English Course Offerings- Spring 2027

Group shot of faculty in English and Philosophy

Note for Students

Registration begins November 2nd. Advising week is October 26th-30th. We encourage you to meet with your advisor.

Please note there could be some adjustments in delivery mode options, like an additional SO section associated with an in-seat class. These changes may not be reflected in this listing but could be found in the online schedule when it goes live on October 12th.

For a full listing of all the courses offered in English, please see the undergraduate catalog or graduate catalog.

Also, did you know that ISU has millions of dollars in scholarships available every year? Register in the Bengal Online Scholarship System to receive updates on scholarships relevant to your major and interests. Sign up today.

English also offers scholarships specific to our program for undergraduate students and TAships/Fellowships for graduate students. You can find information about these awards here.

Delivery Mode Legend

SO courses are online courses that meet Synchronously Online (have a specific day/time meeting pattern).

AO courses are online courses that meet Asynchronously Online (are done anytime on your schedule).

BL courses are blended courses whose in-seat time has been reduced due to a strong online component.

DL courses are distance learning courses that have sections on different campuses such as Pocatello, Idaho Falls, Twin Falls, and/or Meridian as well as a possible online option.

If no delivery mode is indicated, this is an in-seat only course (CL).

ENGL 1101/1101P (Objective 1): Writing and Rhetoric I/Plus

Multiple sections offered, see MyISU class schedule.

In this course students will read, analyze, and write expository essays for a variety of purposes consistent with expectations for college-level writing in standard edited English.

ENGL 1102 (Objective 1): Writing and Rhetoric II

Multiple sections offered, see MyISU class schedule.

Writing essays based on readings. Students will focus on critical reading, research methods, gathering ideas and evidence, and documentation.

ENGL 1107 (Objective 7): Nature of Language

01: TR 11-12:15 SO with Elizabeth Redd (CRN: 20647)

This course is an introduction to the field of linguistics. We will look at how the study of language is approached by linguists within the discipline of linguistics and by linguists within the discipline of anthropology, as well as exploring how other fields utilize linguistics for their own interests while impacting the whole field of linguistics in the process. Because this is a survey course, we only examine a portion of the many areas within linguistics without going into great detail in any one area.

ENGL 1123: Advanced Academic Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English

01: MWF 9-9:50 with Ify Ndukuba (CRN: 21236)

Introduction to the writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising, editing) and concepts such as audience, purpose, and thesis. Continued emphasis on development of grammar and vocabulary.

ENGL 1126 (Objective 4A): Art of Film I

01-03: T 6-8:30 pm DL with Carlen Donovan

English 1126 examines the creative process, aesthetic principles and historical background of cinematic arts. The course will introduce you to important movements, critical approaches, and technical aspects of film. Our class goal is that you analyze and evaluate film texts critically for yourself, both in class and beyond, and that you develop a greater understanding of the human condition through the art of film.

ENGL 1126 (Objective 4A): Art of Film I

04: TR 9:30-10:45 with Harold Hellwig (CRN: 25295)

Course examines the creative process, aesthetic principles and historical background of cinematic arts. Screening of representative films and examination of critical works and theories are included.

ENGL 1126 (Objective 4A): Art of Film I

01: MWF 10-10:50 with David Lawrimore (CRN: 22193)

02: MWF 10-10:50 SO with David Lawrimore (CRN: 23924)

If you love movies, this course gives you the tools to explain why. Starting from the films and experiences you bring with you, we'll build a vocabulary and use it to take the pleasures of film seriously. By the end of the semester, you'll be able to turn a gut reaction into an analysis of how a film does what it does

ENGL 1175 (Objective 4A): Literature and Ideas: Literature and the Natural World

02: AO Late 8 weeks with Curtis Whitaker (CRN: 25311)

Humanity’s relationship to the natural world has figured prominently in literature from the earliest days to the present. Questions about how we connect to animals, to plants, and to the larger systems of nature that surround us are perennial ones that artists have explored in stories, poems, and films. This introductory course will consider how these engagements happen over time in diverse landscapes from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, with an eye toward the environmental crisis we face in the present.

