E142 Reading Without Borders | 3 credits | Multiple Meeting Times | Multiple Instructors

Authors from a range of international, cross-national, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds focusing on themes of immigration, exile, or education.

E200 - Inquiry-Based Teaching and Communication | 3 credits | 10:00 - 10:50 AM | MWF | Sandra Saco

E202 - Language Use in Society | 3 credits | 11:00 - 11:50 AM | MWF | Luciana Marques

Language is a hallmark of human cognition and the essential mode of human communication. However language is also a means of social identity expression and a target for social attitudes. Focusing on English in the US and around the world, you will study the aspects of language that mark such identities and attitudes.

E204 - Creative Writing as Transformative Practice | 3 credits | 1:00 - 1:50 PM | MWF | Sasha Steensen

Emphasizes the transformative possibilities of creative writing by exploring its relationship to the social, environmental, intellectual, aesthetic, and personal. Engage and develop the many ways that creative writing methodologies can change both the self and the world.

E206 - Language for Activist Rhetoric and Writing | 3 credits | 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM | TR | Sarah Cooper

In this course we will explore the role of rhetoric in social movements by analyzing foundation texts in social movements and rhetorical scholarship that examines the language of social change.

E210 Beginning Creative Writing | 3 credits | Multiple Meeting Times | Multiple Instructors

Basic techniques of writing fiction and poetry, including writer workshops. May include some elements of drama and/or creative non-fiction.

Sections may be offered online.

E232 Introduction to Humanities | 3 credits | 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM | TR | Zach Hutchins

Literature of Western cultural tradition from ancient times to present.

E236 Short Fiction | 3 credits | Multiple Meeting Times | Multiple Instructors

Examines form, technique and interpretation in short fiction.

E237 – Introduction to Science Fiction | 3 credits | 2:00 - 2:50 PM | MWF | Jenny Albright

How do we imagine the future in literary texts? From post-apocalyptic landscapes to the alternative worlds of Indigenous futurism, we will analyze a range of speculative realities offered to us in science fiction. This course explores the history of the science fiction genre and the topics that continually animate it, including utopia/dystopia/heterotopia, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and resource wars. We will examine science and speculative fiction through a range of media (novels, films, short stories, manifestoes, etc.) and think critically about the questions it poses concerning science, community, ecology, colonialism, and the future of the human species.

E238 Contemporary Global Fiction | 3 credits | Multiple Meeting Times | Multiple Instructors

Contemporary fiction chosen for its relevance to global and cultural awareness.

E240 Introduction to Poetry | 3 credits | 2:00 - 2:50 PM | MWF | Erica Waters

Development of critical skills necessary to understand and enjoy poetry.

E242 Shakespeare's Afterlives | 3 credits | 11:00 - 11:50 AM | MWF | Mitchell Macrae

Reading of Shakespeare texts, using various approaches of interpretation for understanding and relation to our contemporary cultural situation.

E245 World Drama | 3 credits | 12:30 - 1:45 PM | TR | Sarah Louise Pieplow

World drama in cultural contexts.

E270 Introduction to American Literature | 3 credits | 12:30 - 1:45 PM | TR | Catherine Ratliff

History and development of American writings from 16th-century travel narratives through early 20th-century modernism.

E276 British Literature: Medieval Period to 1800 | 3 credits | 9:00 - 9:50 AM | MWF | William Marvin

British literature from Beowulf through the 18th century in relation to its historical contexts.

E277 British Literature: After 1800 | 3 credits | 1:00 - 1:50 PM | MWF | Liz Steinway

British literature from the Romantics to the present in relation to its historical contexts.

E311A Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction | 3 credits | 9:00 - 9:50 AM | MWF | Peter Stenson

Group discussion of student writing, literary models, and theory; emphasis on developing individual style.

Must register for lecture and recitation.

E311B Intermediate Creative Writing: Poetry | 3 credits | 11:00 - 11:50 AM | MWF | Nancy Wright

Group discussion of student writing, literary models, and theory; emphasis on developing individual style.

Must register for lecture and recitation.

E311C Intermediate Creative Writing: Creative Nonfiction | 3 credits | 2:00 - 2:50 PM | MWF | Mika Todd

Group discussion of student writing, literary models, and theory; emphasis on developing individual style.

Must register for lecture and recitation.

E321 – Language Learning and Development | 3 credits | 10:00 - 10:50 AM | MWF | Tatiana Nekrasova-Beker

Examines a variety of factors (cognitive, social, and environmental) that contribute to language learning and development. Covers key theories, research methodologies, and practical applications in the field of language acquisition. Gain a more thorough understanding of how language is acquired and how it develops, as well as gain practical tools to foster critical thinking, enhance communication proficiency, and navigate the complexities of language.

E322 – English Language for Teachers | 3 credits | 3:30 - 4:45 PM | TR | Cindy O'Donnell-Allen

Although we use language on a daily basis, we often take for granted its cultural and even communicative power. In this class we recognize the importance of language and its features, honor students’ communication practices, and help hone them as acts of justice as we view all dialects and languages—and therefore people—as valuable. All majors welcome.

