet in class analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership. May not be repeated for Credit.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in Writing Center
CRN: 47515, 47516
Days/Time: W 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Deanna Thompson dthomp20@uic.edu
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting Week 5 of the semester. Students continue to meet in class analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership. May not be repeated for Credit.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in Writing Center
CRN: 47512, 47513
Days/Time: T 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Antonio Guerrero aguerr27@uic.edu
Pending course description. May not be repeated for Credit.

ENGL 290 Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 47506
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Eniko “Eni” Vaghy evaghy2@uic.edu
It was Percy Bysshe Shelley who defined poetry as the thing that “…lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” Shelley’s description of crafting poems endows a writer with something akin to a magical power, awarding them with the ability to perceive experiences, objects, and people in a more thorough, experimental, and vibrant manner. This remarkable way of looking at and responding to the world will carry us through the course as we analyze approaches to description, imagery, voice/tone, form, the stanza, etc. and implement these techniques in our own work and critically assess them in brief reflection essays. As our course will be following the workshop format, you will be given the opportunity to share your poems and thoughts on poetry with your peers and hear theirs in return. By this, you will be given the precious opportunity to form a community of emerging writers committed to the strengthening of their interests in the literary arts and the facilitation of each other’s work.

ENGL 290 Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 47507
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the craft of writing poetry. Our emphasis will not only be on investigating aspects of form and language with an eye toward writing and improving your own work, but also on developing a critical vocabulary to approach your peers’ work and the work of published poets. You will learn these basics through writing exercises and readings, as well as through craft lectures and workshop. Participation in a workshop is vital to the formation and evolution of one’s ideas about what poetry is, and about how it may be created. You will be writing about poems, and we will be examining poetic forms as well as free verse strategies, but most importantly, you will also be required to revise your work, dramatically and extensively as a member of our workshop and “writing community.” For you to be successful in this class, you must be open to criticism and suggestions—you must be willing to be part of a collective effort that requires professionalism, preparation, and courtesy. It is my hope that through this course you will begin to develop a writing process that will serve you as poets, as well as deepen and expand your appreciation of the art form.

ENGL 291 Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
CRN: 47509
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Eric Pahre pahre2@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 291 Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
CRN: 47508
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Gen Kwon ykwon42@uic.edu
Fiction is both ancient and ever-evolving—a practice that has shaped human expression from Stone Age storytelling circles to Renaissance marketplaces and beyond. In this course, you will explore fiction’s techniques across cultures, languages, and histories, engaging with short stories and novel excerpts that challenge assumptions about what a story can be. Each week, we will examine a craft element—structure, perspective, voice, form—through diverse literary traditions. You will not only analyze these techniques but experiment with them, using imitation and play to disrupt familiar habits and discover new creative possibilities. Writing, after all, is not about performing culture or fulfilling expectations; it is about uncovering the story you need to tell and questioning the self who tells it.
As Matthew Salesses asks, “How can a writer know what they can do without knowing many different ways that things have been done before?” Writing, like learning a language, requires risk, failure, and discomfort—but only by stepping into the unfamiliar can we arrive somewhere original.

ENGL 291 The Art and the Craft: Introduction to the Writing of Short Fiction
CRN: 48862
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Dan White dwhite44@uic.edu
The art of fiction is, at its core, an art form. As such, it possesses its own techniques and
methods, its own history and ancestry, its own questions and problems. This course is a writing workshop designed to advance your skills as a fiction writer by reading fiction (stories and novel excerpts), writing original work and critiquing your peers’ work. We will explore a range of technical-mechanical approaches to the craft of fiction in order to understand how a piece of writing works with an importance equal to what it says. These dual elements of a piece of writing—which we will call the narrative and the textual functions—constitute the bedrock of fiction as an art form, and the primary lens through which we will view the wilds of the craft.

ENGL 292 Introduction to the Writing of Nonfiction Prose
CRN: 47494
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Tricia Park tpark38@uic.edu
This course offers an introduction to the writing of creative nonfiction (CNF), an expansive genre of writing that encompasses a range of styles and techniques to tell life stories. Throughout the semester, we will read a range of creative nonfiction works, written by authors both historical and contemporary. Beginning with the origins of the word, “essay,”—from the French essayer, or to try—we will explore: How can our literary choices help us better tell our stories? How can choosing the right techniques illuminate our writing’s contents? And how can our formal choices free up our stories and reflect the complex nature of memory?
Each week, we will explore different creative nonfiction approaches through close reading, discuss how these writerly choices impact the reader’s experience of the essay, and experiment as we borrow and integrate new techniques in our own writing. Students will develop their creative instincts, hone their writing habits through regular practice, and learn how to read critically. The class will offer weekly readings, writing prompts, and feedback on your writing.
The first half of the semester will be focused on craft, or the study and discussions of readings plus in-class and take home writing assignments. The second half of the semester will focus on workshop, where students will be introduced to the delicate skill of close reading early drafts in order to offer and receive constructive feedback that encourages our classroom community to continue developing our work. Guidelines and best practices for workshop etiquette and community agreements will be provided by the instructor.
In this class you will:
● Read inventive creative nonfiction examples.
● Experiment with prompts and strategies.
● Generate and workshop new writing.
● Receive instructor and classmate feedback.

ENGL 305 Studies in Fiction
CRN: 38379
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: David Schaafsma schaaf1@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 313 Shakespearean in Revolution
CRN: 34171, 35455
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Raphael Magarik magarik@uic.edu
We will read several major Shakespeare plays that play pivotal literary roles in later moments of political and social upheaval. For instance, “King Lear,” in a remarkable essay by Jane Addams (incidentally, a figure relevant to our campus!), became the interpretive key to the shocking Pullman Strike in Chicago in the late nineteenth century, and “The Tempest” became the master-text for a series of anti-colonial writers in the middle of the twentieth century. We will be interested in understanding how Shakespeare has been appropriated in these moments of historical rupture and change, but we will also ask what those later readings tell us about the plays themselves—what representation we have of social class and economic change in “King Lear,” or what colonialism and settling meant in early modern England. Reading and viewing will mix intensive attention to Shakespeare’s plays; contextual historical and literary materials from Renaissance England; contemporary adaptations and film versions; and details “case files” allowing us to enter specific, key moments in the plays’ reception. I’m still weighing our options, but I’m thinking of “Othello” (or perhaps “Julius Caesar” and the American Civil War; the use of “Richard II” (in Shakespeare’s own day!) to incite revolt against Elizabeth; and a few others. Writing for the semester will be oriented around a single, developing project, in which students research a particular adaptation, performance, or important critical account of a Shakespeare play, writing about its circumstances, how it reads the play, and finally returning to the play’s text to reread it through that moment of reception. Register for LEC and DIS this is a linked course.

ENGL 322 “Is English We Speaking:” The Challenge of the Post Colonial Poem
CRN: 48320
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Natasha Barnes nbbarnes@uic.edu
Trinidadian Merle Hodge wrote a little known primer for Caribbean secondary school teachers with the provocative title Is English We Speaking. This course is designed to introduce students to the aesthetics and politics of postcolonial literature with special attention to poetry. We will start by interrogating how colonial poetic aesthetics shadowed the development of poetry written in subaltern English. What language and particularly what form was the postcolonial poem to take? We will look at a number of authors that took up this challenge. They include Derek Walcott, Kamau Braithwaite, Lorna Goodison and Louise Bennett among others. American poets such as Longworth, T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes and Jean Toomer will also figure in our conversations. We will of course be reading British poetry staples, Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Coleridge that conditioned these writers’ new (?) postcolonial imaginaries.

ENGL 329 Working From Home: Literatures in English
CRN: 49975
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Nasser Mufti nmufti@uic.edu
This course is about four classically feminist novelists: Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Bronte, and Jean Rhys. We will read novels like *Pride and Prejudice*, *Frankenstein*, *Jane Eyre*, and *Wide Sargasso Sea* alongside classic works of feminist literary criticism. A theme across our readings will be the question of domestic labor, or what Selma James calls “unwaged work,” and Marxist theories of revolution and the general strike.

ENGL 345 Queer Theory
CRN: 49118
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor Ronak Kapadia ronak@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 380 Advanced Professional Writing
CRN: 47537
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
This advanced professional writing course teaches ethics and argumentation relevant to writing in the workplace. Our assignments will bridge the public and private sectors and teach you how to define issues, propose changes, judge actions, and promote values within your chosen field. We will debate about controversies involving business, government, law, and medicine. Integral to these debates will be how clear thinking and good writing can create the common ground necessary for these professional communities to work and to work together.
Public Sector (public policy):
We will explore the area of public policy writing, and you will practice various genres in the policy communication process. We will learn legislative history research practices from our UIC library liaison, and you will locate, analyze and advise on an issue in public policy.
Private Sector:
In this unit we will practice writing internal and external business messages. You will work on promotional materials for a business of your choosing and develop social media strategies and crisis management solutions.
Third Sector (nonprofit):
The third sector refers to America’s non-business, non-government institutions, commonly known as nonprofit organizations, or NPOs. NPOs include most of our hospitals, a large part of our schools, and a large percentage of our colleges and universities. Habitat for Humanity is one such philanthropy, with thousands of chapters and a million volunteers. Proposal and grant writing offers a competitive edge for young job-seekers across many disciplines: art, business, corporate communications, education, environmental studies, health, music, the STEM fields, politics, sociology, etc. This unit will teach research and assessment, project management, professional editing, and formal document design, as you develop a media packet for a nonprofit of your choosing.

ENGL 380 Advanced Professional Writing
CRN: 47538
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
This advanced professional writing course teaches ethics and argumentation relevant to writing in the workplace. Our assignments will bridge the public and private sectors and teach you how to define issues, propose changes, judge actions, and promote values within your chosen field. We will debate about controversies involving business, government, law, and medicine. Integral to these debates will be how clear thinking and good writing can create the common ground necessary for these professional communities to work and to work together.
Public Sector (public policy):
We will explore the area of public policy writing, and you will practice various genres in the policy communication process. We will learn legislative history research practices from our UIC library liaison, and you will locate, analyze and advise on an issue in public policy.
Private Sector:
In this unit we will practice writing internal and external business messages. You will work on promotional materials for a business of your choosing and develop social media strategies and crisis management solutions.
Third Sector (nonprofit):
The third sector refers to America’s non-business, non-government institutions, commonly known as nonprofit organizations, or NPOs. NPOs include most of our hospitals, a large part of our schools, and a large percentage of our colleges and universities. Habitat for Humanity is one such philanthropy, with thousands of chapters and a million volunteers. Proposal and grant writing offers a competitive edge for young job-seekers across many disciplines: art, business, corporate communications, education, environmental studies, health, music, the STEM fields, politics, sociology, etc. This unit will teach research and assessment, project management, professional editing, and formal document design, as you develop a media packet for a nonprofit of your choosing.

ENGL 382 Editing and Publishing
CRN: 44817
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Sammie Burton sburto7@uic.edu
This section of English 382 is designed to introduce you to the fundamentals of editing and publishing, specifically for the academic press. This semester, you will engage in peer-discussions, whole group discussions, and in-class assignments related to a variety of writing and editing prompts. Additionally, you will critically analyze academic journals for their purposes and publishing processes. These tasks are curated to focus your skills on the editing and publishing of scholarly texts.

ENGL 383 Writing for New and Digital Media
CRN: 49508
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
This course will examine theories and practices of writing for digital media. We will build a foundation in theories of media (“the medium is the message!”) while attending to specific principles of design that will facilitate writing with a variety of digital media. Throughout the course, we will move between critical theory and pragmatic application, while paying careful attention to the discourses around media and technology. Topics will include media theory, accessibility, document design, generative artificial intelligence, and social media, among others. While no advanced technological knowledge is required, you will be experimenting with and exploring new programs, platforms, and technologies in this class.

ENGL 384 Technical Writing
CRN: 43391
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will also explore and become familiar with many real-life aspects behind the creation of technical writing, such as collaboration and presentation. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course in order to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.

ENGL 389 Writing for Community Advocacy and Activism
CRN: 47580
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Karen Leick kleick@uic.edu
In this course, students will learn about writing strategies and a variety of genres related to nonprofit organizations, advocacy, and activism. One major assignment for the class will be researching, designing, and writing a grant proposal for an organization of your choice. Other projects will include an op-ed, a newsletter for a nonprofit organization, and a white paper. Students will present the research conducted for the white paper in a professional oral presentation at the end of the semester.

ENGL 414 Enlightenment Narratives, Colonial Subjects: Literature & Empire in the 18th Century
CRN: 49957, 49958
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Sunil Agnani sagnani1@uic.edu
The global world, which many take for granted today, was formed in the eighteenth century through worldwide commerce, seafaring trade, and the establishment of colonial empires—in short, early capitalism. Alongside these social phenomena were vibrant and contentious cultural and political debates on sovereignty and slavery. How do writers and thinkers in this period conceive of the cultural, racial, and religious differences they encounter?
Enlightenment narratives, put stress on ideas of progress, the forward march of humanity, the circulation of the rights of man, and the ever-widening circle of freedom associated with this period. Yet the view of many “”colonial subjects”” in the eighteenth century should cause us to question a simply optimistic and one-sided understanding of the period.
As Diderot once put, addressing his European reader, “”You are proud of your Enlightenment, but what good is it for the Hottentot?”” (Just who the Hottentots were and why Diderot discussed this South African group of tribal peoples will be the topic of one class). We read novels (from Aphra Behn, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Daniel Defoe, and Jonathan Swift), life narratives (the anti-slavery activist Olaudah Equiano) and prose writings (from Mary Wollstonecraft, Edmund Burke, and Denis Diderot) to explore these questions.

ENGL 452 The Freshwater Lab
CRN: 48620, 48621
Days/Time: T 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Rachel Havrelock raheleh@uic.edu
Explore contemporary water issues. Engage in hands-on learning. Promote solutions.
Leverage humanities methods and urban planning and policy to examine the current
water landscape and advance creative solutions.
Availability and access to fresh water is changing rapidly. The good news is that Chicago is part of the Great Lakes Basin that holds over 20% of the fresh water on Earth. Protecting this miraculous water while supporting human endeavors marks one of the most crucial challenges of our time.
This unique course is experiential, interdisciplinary and collaborative. You’ll participate in field trips and learn from local leaders and water experts. Leadership training and professional development are tailored to your interests and skills.
Join The Freshwater Lab for an unforgettable, transformative experience!
For more information, visit freshwaterlab.org. University writing requirement.

ENGL 466 American Histories: Narrative, Nation, and the Global in Contemporary Multiethnic (American) Fiction
CRN: 47554, 47555
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Ainsworth Clarke ac57@uic.edu
The course will be reading recent multiethnic (American) fiction against the backdrop of debates regarding world literature and globalization occurring in the field of literary studies. Our focus will revolve around four contemporary American novels: Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters, Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Tommy Orange’s There There, and Karen Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange and investigate the degree to which they resonate with the claims regarding the global that prevail in the field.

ENGL 480 Introduction to Teaching of English in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 47552, 47553
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Lauren Johnson lrjohns2@uic.edu
English 480 is the first required methods course for the Teaching of English major and a course for anyone who wants to explore the possibility of being an English teacher. Together, we will explore the seemingly simple question: Why teach English? This question will undoubtedly lead to a series of related questions, such as: What is the purpose of English/Language Arts? What does English teaching look like in different settings? How do our experiences as students shape our perspectives and commitments? How do our students influence what teaching English means? Through our learning, we will consider multiple perspectives and develop emerging frameworks for how we might approach English teaching. Course requirements include 12 hours of fieldwork in an area high school. Sophomore or above.

ENGL 482 Writing Center Leadership
CRN: 21190, 21191
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Charitianne Williams cwilli31@uic.edu
Pending course description. Senior-standing or 9 hours ENGL courses and consent of Writing Center.

ENGL 484 Topics of Teaching English
CRN: 49624
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Abby Kindelsperger akinde4@uic.edu
An exciting new elective option for Teaching of English majors, this course will provide deep, scaffolded practice of instructional planning. Focal topics and tasks include modifying existing curricular materials to meet the needs of diverse learners, incorporating technology tools in lesson plans, and designing unit plans around topics of interest. Note that there is no required fieldwork for this course. Prerequisite: ENGL 480.

ENGL 486 The Teaching of Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 47023, 47024
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
Why teach writing? How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the particular details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers.
Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you have learned in various sections of the course.
Prerequisite: ENGL 480 or consent of instructor

ENGL 487 Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 47558, 47559
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Abby Kindelsperger akinde4@uic.edu
Intended as part of the English Education methods sequence, this course focuses on how to plan effective and engaging lessons focused on reading comprehension and literary analysis, as well as how to scaffold instruction for diverse learners and English language learners. Major assignments include lesson plans and a teaching demonstration.
3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Field work required. ENGL 480, completion of University writing requirement or consent of instructor.

ENGL 488 Methods of Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 48771, 48772
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Kris Chen kchen96@uic.edu
To be taken in conjunction with ED 425 (Curriculum and Instruction), English 488 is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses. It is to be taken only by English education students the semester before student teaching. Although this course is for both undergraduate and graduate students, B.A. students should register for CRN 48771, and M.A. students should register for CRN 48772. The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues – to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Additional focus will be on long-and-short-term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 488 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit, and practice teaching lesson plans they design. Prerequisite – senior standing, completion of University writing requirement or 9 hours of English, or consent of instructor.

ENGL 490 Advanced Writing of Poetry
CRN: 12504, 20335
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Christina Pugh capugh@uic.edu
In this class, we’ll be writing and revising poems in specific genres (including in some rhyming and metrical forms), to be submitted as a final portfolio at the end of the course. Students will also write a prose introduction to their portfolios, as well as a short critical paper based on some of our readings. In our workshop discussions, we’ll note and appreciate the strengths of class members’ poems; and we will also work to inspire and encourage the poems’ writers on to new revisions of their work. For this reason, class participation and commenting on others’ poems is crucial. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to the relationship between sentence and line – especially as it is expressed in line breaks, line length, and stanza formation. We’ll consider varieties of poetic music and poetic voice. The course includes critical materials addressing these issues, as well as older and contemporary poems that we’ll be reading for illustration and inspiration. We’ll be considering strong literary (lyric) models and will work from the notion that critical and creative thinking inform one another. Our emphasis will be on the discussion of student poems and on the development of craft at the advanced undergraduate level — in an environment that is rigorous, but also positive and encouraging. Prerequisite ENGL 290.

ENGL 491 Advanced Writing of Fiction
CRN: 12509, 20342
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Kim O’Neil kimoneil@uic.edu
This is a combined graduate and advanced undergraduate fiction workshop. We will start by studying the craft of fiction, “reading as writers” a diverse, strange, and pleasing range of work by published authors and examining what each is up to—by way of narrative POV, distance, voice, and speed; detail and dialogue; characterization; structure; scene and summary, syntax and sound. This is our toolbag as writers. In order to figure out how our tools work, we will pay close attention to how others have used them and to what effect. And we’ll bring these understandings of craft to bear as readers for each other in workshop. In workshops, we’ll support each other as a collaborative class community, meeting each writer where they are at with the kind of thoughtful, specific, respectful peer feedback we all want: attentive to intent, identifying what’s working, as well as opportunities to grow. Along the way, you will be encouraged to take risks with structures and prose styles that best serve the writerly effects you seek. Rather than limit our concept of what the short story can do, we will work toward an expansive understanding of the genre. Prerequisite ENGL 291

ENGL 491 Advanced Writing of Fiction
CRN: 35763, 35764
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
This course is designed for students who have a practical understanding of the elements of short stories and novels and hope to improve as fiction writers. We will read a diverse array of published fiction, examining these works less as literary critics than as fellow writers, our focus being process and technique, i.e., the writer’s craft, how writers do what they do, what stories deliver and why. Examining specific traits of the craft—voice, perspective, characterization, conflict, setting, detail, dialogue, etc.—will help sharpen our skills as both readers and writers. The coursework involves readings, short exercises and a rotating student workshop, wherein each student produces at least two short stories or novel chapters. Our discussion and workshopping of peers’ stories will focus on the elements and techniques studied and practiced throughout the semester. As writers, readers, editors and critics, we will engage in an active semester-long practice. It might even be actual fun (no guarantees). Prerequisite ENGL 291

ENGL 492 Advanced Writing of Nonfiction Prose
CRN: 12510, 20346
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
This is an advanced creative nonfiction (CNF) course for students who have taken Engl. 201 or the equivalent. Students will continue to develop skills and techniques in CNF through examining the craft of published work and writing their own essays in various subgenres of CNF, including personal essay, literary journalism, and nature writing. This class will be primarily run as a workshop: students will both receive and contribute constructive feedback. Readings, short exercises, two completed essays, and workshop sessions will make up the course work. Each student will also act as a “primary critic” to lead workshops of their peers’ essay drafts. Prerequisite ENGL 292

ENGL 493 Internship in Nonfiction Writing
CRN: 25243, 25244
Days/Time: T 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Karen Leick kleick@uic.edu
Earn course credit while working at an internship with a writing focus. Students must contact instructor in advance for course approval and guidance with the internship application process. Class meets once a week; students earning 3 credits must work 8 hours a week at the internship; those earning 6 credits must work a minimum of 10 hours a week. Students learn professional writing and organizational communication with an emphasis on initiative, planning, and meeting deadlines. Both the instructor and internship supervisor mentor the students during the course.
Prerequisite(s): Grade of C or better in ENGL 280 and consent of the instructor
Recommended background: Junior or senior standing
To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Conference and one Practice

ENGL 496 Portfolio Practicum
CRN: 49959
Days/Time: T 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
English 496 is a capstone course in UIC’s undergraduate program in Professional Writing designed to assist our students in landing their first post-degree position as a writing professional. The major focus of this seminar is creating and revising a writing portfolio that not only represents each student’s unique talents as a writer of specialized genres but also showcases their ability to expand upon their proven academic skill sets in new professional writing situations.
In order to prepare seminar participants for the job market of their choosing, students will compile a working portfolio of their best professional writing samples through an on-line platform of their choosing and in this way build upon and refine a portfolio they have already begun as members of our professional writing program. Over the course of the seminar, students will learn how to (re-)design and structure material they have already produced as students of writing for audiences beyond the university. In putting together their writing portfolio, students will be given ample opportunity to reflect on the skills they have acquired in their education in order to establish a recognizable and marketable professional identity. In a culminating assignment, students will not only present their portfolio to the class but also practice talking to future employers through mock interviews.
This seminar is designed to increase students’ confidence as they enter the job market by preparing them to share verbally and in writing their achievements as young professionals well-prepared to utilize the writing skills they have carefully developed and honed during their university education.
Prerequisite,Consent of Instructor

ENGL 498 Educational Practice with Seminar I and II
CRN: 12518, 40998
Day/Time: ARR
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department.
Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499.
The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development. Department Approval needed.

ENGL 498 Educational Practice with Seminar I and II
CRN: 12521
Day/Time: ARR
Instructor: Lauren Johnson lrjohns2@uic.edu
To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499. Department approval needed.

ENGL 499 Educational Practice with Seminar I and II
CRN: 12530, 41001
Days/Time: ARR
Instructor: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department.
Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499.
The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development. Department approval needed.

ENGL 499 Educational Practice with Seminar I and II
CRN: 12533
Day/Time: ARR
Instructor: Lauren Johnson lrjohns2@uic.edu
To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499. Department approval needed.

ENGL 500 MA Proseminar: Literature and the Nation
CRN: 22397
Days/Time: W 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Raphael Magarik magarikuic.edu
Benedict Anderson famously intertwines the rise of nationalism with the print capitalism and the rise of vernacular literature, especially two characteristically modern types of text: newspapers and novels. In this course, we will take up his invitation to think capaciously about the relationship between literary and socio-political forms. However, inspired by (and reading carefully!) theoretical debates over his “modernist” dating of the nation, we will read a much wider, more capacious archive of narrative texts. Some of our big questions will be: what are the coordinated contrasts between nation and empire, novel and epic, and do they hold up to critical scrutiny? When and where is the nation exactly—is it a product of industrialization, the Reformation and confessionalization, Absolutism, New World exploration and colonization, democratization and mass literacy, or something else?—and what did narrative literature look like before it? How (and by whom, and under what pressure?) are nations reproduced, what kind of new imperatives do they place on childbirth and child-reading, and how does this relate to the reproduction of culture? I’ve deliberately chosen a pretty broad, loose theme, which will allow this course to serve as an introduction to graduate literary study.

ENGL 503 Proseminar
CRN: 21006
Days/Time: F 12:00-2:50
Instructor: Helen Jun junhelen@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 517 British Literature and Culture: Poems on the Edge
CRN: 35521
Days/Time: T 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Mark Canuel mcanuel@uic.edu
This course concentrates on the work of poets who position their work on the outskirts of the everyday violent course of life in Britain in the 1790s and early 1800s. Our readings during the semester will focus on William Blake, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, John Clare, Charlotte Smith, and Percy B. Shelley. Focusing a distant and critical eye on nationalism, imperialism, militarization, property acquisition, increasing poverty, technological advancement, and early industrialization, the works we’ll study range from the jarring chords of Blake’s “London” to the visionary heights of Shelley’s _Queen Mab_. How do poems establish a critical vantage point on the pressures of their moment? What forms are deemed appropriate for it? What alliances with the past are either preserved or broken? How do these poets stake out new positions for authors in the terrifying world they document? What are the lines of connection and disconnection between Romanticism’s aesthetic and critical project and the critical work we do in our own world today? Our readings in poetry will be supplemented by forays into Romantic as contemporary aesthetics and recent criticism on Romanticism. Requirements: attendance and participation at all classes, weekly contributions to online reading journal, one midterm paper, one final paper.

ENGL 537 Genres of the Postcolonial: Global and Multiethnic Literature and Culture
CRN: 33331
Days/Time: R 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Nasser Mufti nmufti@uic.edu
The “postcolonial” names a catachresis. After all, when has there been an “after” to colonialism? Consequently, “postcolonial” has come to mean a variety of different things in different contexts. One of the avenues with which scholars have attempted to define this elusive category is through a taxonomy of genre (David Scott’s opposition between anticolonial romance and postcolonial tragedy, for example). This course surveys a range of genres in one national context: the West Indies. Each week we will read a critical text that theorizes genre alongside a (sometimes partially) corresponding work of literature.
A rough sketch of the semester looks like: Romance in the fiction of W.E.B. Du Bois and Claude McKay; Epic in Wilson Harris’s Palace of the Peacock, Aime Cesaire’s surrealism, Realism in George Lamming and Sam Selvon’s novels, Bildungsroman and Farce in V.S. Naipaul’s novels, the Historical Novel in Vic Reid novel New Day; Tragedy in Jean Rhys and Lamming, and the essay in C.L.R. James. By the end of the semester, students will have a good handle on some theorizations of genre and decolonization, and a strong handle on West Indian literature.

ENGL 555 Teaching College Writing
CRN: 12546
Days/Time: M 2:00-4:50
instructor: Mark Bennett mbenne2@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 557 Language and Literacy: Pragmatism, Schooling, and the Quest for Democracy
CRN: 26304
Days/Time: T 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Todd DeStigter tdestig@uic.edu
What does it mean to teach for justice and democracy, and what does American pragmatism have to contribute to conversations regarding whether it’s desirable or even possible to do so? These central questions will provide a framework for our exploration of the (ir?)relevance of our work as scholars and teachers of English to the world beyond our classrooms and campuses.
Although we will occasionally discuss specific curricular choices and teaching methods, most of our readings will encourage us to consider broader theoretical issues such as 1) how “democracy” and “social justice” can be defined and whether these remain viable sociopolitical aspirations, 2) the extent to which pragmatism as a philosophical/analytical method provides useful ways to think about ameliorating social and economic problems, and 3) what schools —specifically, English language arts classes—have to do with any of this.
Put another way, this course will be the site of an ongoing conversation about whether we as students and teachers of English can/should hope that our work “matters” beyond our own intellectual or financial interests. Though our reading list will evolve in response to our discussions and students’ recommendations, some likely texts (or at least selected chapters from them) are these:
PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED by Paulo Freire
LEARNING TO LABOR: HOW WORKING CLASS KIDS GET WORKING CLASS JOBS by Paul Willis
ORIGINAL SINS: THE MISEDUCATION OF BLACK AND NATIVE CHILDREN AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF RACISM IN AMERICA by Eve Ewing
THE ORIGIN OF CAPITALISM by Ellen Meiskins Wood
SOCIAL LINGUISTICS AND LITERACIES: IDEOLOGY IN DISCOURSES by James Gee
MARXISM AND INTERSECTIONALITY by Ashley J. Bohrer
DEMOCRACY AS FETISH by Ralph Cintron
SANCTUARY EVERYWHERE: THE FUGITIVE SACRED IN THE SONORAN DESERT by
LIBERALISM AND SOCIAL ACTION by John Dewey
TWENTY YEARS AT HULL HOUSE by Jane Addams
PRAGMATISM by William James
THE FIRE NEXT TIME by James Baldwin
CLASS DISMISSED: WHY WE CAN’T TEACH OR LEARN OUR WAY OUT OF INEQUALITY by John Marsh
THE IGNORANT SCHOOLMASTER by Jacques Ranciére
English 557 is intended for students in the graduate English, Education, and TESOL programs. Course requirements include bi-weekly “conversation papers” used to prompt class discussions, a mid-term paper, and an end-of-term paper/project of each student’s choosing. Interested students are encouraged to contact Todd DeStigter (tdestig@uic.edu).

ENGL 570 Program for Writers Poetry Workshop
CRN: 33612
Days/Time: R 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Christina Pugh capugh@uic.edu
This course is a poetry workshop for graduate-level poets. Graduate-level writers in other genres are also welcome, as are varied styles and aesthetic commitments on the part of workshop participants. Discussion of student work will be the primary focus here, but we will also read some notable recent volumes of contemporary poetry. The course includes critical readings that directly treat issues of poetic making, including the study of syntax, line, and linguistic music. Students will write new poems that will be discussed in workshop and revised for a final portfolio; they will also produce an artist’s statement to accompany their final portfolios. My goal is for you to be writing with energy and focus, and for you to deepen your own poetic practice by thinking critically about the elements of craft that are available to you as a poet. I also strive to create a classroom environment that is encouraging and supportive – while staying seriously focused on the art and craft of making poems.

ENGL 571 Program for Writers: Fiction Workshop
CRN: 33333
Days/Time: R 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Christopher Grimes cgrimes@uic.edu
We’ll be championing each other’s work in this graduate-level fiction workshop. There are no genre or thematic prohibitions. All forms of fiction welcome, be they novels-in-progress, novellas, short fiction, short-short or micro-fiction. Whatevs. It’s ultimately your creative and critical space.

ENGL 572 Novel Workshop
CRN: 49960
Days/Time: W 2:00-4:50
Instructor: Luis Urrea lurrea@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 585 Before the Linguistic Turn: Theoretical Sites
CRN: 29630
Days/Time: M 5:00-7:50
Instructor: Nicholas Brown cola@uic.edu
In the early 1990s Fredric Jameson wrote that “the modernist aesthetic paradigm… was on the point of being confirmed as a virtual religious doxa when it unexpectedly vanished without a trace.” In terms of the fate of the “canon,” literary tradition, or the self-revising norms of what counts as ambitious literature, the claim is exaggerated: even some of Jameson’s primary exhibits turn out to be committed to formal immanence in a way that was easy to overlook at the time. But in the realm of criticism and theory, it remains robust. Critical works that were unavoidable even toward the end of the mid-century faded first into anthologies, and then into a sort of backdrop, acknowledged as the ground against which later developments are discerned, but rarely looked at in and for itself.
This course aims to reconsider the literary criticism and theory of the middle half of the twentieth century, roughly 1925-1975. Although a historicizing, dialectical view (e.g.: what is the relationship of a given conception of literature to the institution of literature in the longue durée? what is its social context, what are its political implications, its relation to its predecessors and successors?) is not to be avoided, the focus of the class will be elsewhere: to understand and evaluate these critical works on their own terms as answers to the question: What is literature?
Our (painfully un-diverse) readings may include: I. A. Richards, _Principles of Literary Criticism_ (1924); William Empson, _Some Versions of Pastoral_ (1935); Erich Auerbach, _Mimesis_ (1946; English translation 1953); Cleanth Brooks, _The Well-Wrought Urn_ (1947); René Wellek and Austin Warren, _Theory of Literature_ (1948); Northrop Frye, _Anatomy of Criticism_ (1957); Ian Watt, _The Rise of the Novel_ (1957); Hans-Georg Gadamer, _Truth and Method_ (1960; English translation 1975); J. Hillis Miller, _Poets of Reality_ (1965); Frank Kermode, _The Sense of an Ending_ (1967); Hugh Kenner, _The Counterfeiters_ (1968); Paul Ricoeur, _The Conflict of Interpretations_ (1969; English translation 1974).

ENGL 150-151-159 Course Descriptions

ENGL 150

ENGL 150 Introduction to Academic Writing Nonnative Speakers
CRN: 49437
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 150 Introduction to Academic Writing Nonnative Speakers
CRN: 49436
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 151

ENGL 151 First-Generation & Underrepresented Minority Students Writing Legacy
CRN: 49445
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
This course is designed specifically for first-generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable you to increase your confidence as an academic, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming undergraduates. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each pupil’s cultural richness. You will learn how to access and use available resources and develop networks within UIC support services and enrichment programs. After attending campus tours and learning about the Sustainable Development Goals as delineated by the United Nations, including the goal of quality education, you will develop Artivism (art+activism) Legacy Projects that you will share at an open Gallery Presentation at UIC. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing,  required First-Year Writing courses at UIC, and collegiate life.

ENGL 151 First-Generation & Underrepresented Minority Students Writing Legacy
CRN: 49446
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
This course is designed specifically for first-generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable you to increase your confidence as an academic, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming undergraduates. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each pupil’s cultural richness. You will learn how to access and use available resources and develop networks within UIC support services and enrichment programs. After attending campus tours and learning about the Sustainable Development Goals as delineated by the United Nations, including the goal of quality education, you will develop Artivism (art+activism) Legacy Projects that you will share at an open Gallery Presentation at UIC. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing,  required First-Year Writing courses at UIC, and collegiate life.

ENGL 151 First-Generation & Underrepresented Minority Students Writing Legacy
CRN: 49447
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
This course is designed specifically for first-generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable you to increase your confidence as an academic, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming undergraduates. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each pupil’s cultural richness. You will learn how to access and use available resources and develop networks within UIC support services and enrichment programs. After attending campus tours and learning about the Sustainable Development Goals as delineated by the United Nations, including the goal of quality education, you will develop Artivism (art+activism) Legacy Projects that you will share at an open Gallery Presentation at UIC. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing,  required First-Year Writing courses at UIC, and collegiate life.

ENGL 151 Introduction to Academic Writing: “Where are you going? Where have you been?”
CRN: 49444
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Sarah Primeau sprimeau@uic.edu
The title for this course is, “Where are you going? Where have you been?” This semester, we will begin by writing about familiar language and rhetoric, especially the ways that language is an essential part of our identities and everyday lives. We will then examine the language and rhetorical strategies musicians use to connect with public audiences, and finally the language and rhetorical strategies that scholars at the university use to share research and new ideas. In this process, we will discuss ways that writers bring their own unique voices to the kind of writing that is traditionally valued at the university and in academia. In other words, as the course title says, we will study “where we have been” and “where we are going.”
The four major writing projects each conclude with a paper: a writer’s memoir, an analysis of song lyrics, a researched argument essay, and a reflection on your learning in the course. Leading up to the draft in each project, you will have several smaller assignments designed to prepare you for writing each paper, and you will also receive feedback from me and your classmates. The purpose of this class is to provide opportunities to examine and practice a variety of linguistic and rhetorical strategies while honoring our past, present, and future selves.

