Explores the writing process, providing practical strategies and techniques. Emphasis is on constructing texts with attention to various levels of organization and development.

Emphasizes college-level writing, reading, research and revision practices necessary for 21st century academic and civic engagement. Teaches students to use a variety of genres, rhetorical techniques, and sources of evidence to reach academic and civic audiences.

Introduces students to the imaginative potentials of reading as a practice that transforms our understanding of the world. Students will learn the fundamental skills associated with the study of literature across multiple genres and from various cultural traditions, with attention paid to how the close reading of a text informs the creative act of interpretation.

Introduces students to the imaginative potentials of reading as a practice that transforms our understanding of the world. Students will learn the fundamental skills associated with the study of literature across multiple genres and from various cultural traditions, with attention paid to how the close reading of a text informs the creative act of interpretation.

Introduces first-year students to the rigors of academic research through a scaffolded research project and the exploration of multiple theoretical frameworks applied to literature, films, and other cultural texts. Students will explore critical frameworks related to a centralized theme (e.g. Explorations of Elegy, Nordic Noir).

Explores how our encounters with images profoundly impact our experiences of the world. Through an examination of diverse modes of visual expression, this course introduces students to key concepts of visual culture, including the social dynamics of representation, power structures of looking, and phenomena of spectacle.

Explores how our encounters with images profoundly impact our experiences of the world. Through an examination of diverse modes of visual expression, this course introduces students to key concepts of visual culture, including the social dynamics of representation, power structures of looking, and phenomena of spectacle.

Explores in theory and practice how writers critically and creatively illuminate questions of identity and power through the lens of personal experience. By engaging with personal essays written by a diversity of authors, students will discover voices they've never encountered, or that they never knew they had, opening up space for rhetorical engagement across difference. Students will leave the course with a critical understanding of who they are as writers and audience members.

Introduces students to a range of creative writing techniques and practices inspired by various literary movements and contemporary writers from a wide array of cultural backgrounds. Working across multiple genres (fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry) our goal is not to perfect stable pieces but to expand the possibilities for writing, by experimenting with formal conditions, styles and language games.

Explores the relationship between writing and visual media at the introductory level. Through a variety of writerly modes and genres, students will engage directly in imaginative acts of interpretation and translation of visual texts from historical and/or contemporary eras. Visual texts including painting, sculpture, photography, film, graphic art, installation art, and new digital media may serve as occasions for creative writing experimentation.

Focuses on film interpretation by emphasizing elements such as light, sound, composition, camera movement, acting, and direction. Initiates students into developments in film history, film genre and film theory.

Investigates the space between characters' identities through close work with film and literature by way of course discussions, group activities, and a range of writing projects. We will focus on texts from the 20th and 21st centuries across cultures to consider why the genre remains in such wide circulation in today's society.

Surveys the rich literature of creative nonfiction. Students read and analyze the work of several contemporary literary journalists such as John McPhee, Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich and Joseph Mitchell, as well as a sampling of historical authors, such as Daniel DeFoe and Henry David Thoreau. Students identify themes and techniques of literary journalists and how these are similar to or different from fiction writers. They also have an opportunity to practice writing short pieces in this genre.

Introduces a structured and supportive environment in which students can develop their skills as poets. Through exposure to a variety of forms and styles of poems by writers from a wide array of cultural backgrounds, students will learn to expand their own poetry-writing practices in a hands-on, collaborative setting.

Introduces potentially lifelong practices for those interested in creating, honing and expanding their fictional experiments. Students will be exposed to a variety of ways they can enrich their writing practice as they study particular forms in fiction writing. There will be many opportunities to share and discuss new work.

Explores a vast, messy, intersectional and moving canon of queer literature as it takes up a range of positionalities, politics, styles, and forms. Students will read transhistorically with an eye towards the contemporary - how are queer identities articulated in the latest additions to this always mutable and proliferating canon?

Explores literature produced in the United States with a focus on writing by and about African Americans from the country's inception to the present period. Running throughout this literature, we will see many common features, such as the importance of orality, multiplicity and diversity of subject positions and perspectives (masking, double-consciousness, double-voiced texts), gender roles, sexuality, and concern with social issues.