E328 – Phonology, Morphology, and Lexis | 3 credits | 9:00 - 9:50 AM | MWF | Luciana Marques

E328 introduces and develops the concepts, terminology, and analytic skills needed to do basic phonetic, phonological, morphological, and lexical analyses. Phonology is the study of how speech sounds function in languages and how speakers produce and perceive them. Morphology studies basic meaningful units of language and the ways in which they are combined to form words. Lexis is the study of words, their forms, meanings, and organization in dictionaries, minds, and brains.

E328 is recommended for students interested in language description and its applications, including teaching English as a second or foreign language (TESL/TEFL), language documentation, computational linguistics, foreign language teaching and teaching in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms.

E330 – Gender in World Literature | 3 credits | 12:30 - 1:45 PM | TR | Aparna Gollapudi

Selected world literature ranging from ancient world to present, considered in light of various complexities of gender relations.

E341 Literary Criticism and Theory | 3 credits | 1:00 - 1:50 PM | MWF | Jenny Albright

This course will introduce you to several major schools of contemporary literary theory and provide an overview of the history of theory as an academic field. The primary goal of the course is to make students critically aware of the way that acts of reading, writing, and making art are connected to a range of political, social, cultural, and nonhuman forces at work in the world around us.

E344 – Shakespeare | 3 credits | 12:00 - 12:50 PM | MWF | Mitchell Macrae

A course in close-reading, we'll analyze a selection of plays that dramatized Shakespeare's view of the classical and medieval past.

E380a3 – Editing and Publishing | 3 credits | 2:00-3:15 PM | TR | Tobi Jacobi

This new course explores theories and practices of contemporary editing and publishing with a focus on rhetorical approaches to language production, circulation, and consumption. Students in this course will theorize professional editing and publishing practices and landscapes, considering issues such as intercultural concerns, linguistic justice and inclusion, and useability for varied audiences. They will also engage directly in editing work through a series of individual and collaborative editing assignments that introduce a diverse range of skills and approaches to the contemporary editing and publishing landscape.

E384A – Supervised College Teaching: Classroom | 1 to 3 credits | Multiple Meeting Times | Multiple Instructors

Supervised assistance in instruction.

Written consent of department chair. A maximum of 10 combined credits for all 384 and 484 courses are counted towards graduation requirements.

E402 Teaching Composition | 3 credits | 12:30 - 1:45 PM | TR | Ted Fabiano

Writing is a powerful and dangerous act, and teaching students how to write affords them the opportunity to learn this skill. In this class, we develop our writerly identities, unpack our ideologies about language, learn how to design effective writing assessments, provide humanizing feedback to writers, and design and teach lessons. Ultimately this course builds confident writers who go on to teach confident writers.

E405 Young Adult Literature | 3 credits | 12:00 - 12:50 PM | MWF | Sandra Saco

E405 is designed to give future teachers, writers, and literature students a survey of mostly contemporary novels for young adults. During this course we'll read and discuss approximately a book a week, with a focus on applying a critical literacy lens to explore texts that engage adolescents. All majors welcome.

E406 Topics in Literacy | 3 credits | 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM | TR | Kelly Bradbury

At a time when Generative A.I. has us asking ourselves questions like What do we lose and gain from adding tools such as ChatGPT to our literacy practices? and What is the fate of individual and collective literacy?, in this class we will look to the present and to the past to understand the evolution of literacy and its relationship to learning, to power, and to (in)equity. We will interrogate the ways in which literacy has been liberatory and the ways in which it has been oppressive.

We will examine past and present literacy myths and their consequences. And, we will explore what our own literacy practices have made accessible or inaccessible to us and to those around us. We will explore these issues in three ways: through literacy narratives, through studies of literacy, and through representations of literacy in literature and film.

E412A - Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Fiction | 3 credits | 3:30 - 4:45 PM | TR | Tyler Toy

Individual projects with group discussion and analysis on the practice of fiction. This is a workshop-heavy class in which students will critique others and write their own fiction.

Must register for lecture and recitation. Maximum of 6 credits allowed in course.

E412B - Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry | 3 credits | 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM | TR | John Kneisley

Individual projects with group discussion and analysis on the practice of poetry. This is a workshop-heavy class in which students will critique others and write their own poetry.

Must register for lecture and recitation. Maximum of 6 credits allowed in course.

E412C - Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Nonfiction | 3 credits | 2:00 - 3:15 PM | TR | Todd Mitchell

E412C is an advanced creative nonfiction workshop designed to help students develop the skills to better meet their individual writing goals. An anthology of contemporary creative nonfiction essays will be used, and the exploration of different subgenres of creative nonfiction (such as memoir, personal essay, lyric essay, writing of place, literary journalism, and experimental essay) will be encouraged.

Through author-directed workshops, discussion of contemporary essays, and writing assignments, students will consider a wide array of writing techniques. Specific topics will be determined by student needs.

