Spring I and Spring II 2026 English Electives
Session I
ENG205: THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE
Section: 0920 | M 1:00–3:15 p.m., W 1:00–2:00 p.m.
This course analyzes the Bible’s narrative and poetic style using the techniques of literary criticism and considers the Bible in literary context. The class will cover the distinction between the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the role of the Bible in literary history, and aspects of Biblical style including parallelism, motif, metaphor, parable, and various approaches to narrative. As an origin story, the text may be compared to other textual traditions within this genre.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – World Cultures & Global Issues
ENG213: BROADCAST JOURNALISM
Section: 0925 | M 11:45 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., W 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.
This course introduces students to the fundamentals of producing audio stories for broadcast and podcast. Students are exposed to best practices in audio reporting, newswriting, storytelling, producing, and presenting. There will be practical training and exercises in interviewing, writing for the ear, voicing, the effective use of sound, and basics of editing. The course also gives an overview of broadcast news business models, ethical issues, and today’s challenges.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Individual and Society
ENG219: INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL JOURNALISM
Section: 0927 | T 10:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., Th 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
The purpose of Introduction to Digital Journalism is to provide students with a basic working knowledge of online journalism today, including technical skills using blogs and social media, and producing video, audio, and still digital photographs to enhance written stories. Students will look at existing examples of professional digital journalism and create their own content combining writing, photos, videos, and audio on their own blogs or custom websites.
Journalism Option: Program Elective
ENG238: SCREENWRITING
Section: 0930 | T 2:15–5:35 p.m.
This is a course in the art and craft of writing a fictional narrative for the screen. Screenwriting genres and applications vary widely, but all reach audiences through storytelling. Students examine the ways cinematic narratives show rather than tell. Students create their own 10-minute movie script and explore scene and act structure, character development, dialogue, description, and more. Professional script standards and screenplay software are also covered.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Creative Expression
ENG241: LITERATURE, HEALTH, AND MEDICINE
Section: 0932 | T 9:15–11:30 a.m., Th 10:30–11:30 a.m.
This course examines the relationships between literature, health, and medicine through critical analysis of fictional and nonfictional texts. Students explore how literature shapes understandings of health and illness, and how diverse experiences of health inform literary expression. The course introduces the practice of narrative medicine and highlights the role of storytelling and reading in medical encounters.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Individual and Society
ENG248: LATINO/LATINA WRITING OF THE UNITED STATES
Section: 0935 | T 1:00–3:15 p.m., Th 1:00–2:00 p.m.
This course examines contributions to American literature made by Chicana, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican women writers in the United States over the last thirty years. It surveys Latina writing and explores how Latina writers represent community, class, race, gender, culture, nation, and ethnicity in their works. Poetry, fiction, essays, autobiographical prose, and dramatic works by authors such as Julia Alvarez, Gloria Anzaldua, Sandra Cisneros, Judith Ortiz Cofer, and others will be studied.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – U.S. Experience in its Diversity
English Major: Program Elective
Creative Writing Track: Program Elective
ENG250: THE SHORT STORY
Section: 0937 | T 2:15–5:35 p.m.
This course examines the global development of the short story and the changing conventions of the genre. Students read and analyze representative short stories in their biographical, social, historical, and artistic contexts, as well as consider their contemporary significance. Readings will reflect a diversity of national, cultural, racial, and ethnic experiences and perceptions.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – World Cultures & Global Issues
ENG261: LGBTQ LITERATURE
Section: 0945 | T 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., Th 10:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.
This course explores the artistic and political impact of literature by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) writers. It examines the experiences of LGBTQ individuals and communities as represented through fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry. Writers include E.M. Forster, May Sarton, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzalda, Janet Mock, and others.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Individual and Society
ENG271: POETRY WRITING
Section: 0950 | M 3:25–5:35 p.m., W 4:35–5:35 p.m.
An introduction to poetry writing through practice and revision. Students use various styles and forms, including sonnet, blank verse, sestina, and free verse. Peer critiques, readings, and hearing poets discuss their writing process are integral to the course. By the semester’s end, students learn how to submit poetry for publication.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Creative Expression
English Major: Program Elective
Creative Writing Track: Program Elective
ENG272: LITERATURE AND FILM
Section: 0951 | F 9:15 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
This course studies the similarities and differences between literature and film. Students read literary works and watch films from different periods, styles, and global locations to explore issues of author, genre, point-of-view, characterization, narrator, and other key topics. The course illuminates narrative, structural, social, and aesthetic characteristics of the two media.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Creative Expression
ENG274: CREATIVE NON-FICTION WORKSHOP
Section: 0953 | T 9:15–11:30 a.m., Th 9:15–10:15 a.m.