Analyzes Global Anglophone Literature and Postcolonial theory with a particular focus on writing from and about Africa, the Caribbean, and India. Discussions will center on questions of language, representation, and form. We will explore the various aesthetic strategies and techniques employed by writers to communicate contemporary postcolonial themes, such as neocolonialism, globalization, nationalism, imperialism, feminism, migration, hybridity, and diaspora.

Explores landmark texts in American literature, from the Colonial period to the 21st century, with special attention paid to the politics of canon formation and to the question of how "America" has been conceived and re-conceived over time.

Explores the landmark texts in British literature. Readings may include Beowulf and works by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens, Woolf or Joyce.

Utilizes both primary and secondary literary and historical sources to explore ways in which a selected theme continually reappears in literature. Texts are examined, interpreted and evaluated within historical contexts; critical and comparative approaches are used to draw conclusions regarding content and context. The specific theme to be examined will vary and will be identified by subtitle.

Examines the question of how an author's choice of a single literary mode, genre, or type affects the meanings of a text. May focus on plays, short stories, song lyrics, comedy, romance, novels, myths, or other genres. The specific genre to be examined will vary and will be identified by subtitle.

Explores a specific theme or practice in literature, writing, film, or cultural studies. Designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of analysis and/or practice at the 200-level. Content identified by subtitle.

A high-impact, community-based learning course that puts students directly in the classroom, leading discussions on important topics, such as race, gender, sexuality, identity, and community. The course centers theoretical and pedagogical discussions grounded in books and articles, such as The New Jim Crow and White Fragility, as well as documentary films, exploring power, society, and identity. Student groups will then develop workshops and partner with local high schools.

Gives students who have completed their foundational studies additional practice and instruction in writing nonfiction prose. Explores the adaptation of such prose to specific contexts. Individual courses may focus on prose writing in a particular discourse community (e.g., business, science and technology, education), which will be identified by subtitle.

Journey between Writing Studies theory and hands-on practice, exploring questions of voice, identity, power and rhetorical agency and how to ethically and effectively collaborate with other writers. Students will leave this course with a better understanding of the nuances of academic writing and with the ability to work one-on-one with writers in various contexts, from MCLA's Writing Studio, to their future classrooms, to the publishing industry.

Acquaints students with the various aspects of the film production process through the use of videotape. This course gives students an understanding of the kinds of decisions filmmakers encounter and the kinds of techniques they employ. Activities include preparing detailed shooting scripts, experimenting with photography, light, color, motion, sound and editing, and manipulating both live action and animated materials. Individually or in small groups, students will produce a 10-15 minute film.

Examines English as the global language of power from the Anglo-Saxon era to today's digitally-connected world and the ways it has been continually transformed by the diverse racial and ethnic communities who have used it. Students explore English's complexity by engaging with multiple genres across a diversity of research traditions, from creative non-fiction, to historical research, to contemporary scholarship in the fields of Writing Studies, Linguistics, and Comparative Rhetorics.

Analyzes a range of texts that illuminate significant social issues, integrating literary study with other disciplinary approaches to address themes of contemporary cultural relevance. The specific topic to be examined will vary and will be identified by the course's subtitle.

Investigates a range of experimental literary texts that cross, blur, or recombine different modes and genres of writing, in order to invent new forms of expression. Students explore the porous borders between poetry and prose, the creative and the critical, the visual and the verbal, the oral and the written, the factual and the imaginative. In their own writing, students are invited to move between two types of writing, creative and analytical, that are ordinarily kept separate.

Investigates a range of experimental literary texts that cross, blur, or recombine different modes and genres of writing, in order to invent new forms of expression. Students explore the porous borders between poetry and prose, the creative and the critical, the visual and the verbal, the oral and the written, the factual and the imaginative. In their own writing, students are invited to move between two types of writing, creative and analytical, that are ordinarily kept separate.

Explores different ways of reading a text. Students use diverse critical methods to consider the distinct understandings of a text produced by different reading methods. Examines connections between developments in critical theory and parallel developments in philosophy, art and film criticism and social theory. A variety of critical methods will be examined.