ENGL 2210 (Objective 9): American Cultural Studies: 'That's Entertainment' in American Culture

01: AO with William Donovan (CRN: 21031)

Learn about American Culture through what entertains us: ghost stories, Disney animated features, and attending elite cultural events. Textbooks available free as pdf download.

ENGL 2211: Introduction to Literary Analysis

01: MW 8-8:50 BL with Jessica Winston (CRN: 21032)

02: MW 8-8:50 BL/SO with Jessica Winston (CRN: 22031)

How do writers use literary form to imagine lives that work within and press against the limits of law and custom? Reading across genres and centuries, students practice close reading, test critical approaches, and engage the scholarly conversations that shape literary interpretation. Readings include Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Langston Hughes’s poetry, and Louise Erdrich’s The Night Watchman.

ENGL 2215 (Objective 4A): Survey of World Mythology: Tricksters in Myth and Fiction

01: AO with Alan Johnson (CRN: 22736)

The course introduces you to important myths from around the world as well as to samples of world literature that either revise those myths or explore similar themes. We will read ancient mythic tales and some modern interpretations of them from around the world—Greece and Rome, India and Mesopotamia, Northern Europe (Norse, Celtic) and Native (Indigenous) America. We will also enjoy poems, short stories, and novels that represent world literature since the late 1700s. We will think about why we continue to read and re-tell mythic tales, whether for entertainment, religious, or philosophical reasons, and how modern poems, short stories, and novels convey mythic themes. In particular, we will look at stories about tricksters, semi-divine or divine pranksters who disrupt a society’s usual customs to cause mischief, but also to prompt needed changes. Tricksters are not all alike, but their actions usually reveal flaws in a society’s business-as-usual. Odysseus, Loki, Anansi, Eshu, Puck, Coyote, Prometheus, Sun Wukong, Lord Krishna, Hermes, and Bluetongue Lizard are just some of the tricksters from different cultures. We will consider how and why certain patterns, or archetypes (recurring plots, character types, or themes, such as the hero’s journey), are repeated across cultures and across time periods. We will see how such stories have enabled people to face many of the same challenges we face today. We will also apply some analytical tools as we read these stories to help us understand and enjoy them more deeply. We’ll consider questions like: What is the relationship between humans and the natural world? How does a story reflect regional and ethnic group identities? Which ancient cultural values seem relevant today, and which seem outdated? And why do many of these stories include powerful women characters? Above all, we will enjoy these narratives. Grades are based on two short essays, a few reading quizzes, and several homework responses.

ENGL 2215 (Objective 4A): Survey of World Mythology

02: MWF 9-9:50 with Michael Stubbs (CRN: 22737)

03: MWF 9-9:50 SO with Michael Stubbs (CRN: 23946)

Why do people tell stories of supernatural gods, spirits, objects, and people? What do these stories mean? What do these stories reveal about their cultures of origin? Students will analyze, discuss, and write about world mythologies.

ENGL 2258 (Objective 4A): Survey of World Literature II: Tricksters in Myth and Fiction

01: AO with Alan Johnson (CRN: 23074)

ENGL 2268: Survey of British Literature II

01: MWF 10-10:50 with Matthew VanWinkle (CRN: 23948)

02: MWF 10-10:50 SO with Matthew VanWinkle (CRN: 25313)

This course offers an overview of British literature from the late eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. This era encompasses a variety of changes in literature and culture: new ways of imagining the individual’s relationship to society, the fluctuating fortunes of Britain on the global stage, and the constant renegotiation of the relationship between the present and a variety of imagined pasts. As a thread through these changes, this course will dwell on the attitude toward change itself. How possible, how desirable is change? How quickly or slowly, how dependently or independently of human activity, does change occur? We will read the poetry and prose of the last two hundred and fifty years that develops a range of answers to these questions.