Note: Students must have previously taken and passed E311 with a B-range grade or higher to register.

E422 – African American Literature | 3 credits | 2:00 - 3:15 PM | TR | Camille Dungy

Reading work from writers such as Phillis Wheatley—the first Black person to publish a book in the English language—and 20th century greats like Zora Neale Hurston, Robert Hayden, Toni Morrison, Gwendolyn Brooks, Anne Spencer, James Baldwin, and Octavia Butler, along with contemporary legends including Patricia Smith, Jericho Brown, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Ross Gay, we’ll consider how African American writers of the past have influenced how Americans write and think about our world today.

E433 – Literature of the American West | 3 credits | 3:00 - 4:15 PM | TR | Matthew Cooperman

What is the American West? Where is it? When? Do we still live in the American West or is that term more accurately applied to Gunsmoke and spaghetti westerns?

There’s something mythic about the West, something heroic and solitary and innocent. Something democratic. So too, something radical, illicit, savage, outlaw. It’s a moving target, fugitive in its wandering. Yet the ambiguities surrounding our definitions have shaped our national character, our sense of democracy and our institutions.

In this course we will explore our various experiences and conceptions of the American West. We will do so by examining a range of sources and types of literature, from novels to histories to poetries to movies. We will also explore its material history—the horse, the pistol, water, barbed wire—the implements and elements by which its space was “won.” 

E451 – Medieval Literature | 3 credits | 11:00 - 11:50 AM | MWF | William Marvin

Genres, themes, and authors of the Middle Ages.

E463 – Milton | 3 credits | 9:30 - 10:45 AM | TR | Barbara Sebek

John Milton’s passionate, cerebral, and densely allusive poetry re-wrote the map of English literary history. Sampling poetry, prose, and drama with particular emphasis on Paradise Lost, we will attend to Milton's formal and stylistic achievements, all the while understanding his texts as interventions in the turbulent events and the cultural and conceptual shifts of the seventeenth century. Seen by some as a repressive Puritan zealot and misogynist, he is known for prose works that defend king-killing, advocate liberalized divorce laws, and oppose certain forms of censorship. He has been read as a member of "Satan's party” without knowing it and as a “suicidally courageous” advocate of revolution.

We will formulate and dance with an array of odd questions that Milton’s texts invite or dare us to ask: What does your hairstyle say about the condition of your soul? Does god have a sense of humor? Do angels eat? Do they get indigestion? Do they enjoy intimacy? Is disobedience always a bad choice? Is the poet a youthful prodigy or a late bloomer? What is the source of poetic talent? Does the telescope, a recent invention, reveal or conceal the mysteries of the cosmos? When is work pleasure? Is it better to gaze from a distance or participate directly? How can inequality coexist with liberty? English majors may tailor final projects to their specific concentration within the English major, minor, or allied fields of interest.

E465 - Topics in Literature and Language: Literature of the American Songbook (Capstone) | 3 credits | 12:30 - 1:45 PM | TR | Tom Conway

“Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam.” This course will explore the literary history of American music, with a focus on genre, lyrics, and songwriting, using critical theory to situate American music within an understanding of culture, power and resistance. From disparate global roots, musical traditions converged with indigenous America, creating centuries of rich songwriting traditions. The American Songbook is filled with a genre-diverse mythos and ideological complexity, reflecting both cultural power and resistance, social justice and reactionary pushback. Through both the literature and songwriting craft, students will read, write, and analyze lyrics in our journey to contextualize American culture through its music.

E487B Internship: Literary Editing – Greyrock Review | 1 credit | 5:30 - 8:30 PM | M | Stephanie G'Schwind

Students can receive credit (one free elective credit per semester for up to four semesters) for an internship with Greyrock Review, CSU's annual, student-run, undergraduate literary magazine. During this year-long internship, students learn the intricacies of publishing, printing, and promoting a literary journal. As a staff intern, you will be expected to attend weekly staff meetings to discuss promoting the call for submissions, reading submissions, copyediting, layout, proofreading, and publicity.

Students must be Junior or Senior English majors or minors with a minimum GPA of 3.0 and should have taken E210. Qualified students must register for both Fall 2025 and Spring 2026—this is a one-year commitment. Interested students should contact Stephanie G’Schwind at Stephanie.GSchwind@ColoState.EDU.

E487C Internship: Community Literacy Center | 1-3 credits | Tobi Jacobi

Students may receive credit (up to 3 per semester for up to two semesters) for an internship with the Community Literacy Center, an outreach arm of the English Department, which coordinates creative writing workshops for confined populations in the community. In this internship, you will have opportunities to blend academic and experiential learning through three primary focus areas: program design and facilitation, administration and leadership, and public engagement and dissemination. An interest in literacy and confined communities is useful, though no experience is required. Training provided in facilitation methods and responses.

Students must be Juniors or Seniors with a minimum GPA of 3.0 Qualified students must register for both Fall 2024 and Spring 2025. This is a one-year commitment. Interested students should contact Tobi Jacobi at tobi.jacobi@colostate.edu.