This course introduces students to creative non-fiction writing, using true events for literary effect. Assignments include personal essay, memoir, literary journalism, and biography. Students improve technique and individual voices, participate in group critique, read published authors, and learn to submit work for publication.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Creative Expression
ENG276: FICTIONAL WRITING WORKSHOP
Section: 5631 | M, W 6:00–7:30 p.m.
This workshop focuses on the technical and stylistic elements of crafting fiction with the goal of creating fully revised, original short stories. The course features draft sessions, reading world writers, and possibly field trips to hear published authors. The final portion addresses preparation for professional story submission.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Creative Expression
English Major: Program Elective
Creative Writing Track: Program Elective
ENG277: ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP
Section: 0955 | M 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., W 10:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.
This capstone introduces students to the public presentation of creative writing. Students write reviews of published collections, workshop and edit their own manuscript portfolios, and create an Author Statement introducing their work, influences, and literary aesthetic.
ENG288: ENGLISH INTERNSHIP: THE LIT
Section: 0960 | F 9:15–11:30 a.m. (Hybrid)
This internship provides majors with the opportunity to design and complete a substantial scholarly, research, creative, or social project, often resulting in publication or presentation. May include group internship projects producing in-house publications such as a student newspaper or literary journal.
English Major: Program Elective
Journalism Option: Program Elective
ENG292: AMERICAN LITERATURE I
Section: 0966 | M 9:15–11:30 a.m., W 9:15–10:15 a.m.
This course examines the development of American literature from the colonial/contact period to the emancipation of African Americans at the end of the Civil War. A wide range of writers, texts, and themes that have shaped American identities are surveyed, including fiction, poetry, essays, and autobiographies by Douglass, Dickinson, Emerson, Franklin, Wheatley, and more.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – U.S. Experience in its Diversity
ENG293: AMERICAN LITERATURE II
Section: 5636 | T, Th 6:00–7:30 p.m.
This course covers the development of literature from the end of the Civil War to the present, including major movements such as Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. Students explore fiction, poetry, essay, drama, and autobiography by authors including Hemingway, Toomer, Miller, Morrison, and Silko.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – U.S. Experience in its Diversity
ENG296: LITERATURE IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Section: 0970 | T 3:25–4:25 p.m., Th 2:15–4:25 p.m.
This course explores the relationship between literature and the historical contexts in which works are created and interpreted. Students read literary texts, criticism, and historical documents, including newspaper articles, political tracts, and letters. The course includes at least two different national literatures and covers one historical period before 1800 and one after.
ENN198: INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING
Section: 0975 | T 4:35–5:35 p.m., Th 3:25–5:35 p.m.
This course introduces students to the genres of creative writing—poetry, fiction, plays, and/or creative nonfiction—by using New York as a writers’ laboratory. Field trips to museums, streets, parks, and other city locations will inspire writing projects. Readings and visits with New York writers complement these activities.
English Major: Program Elective
Creative Writing Track: Program Requirement
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Creative Expression
Session II
ENG225: AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
Section: 8315 | M, W 5:45–9:05 p.m.
This course is a survey of African American literature from its beginning to the present day, including the slavery era, the era of accommodation and protest, the Harlem Renaissance, the integrationist movement, the era of black aestheticism, and the post-1960’s decades. Writers to be studied might include Wheatley, Douglass, DuBois, Hughes, McKay, Brown, Wright, Brooks, Walker, Ellison, Baldwin, Hansberry, Baraka, Morrison, Naylor, and Wilson, among others.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – U.S. Experience in its Diversity
ENG235: CULTURAL IDENTITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE
Section: 7490 | T, Th 10:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
This course explores the diverse voices of writers in the United States through a consideration of cultural context. Literature to be discussed may include the contributions of African-American, Asian-American, Euro-American, Latino/a-American, and/or Native-American writers. Themes such as cultural dislocation, alienation, and re-envisioning identity will be highlighted.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – U.S. Experience in its Diversity
ENG238: SCREENWRITING
Section: 8320 | T, Th 5:45–9:05 p.m.
This is a course in the art and craft of writing a fictional narrative for the screen. Screenwriting genres and applications vary widely, yet everyone reaches their audience through storytelling. Students examine the ways cinematic narratives show rather than tell. Students create their own 10-minute movie script and explore scene and act structure, character development, dialogue, description, and more. Students learn professional standards for writing for the screen and how to use screenplay software.
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Creative Expression
ENN198: INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING
Section: 7500 | M, W 10:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
This course introduces students to the elements of creative writing by using New York as a writer’s laboratory. Field trips to city places such as schools, streets, and parks will lead to writing that uses these places and their people as themes. Students will write creative pieces—sketches, brief narratives, poems, and dramatic dialogues dealing with this glimpse of New York life. Reading and visits with New York writers writing on New York themes will complement these activities.
English Major: Program Elective
Creative Writing Track: Program Requirement
CUNY Pathways: Flexible Core – Creative Expression