ENGL 2278: Survey of American Literature II

01: MWF 12-12:50 with David Lawrimore (CRN: 20027)

02: MWF 12-12:50 SO with David Lawrimore (CRN: 23949)

This course explores the roots of contemporary American fiction in three movements: Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. Reading across genres, we'll pay close attention to racial identity, gender, and sexuality, as well as the multimodal forms literature increasingly takes. Along the way, we'll consider how each movement understood art's role in representing reality, knowledge, and identity—and how those questions still echo in the writing of our own moment.

ENGL 2280: Grammar and Usage

01: TR 1-2:15 with Sonja Launspach (CRN: 20028)

This course is a basic introduction to the grammar of standard English. Through preparation and participation, students should be able to use grammar terminology appropriately, identify the lexical categories of words, and analyze the different components of grammar, such as phrases and clauses. The class uses a Team Based Learning approach. Part of our discussion may include the historical development and use of grammatical forms. Assignments will include individual knowledge application exercises, skills based mastery, team concept explorations, practice exercises, textual analysis and a final grammatical analysis.

ENGL 2281: Introduction to Language Studies

01-05: MW 9:30-10:45 DL with Brent Wolter

Introduction to basic concepts in the study of linguistics, including phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, and more.

ENGL 3305: Art of Film II: Film Noir Traditions

01: TR 1-2:15 with Harold Hellwig (CRN: 21588)

The course will evaluate the genre characteristics of film noir, specifically those that explain the solitude of modern individuals and the precariousness of their identities. The range of film noir artifacts will include not just the traditional detective—quite often a male stereotype—but those who transcend the usual definition of what it means to be a character in a film noir. Film noir itself as a definition will be examined, particularly in the context of what it has become, sometimes a television series that portrays comedy and not the usual tragedy. In short, this course will examine the tropes, visual elements, contexts, and genre characteristics of a mainstream part of our American culture, that of film noir.

Potential films and television series include some of the following:

Out of the Past

It’s A Wonderful Life

The Maltese Falcon

Chinatown

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965 version)

Frasier, various episodes

Double Indemnity

The Big Sleep (1946 version)

North by Northwest

Blade Runner (1982 version)

ENGL 3307: Professional and Technical Writing

Multiple sections offered, see MyISU class schedule.

No matter what field you are going into, communication both written and oral will be a major part of your daily life. This course will teach you how to communicate professionally through various documents such as proposals, emails, reports, webpages, resumes and more. Course content will enable students to tailor documents for readers and users within their chosen fields of study. Additionally, since most people will be working collaboratively in the professional world, team work is stressed. Students often remark that this is one of the most valuable courses they have taken because it prepares them for work beyond the university.

ENGL 3308: Business Communication

Multiple sections offered, see MyISU class schedule.

An advanced course in conventions of business communications, emphasizing purpose and audience. Focus on style, semantics, research skills, format, persuasion, and critical analysis and synthesis of data.

ENGL 3311: Literary Criticism and Theory

01: TR 9:30-10:45 with Gibette Encarnaciόn (CRN: 20702)

02: TR 9:30-10:45 SO with Gibette Encarnaciόn (CRN: 22916)

This writing- and reading-intensive course introduces students to some of the most influential schools of literary theory, and asks why we might productively turn to theory as a way of understanding literary works and other cultural productions (not only fiction, poetry, and drama, but also film, comics, nonfiction prose, and other art forms). From structuralism to deconstruction, psychoanalysis to Marxism, theory offers diverse models of interpretation that allow us to analyze any work of literature from multiple perspectives. Throughout the semester we’ll explore the variety and richness of these perspectives, and consider how they might influence our own writing and research about literature.

ENGL 3324: Studies in Non-Fiction

01: TR 2:30-3:45 with Curtis Whitaker (CRN: 25296)

02: TR 2:30-3:45 SO with Curtis Whitaker (CRN: 25317)

Sometimes referred to as the “fourth genre” (following poetry, fiction, and drama), nonfiction prose may initially seem less literary to readers, more a form of record-keeping or documentation than great art. This course will demonstrate that this perception is untrue. Forms of nonfiction such as memoir, personal essay, travel writing, and journalism draw upon literary techniques common to the other three genres and develop many of their own in representing factual material for readers. We will consider how writers such as Michel de Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, Joan Didion, Isabel Allende, Marjane Satrapi, and others transform lived experience, historical research, and cultural observation into literature. Students in the course may well discover that their own writing is helpfully influenced by the many examples we will study.

ENGL 3355: Studies in Latino Literatures

01: TR 11-12:15 with Gibette Encarnaciόn and Maria Claudia Huerta Vera (CRN: 24561)

02: TR 11-12:15 SO with Gibette Encarnaciόn and Maria Claudia Huerta Vera (CRN: 24563)

From Jack Kerouac’s ode to freedom On the Road to Che Guevara’s epic journey in The Motorcycle Diaries, people across the Americas have always been uniquely seized by the impulse to roam the vast spaces open before them. This class will capture the movement of the people of the new world through books and films from across the hemisphere. Reaching across disciplines and mediums, we will break down the artificial barriers between U.S. and Latin American studies to explore stories that cross borders—and the reasons people cross them. Together, we will trace journeys of self-discovery, border crossings, and the search for a better life. With films such as Thelma and Louise and The Way Home, and novels such as The Adventures of China Iron, this course offers an expanded look into the stories that shape our interconnected world.

ENGL 4401/5501: Advanced Composition: Style, Genre, and the Machine

01: TR 2:30-3:45 with Abraham Romney (CRN: 21034/21035)

02: TR 2:30-3:45 SO with Abraham Romney (CRN: 23077/23078)

This course will focus on writing with style. We’ll study the stylistic choices that separate your voice from generic prose (as well as from machine-generated text). Beginning with the art of the sentence, we’ll learn from great writers, and we’ll look at how style guides, from Strunk and White to today’s lists of so-called “AI tells,” have tried to define and shape good writing. You will write personal essays, public arguments, and criticism, drawing on rhetorical studies of genre to learn how to adapt your writing and style to new contexts. We’ll weigh the virtues of writing from scratch as well as best practices for revising AI-generated drafts.

Our assignments will help you practice writing in digital environments. You’ll learn to record and produce audio, creating soundscapes and podcast-style pieces, and you’ll make short videos. If you enjoy writing, plan to teach, or want to work in media, or if you simply want a voice of your own in the age of AI, this course could be the one for you. No audio or video experience required.

ENGL 4406/5506: Advanced Poetry Workshop: In Conversation

01: TR 11-12:15 with Susan Goslee (CRN: 21843/21842)

In this course we will look at contemporary poetry volumes and the earlier works from which they sprang. We will dive into Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad and then study Mara Zoccola’s 2025 volume Helen of Troy, 1993, which locates Helen in rural Sparta, Tennessee “with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6” (Simon & Schuster). Memorial (2011) by Alice Oswald cuts The Iliad to capture and concentrate only on its dead. In Parenthesis, David Jones’ 1937 book-length poem about a soldier in an English-Welsh regiment in World War I, served as a model for Ishion Hutchinson’s School of Instructions: A Poem (2023), which focuses in part on West Indian soldiers in that same conflict. Both John Berryman’s “Homage to Mistress Bradstreet” (1956) and portions of Sandra Lim’s The Wilderness (2014) imagine the mind of the first established women poet in the New World. As we consider the tension between triggering works and the poems they inspire, we'll write our own responses to texts that fascinate us. We will also constructively critique one another’s poem drafts in workshop discussions. Throughout the semester, we’ll study various craft strategies that can expand our approaches to the material that moves us, whether it focuses explicitly on earlier works or arises anew.

ENGL 4409/5509: Literary Magazine Production

01: W 4-6:30 pm with Susan Goslee (CRN: 20031/20032)

From the call for American independence in the pamphlet “Common Sense” to the first state-side publication of “The Waste Land” in the Dial, small magazines and presses have fomented political and literary change in our country. While students in this course may not bring about similar revolutions, they will gain exciting hands-on experience in the production of Black Rock & Sage, ISU’s student journal of creative works. To inform our production of the magazine, we will read interviews with significant journal editors, study stand-out national magazines, and gain experience in literary editing. In exciting and lively debates, students will select the stories, poems, and essays that are to be published in the 2027 issue. Students will participate with critical papers of varying lengths and discussion. The class will also solicit businesses for advertising support for the journal. In this course, students will help shape the ways in which Idaho State contributes to the nation’s literary dialogue.