Explores the plays of William Shakespeare and the various worlds they imagine, including this one. Discussions and lectures focus on understanding the historical political, and social climates of the Renaissance, as well as their persistent recrudescence. Readings may include Twelfth Night, Othello, and the Tempest.

Considers the vision of the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men and Travels with Charley. Examines texts drawn from throughout Steinbeck's career, with special attention to the common themes, preoccupations and narrative devices which characterize his works. Readings will be drawn from such works as Cannery Row, The Grapes of Wrath and The Winter of Our Discontent.

Examines a variety of travel literatures across multiple modes and genres - including essay, poetry, memoir and fiction - in order to spur students' own writing and thinking processes about how "traveling" happens, from the local to the global. Students explore not only the personal, ethical and ethnographic dimensions of travel, but will create exploratory texts that move and rove, cross borders, pitch questions and field discoveries in which the reader can participate as traveling companion.

Explores how visual culture encodes race, gender, sexuality, class, ability and other aspects of social life through exhibitions at MASS MoCA. Students will investigate whose vision is reinforced or discarded and what goes seen or unseen in contemporary culture. This course will feature regular visits to the museum and pedagogical engagements with MASS MoCA staff.

Explores the works of John Milton in relation to the major intellectual and social currents of early modernity. Discussions and lectures focus on analyzing the literary, philosophical, and religious attitudes of the period, as well as their uncanny afterlives in the present. Readings include Lycidas, Areopagitica, and Paradise Lost.

Explores the works of John Milton in relation to the major intellectual and social currents of early modernity. Discussions and lectures focus on analyzing the literary, philosophical, and religious attitudes of the period, as well as their uncanny afterlives in the present. Readings include Lycidas, Areopagitica, and Paradise Lost.

Explores the artistic, social, racial, political, and religious dimensions of mid-19th century American culture through in-depth study of literary texts by authors such as Dickinson, Douglass, Whitman, Jacobs, Thoreau, Stowe, Fuller, Melville, Hawthorne.

Explores medieval and Renaissance British literature, history and culture. The course includes a spring break travel component. During travel students contextualize literature with the cultural heritage experienced via visual arts architecture, music, theatre, dance, fashion, food, and landscapes and cityscapes of Britain. There are additional fees associated with the travel portion of this course that the student will be responsible for.

Explores medieval and Renaissance British literature, history and culture. The course includes a spring break travel component. During travel students contextualize literature with the cultural heritage experienced via visual arts architecture, music, theatre, dance, fashion, food, and landscapes and cityscapes of Britain. There are additional fees associated with the travel portion of this course that the student will be responsible for.

Explores a range of works (fiction, poetry, memoir, photography, music, painting) from American ethnic writers and artists of the twentieth-century and beyond. This course critically examines the cross-section of ethnicity and creative expression as it applies to questions of American identity. Topics include systemic oppression, nationhood, immigration, marginalization, intersectionality, cultural hybridity, intergenerational trauma and survival, border crossing, and heritage.

Explores the reciprocal resonances between the writing of white southern modernist, William Faulkner, and the diverse literatures coming out of the Global South. Examines the ways in which Global South writers use experimental poetics to continue Faulkner's project and tell the stories of colonialism from the neocolonial present.

Explores the forms, ideas, and innovations of filmmakers as inspiration for creative writing. How might cinematic styles and grammars provoke, enchant or inform your own writing experiments? How might contemporary writers use films and filmmaking to inspire pieces in a range of modes: autobiography, fanfic, social commentary, homage - in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Students will be assigned to write creatively in this course.

Studies in-depth a specific issue in film and filmmaking linked by one or more common contexts, such as genre and subject matter, or historical, social, economic, philosophical or aesthetic concerns. Students will practice using evidence from those contexts to produce close, critical readings of films that reflect both an understanding of the context and an understanding of the visual and auditory languages of film. A filmmaking component may be incorporated. Content identified by subtitle.

Offers in-depth explorations of a topic or question that requires interdisciplinary inquiry and research, culminating in a colloquium that presents student research projects to broader publics. Content will be identified by subtitle.