ENGL 159

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 46708
Days/Time: M 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 46709
Days/Time: W 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 46711
Days/Time: F 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help students move through the First-Year Writing sequence more quickly by supporting the required writing for English 160. This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 Instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 41705 Global
Days/Time: M 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.
This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40312
Days/Time: W 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.
This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 41707 Global
Days/Time: F 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.
This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 41710 Global
Days/Time: W 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.eduEnglish 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.
This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 160 Course Descriptions

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11462
Days/Time: ARR
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos Carating cvlaho2@uic.edu
In this class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about heroes and modern culture. What is a hero, and how does this idea change across time and culture? Who can be heroic, and how? Was there ever a time you acted heroically? Why is the world so obsessed with superhero movies? Why do we like anti-heroes as much as traditional heroes, and do both types exist in real life? You will write about these questions and more through weekly activities and 4 major writing projects consisting of outlines, rough drafts, and final drafts.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11601
Days/Time: ARR
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos Carating cvlaho2@uic.edu
In this class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about heroes and modern culture. What is a hero, and how does this idea change across time and culture? Who can be heroic, and how? Was there ever a time you acted heroically? Why is the world so obsessed with superhero movies? Why do we like anti-heroes as much as traditional heroes, and do both types exist in real life? You will write about these questions and more through weekly activities and 4 major writing projects consisting of outlines, rough drafts, and final drafts.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11832
Days/Time: ARR
Instructor: Catherine Vlahos Carating cvlaho2@uic.edu
In this class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about heroes and modern culture. What is a hero, and how does this idea change across time and culture? Who can be heroic, and how? Was there ever a time you acted heroically? Why is the world so obsessed with superhero movies? Why do we like anti-heroes as much as traditional heroes, and do both types exist in real life? You will write about these questions and more through weekly activities and 4 major writing projects consisting of outlines, rough drafts, and final drafts.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Media, Mythmaking, and Contemporary Culture
CRN: 11828
Days/Time: MW 8:00-9:15
Instructor: William Wells wwells3@uic.edu
This course explores the myriad ways we come to know ourselves through storytelling. Through the analysis of a diverse range of genres spanning from the “academic” (literature, theory, and philosophy) to the everyday (TV and film, online content), we will come to understand the compulsion toward meaning making in the modern world, as well as its benefits and risks.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Defining and Redefining Heroes
CRN: 30663
Days/Time: MW 9:30- 10:45
Instructor: Robert Wilson rmw02@uic.edu
In this class, you will explore texts, videos, and music that demonstrate and discuss our cultural desire for heroes and how we have defined them over the years. We will explore how our ideas about what constitutes a hero are impacted by our social values. This course is designed to help you hone your writing skills across different writing genres and to help you think critically about yourself and the society in which you live.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I:AI Anxieties
CRN: 30667
Days/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Harry Burson hburson@uic.edu
This course examines how something called “Artificial Intelligence” is supposedly on the verge of reshaping every aspect of our daily lives. We are inundated with proponents of AI proclaiming that this technology is ushering in a new era of productivity for business, government, and education. Critics have meanwhile cast AI as a grave threat to human civilization itself. Pushing beyond this hyperbolic prognostication, in this class we will consider the cultural response to AI, situating it as part of a longer history of disruptive “new” media technologies. Students will read recent scholarship addressing the social impacts of AI and will watch films and television shows that portray artificial intelligence as an ever-evolving source of anxiety for humanity. Questions we’ll ask include: what exactly do we mean by the term “artificial intelligence”? How have fears about AI changed over time? What are the environmental impacts of AI? How does artificial intelligence alter how we think about human intelligence and identity? Writing assignments throughout the semester will encourage students to critically investigate AI as we reconsider our everyday encounters with this omnipresent technology.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts: Propaganda Fide
CRN: 11337
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Gordon Middleton amiddl5@uic.edu
Propaganda has been going through some growth spurts of late. Back in 1622 when Pope Gregory XV used the phrase Congregatio de propaganda fide”” it simply meant “Congregation for propagating the faith. Some associate propaganda with such things as the Nazis’ Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda or the Soviets’ agitprop. But propaganda still holds some sense of propagating the faith. And, as systematic as propaganda has been in the past, over at least the last 25 years, in the hands of authoritarian “”strongmen”” as Putin, Erdoğan, and Orbán, we are seeing evidence that there is an increasing casualness to how it is often now deployed. This is happening in the US more and more. As well as ideas and histories of propaganda, we’ll look at the role of such things as machine learning, misinformation, media literacy, information silos, flooding the zone, conspiracy theories, and deepfakes.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing 1: ““Information is not knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
CRN: 11332
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
The readings in this course will explore a range of issues, such as social relationships with neighbors and to what extent social class and classism have affected the global community, that are and will be relevant to your experience as citizens of the UIC campus community of thinkers, readers, and writers. You will be embarking a journey that will begin with closely observing and describing information. Then, we will focus on analyzing this information in relation to multiple experiences and viewpoints, and finally, you will develop the confidence to make the move from information to knowledge, though developing skills in applying, analyzing, and evaluating, and ultimately, writing argument-based assignments. We will emphasize, overall, in this class, making the transition to and developing confidence in college-level thinking, reading, and writing through a range of interactive activities in and outside of class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Dissimulation in Life and on the Screen
CRN: 11496
Days/Time: MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Janson Jones ecojones@uic.edu
As the 21st century continues to roll forward, we find ourselves in a maelstrom of digital texts aiming to persuade our thoughts and actions. We read, write, stream, engage, post, repost, like, share, and block. Our daily lives are, in a a sense, perpetually shifting tangles of persuasive communications, but to what extent can we critically interrogate the fact from fiction, the screen from reality? How many of us are simply willing to accept the untruth as the fact? Conceptually, this course will focus on these issues of perceived reality and authenticity in our digital and social lives.
At its core, ENGL 160 is an introduction to critical thinking, rhetoric, interrogation, analysis, and the process of composition. We’ll explore strategies of communication through a number of rhetorical situations. In our first project, you will develop a reflective, dynamic, and engaging memoir about a realization of perceived truth in your life. In another, you’ll analyze the rhetorical strategies deployed in contemporary texts aimed at persuading audiences. Finally, you will generate an argumentative essay that takes a position on some aspect of dissimulation in our current digital world.
In each of these projects, the process of developing, writing, and revising your lines or reasoning in relation to a defined “real world” audience will be just as important as the final “paper” itself. Similarly, collaboration and discussion will be extensive throughout these writing processes. Each of these skills can help equip you to navigate real-world texts (whether as a writer or as a reader) in a reality often inundated with willful untruths and dissimulation.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing 1: Information is not knowledge. – Albert Einstein
CRN: 41625
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
The readings in this course will explore a range of issues, such as social relationships with neighbors and to what extent social class and classism have affected the global community, that are and will be relevant to your experience as citizens of the UIC campus community of thinkers, readers, and writers. You will be embarking a journey that will begin with closely observing and describing information. Then, we will focus on analyzing this information in relation to multiple experiences and viewpoints, and finally, you will develop the confidence to make the move from information to knowledge, though developing skills in applying, analyzing, and evaluating, and ultimately, writing argument-based assignments. We will emphasize, overall, in this class, making the transition to and developing confidence in college-level thinking, reading, and writing through a range of interactive activities in and outside of class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Dissimulation in Life and on the Screen
CRN: 11526
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Janson Jones ecojones@uic.edu
As the 21st century continues to roll forward, we find ourselves in a maelstrom of digital texts aiming to persuade our thoughts and actions. We read, write, stream, engage, post, repost, like, share, and block. Our daily lives are, in a a sense, perpetually shifting tangles of persuasive communications, but to what extent can we critically interrogate the fact from fiction, the screen from reality? How many of us are simply willing to accept the untruth as the fact? Conceptually, this course will focus on these issues of perceived reality and authenticity in our digital and social lives.
At its core, ENGL 160 is an introduction to critical thinking, rhetoric, interrogation, analysis, and the process of composition. We’ll explore strategies of communication through a number of rhetorical situations. In our first project, you will develop a reflective, dynamic, and engaging memoir about a realization of perceived truth in your life. In another, you’ll analyze the rhetorical strategies deployed in contemporary texts aimed at persuading audiences. Finally, you will generate an argumentative essay that takes a position on some aspect of dissimulation in our current digital world.
In each of these projects, the process of developing, writing, and revising your lines or reasoning in relation to a defined “real world” audience will be just as important as the final “paper” itself. Similarly, collaboration and discussion will be extensive throughout these writing processes. Each of these skills can help equip you to navigate real-world texts (whether as a writer or as a reader) in a reality often inundated with willful untruths and dissimulation.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts – Modernizing Myths
CRN: 46792
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Ethan Lafond elafo@uic.edu
In this course, you will look at how traditional folk forms of storytelling function in the modern day. This will involve examining both the process of “intertemporal translation” – taking extant stories, in English or other languages, and giving them a “modern” form – and how folklore is still an important part of culture in the modern day. This will go beyond the classroom – while some of what we look at will be in books, you will also be examining how storytelling exists in your own communities. Ultimately, the goal of this class is not merely to witness these things, but to be prepared to write about them – in a rhetorical analysis, an interview project, an argumentative essay, and a reflective essay, you will also be writing about what you witness or what you think about it. Stories are very likely to be extremely emotionally important things, and that’s important to bring to the table – strongly feeling your opinions about stories is going to be key to developing your ability to write about them, and in the long run to developing your ability to write within academia more generally.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing 1
CRN: 46734
Days/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50
Instructor: Jared Hackworth
jhack@uic.edu
This course will examine the ways that the aesthetics of place/space affect our lives. Students will look at their communities in Chicago or its suburbs and examine how visual forms and urban design impact their everyday lives. Students will complete four projects:
1. a personal narrative about the aesthetics/materiality of a space that matters to them (such as Michelle Zauner’s “Crying in Hmart”)
2. a rhetorical analysis of a text about a Chicago neighborhood or its suburbs. Options could include analyzing a painting, like Hopper’s Nighthawks at The Art Institute, a chapter from Richard Wright’s Native Son, or a non-fiction essay like Crump’s “The Angriest Queer.”
3. an argumentative review that suggests the merit of a performance/art piece they view in the city in context with the conversation surrounding that performance—a concert, performance, museum visit, etc.
4. A meta-cognitive essay that reflects on the student’s growth in writing over the semester and the role of aesthetics in our lives.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing for an Audience
CRN: 11393
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Willow Schenwar rcroke2@uic.edu
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? What futures might we imagine, and how do we set ourselves towards (or away from) these possible futures? How are people affected differently by social and ecological conditions, based on race, gender, ethnicity, ability, and economic and citizenship status? In this course, students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such questions. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, youth activism, and media literacy and misinformation.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts – Modernizing Myths
CRN: 46722
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Ethan Lafond elafo@uic.edu
In this course, you will look at how traditional folk forms of storytelling function in the modern day. This will involve examining both the process of “intertemporal translation” – taking extant stories, in English or other languages, and giving them a “modern” form – and how folklore is still an important part of culture in the modern day. This will go beyond the classroom – while some of what we look at will be in books, you will also be examining how storytelling exists in your own communities. Ultimately, the goal of this class is not merely to witness these things, but to be prepared to write about them – in a rhetorical analysis, an interview project, an argumentative essay, and a reflective essay, you will also be writing about what you witness or what you think about it. Stories are very likely to be extremely emotionally important things, and that’s important to bring to the table – strongly feeling your opinions about stories is going to be key to developing your ability to write about them, and in the long run to developing your ability to write within academia more generally.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 46717
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course, we’ll write about the art of boxing. The first writing project is a descriptive summary where you will summarize three rounds from the 1971 fight between Joe Frazier and Muhammed Ali. In addition to detailing techniques and key moments of exchange between the boxers, this kind of summary asks you to try to capture the mood and atmosphere of live performance by including details of audience reaction. The second writing project is a rhetorical analysis where you will analyze scenes from the HBO documentary Thrilla in Manila, which chronicles the 1975 rematch between Frazier and Ali. The point of this writing project is to become familiar with ethos, logos, pathos, and kairos as specific tools for analysis that can help you think more deeply about what you watch and read. The third writing project is an argumentative essay where you will make an argument about a competitive fighter of your own choice. This argument will include descriptive summary and analysis as well as a focus on historical and cultural context, which will require you to do some research. The point of this paper is to try to persuade an audience that might likely disagree with your argument to take your argument seriously. The fourth and final writing project is a reflection where you will make an argument about your work as a writer in this course. Your argument will include summary and analysis of the three papers you wrote leading up to this final project.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 46716
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
All of us have experienced some form of illness ranging from the mundane—a cold, flu, or food poisoning—to rare and serious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic caused us to consider illness in a new way: blurring the boundaries between sick and well and exposing the unequal and often biased structures that underlie our medical systems. In this course we will discuss the relationship between writing, illness, and the body. Can writing convey pain and help to alleviate mental and/or physical suffering? How can we use writing to advocate for change and equality? Through reading, writing, and discussing a variety of texts—memoirs, op-ed pieces, manifestos, and argumentative essays—we will pursue answers to these questions as we assess the relationship between individual identity, bodily experience, and existing medical structures. You will learn information about this topic to participate in a public conversation about illness that ranges from personal memoirs to political policies. You will also get the chance to write in a variety of genres and to share your work with other members of the class. Finally, the class will provide a review of the editing and revision techniques that will prove useful to you throughout your time at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Dissimulation in Life and on the Screen
CRN: 11550
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Janson Jones ecojones@uic.edu
As the 21st century continues to roll forward, we find ourselves in a maelstrom of digital texts aiming to persuade our thoughts and actions. We read, write, stream, engage, post, repost, like, share, and block. Our daily lives are, in a a sense, perpetually shifting tangles of persuasive communications, but to what extent can we critically interrogate the fact from fiction, the screen from reality? How many of us are simply willing to accept the untruth as the fact? Conceptually, this course will focus on these issues of perceived reality and authenticity in our digital and social lives.
At its core, ENGL 160 is an introduction to critical thinking, rhetoric, interrogation, analysis, and the process of composition. We’ll explore strategies of communication through a number of rhetorical situations. In our first project, you will develop a reflective, dynamic, and engaging memoir about a realization of perceived truth in your life. In another, you’ll analyze the rhetorical strategies deployed in contemporary texts aimed at persuading audiences. Finally, you will generate an argumentative essay that takes a position on some aspect of dissimulation in our current digital world.
In each of these projects, the process of developing, writing, and revising your lines or reasoning in relation to a defined “real world” audience will be just as important as the final “paper” itself. Similarly, collaboration and discussion will be extensive throughout these writing processes. Each of these skills can help equip you to navigate real-world texts (whether as a writer or as a reader) in a reality often inundated with willful untruths and dissimulation.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 42863
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course, we’ll write about the art of boxing. The first writing project is a descriptive summary where you will summarize three rounds from the 1971 fight between Joe Frazier and Muhammed Ali. In addition to detailing techniques and key moments of exchange between the boxers, this kind of summary asks you to try to capture the mood and atmosphere of live performance by including details of audience reaction. The second writing project is a rhetorical analysis where you will analyze scenes from the HBO documentary Thrilla in Manila, which chronicles the 1975 rematch between Frazier and Ali. The point of this writing project is to become familiar with ethos, logos, pathos, and kairos as specific tools for analysis that can help you think more deeply about what you watch and read. The third writing project is an argumentative essay where you will make an argument about a competitive fighter of your own choice. This argument will include descriptive summary and analysis as well as a focus on historical and cultural context, which will require you to do some research. The point of this paper is to try to persuade an audience that might likely disagree with your argument to take your argument seriously. The fourth and final writing project is a reflection where you will make an argument about your work as a writer in this course. Your argument will include summary and analysis of the three papers you wrote leading up to this final project.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing for an Audience
CRN: 11570
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Willow Schenwar rcroke2@uic.edu
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? What futures might we imagine, and how do we set ourselves towards (or away from) these possible futures? How are people affected differently by social and ecological conditions, based on race, gender, ethnicity, ability, and economic and citizenship status? In this course, students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such questions. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, youth activism, and media literacy and misinformation.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing 1: Information is not knowledge. – Albert Einstein
CRN: 11583
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
The readings in this course will explore a range of issues, such as social relationships with neighbors and to what extent social class and classism have affected the global community, that are and will be relevant to your experience as citizens of the UIC campus community of thinkers, readers, and writers. You will be embarking a journey that will begin with closely observing and describing information. Then, we will focus on analyzing this information in relation to multiple experiences and viewpoints, and finally, you will develop the confidence to make the move from information to knowledge, though developing skills in applying, analyzing, and evaluating, and ultimately, writing argument-based assignments. We will emphasize, overall, in this class, making the transition to and developing confidence in college-level thinking, reading, and writing through a range of interactive activities in and outside of class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 30664
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50ONL
Instructor: Gregor Baszak baszak2@uic.edu
Pack your little ring notebook, put a pencil behind your ear, keep your audio recorders and your cameras handy—you’re going out into the field to report the news. Yes, in our class you’ll become a journalist for one semester: You’ll report the 5 Ws and organize these facts along an inverted pyramid. You’ll also chime in with your own thoughts on an important matter that affects your community in the form of an op-ed.
An important note: This is a fully online class that is largely asynchronous, meaning you complete work on your own time by scheduled due dates. We will have one live session on Zoom every week on Fridays during our scheduled class time, but this meeting is about clarifying questions and going more in-depth on the materials we covered that week. Attendance is not required for passing this class, but you will get generously rewarded with extra credit if you do attend frequently, so make sure the course does fit your schedule.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing the Environment
CRN: 38997
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Ann Marie Thornburg athor22@uic.edu
In this course we will examine the environment together with themes including histories, relationships, power, violence, care, damage, growth, repair, and more. You will develop four writing projects that ask you to engage the environment critically and reflectively. We will approach writing as a process and tool that allows us to track our thoughts and feelings, engage with others, and express ourselves.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 46737
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
This class will provide you the opportunity to engage in the process of writing in different situations and genres, and help you become self-aware learners. The topic of this class involves U.S. immigration, with a focus on migrants and undocumented immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, as well other Latin American countries. We will explore the reasons migrants attempt to enter the U.S. either through seeking asylum or unlawful entry; the experiences of and challenges for undocumented immigrants from Latin America who have settled down and built lives in a country where they are not recognized or welcomed as citizens (including DACA recipients); related politics and policies; and the need and potential (or not) for actual “immigration reform.” Through readings and writing assignments on this topic, you will gain skills and strategies in writing in a variety of genres, including an academic argumentative essay. You will be responsible for four writing projects, the last of which will be a self-reflective narrative essay that thoughtfully and thoroughly analyzes your processes and growth in developing literacy skills in the context of this course.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 46733
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50ONL
Instructor: Gregor Baszak baszak2@uic.edu
Pack your little ring notebook, put a pencil behind your ear, keep your audio recorders and your cameras handy—you’re going out into the field to report the news. Yes, in our class you’ll become a journalist for one semester: You’ll report the 5 Ws and organize these facts along an inverted pyramid. You’ll also chime in with your own thoughts on an important matter that affects your community in the form of an op-ed.
An important note: This is a fully online class that is largely asynchronous, meaning you complete work on your own time by scheduled due dates. We will have one live session on Zoom every week on Fridays during our scheduled class time, but this meeting is about clarifying questions and going more in-depth on the materials we covered that week. Attendance is not required for passing this class, but you will get generously rewarded with extra credit if you do attend frequently, so make sure the course does fit your schedule.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11803
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Brianne Neptin bnept@uic.edu
In this class, you will explore Chicago’s food cultures. Through class discussion, analysis, and assignment you will learn to think critically about the world around you, using food as our entry point. Food is a part of our everyday lives, beyond simply what we have for dinner. It is a gateway to engage with our communities and each other. By reading and analyzing a variety of genres (Public Writing, Professional/Academic Writing, Argumentative Writing, and Reflective Writing) you will learn to adapt your ways of thinking and responding to situations that will better prepare you for college and beyond.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Multicontextual Rhetoric and Discourse, Past and Present
CRN: 11841
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
As students, you spend much of your time looking at print works on the page and the screen, and you look at images and writing in other contexts every day, just as people did before the digital and printing revolutions. Whether or not you seek them out, rhetorical messages reach you and you probably have a sense of how to respond. Reading an article, listening to a speech, or encountering a post on social media, you already know how to “read” these arguments and respond to them in a general sense. In this class, you will develop these perceptive skills to create strong, critically aware arguments in your papers or any other medium you choose to communicate your point of view. At the same time, you will gain a deeper understanding of how modern multimedia discourse draws on pre-digital traditions.
This course is an introduction to writing, rhetoric, and research. Though each of these terms can be defined in numerous ways, we will focus most carefully on writing and rhetoric as the craft of constructing an argument and research as the process of investigation and analysis. Since good writing begins with good thinking, this course will emphasize the importance of critical reading and will ask you to analyze a variety of texts throughout the term.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing the Environment
CRN: 46725
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Ann Marie Thornburg athor22@uic.edu
In this course we will examine the environment together with themes including histories, relationships, power, violence, care, damage, growth, repair, and more. You will develop four writing projects that ask you to engage the environment critically and reflectively. We will approach writing as a process and tool that allows us to track our thoughts and feelings, engage with others, and express ourselves.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 46720
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Lyla Lee llee67@uic.edu
In this class, you will explore the complex connections between identity (such as culture and orientation), space (like environment and location), and community (including social and economic factors). Together, we’ll examine how different aspects of “home” shape and reflect our experiences. Through reading memoirs, narratives, short stories, and biographies, you’ll engage in critical discussions about belonging, displacement, and the emotional landscapes of home. Writing will be a key practice in this course, allowing you to reflect on and better understand both your own ideas of home and yourself as a writer. By the end, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of how intimate spaces influence our lives, identities, and personal narratives.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts Self-Care and Self-Help Post-Pandemic
CRN: 30668
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Kate Brandt kbrand7@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore a variety of issues related to the larger course theme of “Self-Care and Self-Help”—that is, what it means to take care of oneself holistically in the strange dystopian days we are living in. Throughout the semester, we will learn about multiple self-care methods; practice, criticize, and evaluate methods of self-care; discuss barriers to self-care; and explore the self-help industry as it has evolved from the 20th to 21st century. Some questions we will be thinking about broadly this semester include: How do I define self-care? (Why) is it important to engage in self-care? What methods of self-care work best for me? What are the social, economic, political, racial, gendered barriers that exist to certain self-care methods? How and why has the self-help industry emerged in America throughout the last century? Perhaps most importantly, we will constantly be questioning how reading and writing can help one engage in self-care.
We will work within numerous genres and writing styles, including some challenging texts—both in terms of stylistic difficulty as well as subject matter. By reading and analyzing a variety of texts within the theme of “Self-Care and Self-Help,” our goal is to understand the nuances of genre and situation, rhetoric, and style to become articulate and engaging writers for a wide range of purposes and audiences. Genres that we will focus on (but are not limited to) include listicle, review, annotated bibliography, anthology, argument, self-reflection, and evaluation. You need not master each of these genres nor the course topic by the end of the course; rather, the goal is to learn about and experiment with these genres to develop your writing skills and explore the course theme of “Self-Care and Self-Help” in a meaningful way.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Irrepressible Art
CRN: 27283
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Eniko “Eni” Vaghy evaghy2@uic.edu
In this course, we will discuss and research significant art made by female and gender
nonconforming individuals. Through film, photography, literature, and other creative efforts, the manner in which these artists recalibrate our understanding of the world and its limits will be analyzed and celebrated. This course will touch upon the work of Nan Goldin, Chris Kraus, Claudia Rankine, Lorna Simpson, Sophie Calle, Claude Cahun, and many, many others.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing for an Audience
CRN: 25927
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Willow Schenwar rcroke2@uic.edu
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? What futures might we imagine, and how do we set ourselves towards (or away from) these possible futures? How are people affected differently by social and ecological conditions, based on race, gender, ethnicity, ability, and economic and citizenship status? In this course, students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such questions. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, youth activism, and media literacy and misinformation.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11551
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
This class will provide you the opportunity to engage in the process of writing in different situations and genres, and help you become self-aware learners. The topic of this class involves U.S. immigration, with a focus on migrants and undocumented immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, as well other Latin American countries. We will explore the reasons migrants attempt to enter the U.S. either through seeking asylum or unlawful entry; the experiences of and challenges for undocumented immigrants from Latin America who have settled down and built lives in a country where they are not recognized or welcomed as citizens (including DACA recipients); related politics and policies; and the need and potential (or not) for actual “immigration reform.” Through readings and writing assignments on this topic, you will gain skills and strategies in writing in a variety of genres, including an academic argumentative essay. You will be responsible for four writing projects, the last of which will be a self-reflective narrative essay that thoughtfully and thoroughly analyzes your processes and growth in developing literacy skills in the context of this course.
From checking your phone right after waking up to scanning the cereal box while eating breakfast, from seeing the many posters and billboards on your morning commute to opening your textbooks for class, our lives are supersaturated with images. Through the stories they tell and represent, images can silently or explicitly evoke emotional, intellectual, or even spiritual responses in the people that view them. They can inspire people to think or (re)act in a specific way. In this course, you will be learning about the conventions and methods of academic research and writing. Through four projects (an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literature review, and a final research paper), you will use these approaches to find effective and compelling ways to talk about the images you encounter in your everyday life, and try to make sense of how these images make sense of the world. Although we will be talking about visual images for the entirety of the semester, this is not an art history course: you are not required to have any background in art theory or visual art to sufficiently participate in the class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 11572
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
All of us have experienced some form of illness ranging from the mundane—a cold, flu, or food poisoning—to rare and serious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic caused us to consider illness in a new way: blurring the boundaries between sick and well and exposing the unequal and often biased structures that underlie our medical systems. In this course we will discuss the relationship between writing, illness, and the body. Can writing convey pain and help to alleviate mental and/or physical suffering? How can we use writing to advocate for change and equality? Through reading, writing, and discussing a variety of texts—memoirs, op-ed pieces, manifestos, and argumentative essays—we will pursue answers to these questions as we assess the relationship between individual identity, bodily experience, and existing medical structures. You will learn information about this topic to participate in a public conversation about illness that ranges from personal memoirs to political policies. You will also get the chance to write in a variety of genres and to share your work with other members of the class. Finally, the class will provide a review of the editing and revision techniques that will prove useful to you throughout your time at UIC and beyond.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 30965
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Lyla Lee llee67@uic.edu
In this class, you will explore the complex connections between identity (such as culture and orientation), space (like environment and location), and community (including social and economic factors). Together, we’ll examine how different aspects of “home” shape and reflect our experiences. Through reading memoirs, narratives, short stories, and biographies, you’ll engage in critical discussions about belonging, displacement, and the emotional landscapes of home. Writing will be a key practice in this course, allowing you to reflect on and better understand both your own ideas of home and yourself as a writer. By the end, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of how intimate spaces influence our lives, identities, and personal narratives.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing and Performance
CRN: 11575
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Em Williamson mwill42@uic.edu
In this first-year writing course, we will study the intersections of composition and performance. Like performance, writing is a social act meant for audience consumption—if this is true, what could be learned from studying them in tandem? While you will not be called on to perform in this class, you will be made to think critically about the nature of performance through a variety of writing assignments and in-depth readings. Throughout the semester, you will engage with more traditionally performative, public genres of writing like blog posts and reviews, as well as explore the more formal, academic voice of an argumentative essay. The central consideration that will propel you through each of these assignments is that of audience: how can we, as writers, adjust to audience expectations much in the way a performer might? Our understanding of performance in this course will be wide-ranging, including things like theater, dance, drag, stand-up comedy, and even contemporary modes of online performance.

ENGL 160 Writing on Social Films
CRN: 21750
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Eric Pahre pahre2@uic.edu
In this course, you will examine how popular films explore and portray different facets of common social issues, and how the discourse of film critics and academics further examine these topics and create important conversations between creators, critics, and the viewer or reader. You will watch a number of 21st-century films, some offering direct social satire or commentary and others working on a more subdued level. These topics include racism, gender inequality, classism, income inequality, and capitalism. Over the course of the semester, you will work to thoughtfully interpret and discuss the challenging content of these films and learn to write about deeper meaning while bringing films and reviews into conversations with one another.

ENGL 160 How Stories Still Shape Us: Reading Folklore in A Contemporary World
CRN: 11811
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Eliza Marley emarle2@uic.edu
Folklore is described as stories belonging to a specific culture or group of people detailing beliefs, customs, and tales of a community passed down through the generations. There are many stories which have been condensed and transformed over the years; repurposed to serve changing societies. Reading Folklore can be a glimpse into the past, seeing how people practiced agriculture, crafted musical instruments, or understood their changing environments. Folklore is an asset for preserving the cultural legacies of groups all across the globe and reading these stories is a valuable tool for seeking to understand our current reality and the trajectory of social issues. In this class we will be focused on writing development. We will use Folklore as a framing tool for looking at the structural and stylistic components of different genres of writing and then translate those skills into our own projects. My hope is that as we go through this semester the stories we look at will be an enjoyable read and a helpful foil for our writing assignments.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing About Popular Music
CRN: 29462
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Krista Muratore cmurat2@uic.edu
In this class, you will learn how to write about popular music and its relationship with the complex everyday issues we face in our society. The class will thus be structured around four main writing projects– a memoir essay, an album review, an argumentative essay and a personal reflection. Through reading various pieces of music writing and participating in class discussions and activities, you will also learn how to develop socially conscious claims about the music you are passionate about. As you learn how to write in these different forms, you will hopefully develop clear, effective writing that will help you not only express your point of view in academic writing but also cultivate critical thinking and a greater appreciation for a wide range of music and art.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing Home
CRN: 11788
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Ryan Nordle rnordl2@uic.edu
How do we define ‘home’? Where are the limits of a home? How do we transition from one home to the next? Is home a feeling? Is it a place? Is it people? This course will take these as its guiding questions. We will explore the concept of home through the process of writing and develop our writing process through the concept of home. While this course will broadly instruct on principles of academic writing, you will specifically learn about and demonstrate competence in writing within four genres: personal narrative, photo essay, argumentative essay, and reflective essay. These four writing projects will be the focus of the units in this course, all designed to prepare your writing for entering public and academic spheres.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 41780
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: James McKenna jmcken22@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Everyone Watches Women’s Sports
CRN: 11343
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Stefania Gomez sgomez46@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore the intersection of sports and gender across writing disciplines. No prior experience with sports as a participant or fan is required.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing Across Audiences and Genres
CRN: 11331
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15ONL
Instructor: Ling He linghe@uic.edu
This course will be delivered completely online. Required class components (lectures, discussions, active participation, etc.) will be delivered synchronously (live interactions) on Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. You will have access to the course materials (Syllabus, Weekly Teaching Plans, Course ePackage, Panopto Videos, Assignment Deadline, Assignment Submission, and Discussion Board) on the Blackboard course site using your UIC NetID and password.
This online course is thoughtfully structured around four major writing projects designed to help you develop genre-specific knowledge by focusing on the purpose of writing, audience, and context. These projects encompass five types of writing: Academic Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection. By mastering these genre-based strategies, you will be well-equipped to succeed in university-level coursework and effectively address various rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is seamlessly integrated into the writing process, offering essential insights into topics, deepening your grasp of genre conventions, and serving as a model to enhance your learning. Emphasizing a student-centered approach, this course ensures an engaging and supportive learning environment, with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and interactive teacher-student discussions in and after class, and genre analysis.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing Across Audiences and Genres
CRN: 11543
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45ONL
Instructor: Ling He linghe@uic.edu
This course will be delivered completely online. Required class components (lectures, discussions, active participation, etc.) will be delivered synchronously (live interactions) on Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. You will have access to the course materials (Syllabus, Weekly Teaching Plans, Course ePackage, Panopto Videos, Assignment Deadline, Assignment Submission, and Discussion Board) on the Blackboard course site using your UIC NetID and password.
This online course is thoughtfully structured around four major writing projects designed to help you develop genre-specific knowledge by focusing on the purpose of writing, audience, and context. These projects encompass five types of writing: Academic Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection. By mastering these genre-based strategies, you will be well-equipped to succeed in university-level coursework and effectively address various rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is seamlessly integrated into the writing process, offering essential insights into topics, deepening your grasp of genre conventions, and serving as a model to enhance your learning. Emphasizing a student-centered approach, this course ensures an engaging and supportive learning environment, with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and interactive teacher-student discussions in and after class, and genre analysis.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Everyone Watches Women’s Sports
CRN: 46738
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Stefania Gomez sgomez46@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore the intersection of sports and gender across writing disciplines. No prior experience with sports as a participant or fan is required.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 41810
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: James McKenna jmcken22@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I
CRN: 27280
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Miles Parkinson mpark101@uic.edu
In this course, you will learn to read genre symptomatically, and to discern a rhetorical situation for yourself. Our theme-performance-will open up a discursive space of repetition, allowing us to interrogate not only personal identity but also specifically its written form. What does it mean to write one’s identity? What is performance in public, in private? How do we structure ourselves, mediate ourselves through the other and through the Other (in the sense of the social writ large)? I do not expect this to feel self-evident at this point, but over the course of this semester, we will develop a conceptual vocabulary for thinking about reading and writing the self and the social, and how both are rooted in genre.
Unlike some other kinds of English classes, you will not typically write about the assigned readings in your formal essays. Instead, we will read the central and supplemental texts for what these works can teach us about the performance of writing-about structuring your prose to move a specific or a more general audience, about positioning your ideas among the views of others. We will read these published and student pieces for their style, tone, and purpose and for the audience addressed and implied by the writer’s language choices. The content of your essays will be largely left up to your own interests, as this class is about giving you the time and space to develop as writers in whatever way is most important to you.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 27284
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Frida Sanchez Vega fsanch7@uic.edu
This class will challenge you with different academic and public writing genres. We will explore and expand the concepts of writing, reading, and rhetoric.
The theme of the course is the nation-state. This course will allow us as a class to learn about writing by diving into our understanding of nationhood, sovereignty, and citizenship. By inquiring into different types of writing about the nation-state, this course will allow us to reflect on our current understanding of political and social issues in the United States and abroad while also learning how to effectively communicate our ideas on said issues in various academic and public contexts. We will discuss different issues, such as immigration, asylum rights, securitization, and global warming. These issues serve us to think about the various social issues that affect all of us.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing Across Audiences and Genres
CRN: 11458
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15ONL
Instructor: Ling He linghe@uic.edu
This course will be delivered completely online. Required class components (lectures, discussions, active participation, etc.) will be delivered synchronously (live interactions) on Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. You will have access to the course materials (Syllabus, Weekly Teaching Plans, Course ePackage, Panopto Videos, Assignment Deadline, Assignment Submission, and Discussion Board) on the Blackboard course site using your UIC NetID and password.
This online course is thoughtfully structured around four major writing projects designed to help you develop genre-specific knowledge by focusing on the purpose of writing, audience, and context. These projects encompass five types of writing: Academic Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection. By mastering these genre-based strategies, you will be well-equipped to succeed in university-level coursework and effectively address various rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is seamlessly integrated into the writing process, offering essential insights into topics, deepening your grasp of genre conventions, and serving as a model to enhance your learning. Emphasizing a student-centered approach, this course ensures an engaging and supportive learning environment, with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and interactive teacher-student discussions in and after class, and genre analysis.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 27372
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Danny McGee dlmcgee2@uic.edu
When you think about Chicago, several attractions might immediately come to mind, such as the Willis Tower, Wrigley Field, or the beachfront. However, before the city of Chicago was developed into a metropolis, the land was previously a vast swampland that supported many different animal species. Currently, the IUCN Endangered Species list grows every day as human activity continues to alter natural environments. In this class, we will look globally at different cities, their growth, and their relationship to native animal species to explore the repercussions that urbanization might have on the ecosystem around them.
This course is broken into three segments: “What is a City?,” “Death of the City,” and “What Happens to Animals in the City?”. This course will give you a wide-but-shallow look at various sites of city development and the repercussions that native animal species experience. You will read a number of sources including government websites, endangered species lists, research articles, and many other sources to get a holistic understanding of the impact that city development and expansion has on native animal species. As you investigate the relationship between animals and the city, you will compose a nature memoir, letters to future generations, an argumentative essay, and a reflective essay to engage with the past, present, and future of the surrounding world. No prior information on ecology, sociology, or any related field is needed.