ENGL 4431: Methods of Teaching Writing

01: W 4-6:30 pm with Robert Watkins (CRN: 23928)

02: W 4-6:30 pm SO with Robert Watkins (CRN: 23929)

This class provides instructors of all professions the tools and theory they need to teach students how to write. This class fills in the gaps of teaching writing that often get overlooked. The course will cover rhetoric, composition theory, multimodality, and general rhetorical criticism to future and current instructors in order to prepare them to effectively teach students multiple genres and modes of writing.

ENGL 4466/5566: Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature: Gothic, Horror, Weird: Varieties of Fear in 19th Century British Literature

01: MWF 1-1:50 with Matthew VanWinkle (CRN: 25297/25318)

02: MWF 1-1:50 SO with Matthew VanWinkle (CRN: 25319/25320)

The flickering of specters at the edge of vision. The gruesome laughter of supernatural predators closing in on their prey. The bone deep chill at the realization that the universe is a vaster and less hospitable place than previously imagined. Nineteenth-century British literature represented fears in a variety of ways in response to a series of profound technological, political and cultural changes. This semester we will explore three genres that engaged with the fears produced by these changes, noting the features that these genres share while also identifying the distinctive ways in which they addressed particular challenges, anxieties, and dreads.

ENGL 4472/5572: Studies in a Single Author or Circle Pre-1800: Jane Austen: No Explanation Needed

01: Thurs. 4-6:30 pm with Roger Schmidt (CRN: 25298/25321)

02: Thurs. 4-6:30 pm SO with Roger Schmidt (CRN: 25322/25323)

Interested in an exploration of Regency England that extends beyond the ballroom and tea parties? Bring your creativity and leave your preconceptions at the door. In this course, we will read and discuss the novels of Jane Austen. Some consideration will be given to popular adaptations of her work. Feel free to bring your own edition of the books: Northanger Abbey, Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion.

ENGL 4487/5587: History of the English Language

01: T 4-6:30 pm with Thomas Klein (CRN: 25299/25326)

02: T 4-6:30 pm SO with Thomas Klein (CRN: 24571/24574)

This course aims to give you a historical perspective on the ongoing development of English, and to provide you with analytical tools to perceive the ways in which language operates and changes. We will trace the story of how English, once the dialect of an obscure Germanic tribe, came to be one of the world’s most widespread languages; we will see how it changed and why. We will also concentrate on linguistic resources, especially dictionaries, considering what they have to offer and their shortcomings.

A chief aim of this course is to promote a philological frame of mind (philologist—literally, “a lover of words”). The philologist is attracted by the origins of language and its historical artifacts. When you find yourself wondering when orange first came into the language or what promiscuous originally meant, you are becoming a philologist.

ENGL 4491: Senior Literary Studies Portfolio

01: TBD with Brent Wolter (CRN: 24203)

For English - Literary majors in catalog years 2024 and later. Students submit a portfolio of their two best papers, at least one of which should include research and citations, and a brief reflection on how they have developed as writers and thinkers relative to the outcomes of the major and literary track.

ENGL 4493: Senior Portfolio in Professional Writing

01: TBD with Brent Wolter (CRN: 24426)

Students submit a portfolio of their two best professional writing papers or projects and a brief (3pp.) reflection on how they have developed as writers and thinkers relative to the outcomes of the major and professional writing track.

ENGL 4494: Senior Seminar in Creative Writing

01: TR 1-2:15 with Susan Goslee (CRN: 20703)

This course supports advanced study of creative writing while asking students to consider their roles as literary citizens. Together, we’ll consider craft topics, such as different configurations of narrative time, and constructively workshop one another’s polished pieces. Our creative work for the semester will be student-directed; students will propose, draft, and revise semester-long writing projects of their own design—poetry collections, short stories, chapters of novels, etc. These endeavors will be supported by individual book lists that the instructor and student together compile. (Students will be expected to purchase these additional books or access them through the library.) Throughout the semester, students will develop their literary citizenship by planning, advertising and hosting the kind of campus event—perhaps an open mic or writing workshop—that can foster a robust writing community.

ENGL 6610: Careers in English

01: TBD with Thomas Klein and Abraham Romney (CRN: 21841)

This course is designed to help English graduate students as they start to navigate the academic job market. While the course is especially designed for PhD students in their third year, any graduate student is also welcome to enroll in this 1-credit course.

Topics will include the process of searching for faculty jobs, teaching philosophies, CVs, application letters, and interviewing techniques. We will also discuss alternative academic careers and applying for positions beyond academia. The class will combine rhetorically oriented discussions of job search materials with workshop-style evaluation of documents written by enrolled students. Graded S/U.

ENGL 6626: Seminar in Literary Period, Post-1800: Nineteenth Century Hemispheric Rhetoric: Travelers and Exiles in the Americas

01: M 4-6:30 pm with Abraham Romney (CRN: 25300)

02: M 4-6:30 pm SO with Abraham Romney (CRN: 25327)

In 1834, a Harvard student shipped out to work as a sailor on the way to Mexican California, and his account of the voyage, Two Years Before the Mast (1840) taught U.S. readers how to see their southern neighbors. This seminar takes Dana’s gaze and then looks in other directions. We will read writers who could not go home or who chose not to. Among these are Cuban poets in Philadelphia and New York, Argentine exiles in Chile, a Bengali laborer indentured in British Guiana, and Mormon colonists who fled U.S. law into Mexico, then fled the Mexican Revolution back north. Along the way, we will ask how displacement shaped what these writers could say, to whom, and in what language, and what “the nineteenth century” means from the perspective of Havana or Montevideo as opposed to Boston.

We’ll read memoirs, letters, travel writing, essays, poetry, as well as a few novels. Readings will include Melville’s Benito Cereno, Delany’s Blake, Martí’s New York chronicles, and Rodó’s Ariel. We will read them alongside selections from hemispheric studies scholars and primary texts like the rhetoric handbooks that trained nineteenth-century writers. No Spanish is required; all texts are available in English. The course satisfies the English MA post-1800 seminar requirement.

ENGL 6632: Seminar in Teaching Literature: Teaching Difficult Literature

01: M 7-9:30 pm with Matthew Levay (CRN: 23936)

02: M 7-9:30 pm SO with Matthew Levay (CRN: 23964)

All literature is difficult, and potentially intimidating to anyone new to literary studies. But how can we teach works that are deliberately, formally difficult, whether because of their extreme length, their narrative and linguistic complexity, or their reworking of generic conventions? How can we make them accessible to students without sacrificing their difficulty? This course will survey a wide range of methods for teaching challenging texts, focusing on how and where to fit them into an undergraduate literature syllabus, how to design compelling assignments that illuminate them, and how to make students more comfortable with them through close reading, historical contextualization, and other critical approaches. Throughout the semester, we will consider what makes these works so difficult to read and teach, and ask what kinds of methods we can utilize in order to make the value of these challenging texts more apparent to our students.

ENGL 6642: Seminar in Oral and Popular Culture: Literature, Film, and Fan Communities

01: T 7-9:30 pm with Margaret Johnson (CRN: 25302)

02: T 7-9:30 pm SO with Margaret Johnson (CRN: 25328)

“The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author,” Roland Barthes famously declared. Literary writers, filmmakers, and ordinary fans have been responding to this idea for decades, asking who has ownership over a text. This graduate seminar asks what happens to a story’s authority once it leaves its author’s hands. We will read a variety of texts alongside their adaptations and within their fan communities. We will consider how these varied works connect to each other, comment on each other, and enhance or challenge the experience of the original (in whatever form it started). Throughout the course, we will study theories of adaptation and read works on authorship and fandom.

ENGL 7783: Practicum in Second Language Teaching

01: TBD with Brent Wolter (CRN: 21579)

Supervised practicum in ESL teaching or tutoring. Required for TESOL certificate.