*The Course Schedules below are subject to change once the new Academic Calendar is published as well as pending enrolment pattern changes. Detailed course descriptions by instructors are added when available and are also subject to change.
**Please consult the Registrar's Time Table for mode of delivery for courses.
First-Year Courses
- ENG100H5F Effective Writing (Online)
- ENG100H5S LEC0101 Effective Writing (Online)
- ENG100H5S LEC0102 Effective Writing (Online)
- ENG110H5F How to Read Critically
Course Title: Effective Writing
Course Code: ENG100H5F | Lecture MW 3-6 (ONLINE)
Instructor: Natasha Vashisht
This course provides practical tools for writing in university and beyond. Students will gain experience in generating ideas, clarifying insights, structuring arguments, composing paragraphs and sentences, critiquing and revising their writing, and communicating effectively to diverse audiences. This course does not count toward any English program.
Group 3
Course Title: Effective Writing
Course Code: ENG100H5S LEC0101| Lecture MW 9-12 (ONLINE)
Instructor: Natasha Vashisht
This course provides practical tools for writing in university and beyond. Students will gain experience in generating ideas, clarifying insights, structuring arguments, composing paragraphs and sentences, critiquing and revising their writing, and communicating effectively to diverse audiences. This course does not count toward any English program.
Group 3
Detailed Description by Instructor: The course provides foundational tools for writing essays in any Humanities program and beyond. We will spend a significant amount of time on active reading of short literary texts and formulating strategies to translate our ideas into an effective written analysis. You will gain experience in how to read literary texts closely, generate ideas, clarify insights, structure arguments, write research proposals and document sources effectively. In the second half of the course, we will focus on writing research essays: composing a thesis statement, building effective paragraph structures and critiquing and revising our writing. The objective of all the assignment formats will be to demonstrate how to communicate effectively and meaningfully to diverse audiences. There will also be in-class grammar and composition writing exercises through the term. While ENG100 provides practical tools for writing in university and beyond, it does not count toward any English program.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
• Recognize the fundamental strategies in essay writing.
• Refine and develop skills through “active reading” and critical analysis of texts.
• Have exposure to and strengthen the fundamentals of grammar and sentence construction.
• Develop a focused, argumentative thesis clearly expressed and sustained from the introduction to the conclusion.
• Use accurate and complete citation methods.
• Understand the difference of reliable and unreliable sources and develop academic accountability.
• Recognize the value of a mutually-respectful classroom space
Selected Major Readings:
1. Graff, Gerald and Birkenstein, Cathy. “They Say/I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York: W. W Norton & Company, 2006.
2. Henderson, Eric. The Active Reader: Strategies for Academic Reading and Writing. 4th Edition, Oxford, 2018
3. Beason and Lester. A Commonsense Guide to Grammar and its Usage. 6th edition. Bedford/St. Martins, 2012.
4. Pinker. Steven. The Sense of Style. USA: Penguin Publishers. 2014
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
1. Amy Tan “Mother Tongue”
2. George Orwell “Politics and the English Language
3. Robin Wall Kimmerer “The Gift of Strawberries”
Method of Instruction:
Lectures and class discussions. The lecture PPTs will be shared during class and can be used as a resource by you for note-taking during the course.
Method of Evaluation: Short Critical Analysis, Research Proposal & Annotated Bibliography, Final Essay and Discussion posts.
Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? No
Course Title: Effective Writing
Course Code: ENG100H5S LEC0102 | Lecture TR 6-9 (ONLINE)
Instructor: TBD
This course provides practical tools for writing in university and beyond. Students will gain experience in generating ideas, clarifying insights, structuring arguments, composing paragraphs and sentences, critiquing and revising their writing, and communicating effectively to diverse audiences. This course does not count toward any English program.
Group 3
Course Title: Narrative
Course Code: ENG110H5F | Lecture MW 9-11 | Tutorials MW 11-12, MW 1-2
Instructor: Daniela Janes
This course gives students skills for analyzing the stories that shape our world: traditional literary narratives such as ballads, romances, and novels, and also the kinds of stories we encounter in non-literary contexts such as journalism, movies, myths, jokes, legal judgments, travel writing, histories, songs, diaries, and biographies.