Explores a specialized topic of visual culture. Students will critically examine how images generate meaning and communicate complex ideas through an interdisciplinary and experiential approach. Content identified by subtitle.

Explores how creative pursuits can offer life-affirming counternarratives of recognition and resiliency. Students will study a range of 20th- and 21st- century art in literary, visual, and performative realms while examining the role of experimental art-making in the representation of systematic forms of trauma. Includes intersecting critical lenses - trauma studies, queer theory, critical race studies, and visual culture - as well as immersive, high-impact learning experiences.

Explores how creative pursuits can offer life-affirming counternarratives of recognition and resiliency. Students will study a range of 20th- and 21st- century art in literary, visual, and performative realms while examining the role of experimental art-making in the representation of systematic forms of trauma. Includes intersecting critical lenses - trauma studies, queer theory, critical race studies, and visual culture - as well as immersive, high-impact learning experiences.

Explores new forms, genres, and approaches to the craft of creative writing for advanced students looking to further their creative and critical artistic practices. Content identified by subtitle. Primarily for majors in the junior and senior year.

Studies in depth a number of films by one or a cluster of filmmaking professionals. The professionals may include directors, screenwriters, editors, cinematographers, producers or others. Guides students in understanding the aesthetic, technical, economic and other concerns of various film professionals, leading students to analyze and appreciate a filmmaker's body of work. A student filmmaking component may be incorporated dependent on instructor.

Offers a structured and supportive environment in which students will deepen their poetry-writing practice. Through exposure to a variety of forms and styles by writers from a wide array of cultural backgrounds, students will work toward a short manuscript of related poems by semester's end.

Initiates a workshop space in which advanced students in creative writing may share and critique new writing, study a variety of forms, and challenge the limits of their own practice.

Studies in depth a specific aspect of literature. Designed to provide advanced work in literary analysis, interpretation and research. Primarily for majors in the junior and senior year. Content identified by subtitle.

Explores in both theory and practice how texts shape meaning in today's complex world. After examining various critical approaches and methods, students will craft a sustained, inquiry-based critical and/or creative project. They will use this project to reflect on how they have developed as knowledge-makers, storytellers and creators since they joined the department and how these abilities might transfer meaningfully to future situations.

Assists the instructor with the organization, implementation and assessment of individual English/Communications courses.

Open to juniors and seniors who wish to read in a given area or to study a topic in depth. Written reports and frequent conferences with the advisor are required.

Provides a practical, hands-on field experience to supplement classroom courses. The student works with an on-campus faculty advisor and usually with an on-site supervisor, and the two jointly evaluate the student's work.

Develops knowledge about the role of communication research in academic and professional disciplines, preparing students to better analyze data and critically engage with research findings. It introduces quantitative, qualitative, and combined communication research methods so students can begin primary research of their own.

Introduces students to multiple ways of storytelling through various types of writing and working with audio, video, and interactive media. Students become familiar with audio and video recording and editing, as well as producing stories for the Web. Introduces script writing and storyboarding as part of an overall emphasis on clear and engaging writing within creative writing and journalistic frameworks.

Introduces the concept of self-identity, examining it within the contexts of gender, sexuality, health, and ethnicity across media and society. Using interdisciplinary approaches, this cultural studies course focuses upon themes and theories that explore identity through analyzing meanings in media and social/cultural texts. It questions how these develop across history and questions identity in everyday common sense discourse and its relationships to media and society at local and global levels.

Introduces students to photography, digital cameras and photo editing programs. Topics include various forms of composition for communication including documentary photography. Combines lectures and discussion with hands-on experience. Instruction includes camera functions, exposure control, technical and creative control, basic computer manipulation of images and digital output options. Students must provide a digital SLR or point and shoot camera.

Focuses on the historical evolution of all media while critically examining from technological, economic, and socio-cultural perspectives how contemporary digital and social media practices have transformed our media ecosystems and the implications these changes have for society.

Introduces students to the recording and editing practices involved in producing audio stories. Explores the range of programming, both live and recorded, for an FCC-licensed non-commercial radio station. Includes news, music shows, interviews and sports. Students produce live and recorded shows for WJJW, MCLA's radio station. Adobe Audition is used for digital recording and editing.