English 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11505
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Sammie Burton sburto7@uic.edu
English 160 is designed to expand on the critical-thinking and writing skills necessary for college success. This semester, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by scholars to convey their message to the reader. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within each text. Four writing genres will be explored: Reflection, Analysis, Synthesis, and Argumentation. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your professor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme for this course centers on the dynamic relationship between self and society.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 11720
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Frida Sanchez Vega fsanch7@uic.edu
In this class, you will be challenged with different academic and public writing genres. We will explore and expand the concepts of writing, reading, and rhetoric.
The theme of the course is the nation-state. This course will allow us as a class to learn about writing by diving into our understanding of nationhood, sovereignty, and citizenship. By inquiring into different types of writing about the nation-state, this course will allow us to reflect on our current understanding of political and social issues in the United States and abroad while also learning how to effectively communicate our ideas on said issues in various academic and public contexts. We will discuss different issues, such as immigration, asylum rights, securitization, and global warming. These issues serve us to think about the various social issues that affect all of us.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 39029 Global
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Eman Elturki elturki@uic.edu
In the 21st century, literacy extends far beyond the traditional ability to read and write. As we navigate an increasingly digital and interconnected world, the meaning of being “literate” is evolving rapidly, especially with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How do AI tools like language models, digital assistants, and personalized learning systems reshape the way we read, write, and communicate? In this course, we will explore the evolving concept of literacy in the age of AI, focusing on how new technologies are transforming literacy practices and creating new forms of communication. We will examine traditional views of literacy and extend this understanding to encompass digital literacy, media literacy, AI literacy, and other emerging literacies that are crucial for navigating today’s world. Through the lens of AI, we will engage with important questions about how these technologies influence education, creativity, and critical thinking. We will also explore the challenges and opportunities AI presents, from accessibility and ethics to the potential for reshaping education. In this course, we will use the theme of “AI and Literacy in the 21st Century” to explore how new technologies are shaping communication, information consumption, and learning. Using the process approach to writing, we will engage in four writing projects that allow you to explore these changes through various genres:
1. Personal Narrative Essay: “AI and Me: Navigating Literacy in the Digital Age”
2. Digital Listicle and Cover Letter: “Top 5 Ways AI is Changing Literacy”
3. Argumentative Research Essay: “The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Shaping the Future Classroom”
4. Reflective Essay: “My Literacy Skills and AI”
In addition to these writing projects, the course will involve in-class activities, oral presentations, mini-reading quizzes, and shorter writing assignments to enhance your critical reading skills, develop your understanding of genre conventions, and help you navigate the rhetorical situations encountered in different forms of communication. By the end of the course, you will not only deepen your understanding of literacy in the age of AI but also develop a range of writing skills essential for success in both academic and professional settings.

English 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 42846
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Sammie Burton sburto7@uic.edu
English 160 is designed to expand on the critical-thinking and writing skills necessary for college success. This semester, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by scholars to convey their message to the reader. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within each text. Four writing genres will be explored: Reflection, Analysis, Synthesis, and Argumentation. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your professor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme for this course centers on the dynamic relationship between self and society.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing for an Audience
CRN: 11534
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
The first English 160 learning goal is to improve “rhetorical awareness of audience through different genre-based assignments.” In other words, to practice writing in various genres to learn more about appealing to and communicating effectively with your intended audience. Some of the selected genres in this course might be familiar to you as a reader (i.e. the curated list, or “listicle”) but less familiar to you as a writer. This course is designed to give you a thorough understanding of each genre before you start writing and support you throughout the process of drafting and revising.
Another aim of this course is to challenge some outdated beliefs and unhelpful ideas about writing and replace them with habits and strategies that will serve you better as a college writer. We’ll accomplish this by focusing on situation, purpose, and audience, as well as prioritizing revision—significant changes to language and structure—over editing (corrections at the level of words and sentences). We’ll also practice critical thinking and reading skills, constructing cohesive paragraphs, and writing for simplicity and concision.
Finally, this course is designed to (hopefully!) make writing enjoyable in ways it might not have been for you in high school, and maybe (hopefully!) shift your perception of yourself as a writer.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Finding Your Voice on the Page
CRN: 23461
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Gen Kwon ykwon42@uic.edu
Every day, we make choices: gravitating toward certain people, picking out sweaters at a thrift store, cringing at pet peeves only we seem to notice. Our writing, too, carries these traces of who we are. In this course, you will experiment with different genres—interview transcripts, personal essays, short stories, and argumentative essays—and pay close attention to the patterns that emerge. What surprises you? What feels natural? How does your body react to each genre—does one make you tense up, another let you breathe? Have you unknowingly borrowed speech rhythms from your family, friends, or beloveds? What does authenticity even mean when we write?
Through reading, discussion, and four core writing projects, you will explore these questions, cultivating a relationship with language that serves you not just in college but long after. By the end of the semester, you may not have a singular answer to “What is my voice?”—but you will have begun to listen for it.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing for an Audience
CRN: 11390
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
The first English 160 learning goal is to improve “rhetorical awareness of audience through different genre-based assignments.” In other words, to practice writing in various genres to learn more about appealing to and communicating effectively with your intended audience. Some of the selected genres in this course might be familiar to you as a reader (i.e. the curated list, or “listicle”) but less familiar to you as a writer. This course is designed to give you a thorough understanding of each genre before you start writing and support you throughout the process of drafting and revising.
Another aim of this course is to challenge some outdated beliefs and unhelpful ideas about writing and replace them with habits and strategies that will serve you better as a college writer. We’ll accomplish this by focusing on situation, purpose, and audience, as well as prioritizing revision—significant changes to language and structure—over editing (corrections at the level of words and sentences). We’ll also practice critical thinking and reading skills, constructing cohesive paragraphs, and writing for simplicity and concision.
Finally, this course is designed to (hopefully!) make writing enjoyable in ways it might not have been for you in high school, and maybe (hopefully!) shift your perception of yourself as a writer.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Popular Music and Politics
CRN: 19880
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Popular Music and Politics,” we will investigate subjects that may find us debating such questions as: “How does popular music reflect and comment on contemporaneous social and political issues?” “What might something so basic, so essential, as the music we listen to reveal about our social class or political beliefs?” “Can mere ideas or artistic creations ever be dangerous enough to warrant regulation?” While these questions provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about the conventions of academic discourse and writing, not just about pop music or politics. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning to engage actively with course texts, to work on sharpening mechanics, and to write effectively in a variety of genres. All of this will culminate in a final reflective project pertaining to your experiences in English 160.

ENGL 160 Writing About Popular Media, Resistance, and Social Change
CRN: 11385
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Jennifer Rupert jruper1@uic.edu
What does it mean to be “woke.” Do you believe that popular culture can be a force for social change or does mainstream popular culture mostly encourage “slacktivism”? In this course, we will explore the ways in which (mostly) American popular media— video games, film, television, books, social media, advertising, news reporting, and other forms of infotainment—heighten or diminish our social awareness and corresponding desire to take action on social problems. As a starting point for this investigation, we will be reading a recent collection, Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (New York University Press, 2020). Students will utilize the theories generated by academics and activists to build original thinking on the popular media texts that matter most to them. A combination of in-class discussion, short writing assignments, and discussion board posts will not only prepare students to build arguments in three distinct genres—film analysis, opinion piece, and manifesto—but also to contribute to public conversations about pop culture and politics by transforming their academic prose into social media posts designed to heighten awareness of social issues for carefully chosen audiences. Through this course work, students will sharpen some of the most valuable skill sets for their future academic, personal, and professional lives: the ability to understand complex arguments, the ability to write clear, correct, and compelling prose, and the ability to assess various sorts of rhetorical situations in order to make successful presentations. In other words, students will begin to see the value of smart rhetorical choices in achieving their short and long term goals.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 46865 Global
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Eman Elturki elturki@uic.edu
In the 21st century, literacy extends far beyond the traditional ability to read and write. As we navigate an increasingly digital and interconnected world, the meaning of being “literate” is evolving rapidly, especially with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How do AI tools like language models, digital assistants, and personalized learning systems reshape the way we read, write, and communicate? In this course, we will explore the evolving concept of literacy in the age of AI, focusing on how new technologies are transforming literacy practices and creating new forms of communication. We will examine traditional views of literacy and extend this understanding to encompass digital literacy, media literacy, AI literacy, and other emerging literacies that are crucial for navigating today’s world. Through the lens of AI, we will engage with important questions about how these technologies influence education, creativity, and critical thinking. We will also explore the challenges and opportunities AI presents, from accessibility and ethics to the potential for reshaping education. In this course, we will use the theme of “AI and Literacy in the 21st Century” to explore how new technologies are shaping communication, information consumption, and learning. Using the process approach to writing, we will engage in four writing projects that allow you to explore these changes through various genres:
1. Personal Narrative Essay: “AI and Me: Navigating Literacy in the Digital Age”
2. Digital Listicle and Cover Letter: “Top 5 Ways AI is Changing Literacy”
3. Argumentative Research Essay: “The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Shaping the Future Classroom”
4. Reflective Essay: “My Literacy Skills and AI”
In addition to these writing projects, the course will involve in-class activities, oral presentations, mini-reading quizzes, and shorter writing assignments to enhance your critical reading skills, develop your understanding of genre conventions, and help you navigate the rhetorical situations encountered in different forms of communication. By the end of the course, you will not only deepen your understanding of literacy in the age of AI but also develop a range of writing skills essential for success in both academic and professional settings.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Theorizing Your Interests
CRN: 39062
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Keegan Lannon klannon@uic.edu
The primary goal of this course is, broadly speaking, to learn how to write. You’ll notice that I don’t say how to write “well.” Writing, like most skills, takes a lifetime of practice to get good at it, and you will spend most of your time in college trying to get better. What we will do here is start this process by learning how to think like a writer, so that you can go forth and hone your skills over the next four years.
To learn this writerly way of thinking, we’ll answer one question:
If time and money were not concerns, what would you be doing with yourself?
This is a common ice-breaker question, because the answer reveals something about what drives you in life. It’s probably fairly easy to identify and articulate who and what you would like to occupy your time if you were free from other responsibilities. What is likely harder is articulating why these people and things are so important to you, and why they are worth occupying your time.
In this class you will have the opportunity to explain why your passions are valuable—even if only to you—and why they are worth your time.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Music, Film, and Fiction
CRN: 45818
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Thomas Moore tmoore40@uic.edu
Movies, music, and stories are something we all love to watch, listen to, and read. They soothe us, make us laugh, and make us cry. What we don’t often think about, though, beyond the way they make us feel, is the fact that these feelings are always accompanied by judgements of quality and interpretation. In this class, we will slow down our process of consuming media and think carefully about the ways in which we evaluate and interpret it, as well as train ourselves to pay close attention to the ways movies, songs, and stories are constructed and the choices the artists make as they create them.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Popular Music and Politics
CRN: 41808
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Popular Music and Politics,” we will investigate subjects that may find us debating such questions as: “How does popular music reflect and comment on contemporaneous social and political issues?” “What might something so basic, so essential, as the music we listen to reveal about our social class or political beliefs?” “Can mere ideas or artistic creations ever be dangerous enough to warrant regulation?” While these questions provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about the conventions of academic discourse and writing, not just about pop music or politics. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning to engage actively with course texts, to work on sharpening mechanics, and to write effectively in a variety of genres. All of this will culminate in a final reflective project pertaining to your experiences in English 160.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 41809
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Margo Arruda marrud2@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 46724 Global
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Eman Elturki elturki@uic.edu
In the 21st century, literacy extends far beyond the traditional ability to read and write. As we navigate an increasingly digital and interconnected world, the meaning of being “literate” is evolving rapidly, especially with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How do AI tools like language models, digital assistants, and personalized learning systems reshape the way we read, write, and communicate? In this course, we will explore the evolving concept of literacy in the age of AI, focusing on how new technologies are transforming literacy practices and creating new forms of communication. We will examine traditional views of literacy and extend this understanding to encompass digital literacy, media literacy, AI literacy, and other emerging literacies that are crucial for navigating today’s world. Through the lens of AI, we will engage with important questions about how these technologies influence education, creativity, and critical thinking. We will also explore the challenges and opportunities AI presents, from accessibility and ethics to the potential for reshaping education. In this course, we will use the theme of “AI and Literacy in the 21st Century” to explore how new technologies are shaping communication, information consumption, and learning. Using the process approach to writing, we will engage in four writing projects that allow you to explore these changes through various genres:
1. Personal Narrative Essay: “AI and Me: Navigating Literacy in the Digital Age”
2. Digital Listicle and Cover Letter: “Top 5 Ways AI is Changing Literacy”
3. Argumentative Research Essay: “The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Shaping the Future Classroom”
4. Reflective Essay: “My Literacy Skills and AI”
In addition to these writing projects, the course will involve in-class activities, oral presentations, mini-reading quizzes, and shorter writing assignments to enhance your critical reading skills, develop your understanding of genre conventions, and help you navigate the rhetorical situations encountered in different forms of communication. By the end of the course, you will not only deepen your understanding of literacy in the age of AI but also develop a range of writing skills essential for success in both academic and professional settings.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Music, Film, and Fiction
CRN: 11341
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Thomas Moore tmoore40@uic.edu
Movies, music, and stories are something we all love to watch, listen to, and read. They soothe us, make us laugh, and make us cry. What we don’t often think about, though, beyond the way they make us feel, is the fact that these feelings are always accompanied by judgements of quality and interpretation. In this class, we will slow down our process of consuming media and think carefully about the ways in which we evaluate and interpret it, as well as train ourselves to pay close attention to the ways movies, songs, and stories are constructed and the choices the artists make as they create them.

ENGL 161 Course Descriptions

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Society, Multimedia, and Groupthink
CRN: 30669
Days/Time: Asynchronous ONLINE
Instructor: Antonio Guerrero aguerr27@uic.edu
At its core, this course will explore the ways in which we craft and consume ideas. We exist in a complex ideological ecosystem that allows us to have a great amount of mental dexterity and individualization — but how we wield this dexterity has a lot to do with our environment. This course will have you read, write, and research with the goal of understanding how everyday consumption of media and information influences our individual and collective trajectories. In short, we will be trying to understand why we think the way we do and who influences that thought process.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Female Networks of Kinship/Friendship in Feminist Resistances
CRN: 24008
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Zara Imran zimran3@uic.edu
This course will investigate female networks of kinship/ friendship and their relationship to feminist resistances. We will read a range of texts from various disciplines and critically analyze theoretical paradigms and feminist movements over time. It will provide you with a breadth of knowledge; exposing you to some central political and social movements, their criticisms and shortcomings, theorizations and complications of sisterhood, difference, and female subjectivity. The primary goal of this course is to help students undertake independent research. Students should choose what aspect of the course they find thought provoking and explore that in depth in their own research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 25972
Days/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
Instructor: Seunghyun Shin sshin68@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 21837
Days/Time: MW 4:30-5:45
Instructor: Seunghyun Shin sshin68@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Show Me Your Teeth …
CRN: 24005
Days/Time; MWF 8:00-8:50
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Georges Cuvier, aka the Father of Paleontology, claimed that teeth were the revelators of creatures that possessed them. Teeth were the depositories of lifetimes. In this course, we’ll consider Cuvier’s claim and examine why teeth matter, for whom, and for what? We’ll be using Peter S. Ungar’s Teeth: A Very Short Introduction and Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as starting points for our research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Show Me Your Teeth …
CRN: 11854
Days/Time: MWF 9:00:00-9:50
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Georges Cuvier, aka the Father of Paleontology, claimed that teeth were the revelators of creatures that possessed them. Teeth were the depositories of lifetimes. In this course, we’ll consider Cuvier’s claim and examine why teeth matter, for whom, and for what? We’ll be using Peter S. Ungar’s Teeth: A Very Short Introduction and Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as starting points for our research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Show Me Your Teeth …
CRN: 11950
Days/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Instructor: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Georges Cuvier, aka the Father of Paleontology, claimed that teeth were the revelators of creatures that possessed them. Teeth were the depositories of lifetimes. In this course, we’ll consider Cuvier’s claim and examine why teeth matter, for whom, and for what? We’ll be using Peter S. Ungar’s Teeth: A Very Short Introduction and Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as starting points for our research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Understanding the Language of Empire
CRN: 11956
Days/Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Instructor: Rana Awwad rawwad2@uic.edu
Edward Said in an L.A. Times article wrote, “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” In this section of English 161, we will analyze the language used in various parts of our lives to understand how the mission of empire, as Said writes, still exists and persists in our educational systems, news media, and popular culture. Using a combination of primary sources, news stories from different platforms, and some popular TV shows and movies, we will see the various manifestations of empire that we see daily. Culminating in a research paper, this course will give you the tools to develop focused questions, conduct academic research using databases, and enter a larger conversation through academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 27376
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Movies and television deliver information to us, both overtly and covertly, about social expectations concerning gender and sexuality. And because movies and television are embedded in the ideologies of their creators, it is basically impossible to make a show that does not address gender and sexuality in a way that is significant or controversial to one group or another. In relation to this, a question we might ask is “How much effect do these shows and films have on our expectations concerning gender and sexuality?” After all, media influence is only one of the social mechanisms that influence how we understand gender and sexuality.
We will be focusing on questions concerning this relationship between film/television and gender/sexuality. We will begin by examining various concepts and social theories, including readings by Stuart Hall, Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, Barthes and Foucault. We will also examine more general social theories/concepts, such as ideology, hegemony, semantics, and confirmation bias.
We will create an Annotated Bibliography for these (and other readings) and using this information we will develop a relevant research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Affects of Horror
CRN: 27565
Days/Time: MWF 12:00-12:50
Instructor: Hyacinthe Damitz hingr2@uic.edu
Horror as a genre is often considered escapist fiction, meant to be enjoyed to forget, or to get away from, what is bothering us in the real world. In other words, it is seen as a genre built specifically on, and for, the thrill of feeling fear, while allowing us to distance ourselves from what haunts us in everyday life. This class seeks to challenge this concept of escapist fiction, and highlight how the genre can actually be a useful tool in understanding, and dealing with, a range of political and cultural issues that we encounter in everyday life, as well as the emotions that come with them. It will examine the way that horror, in its various forms, mediums, and subgenres, gives us a set of ways to contend with the emotionally charged moments in our society and in ourselves.
While looking at specific examples and types of horror, as well as academic sources discussing the genre and subgenres, you will be tasked with researching and writing a long form research paper discussing one of the many topics that come up in horror, and enter the conversation of the genre that is currently happening. During the semester, the writing that you do, including the annotated bibliography, the research proposal, and the literature review, will serve as stepping stones that culminate in the research paper and the presentation of your research to the class. This is a student-driven exploration of horror, and what the genre has to offer to our current society and the individuals within it.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 22420
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Movies and television deliver information to us, both overtly and covertly, about social expectations concerning gender and sexuality. And because movies and television are embedded in the ideologies of their creators, it is basically impossible to make a show that does not address gender and sexuality in a way that is significant or controversial to one group or another. In relation to this, a question we might ask is “How much effect do these shows and films have on our expectations concerning gender and sexuality?” After all, media influence is only one of the social mechanisms that influence how we understand gender and sexuality.
We will be focusing on questions concerning this relationship between film/television and gender/sexuality. We will begin by examining various concepts and social theories, including readings by Stuart Hall, Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, Barthes and Foucault. We will also examine more general social theories/concepts, such as ideology, hegemony, semantics, and confirmation bias.
We will create an Annotated Bibliography for these (and other readings) and using this information we will develop a relevant research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing the Image
CRN: 25953
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Kabel Mishka Ligot kligot2@uic.edu
From checking your phone right after waking up to scanning the cereal box while eating breakfast, from seeing the many posters and billboards on your morning commute to opening your textbooks for class, our lives are supersaturated with images. Through the stories they tell and represent, images can silently or explicitly evoke emotional, intellectual, or even spiritual responses in the people that view them. They can inspire people to think or (re)act in a specific way. In this course, you will be learning about the conventions and methods of academic research and writing. Through four projects (an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literature review, and a final research paper), you will use these approaches to find effective and compelling ways to talk about the images you encounter in your everyday life, and try to make sense of how these images make sense of the world. (Although we will be talking about visual images for the entirety of the semester, this is not an art history course: you are not required to have any background in art theory or visual art to sufficiently participate in the class.)

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Affects of Horror
CRN: 30673
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: Hyacinthe Damitz hingr2@uic.edu
Horror as a genre is often considered escapist fiction, meant to be enjoyed to forget, or to get away from, what is bothering us in the real world. In other words, it is seen as a genre built specifically on, and for, the thrill of feeling fear, while allowing us to distance ourselves from what haunts us in everyday life. This class seeks to challenge this concept of escapist fiction, and highlight how the genre can actually be a useful tool in understanding, and dealing with, a range of political and cultural issues that we encounter in everyday life, as well as the emotions that come with them. It will examine the way that horror, in its various forms, mediums, and subgenres, gives us a set of ways to contend with the emotionally charged moments in our society and in ourselves.
While looking at specific examples and types of horror, as well as academic sources discussing the genre and subgenres, you will be tasked with researching and writing a long form research paper discussing one of the many topics that come up in horror, and enter the conversation of the genre that is currently happening. During the semester, the writing that you do, including the annotated bibliography, the research proposal, and the literature review, will serve as stepping stones that culminate in the research paper and the presentation of your research to the class. This is a student-driven exploration of horror, and what the genre has to offer to our current society and the individuals within it.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 11979
Days/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Rage, Joy and the Nerves in Between
CRN: 41712
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: Carly Lapotre ckus@uic.edu
In this first-year writing course, we’ll explore the role of human emotions—rage, joy, anxiety, sorrow, fear—in shaping personal identity and cultural narratives. While we will engage with a selection of in-class material across various genres and media, much of the research will be student-driven, allowing each writer to explore emotions through their own academic inquiry. How do emotions influence public discourse? What role do emotions play in the workplace, in medicine, and in our everyday lives? How have art, literature, multimedia, and even politics shaped our feelings and our understanding of emotion? Through independent research and structured writing assignments, students will develop skills in source evaluation, synthesis, and argumentation to effectively communicate interesting and complex ideas in writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 42938
Days/Time: MWF 2:00-2:50
Instructor: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.

ENGL 161 Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing Through the Issues of the Working Poor
CRN: 11875
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas, debates and questions about work, poverty and social mobility and participate in current public conversations about these (initially broad) topics. We will first discern what these public conversations about the “working poor” in fact, are, assess their validity, and articulate our own, well-supported arguments. As summary, analysis and synthesis are central components of the academic research paper, we will practice these, and we will learn to find and evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources for our own research. You will develop your reading, writing, research and communications skills through assignments and activities such as writing and revising, class discussion, in-class writing and workshopping, and peer review.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 32676
Days/Time: TR 8:00-9:15
Instructor: Paul Ross pross8@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 25973
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Paul Ross pross8@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing Through the Issues of the Working Poor
CRN: 23990
Days/Time: TR 9:30-10:45
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas, debates and questions about work, poverty and social mobility and participate in current public conversations about these (initially broad) topics. We will first discern what these public conversations about the “working poor” in fact, are, assess their validity, and articulate our own, well-supported arguments. As summary, analysis and synthesis are central components of the academic research paper, we will practice these, and we will learn to find and evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources for our own research. You will develop your reading, writing, research and communications skills through assignments and activities such as writing and revising, class discussion, in-class writing and workshopping, and peer review.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Fandom!
CRN: 21700
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Doug Sheldon sheldon@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine the concept of Fandom/Fan Culture through the lens of students’ individual research interests. This is designed to not only define the terms “Fandom” and “fans”, but how these definitions shift over time and between social groups. Students will be afforded opportunities to examine these shifting definitions and apply them to research focused on academic expectations. Working with research methods that encourage personal and academic exploration, we will discover and elaborate on the cultural relevance of these definitions as they apply to the ethics, motives, and individual behaviors. We will examine modes of presentation that engage us with these cultural concepts and allow for students to discover research topics that will benefit both critical writing and reading skills as their college careers progress.

English 161 Academic Writing II: The Challenge of AI in the Composition Classroom
CRN: 22418
Days/Time: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
In this investigative class, we will write critically about ever-evolving AI programs such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Chatpdf, Grammarly, and Research Rabbit. We will analyze and evaluate these programs in terms of how they might help, hinder, or simply annoy us. We will ask tough questions about AI in relation to the environment, privacy, bias, and labor. Students can expect to engage in uncomfortable conversations about unethical use of AI (“cheating”), astounded by advances of AI (particularly in the medical field), and witness spectacular failures (hallucinations).
At the beginning of the semester, we will read and discuss international guidelines regarding AI use and then develop our own AI policy for the classroom. While we will also identify malicious actors and Deepfakes, the main goal of this class is to enhance our AI literacy and grapple with questions about how AI is changing how we teach and learn. Finally, throughout all of our conversations and writing assignments, we will think about what it means to be human. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 28749
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Mary Kate Varnau-Coleman mvarna4@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Stories of Selves: Autofiction, Literature, and Narrative
CRN: 40446
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Dan White dwhite44@uic.edu
Locating the boundary between fiction and nonfiction implicates questions of craft, personal history, narrative technique, and creative writing as a method of social inquiry or engagement. Another way to conceive of this question is the definition of ‘autofiction,’ a term of considerable speculation and even controversy in the current literary landscape. This course will interrogate that definition and the surrounding questions in order to better understand the art and purpose of narrative form.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Fandom!
CRN: 27288
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Doug Sheldon sheldond@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine the concept of Fandom/Fan Culture through the lens of students’ individual research interests. This is designed to not only define the terms “Fandom” and “fans”, but how these definitions shift over time and between social groups. Students will be afforded opportunities to examine these shifting definitions and apply them to research focused on academic expectations. Working with research methods that encourage personal and academic exploration, we will discover and elaborate on the cultural relevance of these definitions as they apply to the ethics, motives, and individual behaviors. We will examine modes of presentation that engage us with these cultural concepts and allow for students to discover research topics that will benefit both critical writing and reading skills as their college careers progress.

ENGL 161 Writing for Inquiry and Research Writing Through the Issues of the Working Poor
CRN: 42939
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Jennifer Lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
In this course, we will explore contemporary ideas, debates and questions about work, poverty and social mobility and participate in current public conversations about these (initially broad) topics. We will first discern what these public conversations about the “working poor” in fact, are, assess their validity, and articulate our own, well-supported arguments. As summary, analysis and synthesis are central components of the academic research paper, we will practice these, and we will learn to find and evaluate a variety of primary and secondary sources for our own research. You will develop your reading, writing, research and communications skills through assignments and activities such as writing and revising, class discussion, in-class writing and workshopping, and peer review.

English 161 Academic Writing II: The Challenge of AI in the Composition Classroom
CRN: 40447
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
In this investigative class, we will write critically about ever-evolving AI programs such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Chatpdf, Grammarly, and Research Rabbit. We will analyze and evaluate these programs in terms of how they might help, hinder, or simply annoy us. We will ask tough questions about AI in relation to the environment, privacy, bias, and labor. Students can expect to engage in uncomfortable conversations about unethical use of AI (“cheating”), astounded by advances of AI (particularly in the medical field), and witness spectacular failures (hallucinations).
At the beginning of the semester, we will read and discuss international guidelines regarding AI use and then develop our own AI policy for the classroom. While we will also identify malicious actors and Deepfakes, the main goal of this class is to enhance our AI literacy and grapple with questions about how AI is changing how we teach and learn. Finally, throughout all of our conversations and writing assignments, we will think about what it means to be human. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Intersection of Past and Present
CRN: 42942
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Kris Chen kchen96@uic.edu
This course will explore key events in the United States that occurred between 1955 and 1975. Topics discussed in class will include (but are not limited to): civil rights, counterculture, education reform, environmental protections, LGBTQ+ rights, Medicare, political corruption, reproductive rights, unions, and voting rights. In this class, you will select a present-day topic with ties to the 1955-1975 era in the United States and conduct a semester-long focused inquiry of that topic. Assignments include four writing projects: an annotated bibliography, a project proposal, a literature review, and a research paper. Short writing assignments and peer reviews are also incorporated into the class.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Politics of Beauty: Image and Appearances
CRN: 33322
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Tricia Park tpark38@uic.edu
Don’t judge a book by its cover,” the saying goes. But the truth is, we are inundated by images; from print and online advertising to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and whatever new social media is on the horizon, we live in a world crammed with messages about beauty and appearance. In this course, we will examine a range of texts about idealized standards of beauty and the ways they intersect with race, age, and other factors that contribute to external and internal social biases. Through this particular lens, we will explore rhetorical situations, learn what it means to take a position on a topic and investigate what makes for persuasive arguments. This course will help you develop the essential skills to better express yourselves in a variety of writing genres, improve your ability to analyze texts and other media forms as well as understand how they are constructed to impact your thoughts and opinions.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 30670
Days/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “social justice”—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 11958
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “social justice”—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 21667
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Mark Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetorics of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (two-stage annotated bibliography, paper proposal with review of literature, and a final paper and presentation) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Urban Secret Histories
CRN: 40443
Days/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
Instructor: Michael Newirth newirth1@uic.edu
This English 161 course is structured around the theme of “”Writing Urban Secret Histories”. We will look at contested or alternative narratives in urban life, including issues such as segregation, the underground economy, political corruption, and the development of infrastructure and law enforcement in cities like Chicago and New York. We will read full-length critical and shorter texts by writers such as Gary Krist and Marco d’Eramo. As with all 161 courses, students will produce a minimum of 20 pages of polished, original text-focused writing over the course of the semester. In this class, this takes the form of an independent research paper following a research proposal, and two shorter papers focused on required critical texts. Students will encounter relevant historical narratives and social arguments as background material. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for twenty years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer and editor. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising argumentative writing for clarity and power.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Urban Secret Histories
CRN: 40445
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Michael Newirth newirth1@uic.edu
This English 161 course is structured around the theme of “”Writing Urban Secret Histories”. We will look at contested or alternative narratives in urban life, including issues such as segregation, the underground economy, political corruption, and the development of infrastructure and law enforcement in cities like Chicago and New York. We will read full-length critical and shorter texts by writers such as Gary Krist and Marco d’Eramo. As with all 161 courses, students will produce a minimum of 20 pages of polished, original text-focused writing over the course of the semester. In this class, this takes the form of an independent research paper following a research proposal, and two shorter papers focused on required critical texts. Students will encounter relevant historical narratives and social arguments as background material. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for twenty years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer and editor. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising argumentative writing for clarity and power.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Democracy in the Age of Misinformation
CRN: 21668
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course we will examine problems with (and threats to) democracy in the 21st century, including misinformation, voter suppression, the influence of money and, as some argue, the very structure of American government. We will explore and analyze links between public positions and private motives, historic compromises and their contemporary consequences, money and policy, information and belief. You will (or should, if you do the work) develop critical thinking and analytical writing skills in the process of composing three short writing projects. You will apply these skills more comprehensively in a final, lengthier research paper, thus inserting your own voice and argument in a larger conversation regarding our course themes.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 30674
Days/Time: TR 3:30-4:45
Instructor: Mark R. Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetorics of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (two-stage annotated bibliography, paper proposal with review of literature, and a final paper and presentation) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Urban Secret Histories
CRN: 11892
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Michael Newirth newirth1@uic.edu
This English 161 course is structured around the theme of “”Writing Urban Secret Histories”. We will look at contested or alternative narratives in urban life, including issues such as segregation, the underground economy, political corruption, and the development of infrastructure and law enforcement in cities like Chicago and New York. We will read full-length critical and shorter texts by writers such as Gary Krist and Marco d’Eramo. As with all 161 courses, students will produce a minimum of 20 pages of polished, original text-focused writing over the course of the semester. In this class, this takes the form of an independent research paper following a research proposal, and two shorter papers focused on required critical texts. Students will encounter relevant historical narratives and social arguments as background material. In addition to being a full-time Lecturer in English at UIC for twenty years, the instructor has an extensive background as a writer and editor. These professional experiences inform the intense focus on the nuts and bolts of revising argumentative writing for clarity and power.

ENGL 161. Academic Writing II: ‭Bleep That: Censorship in Contemporary American Society‬
‭CRN: 42940
Days/Time: TR 5:00-6:15
Instructor: Brennan Lawler blawle3@uic.edu
The concept of “censorship” is sometimes constructed as a problem of bygone eras and backwards‬ political regimes – a supposed casualty of America’s steady march toward liberal progress and‬ ever-increasing freedoms. In this course, we will examine the history of American censorship,‬ from the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts to Tumblr’s 2018 ban on adult content, in order to unwind‬ the ways in which censorship continues to function in American culture today.‬
Over the course of the semester, we will examine the ways in which censorship and the concept‬ of free speech have evolved over time, eventually taking up specific issues of censorship in the‬ realms of television and film, music, literature, and the Internet. As the major assignment in the‬ course, you will conduct your own original research in relation to the course theme, writing an‬ 8-10 page researched argument based on a specific censorship-related issue of your choosing.‬

ENGL 103 English and American Poetry
CRN: 20878
DAY/TIME: MW 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Jenna Hart jhart28@uic.edu
Why poetry? We can usually tell just by looking at something that it’s a poem— but why write that way at all? What work does poetry do that other forms of writing do not? In this course, we’ll be working on understanding poems through close readings, as well as understanding the greater social and historical contexts in which they were written. We’ll be reading a wide variety of poetry written in English over several centuries: everything from selections of Old English epics, the Romantics, modernism, conceptual poetry, music lyrics, and more. In reading all of this, we’ll be pursuing questions about the poetry on a formal level (what can we understand about the poet’s choice of language, metaphor, rhyme, etc?), about the poetry on a historical level (what can we understand about the poem’s context, its relationship to the self, history, and the community?), and about the poetry on a personal level (how can we engage with it? how can we enjoy it and understand it?). By the end of the course, you should have a very broad understanding of the history of poetics, as well as having the tools needed to tackle reading any poem.

ENGL 103 Voices in History: Poetry and Poetics in British and American Poetry
CRN: 37896, 37897
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this course we will read a wide array of British and American poetry (and some critical writings) comprising several genres and periods, with an emphasis on the concept of the speaker. Who or what is the voice of the poem, and how is that voice constructed? How has the conception of voice or speaker shifted through time? We will situate each poem in its literary and historical contexts, strongly focusing on the relationship between form and content. Through extensive close readings, we will investigate how this relationship informs and/or reveals important aspects of a poem’s cultural and aesthetic environments. In addition to becoming familiar with voice, students can expect to acquire proficiency in recognizing and understanding various poetic tropes and conventions and in analyzing elements of prosody (meter and rhyme). Through informal and formal written responses and discussions, students will also learn to compose coherent arguments about a literary text and how to select and appropriate effective textual evidence to support those arguments.

ENGL 104 Understanding Drama
CRN: 29789
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
How do plays represent the world? How do they produce new worlds? This course will examine the form and content of drama from the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of “modern drama,” to the contemporary stage. We will focus on strategies for critically reading and writing about plays through an analysis of works by playwrights including Sophocles, Chekhov, Brecht, Fornés, Parks, and Nottage, and we will see and review productions by the UIC Theatre. Our reading will be supported by an exploration of the relationships between written texts and live performances through projects involving acting, directing, and design, as well as literary criticism. We will also explore the social contexts for plays by reading theatre history and dramatic theory. In this way, the literary texts and techniques of playwrights will be complemented and complicated by the theatre artists, theatre companies, critics, and audiences that shaped their production.

ENGL 105 Understanding Fiction
CRN: 14332, 20941
DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Mark Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
We’ve all read stories that foreground heroism, relationships, crisis, and conflict in ways that inevitably feel repetitive: two people fall in love, a young person grows up, a stranger comes to town, everything we know is swept away—these tropes and more form the archetypal core of storytelling in the West in the 20th and 21st centuries. But other frames and subjectivities occasionally emerge to turn these archetypes on their head, and these stories that defy the norm are what we will concern ourselves with in Understanding Fiction. What can we learn from stories told from unusual points of view, or told in ways that seem outside the ordinary? Expect to read extensively across genres as we practice close reading, historicizing, and analyzing fiction texts that feature unconventional narration, settings, or plot arcs, as well as learning to respond critically to fiction through a variety of scholarly modes of interpretation.

ENGL 119 Introduction to African American Literature Since 1910
CRN: 14588
DAY/Time: MW 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Helen Jun junhelen@uic.edu
Cross listed course with BLST 111.

ENGL 131 Understanding Moving Image Arts
CRN: 46155
DAY/TIME: T 3:30-4:45/ R3:30-6:15
INSTRUCTOR: Kate Boulay kboulay@uic.edu
What exactly is work? What does working mean? Who works? When? Why? These are some of the questions that will guide us over the semester as we explore representations of work in narrative cinema. Screening such films as “Pearl” (West 2022), “Good Burger” (Robbins 1997), “Bicycle Thieves” (de Sica 1947), and “Barbershop” (Story 2002), we explore a wide variety of representations of work. Along the way, we ground our discussions and writing in introductory film theory, contemporary discourse on work, and critical analyses of it. Cross listed with MOVI 131

ENGL 135 Understanding Popular Genres and Culture
CRN: 46157
Day/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
This course will focus on stand-up comedy as a popular genre with a particularly dynamic relationship between performer and audience. In the first section, we’ll examine storytelling in stand-up. In the second section, we’ll shift to satirical argument. And in the final section, we’ll explore joke telling. Mostly what we’ll do in this class is analyze stand-up comedy with the purpose of getting up in front of the class and doing a version of all this stuff ourselves. With this purpose in mind, you’ll present three times this semester: you’ll tell a story, present a satirical argument, and tell a string of jokes. These presentations will function as public speaking practice and as exams that represent your engagement and understanding of each section. My hope is that this course will help you become more comfortable with public speaking and maybe even more artful about it too.

ENGL 135 Understanding Film Noir
CRN: 47976
Day/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Ryan Nordle rnordl2@uic.edu
This course introduces the critical, political, and formal questions surrounding film noir. We will track noir’s roots in detective fiction and the Golden Age of Hollywood, follow its resurgence in the paranoid neo-noirs of the late 70’s and 80’s, and find its more off-beat expressions in the oddball noirs of the late 90’s and early 00’s, leading us to eventually question what traces of noir exist in contemporary cinema. Beyond following the genre’s historical development, we will examine its treatment of doubt, reason, knowing, truth, guilt, and justice. Because this course is intended to be a study of genre, we will attempt to answer whether or not film noir can even be considered a genre, prompting us to understand the purpose of genres and why they are important for interpreting aesthetic works. Your grade will include a midterm and final exam, short weekly quizzes, and a strong emphasis on active participation in class discussions. Film screenings to include Double Indemnity (1944), Out of the Past (1947), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Long Goodbye (1973), The Conversation (1974), Blade Runner (1982), Memento (2000), Brick (2006), Under the Silver Lake (2018), etc.

ENGL 150 FIRST YEAR WRITING PROGRAM
SEE FYWP

ENGL 151 FIRST YEAR WRITING PROGRAM
SEE FYWP

ENGL 153 Understanding Grammar and Style
CRN: 47977
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
This course will not be your conventional “grammar drill” or “right and wrong” class. Instead, we will approach grammar and style as analytical and creative tools. Our ultimate goal will be to use grammatical forms to be more aware of the choices we make when we read and write. We will also discuss significant issues surrounding the English language, including its history, Black English, prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, and the ethics of writing. Students will complete analyses to demonstrate the grammatical skills they have learned, as well as complete assessments of their own writing and a short-written project at the end of the semester.

ENGL 154 Understanding Rhetoric
CRN: 46159
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Keegan Lannon klannon@uic.edu
“Rhetoric” is one of those hard to define concepts, like “freedom” or “beauty.” Any definition put forth will, under the smallest amount of scrutiny, seem inadequate. Aristotle, one of the first thinkers to formally define rhetoric, defines rhetoric as: “The faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion.” There is no mention of mode of communication, so do all ways of speaking, writing or thinking have rhetoric? What about non-persuasive communication (if that even exists)? Are some means of persuasion limited, and if so by what? What does it mean to persuade a person? And so on…
The more deeply you dive into what rhetoric is, the more it seems like everything is (or maybe has?) rhetoric. Like String Theory, rhetoric could be seen as the Theory of Everything for communication theories. In this course, we will examine how messages are communicated—both in written and visual forms—and how our thinking (and our sense of self) is influenced by the rhetoric we encounter.

ENGL 159 FIRST YEAR WRITING PROGRAM
SEE FYWP

ENGL 160 FIRST YEAR WRITING PROGRAM
SEE FYWP

ENGL 161 FIRST YEAR WRITING PROGRAM
SEE FYWP

ENGL 175 Bible as Literature
CRN: 46190, 46614
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Raphael Magarik magarik@uic.edu
This course will introduce you to the Bible as a collection of literary texts written by human beings. The texts we read discuss (and disagree with each other about!) erotic desire, the possibility of redemption, politics and warfare, family, the existence of evil, and so on. We will learn something about the times and places in which these texts were produced, and we will practice reading them for ourselves, attending to their quirks, problems, and weirdness. We will also reflect on the varied uses to which biblical texts have been put over time, indeed the varied bibles that later readers, scribes, and editors have created.
The course aims do not include you getting a synoptic, “birds-eye view” of all of the Bible; I have tried to teach the course like that in the past, and I think it sacrifices too much. Rather, I hope you will leave the course having learned:
1) How academic scholars approach the Bible, and how to the Bible as works of human culture.
2) Passages in the Bible that are likely unfamiliar to you, even if you have read the Bible before. For that reason, I have privileged weird, odd parts of the Bible over the more “central” stuff.
3) Why understanding the Bible is hard: its internal complexity, its historical difference, and its ambiguities. I don’t want to intimidate you, but I do want you to understand why it can be difficult to get from the text to a meaning.
4) To look closely at what you are reading and think about it carefully—and to appreciate the pleasures and surprises that can emerge from such a reading.
Cross listed with RELS 175.

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 46167, 46612
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
This course introduces approaches to the study of literature and other creative works. In this class, we will become familiar with some of those approaches by reading works of literature and criticism and experimenting with them ourselves. We will use the concept of adaptation, broadly defined, to better understand both how and why authors and other creators retell some stories as well as some of the practices and concerns that inform those new works.
Throughout the semester, we will use different methods of critical analysis as lenses or frameworks for evaluating narratives and the choices authors make in the process of creating or adapting them. We will consider the strategies that scholars use to agree and disagree with each other as they engage in conversation about particular works. Although the course will focus on new and evolving theories that shape much of scholarly conversation in the twenty-first century, we will also pay attention to the history of literary criticism. Since conversation is a vital part of literary discourse, everyone should be ready to engage in discussion of the assigned readings for each session.

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 46164, 46610
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Ainsworth Clarke ac57@uic.edu
This course is an introduction to the key terms and debates that define the field of literary study. Using the transformation of detective fiction from the classic detective story to the postcolonial crime novel as our case study, we will explore how questions of genre, literary form, agency, and narratology that circulate within the field inform critical analysis. Our readings will include classic literary analysis by Todorov, Brooks, Moretti, Jameson, and Culler (amongst others) and signal examples of detective fiction by Poe, Conan Doyle, Chandler, Himes, Auster, Chamoiseau, and Condé.

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis of Film and Media
CRN: 46163, 46609
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Kaitlin Forcier kforcier@uic.edu
In this course students will learn to think critically about film, television and digital media. We will ask: what are the material, formal, and aesthetic features that define different media and how they produce meaning? What is unique about a given medium, not just in the process of its production and circulation, but in how it constructs its audience and produces different kinds of publics? We will focus on the cultural and ideological effects of media, considering how their content and form are closely tied to questions of power, class, race, gender, sexuality, ability and nationality. We will consider the historical and societal context that condition how media create and affect their audiences. By introducing students to key readings on film and media theory, this course will provide tools for analyzing a wide variety of cultural texts. One of the aims of the course is to learn how to appreciate the challenge of reading complex theoretical material. Readings will include canonical thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Stuart Hall, Michel Foucault, Susan Sontag and bell hooks, as well as more contemporary works by Jenny Odell, Tung-Hui Hu, and Legacy Russell. Screenings will include films such as Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), Sunset Boulevard (1950, Billy Wilder), Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954), Blow Up (Antonioni, 1966), Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda, 2000), In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai, 2000), The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma, 2019), Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022), Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023).

ENGL 207 Interpretation and Critical Analysis
CRN: 46166, 46611
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Helen Jun junhelen@uic.edu
ENG 207: “But, why?” is the baffled question that many of us have heard from well-meaning friends and family (including my own parents) after declaring our majors. This class addresses that query directly, that is, what is the point of studying English and how do we do it? We will begin with the very foundation of Western philosophy’s understandings of artistic representation and work our way through the most influential models of literary and cultural analysis, including psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, and race/postcolonial paradigms. The latter part of the course examines the crucial stakes of cultural/literary analysis in understanding and interrogating the logics of nationalism and global capitalism. Primary cultural texts include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, short stories by Alice Walker, Charles Yu, and Helena Viramontes, as well as poetry by Daniel Borzutsky, Paul Martinez Pompa, Russell Leong.

ENGL 208 English Literature, Chaucer through Cavendish
CRN: 46099
DAY/Time: MW 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Raphael Magarik magarik@uic.edu
1. The period we will be studying witnessed massive historical transformations—the discovery of the Americas and beginnings of European colonialism , the Protestant Reformation, the English Civil War (and first execution of a European monarch by an elected parliament), the invention of the printing press, the birth of commercial capitalism, the rise of companionate marriage, increases in women’s (and general) literacy, and more.
We will aim to study this shifting, convulsing world, from which much of modernity derives, through its literary forms—that is, through the ways English writers made meaning, organized their (often chaotic and threatening) experience into art. What is an epic? Why did it play such an important role in literary culture, and how did that change?
To emphasize these processes of historical change, I am organizing the course around the theme of utopia—around, that is, writers’ fantasies of places and societies in which the contradictions and deficits of the real world have been overcome. As we will see, such utopias play a large role in some of the greatest literature of the period: Thomas More coined the word in the early sixteenth century, John Milton daringly depicted the first utopia of all, the Garden of Eden, in Paradise Lost; Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World tells a science-fiction story of a journey to a world of perfect knowledge and gendered inversion… and more. Focusing on utopia, we will ask how societies imagine their own transformations; how we got the recognizably modern world that (barely) begins to emerge by the end of our period; and whether we can resurrect any of the exhilaration and wild confusion of this tumultuous period, the world repeatedly turned upside down.
2. We will read and interpret works of literature which are difficult, first, because they were written by people who believed that art ought to be challenging, and second, because they were made a long time ago and require some historical knowledge to understand. I will help provide you with context; I will also model for you and attempt to train you in analytic reading—going beyond the surface of the text, to draw surprising conclusions, based on its structure and peculiar details.

ENGL 208 English Studies I: Beginnings to the 17th Century
CRN: 46649
DAY/Time: F 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Krista Muratore cmurat2@uic.edu
Discussion

ENGL 208 English Studies I: Beginnings to the 17th Century
CRN: 46630
DAY/Time: F 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Tricia Park tpark38@uic.edu
Discussion

ENGL 208 English Studies I: Beginnings to the 17th Century
CRN: 46650
DAY/Time: F 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Krista Muratore cmurat2@uic.edu
Discussion

ENGL 208 English Studies I: Beginnings to the 17th Century
CRN: 46620
DAY/Time: F 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Tricia Park tpark38@uic.edu
Discussion

ENGL 209 English Literature from Stuart Restoration to Imperial Crisis
CRN: 46583
DAY/Time: MW 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Nicholas Brown cola@uic.edu
This course undertakes the impossible task of surveying four hundred years of English literature in fifteen weeks. This stretch of literary history is punctuated halfway through — and halfway through our semester — by the invention of literature in the contemporary sense, which is marked in English literature by the appearance of _Lyrical Ballads_ in 1798. Both before and after, it is crowded with new forms and new thematic and narrative material: from allegory to lyric, from essay to novel, from ballad to dramatic monologue; from the scandalous affairs of Restoration comedy to the chaste attachments of Victorian verse; from the origins of the English novel with Daniel Defoe to its apotheosis in George Eliot (and to its transformation in Joseph Conrad). The reading load for this course will therefore be heavy. Since this course is designed for English majors, it is presumed that students will arrange their semester to enable them to devote sufficient time to it. The payoff will be worth the effort. This semester will provide a solid backbone to the study of the period and a strong basis on which to begin advanced study.

ENGL 209 English Studies II: 17th Century to Today
CRN: 46631
DAY/Time: F 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Hy Damitz hingr2@uic.edu
Discussion

ENGL 209 English Studies II: 17th Century to Today
CRN: 46584
DAY/Time: F 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Miles Parkinson mpark101@uic.edu
Discussion

ENGL 209 English Studies II: 17th Century to Today
CRN: 46170
DAY/Time: F 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Hy Damitz hingr2@uic.edu
Discussion

ENGL 209 English Studies II: 17th Century to Today
CRN: 46633
DAY/Time: F 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Miles Parkinson mpark101@uic.edu
Discussion

ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare
CRN: 46498, 46629
DAY/Time: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Gary Buslik gbusli1@uic.edu
Shakespeare is FUN! Sure, we already know about his tragedies and history plays, but what about his farces and comedies, his jesters and jokes? We’ll have laughs learning about the happier side of Shakespeare’s life and times. We’ll read a short biography about him, his work, and Elizabethan theater while watching a few terrific Hollywood movies of his most famous—and HAPPY—plays. We’ll engage in lighthearted discussions about why you think the man from Stratford wasn’t just the greatest writer who ever lived, but the one with the best sense of humor.

ENGL 213 Introduction to Shakespeare: The Celluloid Bard: Shakespeare through Film
CRN: 46497, 4628
DAY/Time: MW 3:00-4:15
INSTRUCTOR: Alfred Thomas alfredt2uic.edu
In this course we shall examine some of Shakespeare’s plays and poems through the lens of cinematic adaptations from the anglophone and non-anglophone world. In addition to reading the texts closely we shall consider how filmmakers transformed word into image as well as using Shakespeare’s world to reflect their own. Examples will be a British film version of Richard III transposed to a fascistic England of the 1930s; an American Hamlet in which the prison house of Denmark becomes a corporate tyranny; a Russian King Lear which reflects the grim experience of Soviet totalitarianism, and a Japanese Macbeth envisioned as a warrior Samurai society.

ENGL 223 Introduction to Colonial and Postcolonial Literature:”The Empire Writes Back With a Vengeance”
CRN: 46499
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Zara Imran zimran3@uic.edu
In this introductory course we will aim to create an understanding of what the “postcolonial” is and its relation to the literary. A foundational exploration of this course will be how does literary representation speak to processes and legacies of Empire and decolonization? Students will be exposed to key themes and debates surrounding postcolonial studies and how processes of Empire, nation building, movements of independence and globalization have come to and continue to shape our understanding of the post-colony and the Global South, critically interrogating the relationship between colonizer and colonized. In looking at a range of literary and theoretical texts, we will try developing a more critical understanding of contemporary issues such as identity, nationalism, gender and sexuality, subalternity, migration, decolonization, and resistance.

ENGL 230 Sound Film/Sound Culture
CRN: 46500
DAY/TIME: T 3:30-4:45/ R 3:30-6:15
INSTRUCTOR: Harry Burson nburso3@uic.edu
In this course we will examine a range of films to consider how cinematic sound provides insights into the broader realm of sonic culture. In recent years, artist and scholars have approached sound and listening as distinct cultural practices with distinct social, political, and aesthetic histories. Taking are cue from the field of sound studies, this class will explore the culture of sound asking questions such as: How does sound shape our relationship to the world around us? Have people across history heard the world in different ways? What does it mean to say that a person sounds like a certain gender, race, or class? Is hearing somehow unique among the senses and what are the politics of listening? Throughout the semester, we will read and discuss writing about sound by authors including Jennifer Lynn Stoever, Mara Mills, Shaka McGlotten, Mary Ann Doane, and Jonathan Sterne. We will also practice the close analysis of film in its cultural context as we watch movies by directors Julie Dash, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Steven Sodebergh, Stanley Donen, Boots Riley, Robert Altman, and others.

ENGL 230 Introduction to Film and Culture: Gender, Race, and Difference in the American Horror Film
CRN: 46501
DAY/TIME: M 3:00-4:15/ W 3:00-5:45
INSTRUCTOR: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
Horror is one of cinema’s most enduring and iconic genres, reflecting individual and collective fears about monstrosity, difference, and the body. In this course, we will study how the American horror film has evolved over time, viewing representative examples of its most important subgenres and the ways they are influenced by historical context, social movements, and ideologies about gender, sexuality, race, and class. We will also devote class time to a basic understanding of film and cultural studies, including major concepts, techniques, and terminology. Films will include CARRIE (1976), JENNIFER’S BODY (2009), PSYCHO (1960), IT FOLLOWS (2014), GET OUT (2017), CANDYMAN (1990), and BARBARIAN (2022).
Cross listed with MOVI 230.

ENGL 233 History of Film: WWII to Present
CRN: 14589, 14590
DAY/TIME: MW 3:00-4:50
INSTRUCTOR: Martin Rubin mrubin1@uic.edu
CO-INSTRUCTOR: Eric Pahre pahre2@uic.edu
An overview of the artistic, political, and technical developments that have transformed cinema over the past 75 years. After World War II, Italian neorealist filmmakers went out into the streets to forge a more open form of film storytelling, while in Hollywood the dark side of postwar America was exposed in the shadowy crime dramas of film noir. In the 1950s, European directors such as Bergman and Fellini pioneered a more personal mode of filmmaking. The iconoclastic cinephiles of the French New Wave took that mode in a more freewheeling direction, employing some of the same technical advances that enabled the cinema-verite movement to revolutionize documentary film. The upheavals of the 1960s turned many filmmakers in a more politicized direction, which was later expanded by the first major wave of feminist cinema and by Global South filmmakers in Africa and Latin America. At the turn of the current century, the advent of digital cinema had a massive impact on all levels of filmmaking, from innovative independents to big-budget blockbusters. There is no textbook; historical background is provided via lectures and excerpts, supplemented by film screenings and discussion sessions. Film History I is not required; this course is self-sufficient.
Cross listed with AH 233 and MOVI 233.

ENGL 236 Young Adult Fiction
CRN: 46171
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: David Schaafsma schaaf1@uic.edu
This course, English 236, is labeled Young Adult Fiction. This version of it will be a bit of a smorgasbord, spanning lots of books, and some of them recently popular.. This is a course I initially envisioned, years ago, would be almost exclusively of interest to people in the program I direct, English Education, but I have found over the years that people from all areas of the department like to take the course, including some folks out of the department such as in psych or K-8 Elementary ed. Is there a theme? Growing Up? Coming of Age? and I hope we can analyze these terms as a focused area of literature, and make connections to personal experience, as such a topic would seem to invite. Finally, I will design some of the work we will do to appeal to future teachers/writers. Opportunities for work in the course will range from “creative” writing to curricular work (how to approach a book, pedagogically) to traditional literary analyses, given the range of student interests in the department. Final projects will be negotiated with me. I hope some of you will do some co-teaching of books you like, too.

ENGL 237 Graphic Novels
CRN: 46172
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Keegan Lannan klannon@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 237 Graphic Novels
CRN: 48034
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
This class in the Graphic Novel will begin by examining some basic questions such as, “What is a Graphic Novel,” and “How do we read and understand graphic novels.” We will begin by grounding our exploration with texts about comics, such as Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud and Comics. We will then move on and examine questions like, “How have graphic novels reflected our society,” “Is there a literary Canon of Graphic Novels,” and “Why and how have they become an important and recognized literary form?” Readings will focus on work produced since the 1960’s and include both full graphic novels and specific selections. Additionally, while we are mainly interested in American Graphic Novels, we will include some influential works from Japan and Europe. Examples of International graphic novels we may examine for the course include Tintin by Herge, works by Osamu Tezuka (Astroboy), , and My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame. American Graphic Novels will include both literary and populist works, such as Maus by Art Spiegelman, Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, The Arrival by Shaun Tan, Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine. Assignments will include online discussion boards, weekly Journals, midterm and final, and an independent research paper/presentation examining a specific graphic novel.

ENGL 238 Fiction, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy
CRN: 48035
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
Snow White retold as a contemporary tale of family secrets and racial politics. A magical town in which incredible events are incredibly mundane. A post-pandemic world where our civilization has been obliterated and transformed. All of these are stories that fall under the umbrella of speculative literature. Speculative literature works by imagining or speculating about a world very different than our own, with different and sometimes inexplicable rules and features including things like magic, non-human characters, or advanced science. In this course, we will explore the stories described above in order to delineate the literary strategies that distinguish three sub-genres of speculative literature: fabulism, magical realism, and science fiction. And though the speculative is typically associated with fiction and storytelling, we will consider whether it might apply to poetry as well. In our exploration of poetry we will encounter poems that enter haunted houses, that use science as metaphors for political unrest, and that use magical thinking to make reality look like dreams.
What will we read? A mix of novels, short stories and poetry by authors such as Helen Oyeyemi, Daniel Orozco, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ted Chiang, Mary Shelley, Zachary Schomburg, Colson Whitehead.

ENGL 238 Speculative Fiction, Sci-Fi and Fantasy
CRN: 46173
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Mary Anne Mohanraj mohanraj@uic.edu
In this course we’ll survey global speculative literature, from a range of periods and traditions. Speculative literature is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature: hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making — any piece of literature containing a fabulist or speculative element. We’ll use the Vandermeer anthologies of classic fantasy and science fiction as starting points, then branch out to a culturally diverse range of contemporary authors.

ENGL 245 Gender and Sexuality in Literature: Queer Latinx Literature
CRN: 46175
DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Esmeralda Arrizon-Palomera earrizon@uic.edu
This course is an introduction to gender and sexuality in U.S. Latinx literature. Through close readings of essays, poems, fiction, memoirs, and film students will examine how U.S. Latinx writers negotiate gender and sexual identities with, against, and through racial, ethnic, class, and national ones. In taking this intersectional approach to the study of gender and sexuality in U.S. Latinx literature, our goal will be to understand what U.S. Latinx literature teaches us about the construction of gender, sexuality, and Latinidad.
Cross listed with GEW 245.

ENGL 245 Introduction to Gender, Sexuality and Literature
CRN: 46174
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Virginia Costello vcostell@uic.edu
While we will cover many historical moments both in the literature we read and the films we view, we begin with texts written between 1890 and 1940. Writing during this period often depicts a crisis in the human spirit and a disruption of tradition–both of which echo through contemporary texts we will read. It is imperative that each participant comes to class with an open mind and is willing to think outside of the box created by one’s own lived experience. We will read a variety of genres including, but not limited to, memoir (Barbin, Grande), essays (Lorde, Goldman, Irigaray), fiction (Baldwin, Hemingway), and poetry (Sappho).
Cross listed with GWS 245.

ENGL 247 Women and Literature: Banned Woman Writers
CRN: 46177
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Robin Gayle rpetro3@uic.edu
Most scholars consider books to be mirrors of one’s experiences or windows into understanding other people’s experiences. So why are books that depict the lives of marginalized groups frequently censored in schools? By reading banned books, we will investigate what larger themes emerge around censorship and educational content. We will question what responsibility, if any, do schools share in educating young people about race, religion, sexual orientation, social class, gender identity? What responsibility, if any, do school libraries have to provide books and resources that represent people from across all spectra? In addition to reading banned womxn writers, we will explore why some books are so feared. Banned womxn writers we will read may include Maya Angelou, Assata Shakur, Sandra Cisneros, Malala Yousafzai, Laurie Halse Anderson, among others.
Note: This course does not assume any prior knowledge or experience with feminism, queer theory, and/or the application of these theories to literature. Instead, the goal is to understand how feminist and queer literary criticism—combined with open, frank communication with classmates—can ultimately develop your own critical ability to address issues of gender in academic papers and everyday life.
Cross listed with GWS 247.

ENGL 247 Women and Literature: Introduction to Chicana Literature
CRN: 46178
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Esmeralda Arrizon-Palomera earrizon@uic.edu
This course is an introductory survey of Chicana literature. Students will read a variety of texts such as novels, memoirs, short stories, poetry, plays and films by Chicana writers. By the end of this course, students will be able to identify and discuss key concepts and major themes in Chicana literature, examine Chicana literature with attention to aesthetic movements, cultural traditions, and historical context, and determine Chicana literature’s contribution to the development of Chicana Feminist Thought.
Cross listed with GWS 247.

ENGL 258 Grammar and Style of Nonstandard Englishes in the U.S.
CRN: 46502
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Doug Sheldon sheldond@uic.edu
Are you interested in language and writing as a call for justice? Well ENGL 258 will give you the knowledge and skill to read, critique, and create writing that uses the history of “American Grammar” as your starting point. Come see how grammar evolved into a political animal and how it influences policy, education, and your daily communication!
This course is ideal for English, Pre-Law, Education, and Professional Writing, Language, and Communications Students.

ENGL 261 Reading Black Women Writing
CRN: 38023
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
Instructor: Beth Richie brichie@uic.edu
Cross listed course with BLST 261.

ENGL 264 Introduction to Native American Literature
CRN: 46180
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
“Still here today” is a phrase meant to remind people that Native American communities and cultures are all around us. Too often the study of these literatures is treated as a historical exercise in analyzing creation myths and trickster tales. Although we will read some of these older stories, the texts we will focus most of our attention on are those building upon earlier traditions and showing readers how Native American culture is experienced and expressed in more modern times. Readings for this class will include some criticism to guide us in our analysis such as Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories, which will serve as our main text for this purpose. Fiction readings will include works by key authors from the Native American Renaissance such as Louise Erdrich and Leslie Marmon Silko along with contemporary works of Native American literature inspired by that earlier generation of writers. Assignments will involve a research paper focused on a specific Native American narrative technique and a short biography of a Native American author. You will also be asked to write a weekly response paper that we will use to guide class discussions on the assigned readings.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46186
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15 ONLINE
INSTRUCTOR: Gregor Baszak baszak2@uic.edu
Writing well means to use as few words as you can to convey a message. It also means always keeping your audience in mind. Our class will be about these core principles of professional writing and more. You will learn the ins and outs of some core journalistic and public relations genres and assemble a portfolio that you will present on a personal website at the end of the semester. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing. An important note: This will be an ONLINE class with ONE LIVE session per week on Zoom during our regularly scheduled class time. Attendance of the live sessions will be mandatory, so make sure the class actually fits your schedule. For the rest of the week, you’ll complete work on your own time by checking the prompts on our Blackboard course page.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46184
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Karen Leick leick@uic.edu
In this course, students learn skills in media and communication that are used in the professional workplace. Students will research, discuss, and analyze aspects of professional written communication, including journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Over the course of the semester, each student will produce a portfolio of writing in various genres, presented on a personal webpage. The course is designed to prepare students for professional internships and employment. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46187
DAY/TIME: MWF 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jeffrey Kessler jckessle@uic.edu
This course will introduce students to genres in professional media and communication with close attention to writing with directness and clarity. We will discuss many aspects of professional writing, developing a rhetorical mindset towards genres in journalism, feature writing, and public relations. Along with several shorter writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of their work presented on a personal webpage. English 280 is the prerequisite for English 493, the English internship for Nonfiction Writing.

ENGL 280 Media and Professional Writing
CRN: 46986
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course, you will develop a fresh perspective on and skills regarding media and professional writing. Through reading and interviewing, writing and discussion, you will learn to analyze and produce work appropriate for these dynamically evolving industries. We acknowledge this as a moment of acute transformation in the way we ingest and disseminate the written word. Taking these shifts into account, students will develop confidence as media writers and future participants in the professional workplace. You will examine multiple aspects of media and communications—from journalism to PR—and eventually produce a writing portfolio (via your personal web page), preparing you for internship and employment opportunities.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center: Introduction to Theory and Practice
CRN: 46987, 46988
DAY/TIME: T 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Antonio Guerrero aguerr27@uic.edu
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing-intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership. Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center
CRN: 46192, 46586
DAY/TIME: T 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing-intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership. Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center
CRN: 46191, 46585
DAY/TIME: W 3:00-4:15
INSTRUCTOR: Vainis Aleksa
vainis@uic.edu
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing-intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership. Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.

ENGL 282 Peer Tutoring in the Writing Center
CRN: 46189, 46587
DAY/TIME: W 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Charitianne Williams cwilli31@uic.edu
English 282 prepares students to tutor writing from all academic disciplines and levels. The course is reading- and writing-intensive, drawing on established theory and evidence-based practice from the field of writing center studies. As part of the course, students tutor two hours a week starting the fifth week of the semester. Students continue to meet in class in small sections capped at 12 throughout the semester, analyzing their sessions, critically engaging theories of tutoring, conducting research, and developing collaborative approaches to tutoring that foster an inclusive community among fellow UIC students. With its emphasis on integrating learning with practice, the course is ideal for students of all majors who would like to develop professional skills, especially critical thinking, communication in diverse environments, and leadership. Prerequisite: A or a B in English 161 (or the equivalent transfer course) or in other courses that have a substantial writing requirement.

ENGL 290 Introduction to the Writing of Poetry
CRN: 46194
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Mishka Ligot kligot2@uic.edu
This course aims to demystify poetry as both a medium and discipline, and (re)consider the many ways we employ and engage with notions of the poetic in our everyday lives. We will work towards these goals through reading, writing, and revising poems across the semester. Although we will be working exclusively within the English language and its many variations, we will read poems from various locales and time periods, from the 9th Century BC Zhou Dynasty I Ching to work published in the year 2024; from the city of Chicago to my home country of the Philippines. Throughout these readings, we will explore the various elements and conventions of poetry (such as the line, image, metaphor, sound, meter, form, etc.), and observe how these persist, bend, adapt, or even mutate across temporal and spatial contexts. We will not be beholden to the illusion of getting something right the first time—in this course, we will shape work through various class exercises, prompts, and assignments. This course is dedicated not only to generating work but revising it as well: there will be multiple in-class workshops throughout the semester, where we will have the opportunity to share and critique each other’s work with the aim of improving our craft through peer and instructor feedback.

ENGL 291 Introduction to the Writing of Fiction: The “Hats & Masks” model: the critic and the creative
CRN: 46196
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Gordon Middleton amiddl5@uic.edu
As fiction writers, we get used to the wardrobe changes. We wear many hats. We even wear some masks. We write. Then we edit. We read, then we rewrite. We develop our critical voice. Then we learn to quiet the critic so we can write without second-guessing ourselves.
Just as an actor watches a film with an eye to how another delivers a line, for a writer, reading is every bit as technical as the reading you might do in a literature class. But a writer isn’t just the actor; a writer is also the director, cinematographer, camera operator, set designer, dialogue coach, and, well, the writer.
Each of these hats helps to dramatize your story. To turn them into skills that you can use in your fiction, this course helps develop your critical reading skills just as it helps you find your voice and voices in your fiction writing. You go from reading only for pleasure or for literary analysis to being a reader who also reads for technique, who reads to measure the effect of the writing on another reader, who reads with the goal of beginning or improving your own creative fiction writing. As such, even if you don’t see yourself as a fiction writer, in 291 you’ll learn more about how fiction works by trying your hand at it.
As to the masks, we’ll look at trying on other voices to get out of our own heads. We start off reading short stories and novel excerpts and then writing a page or two of our own fiction in imitation of these. Putting on a mask can be very liberating for a creative writer. You learn so much when you can forget yourself and “how you do things” and ape someone else’s style or approach.
In the second half of the course, each of you will use your newfound skills to write two of your own stories and workshop them with your classmates.
NOTE: Even if you are new to writing fiction — even if you have only thought about it — you are welcome to try your hand at it. WRITING IS VERY LEARNABLE: TALENT IS OPTIONAL; HARD WORK IS NOT!!! NO GOALS, ONLY HABITS.

ENGL 291 Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
CRN: 46197
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Rebecca Fishow rfisho2@uic.edu
This course is an introduction to the art and craft of writing fiction. We will study the fundamentals of literary storytelling, with a particular emphasis on the mechanics of characterization, point of view, plot, setting, and other elements of literary craft. During the first half of the semester, you will read and discuss short stories by established authors. Rather than analyzing these texts for cultural significance or meaning, we will be learning to “read like writers,” with a goal of gleaning insight into how stories work from the ground up, and how the “moving parts” of fiction form something complete and meaningful. In addition to these readings, you will participate in craft lectures and explore in-class creative writing activities. This analytical and imaginative work will transition into an in-person workshop in the second half of the semester. You will submit two original short stories to your peers, who will provide you with substantive feedback and constructive criticism to help you further refine your writing. You will be expected to provide thoughtful commentary on your peers’ work, just as they do for your work.

ENGL 291 Introduction to the Writing of Fiction
CRN: 46195
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Eliza Marley emarle2@uic.edu
This course is an introduction to the art and craft of writing fiction. Our focus will be on the components that go into literary storytelling, with a particular emphasis on things like plot, character, prose style, dialogue, and themes. In the earlier portions of the semester, we will read short stories by established writers. Unlike a typical English literature class, rather than analyzing these texts for cultural significance or meaning, we will analyze them on the level of craft, examining for story elements and focusing on the writing itself. Our goal as readers will be to understand how a story works from the ground up, and how the “moving parts” of fiction weave together. The second half of our semester will be workshop based, at which time you will produce two stories along with providing thoughtful, constructive feedback for your classmates. As a group we will establish specific workshopping guidelines prior to discussing student work and we will practice by discussing published stories across the first half of our semester.

ENGL 295 Latino Literary Studies
CRN: 34683
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Joel Huerta huertaj@uic.edu
Cross listed with LALS 295.

ENGL 303 Studies in Poetry: The Lyric Tradition in Twentieth Century American Poetry
CRN: 34226. HYBRID
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Christina Pugh capugh@uic.edu
Lyric poetry has always been a vessel for the pleasures of music, feeling, and complex thought. This course focuses on a selection of American poets in the twentieth century (including Frost, Williams, Stevens, Brooks, Gluck, and others), to be considered in light of their participation in the age-old genre of the lyric. The course will address the following questions: what is the role of musicality (including, but not limited to, formal constraint) in varieties of the twentieth-century lyric poem? What are the differences between aural and silent (readerly) reception of poetic voice? How do we construct what is commonly known as a poetic “speaker,” and how are the idiosyncrasies of particular speakers articulated through poetic tropes and techniques? Do lyric poems support or resist story-telling and narrative? What is the role of emotion in the lyric? Can lyric poetry viably respond to visual phenomena or to broader cultural issues, including those associated with differences of race and gender? And of course, how do these poems construct versions of “Americanness”? We will approach these questions with the aid of critics including W. R. Johnson, Paul Allen Miller, Roland Barthes, and others. As we approach these questions, we will be working on both the micro level (listening to the idiosyncrasies of each poet’s particular voice) and the macro level (considering how each poet navigates larger issues surrounding the genre of the modern and contemporary lyric). Course requirements include several short papers, a longer final paper, and a class presentation.

ENGL 305 Jerks, Naysayers and Killjoys CRN: 33168
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Nasser Mufti nmufti@uic.edu
We live in dark times. It is hard not to be cynical, pessimistic, skeptical, and/or checked out. Such dispositions are often dismissed as irresponsible, complicit, and damaging. This course rescues negativity, cantankerousness, grumpiness, resignation, dismay and silent judgement as a valuable mode of critique and politics. We will look at a range of different writers, thinkers and traditions for thinking negativity. Amongst these will be essays, poems, novels, films, manifestos, and rants from the Frankfurt School, Romanticism, modernism, postcolonialism, feminism, and Black studies. If this course has hope, it is to rescue sourness against the sanguine, the confident, and the cloyingly upbeat.

ENGL 331 Studies in Moving Image: Berlin to Hollywood
CRN: 48289
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Sara Hall sahall@uic.edu
This course will focus on cultural transfer between Germany and the US through film remakes. It will be of interest to students in Germanic Studies, English, and the Moving Image Arts minor. Dr. Hall is the director of the minor in Moving Image Arts.
Cross listed with GER 302.

ENGL 335 “We are a Multi-Sexed Species:” Studies in (Intersex) Literature and Popular Culture
CRN: 46577
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Rupert jruper1@uic.edu
This course begins with the memoirs of Herculine Barbin, a deeply moving love story written by an intersex woman who lived in France during the 19th century. This early reading will demonstrate that not only feminist and LGBTQIA activists but also religious leaders, medical professionals, and legal scholars have long known that human sex is non-binary. In order to see how knowledge about sex (and gender) have continued to develop over time and place, course participants will explore non-fiction prose, poetry, and children’s literature written by and for intersex people; research written by academic allies from the fields of anthropology, biology, psychology, and philosophy; and popular media texts meant to educate the public about, create understanding of, and advocate for the rights of the intersex community. In exploring this topic, participants will likely be struck by the fact that in our current moment trans people must fight for gender-affirming care while intersex children are given surgical procedures without informed consent and family members are left in the dark about their loved one’s ‘mysterious’ condition. Students can expect to read texts such as the autobiographical writing of local Chicago intersex rights activist, Pidgeon Pagonis (Nobody Needs to Know: A Memoir, 2023); Elizabeth Reis’s historical research (Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex, 2021); and Abigail Tarttelin’s coming of age novel (Golden Boy, 2013) as well as the works of 20th century modernist and surrealist writers who wrote about a“third sex” and poetry from around the world about what it means be beyond the gender binary.

ENGL 380 Advanced Professional Writing
CRN: 47979
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
Course description and goals
This advanced professional writing course teaches ethics and argumentation relevant to writing in the workplace. Our assignments will bridge the public and private sectors and teach you how to define issues, propose changes, judge actions, and promote values within your chosen field. We will debate about controversies involving business, government, law, and medicine. Integral to these debates will be how clear thinking and good writing can create the common ground necessary for these professional communities to work and to work together.
Public Sector (public policy):
We will explore the area of public policy writing, and you will practice various genres in the policy communication process. We will learn legislative history research practices from our UIC library liaison, and you will locate, analyze and advise on an issue in public policy.
Private Sector:
In this unit we will practice writing internal and external business messages. You will work on promotional materials for a business of your choosing and develop social media strategies and crisis management solutions.
Third Sector (proposal and grant writing):
The third sector refers to America’s non-business, non-government institutions, commonly known as nonprofit organizations, or NPOs. NPOs include most of our hospitals, a large part of our schools, and a large percentage of our colleges and universities. Habitat for Humanity is one such philanthropy, with thousands of chapters and a million volunteers. Proposal and grant writing offers a competitive edge for young job-seekers across many disciplines: art, business, corporate communications, education, environmental studies, health, music, the STEM fields, politics, sociology, etc. This unit will teach research and assessment, project management, professional editing, and formal document design, as you develop a media packet for a nonprofit of your choosing.

ENGL 382 Editing and Publishing
CRN: 38558
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Sammie Burton sburto7@uic.edu
This section of English 382 is designed to introduce you to the fundamentals of editing and publishing, specifically for academic journals. This semester, you will critically analyze academic journals for their purposes, their writing styles, and publishing processes. Additonally, you will engage in peer-dicussions, whole group discussions, and in-class assignments related to a variety of writing and editing prompts. These tasks are curated to focus your skills towards the editing and publishing of scholarly texts.

ENGL 382 Editing and Publishing
CRN: 42660
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Margena Christian mxan@uic.edu
In this course, students will study editorial oversight, copy editing/line editing techniques, style requirements, grammar as a stylistic tool, and industry standards with variations in both traditional and self-publishing. Students will learn the business behind the books. Basic design skills will also be taught for producing a cover and a book interior while adhering to publishing best practices.

ENGL 383 Writing Digital and NEW Media
CRN: 39948
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
Writers increasingly rely on digital media to conduct their work, and the definition of “writing” is evolving to include visual communication, audio and video editing, content management, and social media. Writing for Digital Media is designed to familiarize you with all of these topics through theoretical exploration of digital media and practical training with a variety of software tools. Broadly stated, the key goal of this course is to increase your “digital literacies.”
Learning how to use new software programs is certainly important, but genuine literacy requires more than facility with tools; it involves the ability to understand and critique digital media, then create original, rhetorically effective digital compositions. To accomplish this goal, we will read and discuss some of the most influential writers on digital literacy, then we will apply the concepts we’ve read to our own digital media projects. Our class sessions will be a mix of reading discussion, artifact analysis, and software workshop.
You should expect to experiment with unfamiliar technologies every day you come to class, and you should be prepared for some of these experiments to go terribly wrong. Failure and frustration are standard experiences when working with digital media, but they are not valid justifications for giving up. When you encounter technical problems in this class, you can get help from a variety of sources, including your classmates, campus resources, and I will do whatever I can to help you navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of digital media.

ENGL 384 Technical Writing
CRN: 43679
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Philip Hayek phayek2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine—first broadly and then with increased specificity—the types of writing required of most professionals in fields like business, medicine, science, technology and law, from the extremely basic to the more complex. We will also explore and become familiar with many real-life aspects behind the creation of technical writing, such as collaboration and presentation. Frequent opportunities to practice these skills and to incorporate knowledge you have gained in your science and technology courses will be integrated with exercises in peer review and revision. We will learn to pay attention to analyzing audience and purpose, organizing information, designing graphic aids, and writing such specialized forms as instructions, proposals and reports. Non-English majors in the STEM fields are encouraged to take this course in order to build writing skills that are directly applicable to your major coursework and projects.

ENGL 388 Writing for Health Professionals
CRN: 46602
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
Medical journalism and creative non-fiction are two of the most exciting and popular developments in professional writing. This course is focused on how to write and edit articles for the health professions, with a particular focus on mental illness. Students in this course will investigate how structural racism, social inequities, and medical biases perpetuate health disparities, and the different ways that writing can advocate for health justice.
In this course we will ask who decides how mental illnesses are narrated: diagnosed, attributed, and treated? How have gender, race, class, ability, and sexual orientation affected the treatment and experiences of people deemed “mad”? To answer these questions, we will look at the history of psychiatric discourse from degeneracy to hysteria, shell shock to paraphilia, and protest psychosis. We will consider how theoretical lenses from fields such as disability studies, medical anthropology, and public health can help us think in complex ways about the root causes of mental health inequity. We will read texts ranging from patient narratives, memoirs, and journalism to creative non-fiction to consider how the formal and rhetorical choices across these genres can inform our own writing about these topics.

ENGL 411 Topics in Medieval Literature: Violence and Masculinity in Medieval Arthurian Romance
CRN: 42992, 46993
DAY/TIME: MW 4:30-5:45
INSTRUCTOR: Alfred Thomas alfredt@uic.edu
When we think of Arthurian legend today, we tend to see it through the idealistic lens of nineteenth-century romantic notions of the Middle Ages. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s King Arthur was more of a Victorian gentleman than a warrior king. In this course we shall examine the interplay of masculinity and violence in medieval Arthurian texts from the earliest Welsh story to Sir Thomas Malory’s Arthuriad known as Le Morte Darthur (1469). We shall place these texts in the historical and political context of medieval feudalism and examine the patriarchal power relations between men and women. In a world where royal and noble women were bartered as pawns in political alliances rather than loved as wives, we shall also uncover the stratagems employed by women to resist and overcome their inferior social status.

ENGL 422 The Literature of Decolonization: From Colony to Postcolony
CRN: 43656, 43657
DAY/TIME: MW 3:00-4:15
INSTRUCTOR: Sunil Agnani sagnani1@uic.edu
This course introduces students to what used to be called third-world literature, or postcolonial literature. The aim is to understand anticolonial nationalism in tandem with decolonization. We will investigate the legacies of European colonialism through a study of fiction, essays, and films produced during the colonial period and its aftermath. We begin with Conrad and Kipling around 1900, then shift to those in the colonies to examine the cultural impact of empire, anti-colonial nationalism, and the role played by exile and diaspora communities.
What challenges do works from writers on the receiving end of empire—such as Gandhi, Fanon, Césaire, J.M. Coetzee, Assia Djebar, Michael Ondaatje, and Salman Rushdie—pose to the conventional idea of justice? How do they reveal contradictions within the languages of liberalism and progress that emerged in 19th-century Europe? How do such writers rework the classic forms of the novel? How has the failure of some of the primary aims of decolonization (economic sovereignty, full political autonomy) affected more recent writing of the last 40 years? Finally, we will read Amitav Ghosh to find out how the Black Atlantic shades into the Indian Ocean with the abolition of slavery and the rise of indentureship. Criticism from: Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak.

ENGL 430 Topics in Cultural and Media Studies: The Archive in Digital and Material Cultures
CRN: 48037, 48038
DAY/TIME: W 2:00-4:50
INSTRUCTOR: Karen Leick kleick@uic.edu
What is an archive and what impact do archives have on the ways we see the world? Why are archives—whether in special collections or elementary schools—an international focus of attention? How are digital archives in particular helping us to see the world with new eyes and make new arguments about our shared and distinct cultural histories? This course approaches these and other historical and theoretical questions by studying the theory and politics of archives in thinkers from Jorge Luis Borges to Saidiya Hartman, and focuses on connecting students to collections at UIC and the Newberry, where scholarly investigation and curation of archives is an ongoing project. Further, we will explore the ways in which digital tools and platforms promote access to archives, enhance new forms of scholarly inquiry, and enable new opportunities for public-facing work. All students in the class will learn how to build their own website, and further assignments will include short essays and a digital project that can accompany a student’s scholarly work.

ENGL 435 Topics in Culture and Literature: What’s Good about “Middlebrow” Fiction?
CRN: 47130, 47131
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Natasha Barnes nbbarnes@uic.edu
The day before this year’s Pulitzer Prize in literature was announced, the famous New York Times literary critic, A.O. Scott published “What’s Good about Good Literature?”arguing that literary “greatness” has an “old fashioned, arbitrary ring.” “Every canonization,” Scott cheekily argues “is a cancellation waiting to happen.” This course will take up some of this provocation with a study of “middlebrow” fiction, the literature that makes best-seller and celebrity reading lists, but is not reviewed in The London Review of Books and certainly not praised by A.O. Scott in the New York Times. We will do less reading of the not-so-great books but immerse ourselves in historicizing and theorizing the “middlebrow.” Why are so many women reading titles like Anita Shreve’s The Pilot’s Wife and why are so many minoritized women forming armies of reading clubs made up of titles that never get studied in English or ethnic studies departments.
We will start with a short examination of the modernist beginnings against which the “middlebrow” derives its meaning. Our theoretical readings will come from a range of approaches, including Janice Radway, Raymond Williams, Tim Aubry, Blakey Vermule and Gerald Early among others. We will pay attention to how narrative form: firstly free indirect narrative and first person narrative creates the psychological intimacy that blurs the distinction between readers and the fictional worlds they consume. We will examine how particular class and racial identities get normalized in fiction marketed and consumed as “relatable.”
Books that we will read can include Tayari Jones’ decidedly middlebrow, An American Marriage (2018) and the middlebrow-turned-critically-important speculative fiction novel, Kindred (1978) by Octavia Butler. Where on the spectrum are Curtis Sittenfeld’s First Lady novels, American Wife (2009) and Rodham (2020)? If there’s a page-turner you encountered, send me an email and perhaps that book may be included in our reading list. Please be prepared for lively conversation—which you can’t have if you’re not in class—a midterm exam and an end of term test, one short (5 page) essay that will be expanded into a longer (10-12 page) paper.

ENGL 453 Freshwater Lab Internship Course
CRN: 46589, 46590
DAY/TIME: R 3:30-6:15
INSTRUCTOR: Rachel Havrelock raheleh@uic.edu
The Freshwater Lab spring 2025 internship course offers you a deep dive into environmental history and interdisciplinary thought focused on water. Engage with local experts and community leaders and participate in special events and field trips.
You’ll have the opportunity to apply what you learn in the classroom as part of an individualized internship placement at an organization focused on water or the environment. No matter your major, your skills can be accommodated in ways that make tangible contributions to the public good. Internships are paid up to 300 hours.
Cross listed with PA 453 and UPP 453.

ENGL 480 Introduction to the Teaching of ENGLISH in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 48425, 48427
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Brennan Lawler blawle3@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 480 Introduction to the Teaching of ENGLISH in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 46218, 46278
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Lauren Johnson lrjohns2@uic.edu
English 480 is the first required methods course for the English Education major and a course for anyone who wants to explore the possibility of being an English teacher. Together, we will explore the seemingly simple question: Why teach English? This question will undoubtedly lead to related questions, such as: What is the purpose of English/Language Arts? What does English teaching look like in different settings? How do our experiences as students shape our perspectives and pedagogical commitments? How do our students influence what teaching English means? We will consider multiple perspectives, including those attending to ideas of justice and equity. Through our learning, we will develop emerging frameworks for how we might approach English teaching. Course requirements include 12 hours of fieldwork in an area high school.

ENGL 486 Teaching of Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 19256, 19257
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:15
INSTRUCTOR: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
Course description and goals:
Why teach writing? How can we teach writing more effectively and responsibly? These are the main questions we will try to answer in English 486. Drawing from a wide range of sources, we will think about writing not only as a transfer of information but as a way of thinking critically, reflectively, and precisely about issues that are important to us. In our readings, we will encounter practical activities suggested by experienced writing teachers; we will practice these activities as we write extensively together; we will read and assess each other’s work; we will talk about how to teach students a variety of genres. In essence, we will create an environment where you can develop your professional identity as a writer and teacher of writing. Also, we will discuss ideas that lend coherence to our classroom activities (what some people call “theory”). Whatever generalizing we do, however, will be grounded in the particular details of working toward the goal of this class: to prepare you to establish a productive community of writers.
Course requirements include 12-15 hours of field work in an area high school and three portfolios demonstrating what you have learned in various sections of the course.
Prerequisite: ENGL 480 or consent of instructor

ENGL 487 Teaching of Reading and Literature in Middle and Secondary Schools
CRN: 46220, 46282
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Abigail Kindelsperger akinde4@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 488 Methods of Teaching English in Middle an Secondary Schools
CRN: 47113, 47114
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Todd Destigter tdestig@uic.edu
English 488 is the final course in the sequence of English Education methods courses. It is to be taken only by English education students the semester before student teaching. Although this course is for both undergraduate and graduate students, B.A. students should register for CRN 47113, and M.A. students should register for CRN 47114. The course’s central objectives focus on the challenges of making literature and writing connect with students’ lives and with broader social/political issues—to make clear, in other words, why English “matters” to high school kids. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which teachers’ methodological choices are influenced by the theoretical frameworks they adopt. Additional focus will be on long and short term lesson planning and assessment. In addition to weekly written work, English 488 students will lead discussions, organize small group activities, create an instructional unit based on a Shakespeare play, and practice teaching lesson plans they design.

ENGL 490 Advanced Writing of Poetry
CRN: 29430, 29431
DAY/TIME: MW 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
English 490 is a advanced poetry writing workshop. In addition to writing original poetic works, students will read poetic texts TBA and be responsible for leading class discussions and workshop sessions.

ENGL 491 Advanced Writing of Fiction
CRN: 19260, 19261
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Mary Anne Mohanraj mohanraj@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 491 Advanced Writing of Fiction
CRN: 22828, 22829
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Kim O’Neil kimoneil@uic.edu
This is a combined graduate and advanced undergraduate fiction workshop. We will start by studying the craft of fiction, “reading as writers” a diverse, strange, and pleasing range of work by published authors and examining what each is up to—by way of narrative POV, distance, voice, and speed; detail and dialogue; characterization; structure; scene and summary, syntax and sound. This is our toolbag as writers. In order to figure out how our tools work, we will pay close attention to how others have used them and to what effect. And we’ll bring these understandings of craft to bear as readers for each other in workshop. In workshops, we’ll support each other as a collaborative class community, meeting each writer where they are at with the kind of thoughtful, specific, respectful peer feedback we all want: attentive to intent, identifying what’s working, as well as opportunities to grow. Along the way, you will be encouraged to take risks with story structures and prose styles that best serve the writerly effects you seek. Rather than limit our concept of what the fiction can do, we will work toward an expansive understanding of the genre.

ENGL 492 Advance Writing of Nonfiction Prose
CRN: 14549, 19262
DAY/TIME: R 5:00-7:50
INSTRUCTOR: Peter Coviello coviello@uic.edu
This course starts from the presumption that many of the things that tend to get valued in creative nonfiction – confessional urgency, deep feeling, experience – are not, intrinsically, very interesting. Our guiding premise will be that what makes them so is nothing other than language, and the dexterity, intelligence, and inventiveness of its use. Students will think about genres of creative nonfiction (the personal essay, cultural criticism, the travelogue, the letter) and study examples of lively writing (from essayists but also poets, novelists, songwriters) as they work toward the making of their own finished pieces. Our goal will be for students to emerge with a new fluency in the workings of nonfiction prose, and a new sense of how to make a voice, on the page, that sounds like their own.

ENGL 493 Internship in Nonfiction Writing
CRN: 26976, 26977
DAY/TIME: W 3:00-4:15
INSTRUCTOR: Margena Christian mxan @uic.edu
Approved internship where students learn professional writing and organizational communication with an emphasis on initiative, planning, and meeting deadlines. Both the instructor and a supervisor mentor the students during the course.
May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours. A maximum of 6 hours may be applied toward either the undergraduate major in English or a graduate degree in English. Credit is not given for ENGL 493 if the student has credit in ENGL 593.
English majors, English minors, and Professional Writing minors must register for 3-6 credit hours.
Prerequisite(s): Grade of C or better in ENGL 280 and consent of the instructor
Recommended background: Junior or senior standing
To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Conference and one Practice

ENGL 496 Portfolio Practicum
CRN: 41077
DAY/TIME: W 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Margena Christian mxan @uic.edu
English 496 is a capstone course in UIC’s undergraduate program in Professional Writing designed to assist our students in landing their first post-degree position as a writing professional. The major focus of this seminar is creating and revising a writing portfolio that not only represents each student’s unique talents as a writer of specialized genres but also showcases their ability to expand upon their proven academic skill sets in new professional writing situations.
In order to prepare seminar participants for the job market of their choosing, students will compile a working portfolio of their best professional writing samples through an on-line platform of their choosing and in this way build upon and refine a portfolio they have already begun as members of our professional writing program. Over the course of the seminar, students will learn how to (re-)design and structure material they have already produced as students of writing for audiences beyond the university. In putting together their writing portfolio, students will be given ample opportunity to reflect on the skills they have acquired in their education in order to establish a recognizable and marketable professional identity. In a culminating assignment, students will not only present their portfolio to the class but also practice talking to future employers through mock interviews.
This seminar is designed to increase students’ confidence as they enter the job market by preparing them to share verbally and in writing their achievements as young professionals well-prepared to utilize the writing skills they have carefully developed and honed during their university education.
Prerequisite(s): Grade of C or better in two of the following courses: ENGL 380, 382, 383, 384.
Course Information: Credit is not given for ENGL 496 if the student has credit for ENGL 493.

ENGL 498 Educational Practice with Seminar I
CRN: 36162 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Kris CHEN kchen96@uic.edu
A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department. Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499. The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development.

ENGL 498 Educational Practice with Seminar I
CRN: 14554 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Todd Destigter tdestig@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage two different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching and 2) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 498 Educational Practice with Seminar I
CRN: 14558 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Lauren Johnson lrjohns2@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage two different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching and 2) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 498 Educational Practice with Seminar I
CRN: 14555 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage two different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching and 2) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 498 Educational Practice with Seminar I
CRN: 14556 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 499 Educational Practice with Seminar II
CRN: 36163 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Kris Chen kchen96@uic.edu
A two-segment sequence of practice teaching, including seminar, to meet certification requirements for teaching in grades nine through twelve. Graduate credit only with approval of the department. Prerequisite(s): Good academic standing in a teacher education program, completion of 120 clock hours of pre-student-teaching field experiences, and approval of the department. To be properly registered, students must enroll in one Lecture-Discussion and one Practice section for ENGL 498, as well as one Conference and one Practice section for ENGL 499. The seminar is structured to encourage three different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection upon your classroom teaching; 2) those that allow you to collaborate with your colleagues and field instructors to prepare for your upcoming teaching and licensure assessment; and 3) those that address issues pertinent to your job search and on-going professional development.

ENGL 499 Educational Practice with Seminar II
CRN: 14560 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Todd Destigter tdestig@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage two different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching and 2) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 499 Educational Practice with Seminar II
CRN: 14565 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Lauren Johnson lrjohns2@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage two different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching and 2) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 499 Educational Practice with Seminar II
CRN: 14561 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: Lauren Johnson lrjohns2@uic.edu
INSTRUCTOR: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage two different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching and 2) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 499 Educational Practice with Seminar II
CRN: 14562 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: Lauren Johnson lrjohns2@uic.edu
INSTRUCTOR: Kate Sjostrom katesjostrom@uic.edu
English 498/499 is the semester of student teaching for English education students (498), plus the accompanying weekly seminar (499). These courses are to be taken concurrently, and they are only open to student teachers. Eligible students must enroll in both courses (498 & 499), and students may select any CRN’s that remain open, regardless of who is listed as the instructor.
The purpose of these courses is to support student teachers’ efforts to negotiate the complexities they will encounter in classrooms and to facilitate their growth and development as English teachers. The Wednesday seminar meetings will be remote and are structured to encourage two different sorts of conversations and activities: 1) those that invite reflection on classroom teaching and 2) those that address issues regarding a job search and ongoing professional development.

ENGL 547 Media Theory in a Post-Medium Age
CRN: 33141
DAY/TIME; M 2:00-4:50
INSTRUCTOR: Kaitlin Forcier Kforcier@uic.edu
This class will provide an overview of theories of media, while questioning to what extent the idea of the medium remains relevant in an age of digital convergence. We will track major texts and movements in media theory, while historicizing these theories against their cultural and technological contexts. The course will consider how the idea of medium specificity has evolved in film theory, art history, information theory, literary studies, and critical theory. We will track new movements in media theory that emerge in response to the digital such as affect theory, cultural techniques, atmospheric media, and infrastructural approaches to media, as well as the recent expansion of media theory to encompass such disparate phenomena as the filing cabinet, the pony express, the urban street, the racialized body, and even the environment itself. Students of the course will gain an ability to engage with major debates in media theory, as well as articulate how media theory has evolved over the 20th and 21st centuries.

ENGL 554 Seminar in English Education: Dual Enrollment Theory-Preparing High School ENGLISH Students for College
CRN: 34331
DAY/TIME: T 5:00-7:50
INSTRUCTOR: David Schaafsma schaaf1@uic.edu
English Students for College fulfills a very specific need in the graduate program at the moment, and one that is increasingly evident in the Chicago area, as high schools are being required by the state to have at least 18 credits of graduate English to teach “dual enrollment” English courses; that is, courses that satisfy Illinois high school graduation and college/university requirements. Several of our current MA students in English and English Education–many of them current high school English teachers enrolled in our program in part to prepare to serve the needs of their students.
What does it mean to teach and learn writing and reading in high school? What does it mean to teach these things in college/university? Of course, dual enrollment accreditation has been in process for many years. But what kind of theories inform this principle of simultaneously teaching high school and college, given that their purposes differ? What are best practices in this arena? What can we learn from our success/failures? We will read texts that address theoretical considerations. We will have guests who are experienced in dual credit teaching and learning, and we will create dual enrollment syllabi models that can be adapted in our classrooms. The underlying commitment is to better preparation of students for college/university English.

ENGL 555 Teaching College Writing
CRN: 42659
DAY/TIME: W 5:00-7:50
INSTRUCTOR: Sarah Primeau sprimeau@uic.edu
English 555 prepares you to teach FYW courses at UIC and to examine the teaching of writing as an intellectual activity that fits within the disciplinary work of English Studies. You will create two detailed syllabi that focus on writing as a situated activity. Your chief task is to design writing projects and plan instruction that supports your students’ work on those projects. Day-to-day activities that help students successfully com­plete their writing assignments include: attention to the genre of the task at hand, an understanding of the context and situation, attention to sentence-level grammatical issues and their rhetorical impact, analysis of readings for content or as examples of a genre, and discussion of the possible consequences of a piece of writing. We also will focus on other writing class activities, including small-group work, responding to and grading written work, and engaging students in peer review. To successfully complete writing projects, students also must learn core skills including a rhetorical approach to grammar and appropriate use of the intellectual tools of summary, analysis, synthesis, and argument. Enrollment in this course is restricted to first-year MA students in the English Department whose application to take the course was accepted.

ENGL 570 Program for Writers: Poetry Workshop
CRN: 35448
DAY/TIME: R 2:00-4:50
INSTRUCTOR: Christina Pugh capugh@uic.edu
This course is a poetry workshop for graduate level poets. Graduate-level writers in other genres are also welcome, as are varied styles and aesthetic commitments on the part of workshop participants. Discussion of student work will be the primary focus here, but we will also read some notable recent volumes of contemporary poetry. The course includes critical readings that directly treat issues of poetic making, including the study of syntax, line, and linguistic music. These critical works treat poems in the lyric tradition; it is my belief that study of this tradition can inform a variety of aesthetic commitments.
Students will write new poems that will be discussed in workshop and revised for a final portfolio; they will also produce an artist’s statement to accompany their final portfolios. My goal is for you to be writing with energy and focus, and for you to deepen your own poetic practice by thinking critically about the elements of craft that are available to you as a poet. I also strive to create a classroom environment that is encouraging and supportive – while staying seriously focused on the art and craft (and the perennial challenge) of making poems.

ENGL 571 Program for Writers: Fiction Workshop
CRN: 14577
DAY/TIME: T 2:00-4:50
INSTRUCTOR: Chris Grimes cgrimes@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 572 Program for Writers: Novel Workshop
CRN: 14578
DAY/TIME: T 2:00-4:50
INSTRUCTOR: Luis Urrea lurrea@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 580 Seminar in Genres of Literature, Film and Media
CRN: 35414
DAY/TIME: W 2:00-4:50
INSTRUCTOR: Mark Canuel mcanuel@uic.edu
What is an archive and what impact do archives have on the ways we see the world? Why are archives—whether in special collections or elementary schools—an international focus of attention? How are digital archives in particular helping us to see the world with new eyes and make new arguments about our shared and distinct cultural histories? This course approaches these and other historical and theoretical questions by studying the theory and politics of archives in thinkers from Jorge Luis Borges to Saidiya Hartman, and focuses on connecting students to collections at UIC and the Newberry, where scholarly investigation and curation of archives is an ongoing project. Further, we will explore the ways in which digital tools and platforms promote access to archives, enhance new forms of scholarly inquiry, and enable new opportunities for public-facing work. All students in the class will learn how to build their own website, and further assignments will include short essays and a digital project that can accompany a student’s scholarly work.

ENGL 585 Hegel, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty
CRN: 47425
DAY/TIME: M 5:00-7:50
INSTRUCTOR: Nicholas Brown cola@uic.edu
This course is organized around three thinkers who take the problem of meaning seriously; that is, who understand meaning as a problem. A half-dozen major figures could be added to this short list. But each of these philosophers elaborates an approach— we can call them the dialectic, ordinary language, and phenomenology — that poses a continuing challenge not only to our contemporary common sense, but to the ideas presented by the other two. A phalanx of important commentators — Judith Butler, Toril Moi, Robert Pippin, Stanley Cavell, Sianne Ngai, Theodor Adorno, to name just a handful — can be called upon to assist us. But the plan will be, in the first instance, to stick closely to primary texts. In the second, we will test our understanding of these texts against artworks: Cézanne, Murillo, Morisot; Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Arthur Ou; Ferreira Gullar, Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, among many other possibilities. We will be reading the Hegel of _Phenomenology of Spirit_ and _Lectures on Fine Art_; the Wittgenstein of the _Tractatus_, _Philosophical Investigations_, and _Culture and Value_; and the Merleau-Ponty of _Phenomenology of Perception_ and the essays on Cézanne.
Important Note
We will be beginning our discussion in earnest on the first day of class. Please come to our meeting on January 13 ready to discuss the Introduction and the first two chapters (pages 1-152) of Volume I of the standard Clarendon edition of T.M. Knox’s translation of Hegel’s _Lectures on Fine Art_ (ISBN 9780198238164). The reprint edition currently sold on Amazon is expensive, but the volume is also readily available used and online. Please use an edition that follows the pagination of the Clarendon text.

ENGL 150 Introduction to Academic Writing Nonnative Speakers
CRN: 47912
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Deanna Thompson dthomp20@uic.edu
This class emphasizes the writing challenges presented by syntax (structure), semantics (meaning), and pragmatics (use). Through a focus on metacognition—thinking about thinking—but with a focus on thinking about writing and yourself as a writer, we will develop a deeper understanding of our own writing processes, identify our strengths and weaknesses, and learn strategies for improving our writing. We will read and analyze the writing and writing choices of other writers in a variety of genres and engage in the different stages of the writing process. Important to this class is the notion of collaboration: learning, especially language learning, cannot be achieved at the highest levels unless new knowledge is put into practice. This means interacting with new ideas and other students. In this class we will engage in traditional independent study, but priority will also be given to partnered and group activities. You will be expected, during these activities, to participate to the fullest extent, and to treat the ideas, the work, and the identities of your fellow students with the greatest amount of respect possible. By the end of this course, we will have strengthened our academic writing skills, enhancing our rhetorical knowledge, reading skills, and critical thinking. These skills will help you develop and refine your writing process, which you can adapt and apply to various writing tasks both in and beyond this course.

ENGL 151 Introduction to Academic Writing: First-Generation, Underrepresented Minority Students Writing Legacy
CRN: 48053
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Robin Gayle
This course is designed specifically for first-generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable you to increase your confidence as an academic, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming undergraduates. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each pupil’s cultural richness. You will learn how to access and use available resources and develop networks within UIC support services and enrichment programs. After attending campus tours and learning about the Sustainable Development Goals as delineated by the United Nations, including the goal of quality education, you will develop Artivism (art+activism) Legacy Projects that you will share at an open Gallery Presentation at UIC. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing, required First-Year Writing courses at UIC, and collegiate life.

ENGL 151 Introduction to Academic Writing: First-Generation, Underrepresented Minority Students Writing Legacy
CRN: 47913
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Robin Gayle
This course is designed specifically for first-generation college students, meaning you are the first in your family to attend a university. This course will enable you to increase your confidence as an academic, establish a strong community of like-minded students, and ultimately, craft a legacy to be passed down to incoming undergraduates. The classroom will be structured as a “homeplace” that builds on each pupil’s cultural richness. You will learn how to access and use available resources and develop networks within UIC support services and enrichment programs. After attending campus tours and learning about the Sustainable Development Goals as delineated by the United Nations, including the goal of quality education, you will develop Artivism (art+activism) Legacy Projects that you will share at an open Gallery Presentation at UIC. In short, this course will help to prepare you for the rigors of academic writing, required First-Year Writing courses at UIC, and collegiate life.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40094 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: M 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help you as you complete the required writing for English 160. In this course, you should expect to be supported and challenged as you work to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. In this course, you will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review your English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 47503
DAY/TIME: T 12:30-1:20
INSTRUCTOR: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.
This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40095 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: W 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help you as you complete the required writing for English 160. In this course, you should expect to be supported and challenged as you work to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. In this course, you will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review your English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 47504 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: R 12:30-1:20
INSTRUCTOR: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to support students as they complete English 160.
This is a challenging course that requires students to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including sentence-level correctness. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. Students will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review their English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 159 Academic Writing Workshop
CRN: 40382 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: F 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
English 159 is designed to help you as you complete the required writing for English 160. In this course, you should expect to be supported and challenged as you work to make critical reading and writing connections, to shape and communicate meaning, and to meet the demands of academic writing conventions, including demonstration of intent and awareness of rhetorical and grammatical choices. English 159 provides an individualized space distinct from (but also connected to) the space of English 160. In this course, you will discuss and reflect on the expectations for college writing, workshop drafts of English 160 writing projects, review your English 160 instructors’ feedback, and discuss strategies for revision and editing.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing About Your Passions
CRN: 41435
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Keegan Lannon klannon@uic.edu
The primary goal of this course is, broadly speaking, to learn how to write. You’ll notice that I don’t say how to write “well.” Writing, like most skills, takes a lifetime of practice to get good at it, and you will spend most of your time in college trying to get better. What we will do here is start this process by learning how to think like a writer, so that you can go forth and hone your skills over the next four years.
To learn this writerly way of thinking, we’ll answer one question:
If time and money were not concerns, what would you be doing with yourself?
This is a common ice-breaker question, because the answer reveals something about what drives you in life. It’s probably fairly easy to identify and articulate who and what you would like to occupy your time if you were free from other responsibilities. What is likely harder is articulating why these people and things are so important to you, and why they are worth occupying your time.
In this class you will have the opportunity to explain why your passions are valuable—even if only to you—and why they are worth your time.

ENGL 160 Writing Across Genres
CRN: 14379 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Justyna Bicz jbicz2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine various writing genres. How do writers use structure, organization, content and language? What effects do these choices have on the reader? In addition to careful analysis of texts, you will also make rhetorical decisions in your own writing. Throughout the semester, you will have four primary writing assignments. You will be guided through the process of drafting, revising, editing and reflecting on your writing throughout the semester. The critical reading and critical thinking skills we will be developing in this class will help you both in future coursework as well as with your life outside of the classroom to inform, explain, argue, refute and persuade.
Our course will revolve around four major writing projects- a genre analysis, opinion editorial, argumentative essay and final reflective project. Your writing will primarily be individual, and will be done both in class and as homework. The ideas you develop will be based on course readings, in-class discussion, small group work and research.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Binding Together: Using Zines for Sociopolitical Means
CRN: 14354
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
In this class, you will grow your awareness and understanding of worldwide current events by responding to mainstream and alternative media. In addition to responding by writing essays, you will also respond by creating zines, essentially short magazines that are usually self-published. Throughout the semester, you will write a series of short essays after turning to contemporary sociopolitical issues, reading deeply, and connecting the readings to yourself through writing. You will develop as a writer by crafting multiple drafts of other essays—a rhetorical analysis of a recent online news article, an argumentative essay on an issue of your own choosing, and an author’s/artist’s statement (about the final zine you create)—and speak to that development in reflection essays. Throughout the course, you will be taught zine-making methods and practices, with visits from librarians, zinesters, and former students, so that you build skills in making a final zine about a current issue that matters to you. You will have the option of donating your final zine to UIC’s Daley Library.