Group 1
Second-Year Courses
- ENG202H5F British Literature in the World I: Medieval to Eighteenth-Century (Online)
- ENG203H5S British Literature in the World II: Romantic to Contemporary (Online)
- ENG218H5F Interactive Storytelling & Worldmaking
- ENG235H5F Comics & The Graphic Novel (Online)
- ENG263H5S Play and Games (Online)
- ENG280H5F Critical Approaches to Literature (Online)
- ENG289H5F Creative Writing (Online)
- ENG289H5S Creative Writing (Online)
Course Title: British Literature in the World I: Medieval to Eighteenth-Century
Course Code: ENG202H5F | Lecture TR 11-1 | Tutorials TR 1-2, TR 3-4 (ONLINE)
Instructor: TBD
This course serves as an introduction to influential texts that have shaped British literary history from Beowulf and Chaucer to Shakespeare, from Milton and Behn to Burney. Students will focus on questions such as the range and evolution of poetic forms, the development of the theatre and the novel and the emergence of women writers. The course will encourage students to think about the study of English literatures in relationship to history, including the history of world literatures.
Exclusion: ENG202Y5
Prerequisite: Open to students who have successfully completed at least 4.0 full credits. Students who do not meet the prerequisite but are enrolled in any 100-level ENG or DRE course (except ENG100H5) may petition the department in writing for approval to take the course. See the guidelines for written petitions on the department website.
Group 3
Course Title: British Literature in the World II: Romantic to Contemporary
Course Code: ENG203H5S | Lecture TR 11-1 | Tutorials TR1-2, TR 3-4 (ONLINE)
Instructor: TBD
An introduction to influential texts that have shaped British literary history from the Romantic period to the present, covering developments in poetry, drama and prose, from William Wordsworth to Zadie Smith and beyond. The course will address topics such as revolution and war; the increasing diversity of poetic forms; the cultural dominance of the novel; romanticism, Victorianism, modernism and postmodernism; feminism; colonialism and decolonization; the ethnic and cultural diversity of Anglophone literature in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; literature and sexual identity; the AIDS epidemic; and technology and the digital age. The course will encourage students to think about the study of English literatures in relationship to history, including the history of world literatures.
Exclusion: ENG203Y5
Prerequisite: Open to students who have successfully completed at least 4.0 full credits. Students who do not meet the prerequisite but are enrolled in any 100-level ENG or DRE course (except ENG100H5) may petition the department in writing for approval to take the course. See the guidelines for written petitions on the department website.
Group 2
Course Title: Interactive Storytelling & Worldmaking
Course Code: ENG218H5F | Lecture TR 12-3
Instructor: Bruno R. Véras
This course explores shorter works of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty first-century writers. Special attention will be paid to formal and rhetorical concepts for the study of fiction as well as to issues such as narrative voice, allegory, irony, and the representation of temporality.
Group n/a
Course Title: Comics & The Graphic Novel
Course Code: ENG235H5F | Lecture TR 6-9
Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard
Group 1
Detailed Description by Instructor: In this course we will read comic books and graphic novels that focus on identity (on race, gender, religion, among other matters) through the lens of the “monstrous.” We will use the idea of the monstrous to read the history, literature, culture and aesthetics of comics and graphic novels
Please note that texts contain explicit sexual and violent content.
Required Reading:
1. Kirkman, The Walking Dead 1: Days Gone By.
Google Play
Amazon (Paper)