Examines how digital video and audio and writing help produce effective storytelling in television production. Develops theoretical and practical knowledge of television production in both studio and in-the-field settings while also considering the audience. Students work on individual and group projects that include basic level introduction to cameras, audio, Avid editing, control room technologies and studio protocols.

Examines the key themes among media theories and how they help explain important aspects of modern and postmodern society, including political, social, and cultural life, means of communication, and the changes between audiences and media institutions in the digital world. Students will learn about media effects, medium theory, symbolic interactionism and structuration, political economy, critical theory, feminism and gender studies, and postmodernity and the information society.

Explores the way words, symbols, and communication shape thought, behavior, society, and culture. Examines the origins of spoken and written language and the multiple ways that meanings are derived, ranging from the basic sounds we make to the sociolinguistic categories we create to define ourselves and others. Students learn how to frame arguments and persuade others, and how to use communication to better understand, analyze, and empathize with each other and with our world.

Teaches basic principles and skills involved in news reporting and writing. These include interviewing, identification of news values, formal and informal research, story organization, lead writing, transitions, attributions, and grammar and style, including application of the AP Stylebook and Libel Manual. Students develop their skills by writing several practice stories. They are invited to contribute stories to The Beacon, the weekly newspaper of MCLA.

Studies introductory topics in media production and/or mass communications. Designed to provide foundational frameworks in communication subjects, including but not limited to media analysis, interpretation, research, media production, and media-specific writing. Content identified by subtitle.

Studies the art of writing and editing articles for magazines. Students will analyze current publications, write articles on subjects of their own choosing and practice editing skills. Class will include group critiques of written work and individual conferences.

Provides practice in writing strong, clear, and creative business communication.

Emphasizes principles of technical communication, particularly document design and readability, and gives students the opportunity to apply these principles in writing reports, instructions, descriptions, and abstracts for science, business and communications.

Learning basic video and audio editing, this course teaches students the fundamental skills of Avid Media Composer and knowledge about networked server-systems. The course also grounds students in understanding the editing software; learning about inputting media, trimming, the smart tool, customization; and organization as well as examining the crucial area of sound in significant detail. Special effects along with titles and color correction are also examined.

Teaches the daily operation of an FCC-licensed non-commercial educational radio station, WJJW, 91.1 FM. Topics include compliance with FCC regulations, digital streaming copyright, use of Adobe Audition for advanced audio recording and editing, producing live and recorded shows for broadcast, and producing news and interview shows and podcasts. A weekly live on-air shift is part of the class requirements. Students may assume management positions at WJJW. Repeatable for a max of 15 credits.

Develops advanced understanding about written, video and audio communicative elements in either broadcasting or documentary forms via practical and theoretical applications of television production. Via group work in the studio and in-the-field projects, specialized attention to program form facilities understanding about different journalism and storytelling practices. Students write stories at more advanced level and use technologies that are more complex in filming, editing and studio work.

Gives students a broad-based understanding of the fundamental trends and dynamics taking place in the digital media landscape today. Students learn about new measurement metrics, how to conduct social media campaigns, and are able to practice skills that they can use when working in a range of organizations that utilize digital and social media. Guest speakers from the industry are invited, and we work with real-world clients that want to have strategic media campaigns.

Focuses on the analysis and development of techniques and skills needed for performance of news, commercials, editorials and live reporting. Also emphasizes voice quality, diction and presentational skills and culminates in the production of professional audition videotapes.

Studies in depth a specific aspect of global communication and provides the students a general knowledge of the geopolitical issues of international communication, including technological, economic and political/ideological patterns.

Concentrates on writing, editing, and producing news stories in a convergent newsroom. Fills the junior staff position of the college newspaper to refine writing, design, and editing skills in print, video, audio, and online, as well as advertising sales and public relations for the Beacon. Repeatable for a max of 15 credits.

Studies contemporary layouts and design principles, with special emphasis on creating and integrating logos, content, typography and design for visually appealing communications packages. Includes basic typography and an overview of printing processes. Students create layouts for flyers, brochures, newsletters, newspapers, and magazines, and learn Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.