ENGL 160 Writing Across Genres
CRN: 44765
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Justyna Bicz jbicz2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine various writing genres. How do writers use structure, organization, content and language? What effects do these choices have on the reader? In addition to careful analysis of texts, you will also make rhetorical decisions in your own writing. Throughout the semester, you will have four primary writing assignments. You will be guided through the process of drafting, revising, editing and reflecting on your writing throughout the semester. The critical reading and critical thinking skills we will be developing in this class will help you both in future coursework as well as with your life outside of the classroom to inform, explain, argue, refute and persuade.
Our course will revolve around four major writing projects- a genre analysis, opinion editorial, argumentative essay and final reflective project. Your writing will primarily be individual, and will be done both in class and as homework. The ideas you develop will be based on course readings, in-class discussion, small group work and research.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Binding Together: Using Zines for Sociopolitical Means
CRN: 14356 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Heather McShane hmcshane@uic.edu
In this class, you will grow your awareness and understanding of worldwide current events by responding to mainstream and alternative media. In addition to responding by writing essays, you will also respond by creating zines, essentially short magazines that are usually self-published. Throughout the semester, you will write a series of short essays after turning to contemporary sociopolitical issues, reading deeply, and connecting the readings to yourself through writing. You will develop as a writer by crafting multiple drafts of other essays—a rhetorical analysis of a recent online news article, an argumentative essay on an issue of your own choosing, and an author’s/artist’s statement (about the final zine you create)—and speak to that development in reflection essays. Throughout the course, you will be taught zine-making methods and practices, with visits from librarians, zinesters, and former students, so that you build skills in making a final zine about a current issue that matters to you. You will have the option of donating your final zine to UIC’s Daley Library.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing for an Audience
CRN: 19835
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Angela Dancey adancey@uic.edu
The first English 160 learning goal is to improve “rhetorical awareness of audience through different genre-based assignments.” In other words, to practice writing in different genres to learn more about appealing to and communicating with your readers. Some of the selected genres in this course might be familiar to you as a reader (e.g., the curated list, or “listicle”) but less familiar to you as a writer. This course is designed to give you a thorough understanding of each genre we work in before you start writing and support you throughout the process of drafting and revising.
Another aim of this course is to challenge some outdated beliefs and unhelpful ideas about writing and replace them with habits and strategies that will serve you better as a college writer. We’ll accomplish this by focusing on situation, purpose, and audience, as well as prioritizing revision—significant changes to language and structure—over editing (corrections at the level of words and sentences). We’ll also practice critical thinking and reading skills, constructing cohesive paragraphs, and writing for simplicity and concision.
Finally, this course is purposely designed to (hopefully!) make writing enjoyable in ways it might not have been for you in high school, and maybe (hopefully!) shift your perception of yourself as a writer.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing About Popular Media, Resistance, and Social Change
CRN: 14372
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Rupert jruper1@uic.edu
What does it mean to be “woke.” Do you believe that popular culture can be a force for social change or does mainstream popular culture mostly encourage “slacktivism”? In this course, we will explore the ways in which (mostly) American popular media— video games, film, television, books, social media, advertising, news reporting, and other forms of infotainment—heighten or diminish our social awareness and corresponding desire to take action on social problems. As a starting point for this investigation, we will be reading a recent collection, Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (New York University Press, 2020). Students will utilize the theories generated by academics and activists to build original thinking on the popular media texts that matter most to them. A combination of in-class discussion, short writing assignments, and discussion board posts will not only prepare students to build arguments in three distinct genres—film analysis, opinion piece, and manifesto—but also to contribute to public conversations about pop culture and politics by transforming their academic prose into social media posts designed to heighten awareness of social issues for carefully chosen audiences. Through this course work, students will sharpen some of the most valuable skill sets for their future academic, personal, and professional lives: the ability to understand complex arguments, the ability to write clear, correct, and compelling prose, and the ability to assess various sorts of rhetorical situations in order to make successful presentations. In other words, students will begin to see the value of smart rhetorical choices in achieving their short and long term goals.

ENGL 160 Writing Across Genres
CRN: 14359
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Justyna Bicz jbicz2@uic.edu
In this course, we will examine various writing genres. How do writers use structure, organization, content and language? What effects do these choices have on the reader? In addition to careful analysis of texts, you will also make rhetorical decisions in your own writing. Throughout the semester, you will have four primary writing assignments. You will be guided through the process of drafting, revising, editing and reflecting on your writing throughout the semester. The critical reading and critical thinking skills we will be developing in this class will help you both in future coursework as well as with your life outside of the classroom to inform, explain, argue, refute and persuade.
Our course will revolve around four major writing projects- a genre analysis, opinion editorial, argumentative essay and final reflective project. Your writing will primarily be individual, and will be done both in class and as homework. The ideas you develop will be based on course readings, in-class discussion, small group work and research.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing About Popular Media, Resistance, and Social Change
CRN: 26187
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Rupert jruper1@uic.edu
What does it mean to be “woke.” Do you believe that popular culture can be a force for social change or does mainstream popular culture mostly encourage “slacktivism”? In this course, we will explore the ways in which (mostly) American popular media— video games, film, television, books, social media, advertising, news reporting, and other forms of infotainment—heighten or diminish our social awareness and corresponding desire to take action on social problems. As a starting point for this investigation, we will be reading a recent collection, Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (New York University Press, 2020). Students will utilize the theories generated by academics and activists to build original thinking on the popular media texts that matter most to them. A combination of in-class discussion, short writing assignments, and discussion board posts will not only prepare students to build arguments in three distinct genres—film analysis, opinion piece, and manifesto—but also to contribute to public conversations about pop culture and politics by transforming their academic prose into social media posts designed to heighten awareness of social issues for carefully chosen audiences. Through this course work, students will sharpen some of the most valuable skill sets for their future academic, personal, and professional lives: the ability to understand complex arguments, the ability to write clear, correct, and compelling prose, and the ability to assess various sorts of rhetorical situations in order to make successful presentations. In other words, students will begin to see the value of smart rhetorical choices in achieving their short and long term goals.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 41136 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Ling HE linghe@uic.edu
This course will be delivered completely online. Required class components (lectures, discussions, active participation, etc.) will be delivered synchronously (live interactions) on Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. You will have access to the course materials (Syllabus, Weekly Teaching Plans, Course ePackage, Panopto Videos, Assignment Deadline, Assignment Submission, and Discussion Board) on the Blackboard course site using your UIC NetID and password.
This online course features well-designed content around four major writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to academic purposes, audience, and context and their application to a specific writing project. The four writing projects fall into five types of writing for a particular purpose: Academic Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is integrated into the writing process writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. This course features student-centered learning, offering frequent writing opportunities with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Life on Earth: Sustaining Ourselves, Sustaining the Planet in a Time of Crisis
CRN: 14365
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Ryann Croken croken2@uic.edu
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? What futures might we imagine, and how do we set ourselves towards (or away from) these possible futures? How are people affected differently by social and ecological conditions, based on race, gender, ethnicity, ability, and economic and citizenship status? In this course, students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such questions. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, youth activism, and media literacy and misinformation.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 14367 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Ling HE linghe@uic.edu
This course will be delivered completely online. Required class components (lectures, discussions, active participation, etc.) will be delivered synchronously (live interactions) on Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. You will have access to the course materials (Syllabus, Weekly Teaching Plans, Course ePackage, Panopto Videos, Assignment Deadline, Assignment Submission, and Discussion Board) on the Blackboard course site using your UIC NetID and password.
This online course features well-designed content around four major writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to academic purposes, audience, and context and their application to a specific writing project. The four writing projects fall into five types of writing for a particular purpose: Academic Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is integrated into the writing process writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. This course features student-centered learning, offering frequent writing opportunities with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 46441
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
As students, you will spend much of your time looking at print works, but you look at images and writing in other contexts every day. Whether or not you seek them out, rhetorical messages reach you and you probably have a sense of how to respond. These messages frequently concern the future and welfare of local and global communities, both here in Chicago, in other communities where you have lived and traveled, and even online. Reading an article, listening to a speech, or encountering a post on social media, you already know how to “read” these arguments and respond to them in a general sense.
This course is an introduction to writing, rhetoric, and research. Though each of these terms can be defined in numerous ways, we will focus most carefully on writing and rhetoric as the craft of constructing an argument and research as the process of investigation and analysis. Since good writing begins with good thinking, this course will emphasize the importance of critical reading and will ask you to analyze a variety of texts throughout the term. We will focus on discourse surrounding real-world issues in cities and other communities in various public media and from diverse sources.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: How to Report the News
CRN: 14355 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Gregor Baszak baszak2@uic.edu
How to report the news
Get your little ring notebook, put a pencil behind your ear, keep your audio recorders and your cameras handy—you’re going out into the field to report the news. Yes, in our class you’ll become a journalist for one semester: You’ll interview people, transcribe their words, report the 5 Ws, and organize them along an inverted pyramid. You’ll also chime in with your own thoughts on an important matter that affects your community in the form of an op-ed.
An important note: This will be an ONLINE class with ONE LIVE session per week on Zoom during our regularly scheduled class time. Attendance of the live sessions will be mandatory, so make sure the class actually fits your schedule. For the rest of the week, you’ll complete work on your own time by checking the prompts on our Blackboard course page. Some assignments will ask you to talk to people on campus and/or in your neighborhood. Because what’s a good story without good quotes?

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: How to Report the News
CRN: 46437 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Gregor Baszak baszak2@uic.edu
Pack your little ring notebook, put a pencil behind your ear, keep your audio recorders and your cameras handy—you’re going out into the field to report the news. Yes, in our class you’ll become a journalist for one semester: You’ll interview people, transcribe their words, report the 5 Ws, and organize them along an inverted pyramid. You’ll also chime in with your own thoughts on an important matter that affects your community in the form of an op-ed.
An important note: This will be an ONLINE class with ONE LIVE session per week on Zoom during our regularly scheduled class time. Attendance of the live sessions will be mandatory, so make sure the class actually fits your schedule. For the rest of the week, you’ll complete work on your own time by checking the prompts on our Blackboard course page. Some assignments will ask you to talk to people on campus and/or in your neighborhood. Because what’s a good story without good quotes?

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Life on Earth: Sustaining Ourselves, Sustaining the Planet in a Time of Crisis
CRN: 14364
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Ryann Croken croken2@uic.edu
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? What futures might we imagine, and how do we set ourselves towards (or away from) these possible futures? How are people affected differently by social and ecological conditions, based on race, gender, ethnicity, ability, and economic and citizenship status? In this course, students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such questions. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, youth activism, and media literacy and misinformation.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 27287
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Amanda Bohne abohne@uic.edu
As students, you will spend much of your time looking at print works, but you look at images and writing in other contexts every day. Whether or not you seek them out, rhetorical messages reach you and you probably have a sense of how to respond. These messages frequently concern the future and welfare of local and global communities, both here in Chicago, in other communities where you have lived and traveled, and even online. Reading an article, listening to a speech, or encountering a post on social media, you already know how to “read” these arguments and respond to them in a general sense.
This course is an introduction to writing, rhetoric, and research. Though each of these terms can be defined in numerous ways, we will focus most carefully on writing and rhetoric as the craft of constructing an argument and research as the process of investigation and analysis. Since good writing begins with good thinking, this course will emphasize the importance of critical reading and will ask you to analyze a variety of texts throughout the term. We will focus on discourse surrounding real-world issues in cities and other communities in various public media and from diverse sources.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 26190 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Ling HE linghe@uic.edu
This course will be delivered completely online. Required class components (lectures, discussions, active participation, etc.) will be delivered synchronously (live interactions) on Tuesday and Thursday via Zoom. You will have access to the course materials (Syllabus, Weekly Teaching Plans, Course ePackage, Panopto Videos, Assignment Deadline, Assignment Submission, and Discussion Board) on the Blackboard course site using your UIC NetID and password.
This online course features well-designed content around four major writing projects to help you develop genre-specific knowledge through attention to academic purposes, audience, and context and their application to a specific writing project. The four writing projects fall into five types of writing for a particular purpose: Academic Summary, Reading Response, Argumentation, Rhetorical Analysis, and Reflection. These genre-based writing strategies help ensure your success in writing for your university coursework and specific rhetorical situations and appeals. Reading is integrated into the writing process writing for topical knowledge, modeling, and genre analyses. This course features student-centered learning, offering frequent writing opportunities with ongoing instructor feedback on multiple drafts and teacher-student interactions in and after class.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 38834
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
In this section of English 160, called “Genre as Rhetorical Action,” we will learn to write in four different genres: narrative, rhetorical analysis, argumentative essay, and a reflective essay. We will learn conventions of these genres to understand the rhetorical moves that the authors are successfully (or unsuccessfully) making through our genre analysis sessions. We will take our findings from our genre analysis to take our own rhetorical actions to express our experiences and ideas in our writing.
As you learn to write in these genres, you will be supported by a writing community of your peers and myself as your instructor. We will work together step-by-step through multiple drafts and peer review sessions. You will also receive individualized, instructor feedback on your writing to learn your areas of strength and areas of growth as a writer.
We will also learn how to find non-scholarly and scholarly sources of your interest to write, analyze, and integrate into your writing using MLA Style. We will learn how to use the UIC Library Databases in preparation for research-based writing in your university coursework and beyond.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Are You What You Eat? Food Stories
CRN: 26189
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Karina Duncker-Hoffmann kdinck2@uic.edu
This class will introduce you to academic writing by providing you with strategies, knowledge, and skills that you will be able to use during your academic career at UIC and beyond. You will learn to write in four different genres: narrative, restaurant review, argumentative essay, and reflective essay. Supported by the writing community of your peers and myself as your instructor, you will analyze conventions of these genres to understand rhetorical strategies in a variety of academic and non-academic readings and apply your findings to your own writing. You will practice and use various reading and writing strategies to draft, review, and revise your writing. Three of the four writing projects will revolve around food and aspects of our customs and relationship with it; the fourth will be a reflective essay on your own growth as a writer by the end of the semester.
You will also learn how to use the UIC Library Databases, find scholarly and non-scholarly sources of your interest, and integrate them into your own research-based writing. using MLA style in preparation for your university coursework.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Life on Earth: Sustaining Ourselves, Sustaining the Planet in a Time of Crisis
CRN: 14357
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Ryann Croken croken2@uic.edu
From the perils of climate change to the devastation of mass extinction, the beauty and bounty of this planet are increasingly threatened by the ecological crisis brought about by human industrial society. How do we conceive of ourselves, and communicate with one another, at this critical point in our planetary history? What futures might we imagine, and how do we set ourselves towards (or away from) these possible futures? How are people affected differently by social and ecological conditions, based on race, gender, ethnicity, ability, and economic and citizenship status? In this course, students will develop a conceptual framework through which to approach such questions. Concurrently, you will cultivate the requisite skills to express yourselves in various genre forms, including a letter to future generations, an op-ed, an argument-based academic essay, and a self-reflective essay with the option for a creative component.
These efforts will help prepare you to effectively participate in public conversations pertaining to environmental issues—as well as related issues of social consequence—that will serve you throughout your careers at UIC and beyond. Particular attention will be paid to climate change, environmental justice, youth activism, and media literacy and misinformation.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Speaking Machines: AI Voice in Cinema
CRN: 14374
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Harry Burson hburson@uic.edu
Since the birth of the talkies, cinema has been fascinated by the voice. The sound of the human voice in film is routinely associated with fundamental questions of interiority, power, identity, and intersubjectivity. Voice is often a metaphor for abstract notions of political agency and self-expression, but it is also a material phenomenon that bears the audible traces of the speaker’s lived history. So what happens when the voice we hear belongs not to a human being, but instead to an android, robot, or other artificially intelligent being? How does the representation of speaking machines in cinema reflect shifting cultural attitudes about technology, identity, and labor? This course will examine a variety of film, television, and audio works centered on the artificially synthesized voice to defamiliarize some basic assumptions about how we listen: Who is allowed to use their voice, and in what context? What does the sound of a voice tell us about the speaker? How are our preconceptions about voice shaped and challenged by the audiovisual media we encounter every day? Considering such questions will prompt students to reconsider our everyday aural encounters with people and technology.
This class is designed to introduce students to college-level writing with an emphasis on genre and context as constitutive components of composition. The primary goal is to develop the core skills and techniques necessary for writing across social, professional, and disciplinary contexts. Over the course of the semester, students will work on four major writing assignments: a Cover Letter, a Creative Project, an Argumentative Essay, and a Reflective Project. By the end of the course, you should understand the key concepts from the course materials; draw connections among our readings and case studies; create your own original arguments that address the larger themes of the course; and strengthen your writing by incorporating feedback from your classmates and instructor. This will help prepare you not only for academic and professional writing, but also for critically engaging with the media you encounter every day.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Writing in Academic and Public Contexts
CRN: 14361 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Katharine Romero kromer7@uic.edu
In this section of English 160, called “Genre as Rhetorical Action,” we will learn to write in four different genres: narrative, rhetorical analysis, argumentative essay, and a reflective essay. We will learn conventions of these genres to understand the rhetorical moves that the authors are successfully (or unsuccessfully) making through our genre analysis sessions. We will take our findings from our genre analysis to take our own rhetorical actions to express our experiences and ideas in our writing.
As you learn to write in these genres, you will be supported by a writing community of your peers and myself as your instructor. We will work together step-by-step through multiple drafts and peer review sessions. You will also receive individualized, instructor feedback on your writing to learn your areas of strength and areas of growth as a writer.
We will also learn how to find non-scholarly and scholarly sources of your interest to write, analyze, and integrate into your writing using MLA Style. We will learn how to use the UIC Library Databases in preparation for research-based writing in your university coursework and beyond.

ENGL 160 Academic Writing I: Speaking Machines: AI Voice in Cinema
CRN: 27288
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Harry Burson hburso3@uic.edu
Since the birth of the talkies, cinema has been fascinated by the voice. The sound of the human voice in film is routinely associated with fundamental questions of interiority, power, identity, and intersubjectivity. Voice is often a metaphor for abstract notions of political agency and self-expression, but it is also a material phenomenon that bears the audible traces of the speaker’s lived history. So what happens when the voice we hear belongs not to a human being, but instead to an android, robot, or other artificially intelligent being? How does the representation of speaking machines in cinema reflect shifting cultural attitudes about technology, identity, and labor? This course will examine a variety of film, television, and audio works centered on the artificially synthesized voice to defamiliarize some basic assumptions about how we listen: Who is allowed to use their voice, and in what context? What does the sound of a voice tell us about the speaker? How are our preconceptions about voice shaped and challenged by the audiovisual media we encounter every day? Considering such questions will prompt students to reconsider our everyday aural encounters with people and technology.
This class is designed to introduce students to college-level writing with an emphasis on genre and context as constitutive components of composition. The primary goal is to develop the core skills and techniques necessary for writing across social, professional, and disciplinary contexts. Over the course of the semester, students will work on four major writing assignments: a Cover Letter, a Creative Project, an Argumentative Essay, and a Reflective Project. By the end of the course, you should understand the key concepts from the course materials; draw connections among our readings and case studies; create your own original arguments that address the larger themes of the course; and strengthen your writing by incorporating feedback from your classmates and instructor. This will help prepare you not only for academic and professional writing, but also for critically engaging with the media you encounter every day.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Gothic Afterlives
CRN: 14407 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Nicholas Dertinger nderti2@uic.edu
This course will examine Gothic’ literature’s influence on modern media, how it has delighted readers for centuries, and how the themes found in Gothic literature continue to be analyzed today. In this course you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our texts will explain how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Along with supplemental readings typically found on Blackboard, you will be able to organize and formulate a final research paper that utilizes all the skills we learn through the class. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper. This class will consist of asynchronous instruction.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Gothic Afterlives
CRN: 14452 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Nicholas Dertinger nderti2@uic.edu
This course will examine Gothic’ literature’s influence on modern media, how it has delighted readers for centuries, and how the themes found in Gothic literature continue to be analyzed today. In this course you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our texts will explain how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Along with supplemental readings typically found on Blackboard, you will be able to organize and formulate a final research paper that utilizes all the skills we learn through the class. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper. This class will consist of asynchronous instruction.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Gothic Afterlives
CRN: 47378 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Nicholas Dertinger nderti2@uic.edu
This course will examine Gothic’ literature’s influence on modern media, how it has delighted readers for centuries, and how the themes found in Gothic literature continue to be analyzed today. In this course you will write drafts and revise several times before you submit work for a grade. Our texts will explain how to develop ideas, read, and think critically, analyze sources, construct a thesis, organize an essay, conduct basic research, and use appropriate styles and forms of citation. Along with supplemental readings typically found on Blackboard, you will be able to organize and formulate a final research paper that utilizes all the skills we learn through the class. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper. This class will consist of asynchronous instruction.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Society, Multimedia, and Groupthink
CRN: 14395 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Antonio Guerrero aguerr27@uic.edu
From Swifties and their parasocial relationship with T-Swift, to TikTok influencers selling us a toilet bowl cleaner, this course will explore the ways in which we consume media and ideas. We exist in a complex ideological ecosystem that allows us to have a great amount of mental dexterity and individualization — but how we wield this dexterity has a lot to do with our environment. This course will have you read, write, and research with the goal of understanding how everyday consumption of media and information influences our individual and collective trajectories. In short, we will be trying to understand why we think the way we do and who influences that thought process.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 21585 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
Perhaps you’ve heard that the future is dire–temperatures are steadily rising along with the prices of basic needs like food and shelter, and perhaps you’ve heard that we can’t do anything to stop it. Despite this, activists and individuals fighting for a better quality of life for all are calling us to choose knowledge and action over hopelessness. In this class, we will explore the concept of sustainability, which can be defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need” (Brundtland, 1987), and the complex ways sustainability interacts with every part of our lives. You will also use this context to hone your academic research and writing skills. Through 4 major writing projects (WPs), you will experience the research process step-by-step and eventually produce the final project, a 10-page problem-solution research paper that will identify an area of sustainability at UIC that can be improved upon.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 26879 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
Perhaps you’ve heard that the future is dire–temperatures are steadily rising along with the prices of basic needs like food and shelter, and perhaps you’ve heard that we can’t do anything to stop it. Despite this, activists and individuals fighting for a better quality of life for all are calling us to choose knowledge and action over hopelessness. In this class, we will explore the concept of sustainability, which can be defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need” (Brundtland, 1987), and the complex ways sustainability interacts with every part of our lives. You will also use this context to hone your academic research and writing skills. Through 4 major writing projects (WPs), you will experience the research process step-by-step and eventually produce the final project, a 10-page problem-solution research paper that will identify an area of sustainability at UIC that can be improved upon.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II:Society, Multimedia, and Groupthink
CRN: 47673 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Antonio Guerrero aguerr27@uic.edu
From Swifties and their parasocial relationship with T-Swift, to TikTok influencers selling us a toilet bowl cleaner, this course will explore the ways in which we consume media and ideas. We exist in a complex ideological ecosystem that allows us to have a great amount of mental dexterity and individualization — but how we wield this dexterity has a lot to do with our environment. This course will have you read, write, and research with the goal of understanding how everyday consumption of media and information influences our individual and collective trajectories. In short, we will be trying to understand why we think the way we do and who influences that thought process.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 26883 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: ARR ASYNCHRONOUS
INSTRUCTOR: Catherine Vlahos cvlaho2@uic.edu
Perhaps you’ve heard that the future is dire–temperatures are steadily rising along with the prices of basic needs like food and shelter, and perhaps you’ve heard that we can’t do anything to stop it. Despite this, activists and individuals fighting for a better quality of life for all are calling us to choose knowledge and action over hopelessness. In this class, we will explore the concept of sustainability, which can be defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need” (Brundtland, 1987), and the complex ways sustainability interacts with every part of our lives. You will also use this context to hone your academic research and writing skills. Through 4 major writing projects (WPs), you will experience the research process step-by-step and eventually produce the final project, a 10-page problem-solution research paper that will identify an area of sustainability at UIC that can be improved upon.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Media, Mythmaking, and Contemporary Culture
CRN: 14384
DAY/TIME: MW 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: William Wells wwells3@uic.edu
This course explores the myriad ways we come to know ourselves through storytelling. Through the analysis of a diverse range of genres spanning from the “academic” (literature, theory, and philosophy) to the everyday (TV and film, advertising, and online content), we will come to understand the compulsion toward meaning-making in the modern world, as well as the benefits and risks of such an endeavor.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14398
DAY/TIME: MW 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Hanna Khan hkhan22@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Global Gangster on Film: Picturing Capitalism’s Shadow Economies
CRN: 14398
DAY/TIME: MW 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Sibyl Gallus-Price sgallu2@uic.edu
As Scarface sits in his whirlpool tub smoking a Cuban cigar he shouts at a financial planning ad on tv: “You know what capitalism is? Getting f****ed!” Montana’s statement not only raises questions about the legitimacy of our attachment to ideas of sound investment, prosperity, and financial responsibility, but capitalism’s complex and often concealed relationship to the economic underworld of organized crime. In looking at cinematic depictions of the gangster in the context of the Global South, we’ll discuss how this crime genre serves as a lens to magnify the violent contradictions of our global social and economic conditions. In addressing the portrayal of what have been called “second,” “shadow,” or “parallel” economies in a variety of films, we’ll explore the histories, forms, motifs, themes, and characters that have become central to an increasingly global genre. Our major writing projects will include the film review, the photo essay, the analytical essay, and a multimodal final reflective project.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Global Gangster on Film: Picturing Capitalism’s Shadow Economies
CRN: 42684
DAY/TIME: MW 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Sibyl Gallus-Price sgallu2@uic.edu
As Scarface sits in his whirlpool tub smoking a Cuban cigar he shouts at a financial planning ad on tv: “You know what capitalism is? Getting f****ed!” Montana’s statement not only raises questions about the legitimacy of our attachment to ideas of sound investment, prosperity, and financial responsibility, but capitalism’s complex and often concealed relationship to the economic underworld of organized crime. In looking at cinematic depictions of the gangster in the context of the Global South, we’ll discuss how this crime genre serves as a lens to magnify the violent contradictions of our global social and economic conditions. In addressing the portrayal of what have been called “second,” “shadow,” or “parallel” economies in a variety of films, we’ll explore the histories, forms, motifs, themes, and characters that have become central to an increasingly global genre. Our major writing projects will include the film review, the photo essay, the analytical essay, and a multimodal final reflective project.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Violence in American Life
CRN: 14399
DAY/TIME: MW 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: John Goldbach jgoldb9@uic.edu
This course is dedicated to the topic of violence in American life, from the visible, “subjective” violence carried out by an identifiable person or group, most notably in acts of crime, terror, and civil unrest, to the invisible, “objective” violence — inherent to language and culture — that overdetermines the causes and conditions of its visibility in historical experience. What kind of violence do we see in the images of violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama or in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia? Wherein lies the difference between violence and nonviolence, the power of violence and the violence of resistance? And under what conditions, if any, do we recognize a right to use violence in the interest of opposing a greater violence? Such questions — which will also necessarily touch on difficult questions pertaining to identity and identification (e.g., race, gender, and class), ethics and morality, and politics and political economy — will inform class discussion and help lead students to develop their independent and critical thinking, reading, and writing skills.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 42684
DAY/TIME: MW 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Hanna Khan hkhan22@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 42683 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: MW 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: PENDING
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14431
DAY/TIME: MW 3:00-4:15
INSTRUCTOR: Hanna Khan hkhan22@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Violence in American Life
CRN: 40110
DAY/TIME: MW 3:00-4:15
INSTRUCTOR: John Goldbach jgoldb9@uic.edu
This course is dedicated to the topic of violence in American life, from the visible, “subjective” violence carried out by an identifiable person or group, most notably in acts of crime, terror, and civil unrest, to the invisible, “objective” violence — inherent to language and culture — that overdetermines the causes and conditions of its visibility in historical experience. What kind of violence do we see in the images of violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama or in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia? Wherein lies the difference between violence and nonviolence, the power of violence and the violence of resistance? And under what conditions, if any, do we recognize a right to use violence in the interest of opposing a greater violence? Such questions — which will also necessarily touch on difficult questions pertaining to identity and identification (e.g., race, gender, and class), ethics and morality, and politics and political economy — will inform class discussion and help lead students to develop their independent and critical thinking, reading, and writing skills.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Global Gangster on Film: Picturing Capitalism’s Shadow Economies
CRN: 14431
DAY/TIME: MW 3:00-4:15
INSTRUCTOR: Sibyl Gallus-Price sgallu2@uic.edu
As Scarface sits in his whirlpool tub smoking a Cuban cigar he shouts at a financial planning ad on tv: “You know what capitalism is? Getting f****ed!” Montana’s statement not only raises questions about the legitimacy of our attachment to ideas of sound investment, prosperity, and financial responsibility, but capitalism’s complex and often concealed relationship to the economic underworld of organized crime. In looking at cinematic depictions of the gangster in the context of the Global South, we’ll discuss how this crime genre serves as a lens to magnify the violent contradictions of our global social and economic conditions. In addressing the portrayal of what have been called “second,” “shadow,” or “parallel” economies in a variety of films, we’ll explore the histories, forms, motifs, themes, and characters that have become central to an increasingly global genre. Our major writing projects will include the film review, the photo essay, the analytical essay, and a multimodal final reflective project.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 14447 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: MW 3:00-4:15
INSTRUCTOR: Mark Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetorics of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (two-stage annotated bibliography, paper proposal with review of literature, and a final paper and presentation) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Empathy and Mass Communication
CRN: 43492 ONLINE
DAY/TIME: MW 4:30-5:45
INSTRUCTOR: Mark Brand mrbrand@uic.edu
In this class, we will explore theories of empathy in digital spaces and how these do (or do not) reconcile with our lived experiences. At issue in our texts are questions of identity and creativity, as well as rhetorics of authorship and cultural appropriation, ubiquitous telepresence, machinic modes of perception, and the disconnection between people trying to care—and feel cared about—in a world of algorithmically-driven communication technologies. We will examine mass media like video games, social media, and AI, and the implications of their reach and their increasing tendency to mobilize empathy in search of new audiences. You should expect to read and write extensively as you develop a thesis-driven research project on a subtopic of your choosing. This project will unfold over several steps (two-stage annotated bibliography, paper proposal with review of literature, and a final paper and presentation) that span the entire semester and will serve as your entrée to the fundamentals of University-level research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Violence in American Life
CRN: 47386
DAY/TIME: MW 4:30-5:45
INSTRUCTOR: John Goldbach jgoldb9@uic.edu
This course is dedicated to the topic of violence in American life, from the visible, “subjective” violence carried out by an identifiable person or group, most notably in acts of crime, terror, and civil unrest, to the invisible, “objective” violence — inherent to language and culture — that overdetermines the causes and conditions of its visibility in historical experience. What kind of violence do we see in the images of violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama or in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia? Wherein lies the difference between violence and nonviolence, the power of violence and the violence of resistance? And under what conditions, if any, do we recognize a right to use violence in the interest of opposing a greater violence? Such questions — which will also necessarily touch on difficult questions pertaining to identity and identification (e.g., race, gender, and class), ethics and morality, and politics and political economy — will inform class discussion and help lead students to develop their independent and critical thinking, reading, and writing skills.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 44764
DAY/TIME: MWF 8:00-8:50
INSTRUCTOR: Amanda Wessell awesse3@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14388
DAY/TIME: MWF 8:00-8:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Chicago’s Neighborhoods
CRN: 14434
DAY/TIME: MWF 8:00-8:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jared Hackworth jhack@uic.edu
In this course, you will create a semester-long research project that delves into your neighborhood (or a neighborhood of your choice) in Chicago. We’ll start with some foundations; how can we analyze places? Why do places matter? We’ll then move to your individual projects, asking questions like: What do you observe in your neighborhood? What is a public space you find interesting? (These could be spaces like a coffee shop, public park, public transit, museum, city hall, court, sports arena, etc.) You will conduct secondary, library-based research and first-person, ethnographic research to complete this assignment. We’ll conduct this semester-long inquiry in four stages:
1. an annotated bibliography that explores space/place broadly, Chicago history or sociology, and/or, your specific neighborhood.
2. a research proposal where you propose something that has not been observed correctly or has not been examined at all in your neighborhood.
3. a literature review that builds a cohesive argument about the conversation relevant to your specific place.
4. A research paper that integrates your literature review, proposal/thesis, and your first-hand, ethnographic research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Infrastructures
CRN: 14465
DAY/TIME: MWF 8:00-8:50
INSTRUCTOR: Ann Marie Thornburg athor22@uic.edu
Infrastructures, or systems like highways and healthcare, organize and circulate goods and services, supporting our daily lives. In this course we’ll engage infrastructures critically through scholarly work in multiple academic disciplines. We’ll think, talk, and write about how infrastructures impact us, the problems they solve and create, and the pasts, presents, and futures they imagine.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 26192
DAY/TIME: MWF 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Snezana Zabic. szabic2@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, we will explore the intersection of film and society. The underlying assumption is that films, whether they focus on one character’s inner life or depict scenes of mass revolt (or anything in-between those two extremes), tell stories deeply intertwined with both negative and positive developments in society. Within our general inquiry about film and society, you will research a scripted feature film, find and evaluate scholarly and popular sources, discuss your sources and respond to them in writing. You will produce essays that go through drafting, peer-review, and revision phases. Assignments include: 1) an annotated bibliography, 2) a research proposal, 3) a literature review, and 4) a research essay. You will conduct research using the UIC library and databases, and write arguments based on the knowledge gained during this research. You will be able to discuss your ideas from inception to completion.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Video Games and the World
CRN: 48312
DAY/TIME: MWF 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Juan Herrera jherre53@uic.edu
In this class you will conduct academic research and read texts from a variety of sources. The course topic will be Video Games and their effects on society as a whole. I will encourage you to research different aspects, themes and impacts video games have. The point of the class is to reinforce research and reading strategies and use them to defend a position in relation to a topic. Throughout the Writing Projects, you will dive into the impact of video games on our society and pick a theme to write your Research Paper on. I want to encourage your own choice on picking something about video games you like the most and would like to explore.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Exploring Food Waste
CRN: 47506
DAY/TIME: MWF 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Brianne Neptin bnept@uic.edu
This class will explore the causes, symptoms, consequences, and what organizations and governments are doing to combat food waste. According to the USDA, approximately 30-40% of the food in the US food supply is wasted (https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs). This waste occurs in all segments of the supply chain. It is not only a national issue; we are also affected locally and globally. Over the course of the semester, we will explore a variety of topics related to the larger issue of food waste. You will identify a specific topic of interest connected to food waste, which you will then explore further through your own research and develop through the course’s four writing projects: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper. This course will allow you to develop and enhance skills that are useful well beyond the classroom, including research and analysis, written communication, critical reading, and critical thinking.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Women Writers in Contemporary Literature
CRN: 14473
DAY/TIME: MWF 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Lyla Lee llee67@uic.edu
In this course, you will learn about academic writing and the research process through the lens of writing about women in literature. Throughout the course, the class will read different texts (short stories, narratives, memoirs, etc.) written by women of various ethnic backgrounds. By exploring these stories, you will be able to view how contrasting societies define women’s roles. Even more, the class will explore how these roles often reflect contemporary social and political issues. The class will be structured around four major writing projects (an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literature review, and a research paper). These projects are designed to help you write clearly and effectively, communicate your thoughts and questions, and develop your own written voice.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Infrastructures
CRN: 14470
DAY/TIME: MWF 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Ann Marie Thornburg athor22@uic.edu
Infrastructures, or systems like highways and healthcare, organize and circulate goods and services, supporting our daily lives. In this course we’ll engage infrastructures critically through scholarly work in multiple academic disciplines. We’ll think, talk, and write about how infrastructures impact us, the problems they solve and create, and the pasts, presents, and futures they imagine.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Chicago’s Neighborhoods
CRN: 14386
DAY/TIME: MWF 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jared Hackworth jhack@uic.edu
In this course, you will create a semester-long research project that delves into your neighborhood (or a neighborhood of your choice) in Chicago. We’ll start with some foundations; how can we analyze places? Why do places matter? We’ll then move to your individual projects, asking questions like: What do you observe in your neighborhood? What is a public space you find interesting? (These could be spaces like a coffee shop, public park, public transit, museum, city hall, court, sports arena, etc.) You will conduct secondary, library-based research and first-person, ethnographic research to complete this assignment. We’ll conduct this semester-long inquiry in four stages:
1. an annotated bibliography that explores space/place broadly, Chicago history or sociology, and/or, your specific neighborhood.
2. a research proposal where you propose something that has not been observed correctly or has not been examined at all in your neighborhood.
3. a literature review that builds a cohesive argument about the conversation relevant to your specific place.
4. A research paper that integrates your literature review, proposal/thesis, and your first-hand, ethnographic research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: “The Great Loop” – Building, Sailing, and Living on America’s Inland Waterways
CRN: 14392
DAY/TIME: MWF 9:00-9:50
INSTRUCTOR: Ethan Lafond elafo@uic.edu
If the Continental US were to be seen as a living body, the many bodies of water that crisscross it would undoubtedly be its life-carrying bloodstream. The many rivers and lakes of the US have been instrumental economically, politically, and culturally for as long as people have lived on the continent, and to this day they are a defining aspect of how America works, but an often terribly underdiscussed one. In this course, we will be looking at the wide array of America’s bodies of water, including the two major ones that meet here in Chicago, and how people have thought about them throughout time, and you will focus in on a specific detail of that long history to research and make an argument about in a scholarly context, from collating a bibliography, to creating a research project, examining scholarly discourse, and finally writing a full-fledged research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 43491
DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jeffrey Gore jgore1@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 48313
DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Snezana Zabic. szabic2@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, we will explore the intersection of film and society. The underlying assumption is that films, whether they focus on one character’s inner life or depict scenes of mass revolt (or anything in-between those two extremes), tell stories deeply intertwined with both negative and positive developments in society. Within our general inquiry about film and society, you will research a scripted feature film, find and evaluate scholarly and popular sources, discuss your sources and respond to them in writing. You will produce essays that go through drafting, peer-review, and revision phases. Assignments include: 1) an annotated bibliography, 2) a research proposal, 3) a literature review, and 4) a research essay. You will conduct research using the UIC library and databases, and write arguments based on the knowledge gained during this research. You will be able to discuss your ideas from inception to completion.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: “The Great Loop” – Building, Sailing, and Living on America’s Inland Waterways
CRN: 14408
DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Ethan Lafond elafo@uic.edu
If the Continental US were to be seen as a living body, the many bodies of water that crisscross it would undoubtedly be its life-carrying bloodstream. The many rivers and lakes of the US have been instrumental economically, politically, and culturally for as long as people have lived on the continent, and to this day they are a defining aspect of how America works, but an often terribly underdiscussed one. In this course, we will be looking at the wide array of America’s bodies of water, including the two major ones that meet here in Chicago, and how people have thought about them throughout time, and you will focus in on a specific detail of that long history to research and make an argument about in a scholarly context, from collating a bibliography, to creating a research project, examining scholarly discourse, and finally writing a full-fledged research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Women Writers in Contemporary Literature
CRN: 25973
DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Lyla Lee llee67@uic.edu
In this course, you will learn about academic writing and the research process through the lens of writing about women in literature. Throughout the course, the class will read different texts (short stories, narratives, memoirs, etc.) written by women of various ethnic backgrounds. By exploring these stories, you will be able to view how contrasting societies define women’s roles. Even more, the class will explore how these roles often reflect contemporary social and political issues. The class will be structured around four major writing projects (an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literature review, and a research paper). These projects are designed to help you write clearly and effectively, communicate your thoughts and questions, and develop your own written voice.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: A City in a Garden: Chicago Parks Past and Present
CRN: 47382
DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Denise Waite dwaite2@uic.edu
Although verdant is not the first word that comes to mind when outsiders describe Chicago, from its founding civic leaders have sought to create a green city. In fact, the founding city motto “Urbs in horto” translates to ‘a city in a garden.’ Learn about the ambitious plans that put Chicago’s park system into place and evaluate for yourself the success and merit of this vision. In this course you will construct an original research project and complete a 10 page paper. Explore literary and artistic evocations of Chicago’s greenspace and learn how all landscapes are politically inscribed.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14402
DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Rebecca Budrick rbudri2@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Exploring Food Waste
CRN: 32291
DAY/TIME: MWF 10:00-10:50
INSTRUCTOR: Brianne Neptin bnept@uic.edu
This class will explore the causes, symptoms, consequences, and what organizations and governments are doing to combat food waste. According to the USDA, approximately 30-40% of the food in the US food supply is wasted (https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs). This waste occurs in all segments of the supply chain. It is not only a national issue; we are also affected locally and globally. Over the course of the semester, we will explore a variety of topics related to the larger issue of food waste. You will identify a specific topic of interest connected to food waste, which you will then explore further through your own research and develop through the course’s four writing projects: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper. This course will allow you to develop and enhance skills that are useful well beyond the classroom, including research and analysis, written communication, critical reading, and critical thinking.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II
CRN: 48314
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Snezana Zabic. szabic2@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, we will explore the intersection of film and society. The underlying assumption is that films, whether they focus on one character’s inner life or depict scenes of mass revolt (or anything in-between those two extremes), tell stories deeply intertwined with both negative and positive developments in society. Within our general inquiry about film and society, you will research a scripted feature film, find and evaluate scholarly and popular sources, discuss your sources and respond to them in writing. You will produce essays that go through drafting, peer-review, and revision phases. Assignments include: 1) an annotated bibliography, 2) a research proposal, 3) a literature review, and 4) a research essay. You will conduct research using the UIC library and databases, and write arguments based on the knowledge gained during this research. You will be able to discuss your ideas from inception to completion.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14432
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Lewis jlewis4@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Love
CRN: 47380
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Gen Kwon ykwon42@uic.edu
In 2015, bell hooks said in a The New York Times interview, “I believe wholeheartedly that the only way out of domination is love.” After devoting decades of her career to ending racism and sexism, coining the expression “imperialist white supremacy capitalist patriarchy,” hooks avowed in the interview the message of her book, All About Love (2000), much to the dismay of her admirers. They lamented that hooks renounced her fierce critique of structural oppression in favor of a naive commitment to affective bonds. In this section of English 161, we will analyze multiple facets and misconceptions of what in English is often lumped together, simply, as “Love.” We will explore society’s obsession with and manipulation of love as well as cynical reactions to it as childish, weak, secondary, sentimental, imaginary, and futile. Using a combination of philosophical and religious texts, history, scientific research, fiction, and some of the most popular songs of our times, we will examine the various manifestations and appropriations of love in mass media and scholarly work. Culminating in a research paper, this course will give you the tools to develop focused questions, conduct academic research using databases, and enter a larger conversation through academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Rhetoric of Disability: Examining Disability in Society and Higher Education
CRN: 14450
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Karen Putman kputma3@uic.edu
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 61 million people identify as disabled. Disability is a common human experience that everyone will either temporarily or permanently experience in their life. This course will explore how disabilities of all kinds are portrayed in media and on the college campus and how these portrayals have affected our thinking and assumptions today. What makes us human? What makes us ‘normal’? We will investigate the rhetoric of disability and its sociocultural consequences in life and on the college campus.
Course readings will focus on the language and rhetoric surrounding disability and how these influence culture and college policy. The class will be structured around four writing projects; an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literary review, and a research paper, all culminating in the creation of an extended argumentative essay based on analysis of your own research.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Acceptable Addictions: Caffeine, Content, and Consumerism
CRN: 43494
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Faith Harris fharri9@uic.edu
Addiction is a topic that is understood to be frequently destructive to a person’s life. However, not all addictions are considered to be unacceptable. Many people are reliant on caffeine to get through their day, can’t go more than a few minutes without using their phones, or use overconsumption to fill their lives. While caffeine, content, and consumerism are not inherently harmful, in this class, we will explore the way that these vices affect individuals as well as society as a whole. We will consider why these addictions are often not considered to be addictions, what societal factors might contribute to the prevalence of these coping mechanisms, and possible solutions for a healthy relationship to caffeine, content, and consumerism. These conversations will contribute to individual research leading up to a final argumentative essay that thoughtfully engages with a specific focus on a topic in the realm of acceptable addictions to caffeine, media content, and overconsumption.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14439
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jeffrey Gore jgore1@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Progress and its Discontents
CRN: 14445
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Marissa Hamilton mhamil29@uic.edu
Virginia Woolf wrote “on or about 1910 human character changed” with the rise of industrialization, wars, and famine, human character was bound to change… right? How does culture influence our society? And where can we pinpoint events of “change”? In this course, you will individually focus on a single question relating to “change” or a pivoting of “culture” Throughout the course we will define culture and look at singular events that have affected “human character” or culture in general. We will focus on the 1920s and today. Both are times full of technological, scientific, societal, and queer change. These are avenues available for exploration as we look at evidence of specific times and mindsets that changed how things are today. These topics can include, but are not limited to epidemics, wars, art exhibits, paintings, music, books, theories, and people. With a research lens, you will learn through library trips and 4 assignments: WP1, WP2, WP3, WP4. Culminating in the final research project, this will be a time to dive into personal interests within the realm of change and development.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Between Body and Mind: Narrative, Illness and Medicine
CRN: 14387
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
As humans, we inhabit bodies that are fragile and susceptible to illness and breakdown. Narratives—novels, films, television shows, and memoirs—provide us with a way of expressing and comprehending these experiences through plotting and sequence. But what is the relationship between these more subjective aspects of human existence, which most often find expression in literature and the arts, and medicine, a field that deals in facts and in objective data?
In this class we will explore the relationship between medicine and the humanities by focusing on debates surrounding medicine such as the use of AI and robotic technologies, and the complexities of emotions and experiences that make us human. Through the examination of various kinds of narratives—medical, scholarly, public, literary, and visual—we will develop skills of academic research and writing. As part of the course you will identify a topic of your own interest and will produce four writing projects related to this topic, culminating in a documented research paper that demonstrates your skills as an independent researcher on a topic related to illness, medicine, and the body.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: How Comedy Influences Us
CRN: 47385
DAY/TIME: MWF 11:00-11:50
INSTRUCTOR: Wes McGehee wmcgeh2@uic.edu
We’re researching comedy. We’re going to learn what our biases are toward comedy, the mechanics of humor, and how to approach comedic content with an impartial, objective mindset. We will explore a diverse range of comedians, comedic entertainment, rhetoric, and theory, all of which will span from Ancient Greece to 2025. In class, we will be discussing comedic rhetoric and comedic theory, as well as how both are utilized in praxis. Throughout this course, we will study and debate how and why humor is used as a rhetorical tool for social conformation, manipulation, or liberation (if it is used as a rhetorical tool for these social practices at all).

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: How Comedy Influences Us
CRN: 47394
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Wes McGehee wmcgeh2@uic.edu
We’re researching comedy. We’re going to learn what our biases are toward comedy, the mechanics of humor, and how to approach comedic content with an impartial, objective mindset. We will explore a diverse range of comedians, comedic entertainment, rhetoric, and theory, all of which will span from Ancient Greece to 2025. In class, we will be discussing comedic rhetoric and comedic theory, as well as how both are utilized in praxis. Throughout this course, we will study and debate how and why humor is used as a rhetorical tool for social conformation, manipulation, or liberation (if it is used as a rhetorical tool for these social practices at all).

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Love
CRN: 42685
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Gen Kwon ykwon42@uic.edu
In 2015, bell hooks said in a The New York Times interview, “I believe wholeheartedly that the only way out of domination is love.” After devoting decades of her career to ending racism and sexism, coining the expression “imperialist white supremacy capitalist patriarchy,” hooks avowed in the interview the message of her book, All About Love (2000), much to the dismay of her admirers. They lamented that hooks renounced her fierce critique of structural oppression in favor of a naive commitment to affective bonds. In this section of English 161, we will analyze multiple facets and misconceptions of what in English is often lumped together, simply, as “Love.” We will explore society’s obsession with and manipulation of love as well as cynical reactions to it as childish, weak, secondary, sentimental, imaginary, and futile. Using a combination of philosophical and religious texts, history, scientific research, fiction, and some of the most popular songs of our times, we will examine the various manifestations and appropriations of love in mass media and scholarly work. Culminating in a research paper, this course will give you the tools to develop focused questions, conduct academic research using databases, and enter a larger conversation through academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Between Body and Mind: Narrative, Illness and Medicine
CRN: 14457
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Bridget English benglish@uic.edu
As humans, we inhabit bodies that are fragile and susceptible to illness and breakdown. Narratives—novels, films, television shows, and memoirs—provide us with a way of expressing and comprehending these experiences through plotting and sequence. But what is the relationship between these more subjective aspects of human existence, which most often find expression in literature and the arts, and medicine, a field that deals in facts and in objective data?
In this class we will explore the relationship between medicine and the humanities by focusing on debates surrounding medicine such as the use of AI and robotic technologies, and the complexities of emotions and experiences that make us human. Through the examination of various kinds of narratives—medical, scholarly, public, literary, and visual—we will develop skills of academic research and writing. As part of the course you will identify a topic of your own interest and will produce four writing projects related to this topic, culminating in a documented research paper that demonstrates your skills as an independent researcher on a topic related to illness, medicine, and the body.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14397
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Psychology, Superstition, and Scapegoats”, we will explore the psychology of sports fans and the folklore attached to sports teams in considerable depth as we pursue the aforementioned goals. Beginning with the etymological roots of the word “fan” (from “fanatic”), we will explore such phenomena as deindividuation, disinhibition, and parasocial relationships. We’ll also examine the history of superstition, curses, and scapegoats attached to our own Chicago Cubs (and other teams). These are some of the starting points for much stimulating critical thinking and writing we will undertake together this semester. While these concepts provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about academic research and writing, not just about psychology and superstition. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning about summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing arguments, conducting academic research, writing a research proposal, and drafting a research paper. All of this will culminate in a final research project that answers a research question you have posed in relation to the course inquiry. Our readings and class discussions will guide you through each of these steps, and help you work toward generating a research topic that interests you enough to write a ten-page paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14469
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Mike Newirth newirth1@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Democracy in the Age of Misinformation: Real Votes and Fake News
CRN: 14449
DAY/TIME: MWF 12:00-12:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course we will examine the threats to democracy in the 21st century, including misinformation, voter suppression, the influence of money and (as some argue) the very structure of American government. We will explore and analyze links between public positions and private motives, historic compromises and their contemporary consequences, money and policy, information and belief. You will (or should, if you do the work) develop critical thinking and analytical writing skills in the process of composing three short writing projects. You will apply these skills more comprehensively in a final, lengthier research paper, thus inserting your own voice and argument in a larger conversation regarding our course themes.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14414
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Mike Newirth newirth1@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14420
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Charitianne Williams cwilli31@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14411
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Chris Glomski vivo@uic.edu
In “Psychology, Superstition, and Scapegoats”, we will explore the psychology of sports fans and the folklore attached to sports teams in considerable depth as we pursue the aforementioned goals. Beginning with the etymological roots of the word “fan” (from “fanatic”), we will explore such phenomena as deindividuation, disinhibition, and parasocial relationships. We’ll also examine the history of superstition, curses, and scapegoats attached to our own Chicago Cubs (and other teams). These are some of the starting points for much stimulating critical thinking and writing we will undertake together this semester. While these concepts provide the context for our writing, our goal is to learn about academic research and writing, not just about psychology and superstition. Therefore, in addition to our inquiries into these subjects, we will also spend time learning about summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing arguments, conducting academic research, writing a research proposal, and drafting a research paper. All of this will culminate in a final research project that answers a research question you have posed in relation to the course inquiry. Our readings and class discussions will guide you through each of these steps, and help you work toward generating a research topic that interests you enough to write a ten-page paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 42688 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing On Photography
CRN: 14466
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Moriana Delgado-Hernandez mdelga31@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, we will examine photography—the relation between individuals and society, as well as its prominent exponents—and we will use that topic to practice and essay our academic writing and research, but also to understand how our world is visually confectioned. Throughout the course—one that will function as a writing community—we will examine various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic in order to put into practice our close reading skills. We will read essays by Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag; look at photographs by Vivian Maier, and Diane Arbus; and review films from the French New Wave. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking
CRN: 30805
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-150
INSTRUCTOR: Arnav Sibal asibal4@uic.edu
This class will focus on the types of conversation we find everywhere. We will look at debates, interviews, academic discussions, dialogue, social media, sports commentary, and confrontations.
Manners of talking provide us with numerous strategies, subjects, positions, and outcomes to analyse. Since academic writing itself is one gigantic — sometimes pretentious, at other times outwardly silly — conversation, we can find inspiration and inroads by looking at how others think and how they talk through their thinking.
Our investigations will be framed by four writing projects: an annotated bibliography, a research proposal, a literature review, and a research paper. The aim here is to develop your skills when it comes to research, analysis, and writing within the classroom and beyond it. After all, collecting and assessing information isn’t just an academic matter. Even in our personal and professional lives, we have to make decisions on the knowledge at hand. Whether you are choosing which phone to buy, giving relationship advice to a friend, or drafting a paper on marketing strategy for work, you are inevitably entering into some form of conversation. There’s a lot to say, and we’ll talk about it.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Examining Art and Fashion: A Discourse on Visual Performance in Society
CRN: 47384
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Carrie McGath cmcgat2@uic.edu
In the age of social media, visual performance has taken center stage in our daily lives. In this class, we will engage in a discourse throughout the semester about what visual performance is and what it tells us about our society. We will be asking these questions over the course of the semester through the lens of art and fashion and how these artforms engage with social issues including race, gender and queerness, sustainability, and consumerism. Throughout the course, texts and visual media will facilitate a thoughtful discourse on how visual performance at the intersection of art and fashion comments on today’s society and the issues within the fabric of it. We will examine work by artists and designers who work with the social issues we will be discussing throughout the semester. Some visual artists we will examine include Bisa Butler, Kara Walker, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Wendy Red Star, Nick Cave, Christina Ramberg, Andrea Zittel, and more. In the arena of fashion, we will examine the phenomena of the MET Gala as well as designers and fashion houses including Vivienne Westwood, Virgil Abloh / Off-White, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Maison Margiela, Viktor and Rolf, and more. Our readings, discussions, and in-class activities will set you up for the four writing projects required in English 161. The first three independent research writing projects will culminate in a final research paper. The skills you will learn and hone in this course will nurture critical thinking, research, and inquiry while fostering strong academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Love 101 Writing and Researching About What Makes The World Go Around
CRN: 47505
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Vered Siroka vsirok2@uic.edu
From romance novels to love songs, psychology to dating shows, dating apps to family court cases, love and relationships rule our lives whether we like it or not. There are endless subjects in our world that connect to love and through student-driven research, you will deep dive into the complicated world of human interpersonal relationships. In this course, you will learn about and produce an annotated bibliography, research proposal, literature review, and academic research paper on a topic of your choice falling under the broader topic of love and relationships.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Video Games as Wheels of Social Change (Or Not)
CRN: 14474
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Dez Brown dbrown66@uic.edu
Video games are an increasingly popular genre of entertainment, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They are unique due to their kinesthetic element and the ways in which the player is an intrinsic part of the experience. In this class, you’ll learn why they’re important and how to critically analyze them: the storyline, combat, craft, and how video games function in our world socially and politically. Does the lack of clothing for women in Mortal Kombat irritate you? Has your life been changed by Kingdom Hearts or another role-playing game? Has Never Alone: Kisima Ingitchuna taught you about Alaska Native peoples in a way that no textbook ever could? Here, we’ll write about it. We’ll spend this semester working on a project in which you’ll focus on a video game and, through research, take a stance and create a conversation to foster new understanding about the power that video games have.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II:
CRN: 47383
DAY/TIME: MWF 1:00-1:50
INSTRUCTOR: Ryan Asmussen. asmussen@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II:
CRN: 14383
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Ryan Asmussen. asmussen@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Video Games as Wheels of Social Change (Or Not)
CRN: 48059
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Dez Brown dbrown66@uic.edu
Video games are an increasingly popular genre of entertainment, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They are unique due to their kinesthetic element and the ways in which the player is an intrinsic part of the experience. In this class, you’ll learn why they’re important and how to critically analyze them: the storyline, combat, craft, and how video games function in our world socially and politically. Does the lack of clothing for women in Mortal Kombat irritate you? Has your life been changed by Kingdom Hearts or another role-playing game? Has Never Alone: Kisima Ingitchuna taught you about Alaska Native peoples in a way that no textbook ever could? Here, we’ll write about it. We’ll spend this semester working on a project in which you’ll focus on a video game and, through research, take a stance and create a conversation to foster new understanding about the power that video games have.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14454
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Mike Newirth newirth1@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Democracy in the Age of Misinformation: Real Votes and Fake News
CRN: 14404
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Jay Shearer shearer@uic.edu
In this course we will examine the threats to democracy in the 21st century, including misinformation, voter suppression, the influence of money and (as some argue) the very structure of American government. We will explore and analyze links between public positions and private motives, historic compromises and their contemporary consequences, money and policy, information and belief. You will (or should, if you do the work) develop critical thinking and analytical writing skills in the process of composing three short writing projects. You will apply these skills more comprehensively in a final, lengthier research paper, thus inserting your own voice and argument in a larger conversation regarding our course themes.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: How Comedy Influences Us
CRN: 43519
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Wes McGehee wmcgeh2@uic.edu
We’re researching comedy. We’re going to learn what our biases are toward comedy, the mechanics of humor, and how to approach comedic content with an impartial, objective mindset. We will explore a diverse range of comedians, comedic entertainment, rhetoric, and theory, all of which will span from Ancient Greece to 2025. In class, we will be discussing comedic rhetoric and comedic theory, as well as how both are utilized in praxis. Throughout this course, we will study and debate how and why humor is used as a rhetorical tool for social conformation, manipulation, or liberation (if it is used as a rhetorical tool for these social practices at all).

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Examining Art and Fashion: A Discourse on Visual Performance in Society
CRN: 43495
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Carrie McGath cmcgat2@uic.edu
In the age of social media, visual performance has taken center stage in our daily lives. In this class, we will engage in a discourse throughout the semester about what visual performance is and what it tells us about our society. We will be asking these questions over the course of the semester through the lens of art and fashion and how these artforms engage with social issues including race, gender and queerness, sustainability, and consumerism. Throughout the course, texts and visual media will facilitate a thoughtful discourse on how visual performance at the intersection of art and fashion comments on today’s society and the issues within the fabric of it. We will examine work by artists and designers who work with the social issues we will be discussing throughout the semester. Some visual artists we will examine include Bisa Butler, Kara Walker, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Wendy Red Star, Nick Cave, Christina Ramberg, Andrea Zittel, and more. In the arena of fashion, we will examine the phenomena of the MET Gala as well as designers and fashion houses including Vivienne Westwood, Virgil Abloh / Off-White, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Maison Margiela, Viktor and Rolf, and more. Our readings, discussions, and in-class activities will set you up for the four writing projects required in English 161. The first three independent research writing projects will culminate in a final research paper. The skills you will learn and hone in this course will nurture critical thinking, research, and inquiry while fostering strong academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Stand-up Comedy, Stereotype Humor, and Marginalized Communities
CRN: 44763
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: Evan Steuber esteub2@uic.edu
Stand-up, with its conceit of truth-telling and authenticity, often frames stereotypes as true and pervasive, but it also critiques them through playing on the audience’s expectations and through a heightened sense of the absurd. While stereotypes are by their nature false, as they assume all members of a community share the same features, they can be used to bring communities together as well as attack them, and sometimes simultaneously. We will see how comedians from marginalized groups have accepted and dealt with issues of identity that are present before they take the stage, and how their comedy reflects the issues of this debate. Our class is concerned with comedians’ stage personas and how they produce cultural context. This context elucidates their target audience and how their jokes and stories create meaning. This same process is reflected in the production of any discourse, including a successful essay. We will learn to be cognizant of the context and larger conversation in which our words take place, thereby reflecting a knowledge of our target audience and how our language creates meaning. All standard 161 essays will be required in addition to individual presentations and a significant amount of watching and reading.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14412
DAY/TIME: MWF 2:00-2:50
INSTRUCTOR: John Casey jcasey3@uic.edu
Sustainability has become so common of a word that we hardly notice it anymore. This class will begin with an examination of the concept of sustainability and its relationship to something known as the circular economy. From there, we’ll analyze examples of current research on sustainability. These studies will then serve as guides for each of you to begin your own research study on a topic related to sustainability. That topic should not only address a larger issue that researchers are examining around the world but show how that issue relates back to the Chicagoland area.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Examining Art and Fashion: A Discourse on Visual Performance in Society
CRN: 14413
DAY/TIME: MWF 3:00-3:50
INSTRUCTOR: Carrie McGath cmcgat2@uic.edu
In the age of social media, visual performance has taken center stage in our daily lives. In this class, we will engage in a discourse throughout the semester about what visual performance is and what it tells us about our society. We will be asking these questions over the course of the semester through the lens of art and fashion and how these artforms engage with social issues including race, gender and queerness, sustainability, and consumerism. Throughout the course, texts and visual media will facilitate a thoughtful discourse on how visual performance at the intersection of art and fashion comments on today’s society and the issues within the fabric of it. We will examine work by artists and designers who work with the social issues we will be discussing throughout the semester. Some visual artists we will examine include Bisa Butler, Kara Walker, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Wendy Red Star, Nick Cave, Christina Ramberg, Andrea Zittel, and more. In the arena of fashion, we will examine the phenomena of the MET Gala as well as designers and fashion houses including Vivienne Westwood, Virgil Abloh / Off-White, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Maison Margiela, Viktor and Rolf, and more. Our readings, discussions, and in-class activities will set you up for the four writing projects required in English 161. The first three independent research writing projects will culminate in a final research paper. The skills you will learn and hone in this course will nurture critical thinking, research, and inquiry while fostering strong academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Stand-up Comedy, Stereotype Humor, and Marginalized Communities
CRN: 41601
DAY/TIME: MWF 3:00-3:50
INSTRUCTOR: Evan Steuber esteub2@uic.edu
Stand-up, with its conceit of truth-telling and authenticity, often frames stereotypes as true and pervasive, but it also critiques them through playing on the audience’s expectations and through a heightened sense of the absurd. While stereotypes are by their nature false, as they assume all members of a community share the same features, they can be used to bring communities together as well as attack them, and sometimes simultaneously. We will see how comedians from marginalized groups have accepted and dealt with issues of identity that are present before they take the stage, and how their comedy reflects the issues of this debate. Our class is concerned with comedians’ stage personas and how they produce cultural context. This context elucidates their target audience and how their jokes and stories create meaning. This same process is reflected in the production of any discourse, including a successful essay. We will learn to be cognizant of the context and larger conversation in which our words take place, thereby reflecting a knowledge of our target audience and how our language creates meaning. All standard 161 essays will be required in addition to individual presentations and a significant amount of watching and reading.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14428
DAY/TIME: MWF 3:00-3:50
INSTRUCTOR: Carly LaPotre ckus1@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II:
CRN: 14438
DAY/TIME: MWF 4:00-4:50
INSTRUCTOR: Ryan Asmussen. asmussen@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About Stand-up Comedy, Stereotype Humor, and Marginalized Communities
CRN: 14381
DAY/TIME: MWF 4:00-4:50
INSTRUCTOR: Evan Steuber esteub2@uic.edu
Stand-up, with its conceit of truth-telling and authenticity, often frames stereotypes as true and pervasive, but it also critiques them through playing on the audience’s expectations and through a heightened sense of the absurd. While stereotypes are by their nature false, as they assume all members of a community share the same features, they can be used to bring communities together as well as attack them, and sometimes simultaneously. We will see how comedians from marginalized groups have accepted and dealt with issues of identity that are present before they take the stage, and how their comedy reflects the issues of this debate. Our class is concerned with comedians’ stage personas and how they produce cultural context. This context elucidates their target audience and how their jokes and stories create meaning. This same process is reflected in the production of any discourse, including a successful essay. We will learn to be cognizant of the context and larger conversation in which our words take place, thereby reflecting a knowledge of our target audience and how our language creates meaning. All standard 161 essays will be required in addition to individual presentations and a significant amount of watching and reading.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Show me your teeth and I’ll tell you who you are.
CRN: 14442
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Georges Cuvier, aka the Father of Paleontology, claimed that teeth were the revelators of creatures that possessed them. Teeth were the depositories of lifetimes. In this course, we’ll consider Cuvier’s claim and examine why teeth matter, for whom, and for what? We’ll be using Peter S. Ungar’s Teeth: A Very Short Introduction and Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as the starting point for our research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Post-Truth: What Is It Good For?
CRN: 43520
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Ovi Brici obrici@uic.edu
We are living in a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern truth from fabrication, where “alternative facts” and strong feelings dominate logical reasoning. In this course, you will learn how to distinguish between objective and subjective material. In other words, you will learn how our psychological blind spots, biases, and heuristic strategies, may lead to science denialism, and political polarization.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Documentary Poetry
CRN: 14415
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Stefania Gomez sgomez46@uic.edu
A kind of counter-intelligence, writes scholar Michael Leong, Documentary Poetry “aspires to a history by other means to see if our papers—the documents that underwrite our individual and collective identities, that support our cultural memories—are in order or need reordering.” In this course, we will immerse ourselves in a small selection of contemporary works of Documentary Poetics. Over the course of the semester, we will work towards the crafting of a research paper that argues a point about one or more of these collections, as well as the literary, cultural and/or political work they accomplish.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 42687
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: James McKenna jmcken22@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Purposes of Postsecondary Education?
CRN: 48309
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: David Jakalski djakal2@uic.edu
Why do students go to a college or university? What experiences or services should colleges or universities provide? Should postsecondary education in the United States focus exclusively on career preparation, or should co-curricular activities (clubs, sports, etc.) constitute part of the college or university experience? What methods and technologies should be employed to best provide this education? Do postsecondary institutions sufficiently contribute to economic mobility, or might they inadvertently contribute to the very inequities they are expected to address? This course will examine issues related to postsecondary education in the United States. We will read from several scholarly and popular sources (journal and newspaper articles, film, interviews, etc.) to better understand these issues. Assignments will mainly consist of four writing projects: annotated bibliography, research proposal, literature review, research essay. Partial and complete drafts will be assigned for each writing project, and class participation and attendance is expected.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 29118
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Paul Ross pross8@uic.edu
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Revolution (Still) Comes From Within: Autofiction, Literary Analysis, and Narrational Mode
CRN: 42528
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Dan White dwhite44@uic.edu
Locating the boundary between fiction and nonfiction implicates questions of craft, personal history, narrative technique, and creative writing as a method of social inquiry or engagement. Another way to conceive of this question is the definition of ‘autofiction,’ a term of considerable speculation and even controversy in the current literary landscape. This course will interrogate that definition and the surrounding questions in order to better understand the art and purpose of narrative form.
All stories emanate from personal experience. However, in creative writing, the question of how is just as important as what. The term ‘autofiction’ directly implicates this duality—how a work is written versus what it’s about—in that it considers questions of narrative and how they are presented to the reader. An autofictional text purports to be both fictional and autobiographical, and thus presents a paradox in our thinking of traditional literary genres. The term itself came about as neologism first appearing in a literary text by the French author and critic Serge Doubrovsky (1928–2017). Deleted from the original manuscript of his novel Fils [‘Threads/Son’] (1977), the term ultimately found its way onto the cover of the published novel, where it was defined as “Fiction, d’événements et de faits strictement reels; si l’on veut autofiction” (“Fiction, strictly of real events and facts; or, if one likes, autofiction”). This definition presented no contradiction in Doubrosvsky’s thinking. However, in the decades since, some people have found complications around this elusive genre.
There is clearly a difference between fiction and nonfiction, but how can we define them when every piece of creative work is inherently idiosyncratic and individual? How does narrative mode, and the relationship between the what and the how of a book, enter into this discussion? Why does it matter, and how does the terminology we use about a book influence the way we read it and the way it speaks to us and our lives? Through the prism of a novel by the English writer Rachel Cusk, make a sophisticated argument about the question of autofiction and its associated implications, drawing upon scholarly sources and specific textual examples to help illustrate your points. Academic research—including an annotated bibliography and traditional scholarly paper—will provide the nexus between critical thought surrounding autofiction and your own literary textual analysis. The use of the novel should be seen as an aid to your task, giving you a plethora of examples to show how your definitions of fiction, nonfiction, and autofiction occur in writing. Ultimately, we will risk a definition, or at least a reduction in mystery, around the boundary of fiction vs nonfiction.

ENGL 161 Rumor, Fear, and the Madness of Crowds: Reading and Research-Based Writing About Mass Hysteria
CRN: 14401
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
What psychosocial factors cause groups of persons to get involved in a disturbing dynamic of rumors, fears, and mass hysteria? In the late 20th and early 21st century in particular, one has noticed several cases of mass hysteria, ranging from the moral panics such as “Satanic” day care centers in the 1980s and Pizzagate, to the viral spread of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all of which have caused incidents of persecution and mob violence. Yet many of these incidents contain roots in previous movements dating as far back as the medieval period, often related to fears about the end of the world, the apocalypse. In this course, you will learn to form your own inquiry about our topic of rumors, fear, and the madness of crowds by learning the skills of analytical and research-based writing. You will learn the essential elements of writing a social sciences academic research paper. The first part of the course will focus on honing accurate and critical reading skills by summarizing shorter assigned readings and beginning what will become the reference list/abstract for your research paper. You will begin exploring a general research topic related to the topic of the course, focusing on what and how an incident or pattern of crowd behavior occurred. The second part of the course will move from restating another author’s claims and evidence, “they say” to responding to them critically with an “I say, based on they say” using the reading and writing techniques of analysis and synthesis. You will begin to tie in your more specific research topic and the sources you summarized in the annotated reference list to multiple crowd theorists we will read in this unit. The third part will involve your individual path of inquiry and research on a specific topic with a research paper proposal and accompanying annotated reference list and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Research, Writing, and the Rise of Generative AI
CRN: 14396
DAY/TIME: TR 8:00-9:15
INSTRUCTOR: Janson Jones ecojones@uic.edu
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) continues to rapidly affect how we create, communicate, and understand information, raising critical questions about originality, authorship, ethics, and the future of communication in both our personal and professional lives. In this section of ENGL 161, we will examine how generative AI tools, such as large language models (LLMs), impact fields ranging from art and science to education and industry. We will discuss and explore ethical concerns surrounding AI-generated content, biases within AI systems, implications for privacy and data security, and potential shifts in working and creative practices.
In this course, you will have opportunities to delve deeply into the complexities and implications of generative AI in your life and in your future, focusing on areas that resonate with your own interests, both personally and professionally. Using our course text, Writing for Inquiry and Research, you will develop skills in academic research methodology, critical reading and analysis, persuasive and professional writing, and evidence-based argumentation. Special emphasis will be placed on individualized inquiry, discovery, and learning. Throughout the semester, you will complete four major writing assignments: an Annotated Bibliography, a Research Proposal, a Literature Review, and a final Research Paper, building toward a nuanced understanding of how generative AI may impact and affect your future.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Documentary Poetry
CRN: 14409
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Stefania Gomez sgomez46@uic.edu
A kind of counter-intelligence, writes scholar Michael Leong, Documentary Poetry “aspires to a history by other means to see if our papers—the documents that underwrite our individual and collective identities, that support our cultural memories—are in order or need reordering.” In this course, we will immerse ourselves in a small selection of contemporary works of Documentary Poetics. Over the course of the semester, we will work towards the crafting of a research paper that argues a point about one or more of these collections, as well as the literary, cultural and/or political work they accomplish.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Humans, Climate Change & Endangered Species
CRN: 26882
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Dan McGee dlmcgee2@uic.edu
Every year, more and more animal species are going extinct around the world. As climates change, animals need to adapt, whether it’s through changing migratory patterns or finding a new biome to live in. While climate change may register as a colossal antagonist of biodiversity around the world, it is not the first major event that has driven wildlife populations to the brink of extinction. For centuries, human activity has decimated wildlife through various tactics. In this class, we will investigate and track the complicated history surrounding wildlife endangerment to better understand our own relationship with the ever-changing natural world around us.
This course will give you a wide-but-shallow look at the history of human- and climate-driven wildlife endangerment and extinction. You will read/watch a number of sources including popular films, commercials, research articles, book chapters, government websites, and many others to get a holistic understanding of the effects of both human activity and climate change on wildlife populations. As you investigate wildlife endangerment in this research-central course, you will compose several writing assignments, including an annotated bibliography, research proposal, and literature review. The culmination of these writing projects will help you develop the fourth and most important writing project of this semester: the research essay. No prior information on animal science, biology, or climate studies is required.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Research, Writing, and the Rise of Generative AI
CRN: 14463
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Janson Jones ecojones@uic.edu
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) continues to rapidly affect how we create, communicate, and understand information, raising critical questions about originality, authorship, ethics, and the future of communication in both our personal and professional lives. In this section of ENGL 161, we will examine how generative AI tools, such as large language models (LLMs), impact fields ranging from art and science to education and industry. We will discuss and explore ethical concerns surrounding AI-generated content, biases within AI systems, implications for privacy and data security, and potential shifts in working and creative practices.
In this course, you will have opportunities to delve deeply into the complexities and implications of generative AI in your life and in your future, focusing on areas that resonate with your own interests, both personally and professionally. Using our course text, Writing for Inquiry and Research, you will develop skills in academic research methodology, critical reading and analysis, persuasive and professional writing, and evidence-based argumentation. Special emphasis will be placed on individualized inquiry, discovery, and learning. Throughout the semester, you will complete four major writing assignments: an Annotated Bibliography, a Research Proposal, a Literature Review, and a final Research Paper, building toward a nuanced understanding of how generative AI may impact and affect your future.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Post-Truth: What Is It Good For?
CRN: 42686
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Ovi Brici obrici@uic.edu
We are living in a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern truth from fabrication, where “alternative facts” and strong feelings dominate logical reasoning. In this course, you will learn how to distinguish between objective and subjective material. In other words, you will learn how our psychological blind spots, biases, and heuristic strategies, may lead to science denialism, and political polarization.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About the Relationship Between Gender/Sexuality and Film/Television
CRN: 32295 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Movies and television deliver information to us, both overtly and covertly, about social expectations concerning gender and sexuality. And because movies and television are embedded in the ideologies of their creators, it is basically impossible to make a show that does not address gender and sexuality in a way that is significant or controversial to one group or another. In relation to this, a question we might ask is “How much effect do these shows and films have on our expectations concerning gender and sexuality?” After all, media influence is only one of the social mechanisms that influence how we understand gender and sexuality.
We will be focusing on questions concerning this relationship between film/television and gender/sexuality. We will begin by examining various concepts and social theories, including readings by Stuart Hall, Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, Barthes and Foucault. We will also examine more general social theories/concepts, such as ideology, hegemony, semantics, and confirmation bias.
We will create an Annotated Bibliography for these (and other readings) and using this information we will develop a relevant research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Show me your teeth and I’ll tell you who you are.
CRN: 14471
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Georges Cuvier, aka the Father of Paleontology, claimed that teeth were the revelators of creatures that possessed them. Teeth were the depositories of lifetimes. In this course, we’ll consider Cuvier’s claim and examine why teeth matter, for whom, and for what? We’ll be using Peter S. Ungar’s Teeth: A Very Short Introduction and Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as the starting point for our research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14433
DAY/TIME: TR 9:30-10:45
INSTRUCTOR: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course we will inquire into stand-up comedy as an art that is particularly bound to audience. Beginning our inquiry with an analysis of stand-up’s fundamental modes (jokes, stories, and arguments), class readings and discussions will soon branch out to touch on some possible research topics that emphasize the dynamic between performer and audience: the sword and shield of stereotype humor; types of awkwardness; argument by analogy in satire; conglomerate niche marketing and the rise of the Netflix stand-up special; and the relationship between social norms and comedy taboos.
In addition to an Annotated Bibliography, a Synthesis, a Proposal, and a Research Project, you will complete daily homework and engage in individual in- class writing and group work. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to engage you in reading, writing, and research in preparation for the rest of your academic career. So be prepared to read and write every day.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Purposes of Postsecondary Education?
CRN: 48310
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: David Jakalski djakal2@uic.edu
Why do students go to a college or university? What experiences or services should colleges or universities provide? Should postsecondary education in the United States focus exclusively on career preparation, or should co-curricular activities (clubs, sports, etc.) constitute part of the college or university experience? What methods and technologies should be employed to best provide this education? Do postsecondary institutions sufficiently contribute to economic mobility, or might they inadvertently contribute to the very inequities they are expected to address? This course will examine issues related to postsecondary education in the United States. We will read from several scholarly and popular sources (journal and newspaper articles, film, interviews, etc.) to better understand these issues. Assignments will mainly consist of four writing projects: annotated bibliography, research proposal, literature review, research essay. Partial and complete drafts will be assigned for each writing project, and class participation and attendance is expected.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 14394
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “social justice”—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14451
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Sammie Burton sburto7@uic.edu
This semester in English 161, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing that focus on the recursive, yet rewarding, nature of academic inquiry. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within the class content. Four writing genres will be explored: the Annotated Bibliography, the Literature Review, the Proposal, and Evidence-based Research. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your professor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme of this course centers on cultivating wisdom from research that explores the past, present, and future implications of different career fields.

ENGL 161 Rumor, Fear, and the Madness of Crowds: Reading and Research-Based Writing About Mass Hysteria
CRN: 14442
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
What psychosocial factors cause groups of persons to get involved in a disturbing dynamic of rumors, fears, and mass hysteria? In the late 20th and early 21st century in particular, one has noticed several cases of mass hysteria, ranging from the moral panics such as “Satanic” day care centers in the 1980s and Pizzagate, to the viral spread of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all of which have caused incidents of persecution and mob violence. Yet many of these incidents contain roots in previous movements dating as far back as the medieval period, often related to fears about the end of the world, the apocalypse. In this course, you will learn to form your own inquiry about our topic of rumors, fear, and the madness of crowds by learning the skills of analytical and research-based writing. You will learn the essential elements of writing a social sciences academic research paper. The first part of the course will focus on honing accurate and critical reading skills by summarizing shorter assigned readings and beginning what will become the reference list/abstract for your research paper. You will begin exploring a general research topic related to the topic of the course, focusing on what and how an incident or pattern of crowd behavior occurred. The second part of the course will move from restating another author’s claims and evidence, “they say” to responding to them critically with an “I say, based on they say” using the reading and writing techniques of analysis and synthesis. You will begin to tie in your more specific research topic and the sources you summarized in the annotated reference list to multiple crowd theorists we will read in this unit. The third part will involve your individual path of inquiry and research on a specific topic with a research paper proposal and accompanying annotated reference list and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 47672
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 161 is an academic writing course situated in academic inquiry, where students explore a topic as a community of inquiry. This section will focus on Chicago neighborhoods: how they are defined, what they mean, the kinds of identities and ways of life they support, the roles they play in local politics and economies, the ways they bring people together or keep them apart, and how they change. We will initially focus on the neighborhoods that surround the UIC campus, but our inquiry will take us across the City of Chicago and into a diverse and intersecting group of communities. This course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by genres of academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 32286
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Marc Baez mbaez1@uic.edu
In this course we will inquire into stand-up comedy as an art that is particularly bound to audience. Beginning our inquiry with an analysis of stand-up’s fundamental modes (jokes, stories, and arguments), class readings and discussions will soon branch out to touch on some possible research topics that emphasize the dynamic between performer and audience: the sword and shield of stereotype humor; types of awkwardness; argument by analogy in satire; conglomerate niche marketing and the rise of the Netflix stand-up special; and the relationship between social norms and comedy taboos.
In addition to an Annotated Bibliography, a Synthesis, a Proposal, and a Research Project, you will complete daily homework and engage in individual in- class writing and group work. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to engage you in reading, writing, and research in preparation for the rest of your academic career. So be prepared to read and write every day.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Show me your teeth and I’ll tell you who you are.
CRN: 22117
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Todd Sherfinski tsherfin@uic.edu
Georges Cuvier, aka the Father of Paleontology, claimed that teeth were the revelators of creatures that possessed them. Teeth were the depositories of lifetimes. In this course, we’ll consider Cuvier’s claim and examine why teeth matter, for whom, and for what? We’ll be using Peter S. Ungar’s Teeth: A Very Short Introduction and Mary Otto’s Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America as the starting point for our research. In addition to four Writing Projects, expect short daily reading and writing assignments and plenty of group work.

ENGL 161 Rumor, Fear, and the Madness of Crowds: Reading and Research-Based Writing About Mass Hysteria
CRN: 43493
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Scott Grunow scottgr@uic.edu
What psychosocial factors cause groups of persons to get involved in a disturbing dynamic of rumors, fears, and mass hysteria? In the late 20th and early 21st century in particular, one has noticed several cases of mass hysteria, ranging from the moral panics such as “Satanic” day care centers in the 1980s and Pizzagate, to the viral spread of conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all of which have caused incidents of persecution and mob violence. Yet many of these incidents contain roots in previous movements dating as far back as the medieval period, often related to fears about the end of the world, the apocalypse. In this course, you will learn to form your own inquiry about our topic of rumors, fear, and the madness of crowds by learning the skills of analytical and research-based writing. You will learn the essential elements of writing a social sciences academic research paper. The first part of the course will focus on honing accurate and critical reading skills by summarizing shorter assigned readings and beginning what will become the reference list/abstract for your research paper. You will begin exploring a general research topic related to the topic of the course, focusing on what and how an incident or pattern of crowd behavior occurred. The second part of the course will move from restating another author’s claims and evidence, “they say” to responding to them critically with an “I say, based on they say” using the reading and writing techniques of analysis and synthesis. You will begin to tie in your more specific research topic and the sources you summarized in the annotated reference list to multiple crowd theorists we will read in this unit. The third part will involve your individual path of inquiry and research on a specific topic with a research paper proposal and accompanying annotated reference list and the final research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens
CRN: 14382
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Mark Magoon mmagoon@uic.edu
In this section of English 161, which I have named “Social Justice as the Mirror and the Lens,” we will examine the topic of “social justice”—the fair and just relation between individuals and society as it relates to opportunity and social privilege—and we will use that topic to become better academic writers and researchers, but also to better understand ourselves and our world. Debates revolving around education, race, gender, identity, sexuality and the rhetoric that surrounds them are at the heart of many community and cultural discussions not only here in Chicago, but abroad too. In this course—one that will function as a writing community and safe space—we will take up questions surrounding the topic of social justice today. Through the examination of various forms of “texts”—scholarly, public, literary, visual, and cinematic—we will use our course topic to develop skills of critical reading, academic research, and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Fantasy in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture
CRN: 14453
DAY/TIME: TR 11:00-12:15
INSTRUCTOR: Adam Jones ajones@uic.edu
This class will introduce you to academic writing by providing you with strategies and knowledge that you can use during your academic career at UIC and beyond. In this class, you will employ a variety of reading and writing strategies to draft and revise four major writing projects: an analytic presentation on a comic, two movie reviews, an argumentative essay, and a self-reflective essay. Each of these projects will revolve around the recent rise of geek culture. In order to better understand the aesthetic and political issues raised by geek culture’s having gone mainstream, we will examine comics, movies, movie reviews, formal analyses, and argumentative essays. Along the way, we will focus on areas key to reading and writing at the college level, including genre, form, rhetoric, and argumentation.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Purposes of Postsecondary Education?
CRN: 48311
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: David Jakalski djakal2@uic.edu
Why do students go to a college or university? What experiences or services should colleges or universities provide? Should postsecondary education in the United States focus exclusively on career preparation, or should co-curricular activities (clubs, sports, etc.) constitute part of the college or university experience? What methods and technologies should be employed to best provide this education? Do postsecondary institutions sufficiently contribute to economic mobility, or might they inadvertently contribute to the very inequities they are expected to address? This course will examine issues related to postsecondary education in the United States. We will read from several scholarly and popular sources (journal and newspaper articles, film, interviews, etc.) to better understand these issues. Assignments will mainly consist of four writing projects: annotated bibliography, research proposal, literature review, research essay. Partial and complete drafts will be assigned for each writing project, and class participation and attendance is expected.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14417
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Sammie Burton sburto7@uic.edu
This semester in English 161, you will embark on a journey through different genres of writing that focus on the recursive, yet rewarding, nature of academic inquiry. Whole group discussions, small group discussions and writing activities will further cement concepts and ideas presented within the class content. Four writing genres will be explored: the Annotated Bibliography, the Literature Review, the Proposal, and Evidence-based Research. In addition to peer-review sessions, you will also receive feedback from your professor to help produce clear and thought-provoking writing projects. The theme of this course centers on cultivating wisdom by researching past, present and future implications of various career fields.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing About the Relationship Between Gender/Sexuality and Film/Television
CRN: 32289
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: James Drown jdrown1@uic.edu
Movies and television deliver information to us, both overtly and covertly, about social expectations concerning gender and sexuality. And because movies and television are embedded in the ideologies of their creators, it is basically impossible to make a show that does not address gender and sexuality in a way that is significant or controversial to one group or another. In relation to this, a question we might ask is “How much effect do these shows and films have on our expectations concerning gender and sexuality?” After all, media influence is only one of the social mechanisms that influence how we understand gender and sexuality.
We will be focusing on questions concerning this relationship between film/television and gender/sexuality. We will begin by examining various concepts and social theories, including readings by Stuart Hall, Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, Barthes and Foucault. We will also examine more general social theories/concepts, such as ideology, hegemony, semantics, and confirmation bias.
We will create an Annotated Bibliography for these (and other readings) and using this information we will develop a relevant research question. Once we have a research question, we will follow through by conducting research, considering what that research means, and writing a fully developed academic research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14472 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Eman Elturki elturki@uic.edu
A university campus, with its varied facilities and operations (e.g., lecture halls, libraries, laboratories, residence halls, dining services, transportation, parking, health care, campus security, space heating and cooling, and water management), functions as a microcosm of a city. These activities and spaces on campus, along with our actions as community members, have a significant impact on the environment. Besides serving as a hub for intellectual stimulation and economic growth, universities play a key role in instilling environmental awareness and transforming practices. A growing number of higher education institutions around the globe are adopting sustainable practices to minimize their environmental footprint and “create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations” (EAP , 2023). UIC is among the institutions that have made commitments to sustainability by working towards the following: (1) carbon neutral university, (2) zero waste university, (3) net zero water university, (4) biodiverse university, and (5) transformative scholarship university.
In this course, you will contribute to UIC’s sustainability efforts while enhancing your research, academic writing, and critical reading skills. You will undertake a course-long research project on a topic related to one of UIC’s five climate commitments. The course assignments are designed sequentially to guide your research process. Preliminary research will involve reading and analyzing texts on sustainability, particularly in college campuses and your area of interest, and will culminate in an Annotated Bibliography. After establishing some knowledge of the topic, you will put forward a Research Proposal outlining your research focus, its significance, research question, and plan. Next, you will consolidate your understanding of your selected topic by conducting a Literature Review, in which you will synthesize and analyze sources relevant to your inquiry. Finally, building on your extensive research from earlier assignments, you will engage in the final round of research to produce your Research Paper and then deliver an Oral Presentation to share your findings with the class. By the end of this course, you will gain a deeper understanding of scholarly writing conventions and enhance your critical reading, research, and revision skills.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Challenge of AI in the Composition Classroom
CRN: 47645
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Virginia Costello vcostell2uic.edu
In this experimental class, we will write critically about AI programs such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Grammarly, Chatpdf, and Research Rabbit. We will analyze and evaluate these programs in terms of how they might help, hinder or simply annoy us. We will ask tough questions about AI in relation to the environment, privacy, bias, and labor. Students can expect to be a part of uncomfortable conversations about unethical use of AI (“cheating”), astounded by advances of AI (particularly in the medical field), and witness spectacular failures (hallucinations).
At the beginning of the semester, we will write policy and guidelines about AI use in our classroom. While we will also attempt to identify malicious actors and Deepfakes, the main goal of this class is to enhance our own AI literacy and grapple with questions about how AI is changing how we teach and learn. Finally, throughout all of our conversations and writing assignments, we will think about what it means to be human. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Research, Writing, and the Rise of Generative AI
CRN: 14435
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Janson Jones ecojones@uic.edu
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) continues to rapidly affect how we create, communicate, and understand information, raising critical questions about originality, authorship, ethics, and the future of communication in both our personal and professional lives. In this section of ENGL 161, we will examine how generative AI tools, such as large language models (LLMs), impact fields ranging from art and science to education and industry. We will discuss and explore ethical concerns surrounding AI-generated content, biases within AI systems, implications for privacy and data security, and potential shifts in working and creative practices.
In this course, you will have opportunities to delve deeply into the complexities and implications of generative AI in your life and in your future, focusing on areas that resonate with your own interests, both personally and professionally. Using our course text, Writing for Inquiry and Research, you will develop skills in academic research methodology, critical reading and analysis, persuasive and professional writing, and evidence-based argumentation. Special emphasis will be placed on individualized inquiry, discovery, and learning. Throughout the semester, you will complete four major writing assignments: an Annotated Bibliography, a Research Proposal, a Literature Review, and a final Research Paper, building toward a nuanced understanding of how generative AI may impact and affect your future.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 32293
DAY/TIME: TR 12:30-1:45
INSTRUCTOR: Doug Sheldon. sheldond@uic.edu
Do you have a favorite hobby? Do you share it with others in a group setting even if you don’t interact directly? Do you have knowledge of: Sports? Comic books? Music? Star Trek? Bullfighting? Houston Slab? Guess what? You’re a fan! This course will discuss the ins and outs of fandom and fandom communities. We will ask important questions like: What makes one a fan? What do these communities provide that culture at large does not? What is anti-fandom? We will inquire about our own fandoms or fandoms which pique our interest and discover research practices that can shed light on communities often marginalized or written off by mainstream viewpoints. Student’s will engage with a fandom community either textually or socially to gain greater understanding of how authority is built within said communities and how they grow or fade away.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Climate Politics & Cultures
CRN: 32288
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Corbin Hiday chiday2@uic.edu
In this course, we will pursue humanistic knowledge as it emerges in relation to questions of climate cultures, politics, energy and the environment. In doing so, we will interrogate challenges and concerns of our contemporary world through engagement with cultural forms, political power, social justice efforts, and scholarship. How do we conceive of political power in relation to climate change and can cultural representation help us imagine adequate futures? The critical thinking and writing skills practiced in the humanities offer creative and intersectional argumentative approaches to working through difficult challenges. Together as a class, we will explore a series of approaches to understanding the cultures and politics of climate change, including resistance efforts, apocalyptic imaginings, and utopian horizons. We will take up these interrelated concerns in a global and domestic context—with particular interest in the rise of industrialization, its connections to imperialism, and extraction as the orienting principle of accumulation. We will also explore the connection between climate change, energy, and space/place, and what this reflects about our perceptions of class, gender, and race. Through the examination and analysis of various texts (climate journalism, official documents like IPCC reports, environmental humanities scholarship, fiction and documentaries), we will use this topic to develop skills of academic research and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 32287
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Pending
Pending

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: The Challenge of AI in the Composition Classroom
CRN: 14443
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Virginia Costello vcostell2uic.edu
In this experimental class, we will write critically about AI programs such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Grammarly, Chatpdf, and Research Rabbit. We will analyze and evaluate these programs in terms of how they might help, hinder or simply annoy us. We will ask tough questions about AI in relation to the environment, privacy, bias, and labor. Students can expect to be a part of uncomfortable conversations about unethical use of AI (“cheating”), astounded by advances of AI (particularly in the medical field), and witness spectacular failures (hallucinations).
At the beginning of the semester, we will write policy and guidelines about AI use in our classroom. While we will also attempt to identify malicious actors and Deepfakes, the main goal of this class is to enhance our own AI literacy and grapple with questions about how AI is changing how we teach and learn. Finally, throughout all of our conversations and writing assignments, we will think about what it means to be human. Writing assignments include but are not limited to the following: Annotated Bibliography, Proposal, Literature Review, and Research Paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Deep Fried and Delicious: A Taste of the Fast Food Industry
CRN: 14446
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Travis Mandell tmande2@uic.edu
In this course, we will engage in a semester long investigation of the Fast-Food Industry, and the impacts on society at large (both in the U.S and Globally). We will read critical texts that investigate the Industry’s influence on culture, economy, the environment, and physical health. We will discuss countering points of view on the different issues, ranging from worker minimum wage to environmental health-impacts, and analyze the various debates taking place across different fields of inquiry.
Through lectures, discussions, in class activities, and writing projects, this class will prepare you to participate in the academic discourse surrounding any subject you pursue in the future. By developing research techniques, conducting said research, and writing an academic essay, you will become well versed in the art of academic writing. Ultimately, the purpose of this course is to prepare you for the rest of your academic career at UIC, fostering a strong foundation for your academic writing skills that can be used in your specific discipline/major.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Fantasy in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture
CRN: 42529
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Adam Jones ajones@uic.edu
This class will introduce you to academic writing by providing you with strategies and knowledge that you can use during your academic career at UIC and beyond. In this class, you will employ a variety of reading and writing strategies to draft and revise four major writing projects: an analytic presentation on a comic, two movie reviews, an argumentative essay, and a self-reflective essay. Each of these projects will revolve around the recent rise of geek culture. In order to better understand the aesthetic and political issues raised by geek culture’s having gone mainstream, we will examine comics, movies, movie reviews, formal analyses, and argumentative essays. Along the way, we will focus on areas key to reading and writing at the college level, including genre, form, rhetoric, and argumentation.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Post-Truth: What Is It Good For?
CRN: 14458
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Ovi Brici obrici@uic.edu
We are living in a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern truth from fabrication, where “alternative facts” and strong feelings dominate logical reasoning. In this course, you will learn how to distinguish between objective and subjective material. In other words, you will learn how our psychological blind spots, biases, and heuristic strategies, may lead to science denialism, and political polarization.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Toward Sustainable Communities
CRN: 26881
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Daniel Barton. dbarto6@ic.edu
In her book, A Paradise Built In Hell, Rebecca Solnit explores how, in the wake of disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes—and contrary to beliefs that people tend to act in selfish interest after such events—, communities often come together and support each other. Remarkably, she emphasizes the joy shared by people in their experiences of mutual aid and comfort despite the destruction and tragedy that necessitate such expressions of solidarity. Noting this joy as revelatory, Solnit laments, “Many no longer believe that a better world, as opposed to a better life, is possible…And yet the yearning remains.” In a time of increasing environmental and social stress, Solnit’s revelation of the potential for community in the wake of disaster raises an important question of what is possible when we acknowledge and embrace our connections with others. This class will take up this question, exploring what it means to have a community as well as possibilities for that community to strive toward a more sustainable world. While developing a definition of sustainability beyond the mere responsible use of natural resources that rather incorporates social justice and equity, we will reflect on communities significant to us and identify issues they face. In a semester-long investigation, we will then explore avenues through which our chosen communities might pursue more sustainable futures. Through critical examination of various texts—scholarly, public, governmental, etc.—and an independent research project, we will build an understanding of important environmental and social issues while developing academic research and writing skills that will be important throughout your college career and beyond.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14389
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Eman Elturki elturki@uic.edu
A university campus, with its varied facilities and operations (e.g., lecture halls, libraries, laboratories, residence halls, dining services, transportation, parking, health care, campus security, space heating and cooling, and water management), functions as a microcosm of a city. These activities and spaces on campus, along with our actions as community members, have a significant impact on the environment. Besides serving as a hub for intellectual stimulation and economic growth, universities play a key role in instilling environmental awareness and transforming practices. A growing number of higher education institutions around the globe are adopting sustainable practices to minimize their environmental footprint and “create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations” (EAP , 2023). UIC is among the institutions that have made commitments to sustainability by working towards the following: (1) carbon neutral university, (2) zero waste university, (3) net zero water university, (4) biodiverse university, and (5) transformative scholarship university.
In this course, you will contribute to UIC’s sustainability efforts while enhancing your research, academic writing, and critical reading skills. You will undertake a course-long research project on a topic related to one of UIC’s five climate commitments. The course assignments are designed sequentially to guide your research process. Preliminary research will involve reading and analyzing texts on sustainability, particularly in college campuses and your area of interest, and will culminate in an Annotated Bibliography. After establishing some knowledge of the topic, you will put forward a Research Proposal outlining your research focus, its significance, research question, and plan. Next, you will consolidate your understanding of your selected topic by conducting a Literature Review, in which you will synthesize and analyze sources relevant to your inquiry. Finally, building on your extensive research from earlier assignments, you will engage in the final round of research to produce your Research Paper and then deliver an Oral Presentation to share your findings with the class. By the end of this course, you will gain a deeper understanding of scholarly writing conventions and enhance your critical reading, research, and revision skills.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Climate Crisis: The Rhetoric of Emergency
CRN: 32292
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Eliza Marley emarle2@uic.edu
We will investigate research writing by looking at components, process and structure through four writing projects that build on each other and culminate in a final research paper. Our class topic will center on climate crisis and how “emergency” is defined / structured / perceived as well as what is being done to combat climate apathy and activism paralysis. Students will pick a climate centered topic for research though it may vary and include social, political, and other aspects involved in climate crisis.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Artificial Intelligence in Our Present and Future Lives
CRN: 41131
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Mark Bennett mbenne2@uic.edu
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been in our daily lives for several years now in ways we don’t even think twice about, from autocorrect typing to targeted marketing ads to Siri and Alexa on our everyday devices. Yet large language models like ChatGPT, which generate infinite possible texts instantly based on instructions we give, already seem to have changed the nature of writing, research, and education as we’ve always known it. Some serious people predict that all-powerful, uncontrollable AI will enslave or destroy humanity, a scenario right out of “The Matrix” or “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Or will it? Maybe AI is just another very neat tool we can use to help us in our everyday lives, and develop our own writing, like any other technology that’s come before.
Whatever our future with AI, it is up to us to set the terms for how we deal with it. And that’s the work we’ll be doing in this English 161 course. We’ll write about AI and write with AI. Yes, we’ll dare to use ChatGPT and other free AI programs to draft writing that we’ll use for this class, and compare it to writing that we ourselves produce without AI assistance. Over the course of the semester, you’ll do your own research and write a research paper about the uses of AI in your own chosen career or field of study. And you’ll reflect about it all in your own writing, coming to a greater understanding of how AI might affect your own life now and in the future.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14390
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Aaron Krall akrall@uic.edu
English 161 is an academic writing course situated in academic inquiry, where students explore a topic as a community of inquiry. This section will focus on Chicago neighborhoods: how they are defined, what they mean, the kinds of identities and ways of life they support, the roles they play in local politics and economies, the ways they bring people together or keep them apart, and how they change. We will initially focus on the neighborhoods that surround the UIC campus, but our inquiry will take us across the City of Chicago and into a diverse and intersecting group of communities. This course is organized around a semester-long research project. We will begin with a common set of texts and questions, and then you will develop focused questions and participate in the practices of academic research and writing. We will use this work to explore disciplinary conventions and methodologies and to attend to the ways students enter communities structured by genres of academic writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14444
DAY/TIME: TR 2:00-3:15
INSTRUCTOR: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
In English 161, you will conduct independent research for the purpose of writing a documented research paper on some aspect of the topic of American corporations and industries and their place in our public and private lives. Through readings, videos, and discussion, we will inquire into and examine the impact of American corporations and industries on the government, economy, environment, our mental/physical health, the justice system, and more. We will also look closely at how corporate branding, advertising, and social media shape perceptions of beauty, success, health, race, gender, justice, etc. These and other such inquiries will inform your own research endeavors. Over the course of the semester, you will learn about and put into practice the necessary elements of a sound, evidence-based argument with the aim of constructing a thorough, properly documented, and well-crafted argumentative research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Fantasy in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture
CRN: 14468
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Adam Jones ajones@uic.edu
This class will introduce you to academic writing by providing you with strategies and knowledge that you can use during your academic career at UIC and beyond. In this class, you will employ a variety of reading and writing strategies to draft and revise four major writing projects: an analytic presentation on a comic, two movie reviews, an argumentative essay, and a self-reflective essay. Each of these projects will revolve around the recent rise of geek culture. In order to better understand the aesthetic and political issues raised by geek culture’s having gone mainstream, we will examine comics, movies, movie reviews, formal analyses, and argumentative essays. Along the way, we will focus on areas key to reading and writing at the college level, including genre, form, rhetoric, and argumentation.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14462
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Doug Sheldon sheldond@uic.edu
Do you have a favorite hobby? Do you share it with others in a group setting even if you don’t interact directly? Do you have knowledge of: Sports? Comic books? Music? Star Trek? Bullfighting? Houston Slab? Guess what? You’re a fan! This course will discuss the ins and outs of fandom and fandom communities. We will ask important questions like: What makes one a fan? What do these communities provide that culture at large does not? What is anti-fandom? We will inquire about our own fandoms or fandoms which pique our interest and discover research practices that can shed light on communities often marginalized or written off by mainstream viewpoints. Student’s will engage with a fandom community either textually or socially to gain greater understanding of how authority is built within said communities and how they grow or fade away.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Climate Politics & Cultures
CRN: 14456
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Corbin Hiday chiday2@uic.edu
In this course, we will pursue humanistic knowledge as it emerges in relation to questions of climate cultures, politics, energy and the environment. In doing so, we will interrogate challenges and concerns of our contemporary world through engagement with cultural forms, political power, social justice efforts, and scholarship. How do we conceive of political power in relation to climate change and can cultural representation help us imagine adequate futures? The critical thinking and writing skills practiced in the humanities offer creative and intersectional argumentative approaches to working through difficult challenges. Together as a class, we will explore a series of approaches to understanding the cultures and politics of climate change, including resistance efforts, apocalyptic imaginings, and utopian horizons. We will take up these interrelated concerns in a global and domestic context—with particular interest in the rise of industrialization, its connections to imperialism, and extraction as the orienting principle of accumulation. We will also explore the connection between climate change, energy, and space/place, and what this reflects about our perceptions of class, gender, and race. Through the examination and analysis of various texts (climate journalism, official documents like IPCC reports, environmental humanities scholarship, fiction and documentaries), we will use this topic to develop skills of academic research and writing.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Toward Sustainable Communities
CRN: 32290
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Daniel Barton. dbarto6@ic.edu
In her book, A Paradise Built In Hell, Rebecca Solnit explores how, in the wake of disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes—and contrary to beliefs that people tend to act in selfish interest after such events—, communities often come together and support each other. Remarkably, she emphasizes the joy shared by people in their experiences of mutual aid and comfort despite the destruction and tragedy that necessitate such expressions of solidarity. Noting this joy as revelatory, Solnit laments, “Many no longer believe that a better world, as opposed to a better life, is possible…And yet the yearning remains.” In a time of increasing environmental and social stress, Solnit’s revelation of the potential for community in the wake of disaster raises an important question of what is possible when we acknowledge and embrace our connections with others. This class will take up this question, exploring what it means to have a community as well as possibilities for that community to strive toward a more sustainable world. While developing a definition of sustainability beyond the mere responsible use of natural resources that rather incorporates social justice and equity, we will reflect on communities significant to us and identify issues they face. In a semester-long investigation, we will then explore avenues through which our chosen communities might pursue more sustainable futures. Through critical examination of various texts—scholarly, public, governmental, etc.—and an independent research project, we will build an understanding of important environmental and social issues while developing academic research and writing skills that will be important throughout your college career and beyond.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14425
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
In English 161, you will conduct independent research for the purpose of writing a documented research paper on some aspect of the topic of American corporations and industries and their place in our public and private lives. Through readings, videos, and discussion, we will inquire into and examine the impact of American corporations and industries on the government, economy, environment, our mental/physical health, the justice system, and more. We will also look closely at how corporate branding, advertising, and social media shape perceptions of beauty, success, health, race, gender, justice, etc. These and other such inquiries will inform your own research endeavors. Over the course of the semester, you will learn about and put into practice the necessary elements of a sound, evidence-based argument with the aim of constructing a thorough, properly documented, and well-crafted argumentative research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14460 GLOBAL
DAY/TIME: TR 3:30-4:45
INSTRUCTOR: Eman Elturki elturki@uic.edu
A university campus, with its varied facilities and operations (e.g., lecture halls, libraries, laboratories, residence halls, dining services, transportation, parking, health care, campus security, space heating and cooling, and water management), functions as a microcosm of a city. These activities and spaces on campus, along with our actions as community members, have a significant impact on the environment. Besides serving as a hub for intellectual stimulation and economic growth, universities play a key role in instilling environmental awareness and transforming practices. A growing number of higher education institutions around the globe are adopting sustainable practices to minimize their environmental footprint and “create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations” (EAP , 2023). UIC is among the institutions that have made commitments to sustainability by working towards the following: (1) carbon neutral university, (2) zero waste university, (3) net zero water university, (4) biodiverse university, and (5) transformative scholarship university.
In this course, you will contribute to UIC’s sustainability efforts while enhancing your research, academic writing, and critical reading skills. You will undertake a course-long research project on a topic related to one of UIC’s five climate commitments. The course assignments are designed sequentially to guide your research process. Preliminary research will involve reading and analyzing texts on sustainability, particularly in college campuses and your area of interest, and will culminate in an Annotated Bibliography. After establishing some knowledge of the topic, you will put forward a Research Proposal outlining your research focus, its significance, research question, and plan. Next, you will consolidate your understanding of your selected topic by conducting a Literature Review, in which you will synthesize and analyze sources relevant to your inquiry. Finally, building on your extensive research from earlier assignments, you will engage in the final round of research to produce your Research Paper and then deliver an Oral Presentation to share your findings with the class. By the end of this course, you will gain a deeper understanding of scholarly writing conventions and enhance your critical reading, research, and revision skills.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing for Inquiry and Research
CRN: 14391
DAY/TIME: TR 5:00-6:15
INSTRUCTOR: Lisa Stolley lstoll1@uic.edu
In English 161, you will conduct independent research for the purpose of writing a documented research paper on some aspect of the topic of American corporations and industries and their place in our public and private lives. Through readings, videos, and discussion, we will inquire into and examine the impact of American corporations and industries on the government, economy, environment, our mental/physical health, the justice system, and more. We will also look closely at how corporate branding, advertising, and social media shape perceptions of beauty, success, health, race, gender, justice, etc. These and other such inquiries will inform your own research endeavors. Over the course of the semester, you will learn about and put into practice the necessary elements of a sound, evidence-based argument with the aim of constructing a thorough, properly documented, and well-crafted argumentative research paper.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Writing Toward Sustainable Communities
CRN: 14418
DAY/TIME: TR 5:00-6:15
INSTRUCTOR: Daniel Barton. dbarto6@ic.edu
In her book, A Paradise Built In Hell, Rebecca Solnit explores how, in the wake of disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes—and contrary to beliefs that people tend to act in selfish interest after such events—, communities often come together and support each other. Remarkably, she emphasizes the joy shared by people in their experiences of mutual aid and comfort despite the destruction and tragedy that necessitate such expressions of solidarity. Noting this joy as revelatory, Solnit laments, “Many no longer believe that a better world, as opposed to a better life, is possible…And yet the yearning remains.” In a time of increasing environmental and social stress, Solnit’s revelation of the potential for community in the wake of disaster raises an important question of what is possible when we acknowledge and embrace our connections with others. This class will take up this question, exploring what it means to have a community as well as possibilities for that community to strive toward a more sustainable world. While developing a definition of sustainability beyond the mere responsible use of natural resources that rather incorporates social justice and equity, we will reflect on communities significant to us and identify issues they face. In a semester-long investigation, we will then explore avenues through which our chosen communities might pursue more sustainable futures. Through critical examination of various texts—scholarly, public, governmental, etc.—and an independent research project, we will build an understanding of important environmental and social issues while developing academic research and writing skills that will be important throughout your college career and beyond.

ENGL 161 Academic Writing II: Climate Politics & Cultures
CRN: 29120
DAY/TIME: TR 5:00-6:15
INSTRUCTOR: Corbin Hiday chiday2@uic.eduIn this course, we will pursue humanistic knowledge as it emerges in relation to questions of climate cultures, politics, energy and the environment. In doing so, we will interrogate challenges and concerns of our contemporary world through engagement with cultural forms, political power, social justice efforts, and scholarship. How do we conceive of political power in relation to climate change and can cultural representation help us imagine adequate futures? The critical thinking and writing skills practiced in the humanities offer creative and intersectional argumentative approaches to working through difficult challenges. Together as a class, we will explore a series of approaches to understanding the cultures and politics of climate change, including resistance efforts, apocalyptic imaginings, and utopian horizons. We will take up these interrelated concerns in a global and domestic context—with particular interest in the rise of industrialization, its connections to imperialism, and extraction as the orienting principle of accumulation. We will also explore the connection between climate change, energy, and space/place, and what this reflects about our perceptions of class, gender, and race. Through the examination and analysis of various texts (climate journalism, official documents like IPCC reports, environmental humanities scholarship, fiction and documentaries), we will use this topic to develop skills of academic research and writing.