Vital Source (Rental, 60 days): $3.70
2. Kirkman, The Walking Dead 2: Miles Behind Us.
3. LaValle, Destroyer.
4. Pichetshote and Campbell, Infidel.
5. Liu, Monstress Vol. 1: Awakening.
6. Liu, Monstress Vol. 2: The Blood.
7. Kelly, I Kill Giants
8. Other material on Quercus, under “Modules”
Method of Instruction: Lecture and Discussion
Method of Evaluation: Essays and assignments
Website: Portal
Course Title: Play and Games
Course Code: ENG263H5S | Lecture TR 1-3 | Tutorials TR 3-4, TR 5-6
Instructor: TBD
Why do we play? Game designers, philosophers, sociologists, and performance theorists have long argued that play can tell us about our development as children and adults, our search for freedom, our relationship to animals, and the values and problems of our societies. This course introduces students to Play Studies and Game Studies in the humanities by considering the reasons we play in relationship to the objects we play with, including things that are more normally thought of as games—card and board games, sports, toys, video games—as well as other sites of playful thought and action, like paintings, films, and short stories. Students in this course will encounter major scholars of play and games and key terms and concepts in the analysis of play and games. We will play and design story-rich games and we will discuss effective narrative design primarily in digital games. Students will also consider problems in play and games like cheating, addiction, and gamification.
Group 3
Course Title: Critical Approaches to Literature
Course Code: ENG280H5F | Lecture TR 9-11 | Tutorials TR 11-12, TR 1-2 (ONLINE)
Instructor: Julia Boyd
An introduction to literary theory and its central questions, such as the notion of literature itself, the relation between literature and reality, the nature of literary language, the making of literary canons, and the roles of the author and the reader.
Exclusion: ENG267H5
Prerequisites: Open to students who have successfully completed at least 4.0 full credits. Students who do not meet the prerequisite but are enrolled in any 100-level ENG or DRE course (except ENG100H5) may petition the department in writing for approval to take the course. See the guidelines for written petitions on the department website.
Group 1
Course Title: Creative Writing
Course Code: ENG289H5F | Lecture MW 1-3 | Tutorials MW 3-4, MW 5-6 (Online)
Instructor: TBD
Students will engage in a variety of creative exercises, conducted across a range of different genres of literary writing.
Prerequisite: Open to students who have successfully completed at least 4.0 full credits. Students who do not meet the prerequisite but are enrolled in ENG101H or ENG102H5 or ENG110H5 or ENG140Y5 or DRE/ENG121H5 and DRE/ENG122H5 may petition the department in writing for approval to take the course. See the guidelines for written petitions on the department website.
Group 3
Course Title: Creative Writing
Course Code: ENG289H5S | Lecture TR 9-11 | Tutorials TR 11-12, TR 1-2 (ONLINE)
Instructor: TBD
Students will engage in a variety of creative exercises, conducted across a range of different genres of literary writing.
Prerequisite: Open to students who have successfully completed at least 4.0 full credits. Students who do not meet the prerequisite but are enrolled in ENG101H or ENG102H5 or ENG110H5 or ENG140Y5 or DRE/ENG121H5 and DRE/ENG122H5 may petition the department in writing for approval to take the course. See the guidelines for written petitions on the department website.
Group 3
Third-Year Courses
- ENG343H5S World Drama
- ENG345H5S Victorian Poetry
- ENG362H5F Canadian Literature, 1920 to the Present
- ENG365H5F Contemporary American Fiction (Online)
- ENG378H5S Special Topic in Writing for Performance
Course Title: World Drama
Course Code: ENG343H5S | Lecture MW 3-6
Instructor: Natasha Vashisht
Students will read/watch screenings of drama in English and in translation from around the world, including Africa, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Latin America, and South America. Topics may include traditional forms (Kathakali dance, Noh and Kabuki, Beijing Opera, Nigerian masquerades) adapted for the modern stage; agit-prop and political drama; object performance; the place of drama within a global media ecology; and drama as a site of intercultural and transcultural appropriation, negotiation, and exchange.
Group 2
Detailed Description by Instructor: This course draws upon various plays and performance traditions from cross-continental postcolonial geographies. Given its vast scope, the course aims for both breadth and depth: you will read plays from Ireland, India, Nigeria, Egypt, Chile, St. Lucia, Australia, China, and diasporic cultures. We will spend time analyzing each play in depth and studying its historical and cultural context. In addition, we will survey non-western performance traditions such as the Noh, Beijing opera, Indian Kathakali and Kuttiyattam, Balinese puppet theatre, and Nigerian masquerades to understand how these performance traditions – sophisticated and popular - over time and across cultures have helped shape and develop postcolonial theatre. A study of genres such as the postcolonial absurd, theatre of the roots, revolutionary theatre, Black British theatre, and the Anthropocene will reveal cogent realities of colonial trauma, cultural hybridity, syncretism, transculturalism, decoloniality, resistance, and the struggle for self-determination. The course would be valuable to any student seeking broader knowledge of global cultural identity formation through heterogeneous theatrical expressions.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
· To become familiar with key texts and themes in the range of plays discussed.