Emphasizes investigative reporting as it relates to gathering, writing and presenting news and documentary for television. Also examines the practical and theoretical concepts of electronic news gathering (ENG) and electronic field production (EFP) including analysis of broadcast journalism standards.

Discusses issues and problems central to the practice of journalism and the role of the media in a democratic society. Issues may include environmental journalism; media, law and ethics; investigative reporting; government, politics and the press; covering popular culture and others. Students may be required to produce journalism articles and/or commentaries based on those or related issues.

Builds upon skills learned in Introduction to Photography to include sophisticated camera techniques and advanced darkroom developing and procedures. Students are encouraged to develop various forms of composition such as photography for science, art or publication. Some consideration will be given to digital photography and related procedures.

Concentrates on photojournalism as a form of composition. Designed to help students to understand and master a number of techniques such as story-telling and photo editing. The subject of ethics will also be covered, as will digital camera applications. Students will be encouraged to submit work to The Beacon for consideration.

Offers writing and reporting experience through the writing of advanced news stories and features. These include covering campus community meetings, reporting on police, fire and safety news and concerns, dealing with local courts and investigative level-two reporting. Students expand their knowledge of ethics, libel, privacy and freedom of information laws. Students may submit stories to The Beacon.

Introduces students to the broad career area of public relations. Principles, cases and problems of public relations will be studied through contact with local organizations. Topic areas include internal communications systems, applications of mass communications, researching public opinions and social responsibilities.

Studies in depth the role culture plays in the communication process in various world cultures including African, Asian and Central American. Also examines the cultural differences in language, thought patterns and non-verbal behaviors.

Teaches how to do in-depth research with large datasets and how to find stories from numbers, crucial skills for today's journalists. Relevant statistical and computer-assisted reporting (CAR) techniques are learned and applied to stories, and software and apps are used to create powerful and meaningful data visualizations and infographics to accompany stories. Previous experience with statistics and design or production software is helpful, but not necessary.

Develops knowledge about the field of semiotics from its inception to the contemporary practice of reading significations. Focusing upon reading signs/meanings across different media and culture, students learn about symbolic activities and different interpretative models and analytical approaches. These include: de Saussure, Peirce, Burke, Marx, Freud, Lacan, Irigaray, Gramsci, Laclau and Mouffe, Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Althusser, Foucault, Williams, Hall and Lash and Urry.

Explores theory about genre and meaning-making practices across television. Focusing upon media history the course critically reviews transformations to television genres in drama, documentary, documentary-drama, comedy, news and reality TV. Concentrating on the development of genre the course examines how the nature of meanings have changed giving further attention to animation, popular entertainment forms like soap operas and video on demand.

Provides an in-depth look into the Public Relations area of crisis management. Through case-book studies, other texts, and media portrayals, students will learn how communications experts conduct themselves in critical situations, and the ethical and other considerations involved. Students will conduct extensive research into the area in order to enhance their own knowledge of the subject.

Focuses on editorial and management roles of the campus newspaper in a convergent newsroom, including editorial writing, news editing, page design/layout, photography, newsroom and advertising management, and budgeting. Fills editorial board and other senior staff positions on the campus newspaper and its online properties for the purpose of expanding skills in team management and producing news.

Studies in depth a specific aspect of mass communications. Designed to provide advanced work in media analysis, interpretation and research. Primarily for majors in the junior and senior year. Content identified by subtitle.

Provides a departmental capstone course in which majors meet in their final undergraduate year to explore a significant theme or topic. Students integrate what they have learned about communication and media, and together the students, polling their special knowledge in these areas, respond to the specific theme, concept, or topic.

Provides the opportunity for a student to assist in preparation and implementation of a communications course. Course may be repeated for a total of 6 credits.

Open to juniors and seniors who wish to read in a given area or to study a topic in depth within the fields of communications, media writing and production, or media and cultural studies. Written reports and frequent conferences with the advisor are required.

Provides a practical, hands-on field experience to supplement classroom courses. The student works with an on-campus faculty advisor and usually with an on-site supervisor, and the two jointly evaluate the student's work.