English Course Offerings- Fall 2026

Group shot of faculty in English and Philosophy

Note for Students

Registration begins April 6th. Advising week is March 30th-April 3rd. 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 March 16th.

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 4-5:15 SO with Elizabeth Redd (CRN: 12113)

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 1115 (Objective 4A): Major Themes in Literature: Climate Trauma and Eco-Horror in Literature: From Dread to Hope

01: TR 9:30-10:45 with Aniqa Jahangeer (CRN: 14701)

02: TR 9:30-10:45 SO with Aniqa Jahangeer (CRN: 14713)

We live in a world riddled with environmental stories of climate change, species extinction, habitat destruction, and the planet’s future that fill us with a sense of dismay. How can literature help us where science and media fail? In this course, you will explore fantasy, science fiction and horror genres to reimagine possible futures. We will use these texts to examine both the fear for and a fear of nature, taking an inquiry-based approach to the complex issues that underpin our anxiety. Through this exploration, you will explore how stories shape the way we think of environmental change, how cultures and communities engage with resilience through these shifts, and how alternative technologies may serve us. In this course, you will read environmental and social justice issues in literature, understand how fantasy, sci-fi, and horror address our imaginative needs, and think deeply about our relationship with the natural world.

ENGL 1115 (Objective 4A): Major Themes in Literature: The Secret Life of the Book

03: AO Late 8 weeks with Gibette Encarnaciόn (CRN: 14714)

Books are more than just ink and paper; they are artifacts of scandal, survival, sorcery. In this course, we step through the looking glass to explore literature that is obsessed with its own existence. Through a global selection of 21st century novels, we investigate the life cycle of the story: from the labor of writing and the nitty-gritty of publishing to the magical archives where unfinished stories live. If you have ever wondered why we still bother with books in a digital age, this is the deep dive for you.

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

01: MWF 12-12:50 with STAFF (CRN: 11245)

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

In Art of Film I, you will explore the process, principles, and history of cinema. You will discover the important movements, critical approaches, and techniques that shape this powerful art form. Our class goal is for you to analyze and evaluate film critically, in class and beyond, and for you to develop a richer understanding of the human condition through cinema.

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

04: MWF 1-1:50 with Jessica Winston (CRN: 12553)

05: MWF 1-1:50 SO with Jessica Winston (CRN: 12554)

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

02: AO Late 8 weeks with Curtis Whitaker (CRN: 14715)

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 2206: Creative Writing Workshop

01: MWF 11-11:50 with Susan Goslee (CRN: 10021)

This class will introduce you to the study of creative writing craft in the genres of poetry, the short story, and creative nonfiction. We’ll read a variety of contemporary texts from a craft-based perspective to learn how authors construct their work. We’ll also practice elements of the creative process, from generating material to revising polished drafts, with the goal of creating works that are valuable to and rewarding for an audience of readers. In class-wide workshops of student works, we’ll practice giving and being receptive to critical feedback. We’ll also have fun with discussions and collaborative activities designed to encourage creative thinking.

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

01: AO with William Donovan (CRN: 11246)

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: TR 1-2:15 with Gibette Encarnaciόn (CRN: 10022)

02: TR 1-2:15 SO with Gibette Encarnaciόn (CRN: 11634)

This course is your official entry into the English major, a transition from being a consumer of stories to a critic of them. Together, we will pull back the curtain on how poems, novels, plays, and short stories are built. We will track the evolution of the English language from the medieval humor of Geoffrey Chaucer to the contemporary brilliance of Colson Whitehead, learning how historical context and literary form dictate how we perceive the world. Beyond the primary texts, you will learn to navigate the archives, evaluate secondary criticism, and deploy various theoretical lenses to build your own persuasive arguments. Through a series of short analytical papers, you will refine your voice and practice the fundamental skills that define the work of an English scholar. Come and join us in English: you'll come for the stories; you'll stay for the footnotes.