· To interpret the historical and cultural context the plays were written in.
· To identify common themes in the plays across time and cultures.
· To explore the crucial relationship between drama and society.
· To appreciate the richness and diversity of drama around the world.
Selected Major Readings:
1. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
2. Mahesh Dattani, Final Solutions
3. Femi Osofisan, Once Upon Four Robbers
4. Derek Walcott, Dream on Monkey Mountain
5. Tewfik al Hakim, Fate of a Cockroach
6. Andrea Levy, Small Island
7. Ariel Dorfman, Death and the Maiden
8. Andrew Bovell, When the Rain Stops Falling
9. Meng Jinghui et al, I love XXX
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
1. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
2. Mahesh Dattani, Final Solutions
3. Femi Osofisan, Once Upon Four Robbers
Method of Instruction:
Our classes will combine detailed lectures on the playwright and their cultural context, discussions on the play and various critical approaches. The lecture PPTs will be shared during class and can be used as a resource by you for note-taking during the course.
Method of Evaluation: Midterm essay, End term essay, Quercus Discussion posts and class responses and presentations.
Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? No
Course Title: Victorian Poetry
Course Code: ENG345H5S | TR 3-6
Instructor: TBD
This course surveys the poetry of the Victorian era in Britain, with a focus on experiments in poetic genre and form, and on the social and political commitments of poetry in a period of colonialism, industrialization, and changing ideas about gender and sexuality. Topics may include lyric and the dramatic monologue, the poetry of political protest, love and sexuality, feminism and queerness, aestheticism and decadence, empire and the emergence of global poetry in English, and pastoral and the poetry of urban life. Poets may include Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, Christina Rossetti, D. G. Rossetti, Gerard Manley Hopkins, A. C. Swinburne, Toru Dutt, George Meredith, Augusta Webster, Amy Levy, Oscar Wilde, Michael Field, Thomas Hardy, Sarojini Naidu, and many others.
Group 4
Course Title: Canadian Literature, 1920 to the Present
Course Code: ENG362H5F | MW 12-3
Instructor: Daniela Janes
This course explores Canadian literature from the 1920s to the contemporary period. Students will examine the work of major authors in their cultural, social, and historical contexts. Topics may include the development of literary modernism in Canada, regional literary geographies, postmodern innovations, multiculturalism and hybridity, and Indigenous literary and cultural production in the part of Turtle Island that is called Canada.
Group 5
Course Title: Contemporary American Fiction
Course Code: ENG365H5F | TR 3-6
Instructor: TBD
This course explores six or more works by at least four contemporary American writers of fiction.
Group 6
Course Title: Special Topic in Writing for Performance
Course Code: ENG378H5S | MW1-3
Instructor: Justine Garrett
A concentrated study of one aspect of writing for performance such as a particular medium (e.g. digital), genre, or theme. Topics may vary from year to year.
Group n/a
Detailed Description by Instructor: Short films deliver powerful, moving stories in just a few minutes. This course introduces the art and craft of writing for short film. Designed for students without a filmmaking background, this course combines critical analysis of short films and scripts with hands-on creative writing to explore the possibilities of the form. Through lectures, discussions, and screenings, students will learn the fundamentals of screenplay formatting and cinematic storytelling. Over the term, students will develop an original short screenplay, building on their idea through guided writing exercises and assignments. Emphasis is placed on iterative revision and the development of a screenwriting practice. Students will engage in story editing through giving and receiving constructive feedback on their works in progress.
Selected major readings: Cowgill, Linda J. Writing Short Films: Structure and Content for Screenwriters. 2nd ed, Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale, 2010.
First three texts / authors to be studied: Taika Waititi, Victoria Warmerdam, Damien Chazelle
Method of instruction: In person
Method of evaluation: Creative writing assignments, presentations, and analysis of screenplays and films.
Does the course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes