Course Descriptions

Intermediate Writing. Required of all majors and minors in English, this course acquaints students with literature as both an academic discipline and an art by developing the analytical and critical skills required for more sophisticated readings of literary works. By studying the literary techniques of exemplary authors, students also discover ways in which attentive reading might stimulate and guide their own writing. Along with introducing students to the vocabulary and methods of reading literary works from psycho-analytic, feminist, historicist, reader-response, and other critical perspectives, the course provides training and practice in writing literary exposition.

The study of the origins, development and linguistic structures of Indo-European languages as cultural phenomena. Special attention is devoted to the linguistic, semantic and cultural history of the English language as it has evolved from an obscure Germanic tongue to a prominent world language. Topics include the design features of language, linguistic variation, phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, semantics, pragmatics, and the major historical forms of English.

Theories & Practice for Tutoring Writing. This course provides theoretical and practical experience for students who will work in Carroll's Writing Center. Students will study the structure of a writing tutorial and its variations. Special attention is given to supporting writers at every stage of the writing process, from helping students to interpret assignments to improving surface correctness in final drafts. Students will work on practicing what they learn through role-playing in scenarios that involve increasing degrees of complexity the types of writing they will see in our center. Four writing projects mark students' progress in the course: learning about other writing centers, understanding rubrics, creating instructional materials, and a position paper on writing center theories.

A study of the theories and methods for teaching the communication arts in the secondary schools with special emphasis on teaching literature and composition, as well as contemporary issues within the profession.

Arts & Letters-Literature. Special Topics courses include ad-hoc courses on various selected topics that are not part of the regular curriculum, however they may still fulfill certain curricular requirements. Special topics courses are offered at the discretion of each department and will be published as part of the semester course schedule - view available sections for more information. Questions about special topics classes can be directed to the instructor or department chair.

Cultural Diversity, Arts & Letters-Literature. This course will introduce students to the basic reading and analytical skills needed to understand and appreciate literature. Students will become familiar with reading different literary genres (prose, poetry, and drama) and learn to use basic terms and techniques of literary analysis. They will develop multiple interpretations and responses to literary texts and support their interpretation and responses with textual evidence, both in discussions and writing. Also, they will discover how texts communicate cultural values and ideas through a variety of approaches to the reading and appreciation of literature. Offerings each semester range from an overview of literature through conventional genres to exploration of a limited historical period or topic in literature.

Arts & Letters-Literature. This course will introduce students to the basic reading and analytical skills needed to understand and appreciate literature. Students will become familiar with reading different literary genres (prose, poetry, and drama) and learn to use basic terms and techniques of literary analysis. They will develop multiple interpretations and responses to literary texts and support their interpretation and responses with textual evidence, both in discussions and writing. Also, they will discover how texts communicate cultural values and ideas through a variety of approaches to the reading and appreciation of literature. Offerings each semester range from an overview of literature through conventional genres to exploration of a limited historical period or topic in literature.

Arts & Letters-Literature. This course introduces students to a range of voices and narratives about and by marginalized communities in North American and global contexts through a study of contemporary (20th and 21st century) revisions of classic literary and cultural texts in western and non-western contexts. Examples of texts include the Brother Grimms' fairy tales and Angela Carter's short story, "The Bloody Chamber" as well as Jane Campion's film, The Piano; Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys' rewrite, Wide Sargasso Sea; One Thousand and One Nights and selected poems from Mohja Kahf's Emails from Scheherazad.

Cultural Diversity, Arts & Letters-Literature. Critical and comparative study of selected representative literary works from African, Arabic, Latin American, and Oriental literature.

Arts & Letters-Literature. The study of literature written in Britain from 1830-1900. The course focuses on representations of individual and national identity emerging amidst sweeping social, political, and economic change. Representative works include novels by the Brontes, Dickens Eliot, Hardy, Wilde; non-fiction prose by Carlyle and Mill;- poetry by Tennyson, the Brownings and the Rosettis.

Arts & Letters-Literature. A study of British literature written in the 20th century, shaped by the critical shifts in thought and literary technique associated with modernism and postmodernism. Each movement, developing in the wake of a World War, is characterized by a major break with literary tradition. Principal genres include poetry, drama, novels, short fiction and the essay. Representative authors include William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Doris Lessing, Seamus Heaney, Iris Murdoch, Tom Stoppard, and Caryl Churchill.

Arts & Letters-Literature, Intermediate Writing. Special Topics courses include ad-hoc courses on various selected topics that are not part of the regular curriculum, however they may still fulfill certain curricular requirements. Special topics courses are offered at the discretion of each department and will be published as part of the semester course schedule - view available sections for more information. Questions about special topics classes can be directed to the instructor or department chair.

Arts & Letters-Literature. A study of American literature from the beginning of the Second World War (1939) to the present. Particular focus is given to anti-establishment literature protesting the cultural conformity of the 1950s, the counterculture writers of the 1960s and early 70s and the post-modern writers of the 1980s and 90s. Includes representative literary movements such as the Agrarian writers, Beat writers, the confessional poets, the Vietnam writers, and a wide variety of ethnic writers producing literature in traditional and experimental forms. Representative authors include Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Eudora Welty, Marianne Moore, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, Robert Lowell, Tennessee Williams, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Arthur Miller, Tim O'Brien, Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich, Toni Morrison, N. Scott Momaday, Edward Albee, David Mamet and Maria Irene Fornes.

Arts & Letters-Literature. Cultural Diversity. A study of literature written by American Indian authors, beginning with the cultural traditions and influences within oral literature, then moving through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This exploration continues through the works of the twentieth century, surveying poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by authors such as N. Scott Momaday, Gerald Vizenor, Wendy Rose, Paula Gunn Allen, Leslie Marmon Silko, Luci Tapahonso, Louis Owens, Sherman Alexie, Louise Erdrich, and Montana American Indian authors D?Arcy McNickle and James Welch.

Arts & Letters-Literature. A study of the dramatic and poetic art of William Shakespeare. Plays from both the Elizabethan and Jacobean pe-riods will be selected to illustrate the development of the author?s style and theatrical conventions, with representation from the histories, the comedies, the Roman plays, the tragedies, the problem plays, and the late romances. Students will develop their critical faculties by applying a variety of recent approaches to Shakespearean scholarship.

The senior thesis is designed to encourage creative thinking and to stimulate individual research. A student may undertake a thesis in an area in which s/he has the necessary background. Ordinarily a thesis topic is chosen in the student's major or minor. It is also possible to choose an interdisciplinary topic. Interested students should decide upon a thesis topic as early as possible in the junior year so that adequate attention may be given to the project. In order to be eligible to apply to write a thesis, a student must have achieved a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.25 based upon all courses attempted at Carroll College. The thesis committee consists of a director and two readers. The thesis director is a full-time Carroll College faculty member from the student's major discipline or approved by the department chair of the student's major. At least one reader must be from outside the student's major. The thesis director and the appropriate department chair must approve all readers. The thesis committee should assist and mentor the student during the entire project. For any projects involving human participants, each student and his or her director must follow the guidelines published by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Students must submit a copy of their IRB approval letter with their thesis application. As part of the IRB approval process, each student and his or her director must also complete training by the National Cancer Institute Protection of Human Participants. The thesis is typically to be completed for three (3) credits in the discipline that best matches the content of the thesis. Departments with a designated thesis research/writing course may award credits differently with approval of the Curriculum Committee. If the thesis credits exceed the full-time tuition credit limit for students, the charge for additional credits will be waived. Applications and further information are available in the Registrar's Office.

A preparation for students to write within the larger academic community. Students study conventions of effective writing for various types of academic essays, including research papers. Includes instruction in online and library research.

Placement determined by score on national exams or passing grade in ENWR 101.

Intermediate Writing. After preliminary instruction in the basic elements and techniques of creative writing, students create original works of poetry and fiction and polish them in workshops with other members of the class. The course is open to those who have not had a poetry or fiction writing course in college.

Intermediate Writing. This course provides students with knowledge and skills in the grant writing process. Through a combination of readings, lectures, assignments and a full written grant proposal, students will gain knowledge and experience in the major elements of grant writing, including grant sources, grant proposals, timelines, budgets, informed consent forms, the review process and grant management.

Students learn basic elements of journalistic writing for the print media, including news reporting, feature writing, and column writing. Course includes study of libel law, observation of community media, and production of one issue of the school newspaper. Students will learn AP Style, the gold standard for journalistic writing.

Special Topics courses include ad-hoc courses on various selected topics that are not part of the regular curriculum, however they may still fulfill certain curricular requirements. Special topics courses are offered at the discretion of each department and will be published as part of the semester course schedule - view available sections for more information. Questions about special topics classes can be directed to the instructor or department chair.

Advanced Writing. Advanced Creative Writing is a weekly meeting of experienced writers of poetry and fiction (and other genres) for the purpose of honing their skills through a semester of extensive writing and rigorous workshops with other advanced student writers. Students who take the course for fewer than three credits are given reduced submission requirements, but must still attend and participate in all workshop meetings. Since the course is a workshop, the content varies from year to year.

Special Topics courses include ad-hoc courses on various selected topics that are not part of the regular curriculum, however they may still fulfill certain curricular requirements. Special topics courses are offered at the discretion of each department and will be published as part of the semester course schedule - view available sections for more information. Questions about special topics classes can be directed to the instructor or department chair.

The senior thesis is designed to encourage creative thinking and to stimulate individual research. A student may undertake a thesis in an area in which s/he has the necessary background. Ordinarily a thesis topic is chosen in the student's major or minor. It is also possible to choose an interdisciplinary topic. Interested students should decide upon a thesis topic as early as possible in the junior year so that adequate attention may be given to the project. In order to be eligible to apply to write a thesis, a student must have achieved a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.25 based upon all courses attempted at Carroll College. The thesis committee consists of a director and two readers. The thesis director is a full-time Carroll College faculty member from the student's major discipline or approved by the department chair of the student's major. At least one reader must be from outside the student's major. The thesis director and the appropriate department chair must approve all readers. The thesis committee should assist and mentor the student during the entire project. For any projects involving human participants, each student and his or her director must follow the guidelines published by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Students must submit a copy of their IRB approval letter with their thesis application. As part of the IRB approval process, each student and his or her director must also complete training by the National Cancer Institute Protection of Human Participants. The thesis is typically to be completed for three (3) credits in the discipline that best matches the content of the thesis. Departments with a designated thesis research/writing course may award credits differently with approval of the Curriculum Committee. If the thesis credits exceed the full-time tuition credit limit for students, the charge for additional credits will be waived. Applications and further information are available in the Registrar's Office.

An Integrative Learning course where students receive CORE credit in both Arts & Letters-Literature and Social Science as well as Cultural Diversity.

This course will examine social justice and human rights issues in global and local contexts through critical engagement with world cinema. We will interrogate the relationship between the aesthetics and the politics of world cinema within multiple cinematic traditions (e.g. Neo-Realism, Third Cinema, Indigenous Media, etc.) and genres (narrative cinema, documentary, etc.). We will focus on the intersections between the global and the local, between history and memory, and between the self and the "other." Students will apply their knowledge of the critical frameworks and themes learned through the course to their examination of similar issues in their community.

An Integrative Learning Course for which students receive CORE credit in both Arts & Letters: Literature and Natural Science with a lab. The Missouri River Plains: Words and Watersheds. This course is a summer, field-intensive course that is centered around multi-day field trips along the Wild and Scenic Upper Missouri River in Montana and the Lower Missouri River in Kansas/Nebraska. The primary focus is the diverse interactions that form the ecosystems of the Missouri River Plains in the central United States. We will explore the interplay between Biology and Literature by experiencing the effect that biological systems have on our culture and society as well as the way literature affects the way we experience nature. Additional emphasis in the course is placed upon the scientific method, the evaluation, analysis, and synthesis of information, and on communicating scientific information and integrating it with cultural, historical, political, economic, and artistic endeavors. This course fulfills the Natural Science and Literature core distribution requirements. Prerequisites: Either (or both?) an Intermediate Writing or Cultural Diversity course must be taken prior to enrolling in this course.