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

01: TR 11-12:15 with Roger Schmidt (CRN: 12555)

This survey offers a broad view of the traditional stories that serve as a foundation for many cultures around the world. We will study multiple cultures and regions of the world from ancient times to the early modern period: Greece and Rome, the Far East, the Americas, and more. As we do so, we will consider the purpose and persistence of these myths as we analyze, discuss, and write about them.

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

02: MWF 1-1:50 with Michael Stubbs (CRN: 12560)

03: MWF 1-1:50 SO with Michael Stubbs (CRN: 13078)

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. We will study the myths of the ancient Egyptians, Japanese, Scandinavians, and the Aztecs.

ENGL 2257 (Objective 4A): Survey of World Literature I

01: TR 11-12:15 with Roger Schmidt (CRN: 14716)

ENGL 2267: Survey of British Literature I

01: TR 9:30-10:45 with Roger Schmidt (CRN: 10023)

02: TR 9:30-10:45 SO with Roger Schmidt (CRN: 11996)

A survey of English literature from its earliest beginnings, through the Renaissance, and up to 1789, the eve of the French Revolution. It is a remarkable period, and a familiarity with its sweep provides a foundation for all further study of English literature. You will be well-served in learning its history. And despite its seeming remoteness in time, I believe you will find—and I will do my best to help you find—that the literature remains surprisingly accessible, timeless and surprising.

ENGL 2277: Survey of American Literature I

01: MWF 9-9:50 with Harold Hellwig (CRN: 10024)

This course begins with Native American origin and creation stories and concludes with some of the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. This should provide a broad overview of what constitutes American literature from its origins to the end of the Civil War. We will read and study works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction prose, including autobiography, by a range of writers, men and women of diverse backgrounds and interests. Our object will be to study the many voices that constitute what we call American literature. What does “American” mean? What role has literature played in the cultural and historical story of what came to be the United States?

We will examine the human values that were tested by conflict as well as those human values that allowed unity. We ought to understand how history and literature merge, so that we can understand what the literature of America accomplished; we need to be able to read that literature critically and figure out what forms of literature were used and created in the early formation of the United States.

ENGL 2280: Grammar and Usage

01: TR 11-12:15 SO with Sonja Launspach (CRN: 11635)

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, team concept explorations, quizzes, textual analysis and a final grammatical analysis.

ENGL 2281: Introduction to Language Studies

01-03: MW 11-12:15 DL with Thomas Klein

Most people are interested in language, but feel that they don’t understand how it works. English 2281 introduces us to the field of linguistics. We’ll begin the course by looking at descriptive linguistics: the sound system, words, phrases, and sentences. Then we will consider applied linguistics, which looks at how we interpret language, and how it relates to culture and social relations. We will explore such questions as where language comes from, and explain the dynamics underlying real-world uses of language, including language history, conventions of politeness and cooperation, and the influence of culture, prestige, and gender. Do animals have language? Do different genders use language differently? And just why does Gen Z use slang?

ENGL 3306: Intermediate Creative Writing Workshop

01: TR 2:30-3:45 with Susan Goslee (CRN: 15398)

In this intermediate creative writing course, we will read and write in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Class sessions will be a mix of discussion, generative writing, collaborative games, brief craft lectures, reading comprehension checks, and workshop. Your homework will be a mix of writing prompts, reading assignments, critical reading questions, and revising drafts up to fully-realized short stories, essays, and poems. Each prompt focuses on a different formal or thematic move that you will later draw on to write complete works. These polished pieces will strive to reward multiple readings, avoid the familiar, respect (or knowingly slight) grammar, earn their surprises, and make a stab at beauty—or proudly decide to do otherwise.

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: MWF 11-11:50 SO with Amanda Zink (CRN: 10791)

In this writing-intensive course you will continue honing your close-reading skills. We will build on these skills by introducing ourselves to the major critical and theoretical patterns of thought in literary scholarship, reading both critical essays on each trend and literary and cultural texts that can bear such theoretical scrutiny. You will learn about ten such trends: New Criticism, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Queer Studies, Marxism, Historicism and Cultural Studies, Postcolonial and Race Studies, and Reader-Response Criticism.

ENGL 3322: Poetry and Poetics: Poetry and Public Occasions

01: MWF 10-10:50 with Matthew VanWinkle (CRN: 14703)

02: MWF 10-10:50 SO with Matthew VanWinkle (CRN: 14719)

We often think of lyric poetry as subjective and interior, as a highly individual exploration and expression of thought and feeling. Without disputing the value and appeal of such introspection, this course will focus on poetry as a response to an event: a verifiable occurrence in the larger world, commonly available to observers beyond the presiding consciousness of the poem. We will examine how poems in English from a range of times and places reflect on specific cultural happenings, political developments, and discrete social circumstances. We will focus particularly on how these poems negotiate the intersection of personal and interpersonal realities: how they celebrate and grieve, challenge and commemorate.

ENGL 4402/5502: User Experience Design and Usability

01-03: Thurs. 4-6:30 pm DL with Abraham Romney

This course introduces students to the field of User Experience (UX), which focuses on the practice of designing products, content, and interfaces that are genuinely useful and easy for people to navigate. The course emphasizes the writing and research side of UX: how do you figure out what users actually need, and how do you communicate clearly enough that they can accomplish their goals? Students learn research methods for testing usability, practice writing content for real audiences, and work through hands-on projects, including a collaborative usability study conducted for a real local business or campus organization with opportunities to create and improve designs. The course emphasizes the relationship between writing, design, and behavior. It's a required course for the Technical Communication certificate and a natural fit for students in Professional Writing, Corporate Communication, Visual Communication, Computer Science, and University Studies. Really, it's for anyone interested in seeing products or messages through the eyes of the people who use them.

ENGL 4403/5503: Advanced Nonfiction Workshop

01: TR 1-2:15 with Susan Goslee (CRN: 14704/14722)

In this course, we will explore form in creative nonfiction and the unique perspectives this genre can offer. Counts as ENGL 4408 for the creative writing major and minor requirements.

ENGL 4407/5507: Topics in Technical and Professional Communication: User Experience Design and Usability

01-03: Thurs. 4-6:30 pm DL with Abraham Romney

ENGL 4433: Methods of Teaching Literature

01: TR 2:30-3:45 with David Lawrimore (CRN: 14705)

Why does literature matter, and how do you make that case to students, parents, and administrators? This course takes both questions seriously. Future secondary English teachers will engage foundational ideas about what literature does for readers while learning to translate those ideas into curriculum decisions they can defend throughout their careers.

ENGL 4468/5568: Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature: Modernism and Pop Culture

01: MW 1-1:50 BL with Matthew Levay (CRN: 14706/14723)

02: MW 1-1:50 BL/SO with Matthew Levay (CRN: 14724/14725)

How did modernism and popular culture, often considered to be complete opposites, inform one another? Where did modernist fiction and poetry draw upon popular forms—from newspaper comics and jazz to mass-circulation magazines, films, and detective novels—in order to shape both their experimental aesthetics and their representations of a chaotic and changing modernity? And where did popular forms display the same experimental impulses of modernism? This course will attempt to answer those questions by sampling a wide range of early twentieth-century literature and culture.

ENGL 4471/557: Literature and the Environment

01: MWF 12-12:50 SO with Alan Johnson (CRN: 14726/14727)

This course introduces you to fiction and poetry about natural environments, and about how humans have responded to and reshaped those environments. We will begin with samples of classic ancient and medieval literature, and then move into the modern era so that you get a sense of how views vary across cultures and times. We’ll see that writers have long depicted the natural world in two ways, broadly speaking: as a utopian realm of hope and promise, and as a dystopian one due to human mishandling of previously balanced ecosystems. These texts tell us a lot about human desires and fears, but also about how we can live with nature more sustainably. We will read parts of ancient mythic narratives, medieval and renaissance literature, and modern literature, including Shakespeare’s The Tempest; poems by Wordsworth and other British Romantics; Thoreau’s non-fiction classic Walden and an essay by Emerson; poems by Emily Dickinson, Rabindranath Tagore, José Martí, Robert Frost, Jean Toomer, and Mary Oliver; 20^th-century non-fiction by Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Terry Tempest Williams; and fiction, in whole or in parts, by J. G. Ballard, Amitav Ghosh, Octavia Butler (The Parable of the Sower), Richard Powers, and Jeff vanderMeer (Annihilation).

ENGL 4476/5576: Shakespeare

01: W 4-6:30 pm with Jessica Winston (CRN: 14707/14728)

02: W 4-6:30 pm SO with Jessica Winston (CRN: 14729/14730)

It has famously been said that Shakespeare is “not for an age, but for all time.” How do Shakespeare's plays speak to his time and our own? We consider this question through a study of four plays. In addition to the play texts and historical contexts, the course will explore modern stage productions, reflecting on ways that performance showcases contemporary relevance.

ENGL 4488/5588: Introduction to Sociolinguistics

01: TR 1-2:15 with Sonja Launspach (CRN: 14084/14087)

Sociolinguistics is the study of how language is used in different social contexts, both on an individual level and on a societal level. This course will present an introduction to the basic concepts and different areas sociolinguistics studies. Topics to be covered include: language maintenance and language death, language and identity, language ideologies, multilingualism, code-switching, and language variation. The course material will be presented through various media: texts, primary materials and visual media.

ENGL 4491: Senior Literary Studies Portfolio

01: TBD with Brent Wolter (CRN: 13711)

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: 14708)

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 6612: Introduction to Graduate Studies in English

01: W 7-9:30 pm with Margaret Johnson (CRN: 10026)

02: W 7-9:30 pm SO with Margaret Johnson (CRN: 11993)

In his book Protocols of Reading, scholar Robert Scholes argues that “This is what we all do, all the time, when we read, and what we should do. To read at all, we must read the book of ourselves in the texts in front of us, and we must bring the text home, into our thoughts and lives, into our judgments and deeds.” How does the experience of delving deeply into literature for personal enrichment connect to the professional world of English studies? What does it mean to be a scholar in this discipline? How does reading literature connect with the intellectual and professional work of academic research, publishing, and teaching? In order to consider these and other related questions, we will address the debates, issues, and methodologies that make up the discipline of English studies. We will focus on issues of specialization in disciplinary subfields, research methods and opportunities, literary criticism and theory, and professionalization.

ENGL 6623: Seminar in Literary Themes: Nature in Renaissance Literature

01: M 4-6:30 pm with Curtis Whitaker (CRN: 14709)

02: M 4-6:30 pm SO with Curtis Whitaker (CRN: 14731)

The English Renaissance was a pivotal moment in Western thinking about nature. The biblical and classical traditions were still vibrant and supplied many ideas writers drew from to understand the subject, but emergent scientific thinking with figures such as Bacon and Descartes recast the natural world in radically different terms. In this seminar we will focus on a few canonical works—by Ovid, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, especially—and how we may understand the presence of nature in them. The course will also emphasize the cultivation of formal skills in the reading of Renaissance poetry.

ENGL 6631: Seminar in Teaching Writing

01: T 4-6:30 pm with Abraham Romney (CRN: 10027)

02: T 4-6:30 pm SO with Abraham Romney (CRN: 12149)

This course introduces students to rhetoric's long intellectual tradition, briefly tracing its history before English became a subject of study and moving to its role in contemporary composition theory. Students explore research and theory on how writers make meaning across print, digital, and multimedia genres, then apply that theoretical grounding directly to the writing classroom — designing assignments and activities that foreground rhetorical purpose, audience, and context. The course will also cover AI literacy, preparing future teachers to navigate writing instruction in the age of generative AI.

ENGL 6682: TESL Methodology

01: T 7-9:30 pm with Brent Wolter (CRN: 14710)

02: T 7-9:30 pm SO with Brent Wolter (CRN: 14732)

Building on the theoretical framework of ENGL 6681, students develop effective ESL materials and curricula, taking into account SLA research as well as the characteristics, needs, and motivation of learners. The class will involve a large practical component.