Fall 2026 Courses

Undergraduate English Courses
Graduate English Courses
Undergraduate Writing Courses
Graduate Writing Courses

Course descriptions are subject to change based on instructor submissions. If the instructor has not submitted a course description, please refer to the PSU Bulletin for more information.

Notes:

If a course is designated as low-cost, the course materials will cost $40 or less.
If a course is designated as no-cost, students are not required to purchase any course materials.

Resources

Fall 2026: Undergraduate English Courses

ENG 201 001 INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE

Instructor: Jonathan Walker
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 254 001 SURVEY OF AMERICAN LIT II

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 300 001 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Alastair Hunt
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 300 002 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Josh Epstein
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 300 003 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: John Smyth
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 302U 002 SURV OF CH/LA LIT

Instructor: Cristina Herrera
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 305U 001 TOP IN FLM: CINEMATIC CITY

Instructor: Josh Epstein
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

In 1927, the German film director Walter Ruttmann set to work on his film Berlin: The Symphony of a Great City. “Since I began in the cinema,” Ruttmann wrote, “I had the idea of … creating a symphonic film out of the millions of energies that create the life of a big city.” For Ruttmann, the young medium of cinema offered a perfect opportunity to capture the speed, rhythm, and noise of the modern city. In the century that has elapsed since Ruttmann’s film, generations of filmmakers have been drawn to the city as an object of artistic inspiration. The aesthetic vision that Ruttmann found so appealing—the idea that a city, like a musical composition, comprises a rhythmic choreography of human and metallic bodies—isn’t always as innocent as it sounds (if the city is like a composition, who’s doing the composing?!). It attaches to questions of class, labor, capitalism, race, gender, violence, sexuality, and civic infrastructure in ways both obvious and subtle. Cities can be represented as a space of play and leisure, violence and surveillance, openness and claustrophobia.

This online course examines cinematic treatments of the metropolis, from the late silent era to the present. We’ll analyze how characteristics of the modern city—hyperstimulus, technology, speed, transportation, infrastructure, noise—are treated in film, thinking about how directors give form to the chaotic shocks and collisions of urban life. We will see social questions collide with aesthetic ones: is the city beautiful or ugly? Does speed energize or exhaust us? Does technology dehumanize us or unleash creative potential? Do films emphasize the city’s fragmented alienation or its cohesion? Or all of the above (my favorite answer!)?

To sharpen our skills of analyzing films as artistic and cultural texts, we will use one textbook: Ed Sikov's Film Studies. Our films, available via Kanopy or Canvas, will be chosen from the following (a few won't make the cut):

Metropolis (1927; dir. Fritz Lang)
Berlin: The Symphony of a City (1927; dir. Walter Ruttmann)
Man With a Movie Camera (1929; dir. Dziga Vertov)
Modern Times (1936; dir. Charlie Chaplin)
Rome, Open City (1946; dir. Roberto Rossellini)
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962; dir. Agnes Varda)
Playtime (1967; dir. Jacques Tati)
La Haine (1995; dir. Mathieu Kassovitz)
Medicine for Melancholy (2008; dir. Barry Jenkins)
Shorts: Manhatta (1921; dir. Sheeler and Strand); Autumn Fire: A Film Poem (1931; dir. Herman Weinberg); A Bronx Morning (1931; dir. Jay Leyda); Listen to Britain (1941; dir. Humphrey Jennings); The Wonder Ring (1955; dir. Stan Brakhage); Bridges-Go-Round (1958; dir. Shirley Clark)

ENG 305U 002 TOP IN FLM: HITCHCOCK

Instructor: Michael Clark
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 306U 002 TOP: RACIAL GAZE IN LIT FILM

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 307U 001 SCIENCE FICTION

Instructor: Bill Knight
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 325U 001 POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE

Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 326 001 LIT, COMMUNITY, DIFFERENCE

Instructor: Marie Lo
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 327 001 CULTURE, IMPER, GLOBALIZATION

Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 330U 001 JEWISH & ISRAELI LITERATURE

Instructor: Michael Weingrad
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 331U 001 INTRO RHETORIC & COMP

Instructor: Dan DeWeese
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

Introduction to Rhetoric and Composition Studies offers students an opportunity to examine the nature of persuasion in a multimedia world, the battle between traditional and visual literacies, and contemporary arguments about how and why writing should be taught to American students. We look at the struggles for rhetorical power in ancient Greece, strategies of visual rhetoric from classical sculpture to contemporary film, television, and social media, and the impact of generative AI. Although history provides the course’s structure, the focus is on such perennial issues as the relationship of writing to speech and reading, the teaching of writing (and the role of audience in composing), the relationship between writing and “the self,” and the political implications bound up in differing representations of thought and methods of argument.

ENG 340U 001 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

Instructor: Keri Behre
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 343U 001 ROMANTICISM

Instructor: Alastair Hunt
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course introduces students to some of the greatest hits, one-hit wonders, and lost treasures of the literature written in Britain in the decades between the 1780s and the 1830s. The Romantic period is traditionally understood to contain poetry by six white men that exhibits a powerful imagination and a preoccupation with nature and the self. But over the last few decades scholars have demonstrated Romanticism to be a much more diverse, complex, and interesting phenomenon. Romantic literature, we now know, encompasses not just the “big six,” but also works by women, working-class people, and individuals of African descent. Besides all those poems, these Romantic-period writers composed novels, essays, and plays. And rather than being an expression of imagination alone, this literature reflects, and reflects critically on, a range of real-world phenomena: the emergence of industrial capitalism, political revolutions in France and Haiti, the rise of radical politics in Britain, the abolition of slavery in the British empire, the role of the artist in society, feminism, environmentalism, and the start of the Anthropocene. This course, then, offers students a chance not just to read some pretty cool poems, nonfiction, and one novel, but also to experience Romanticism as a cultural treasury that, when read closely, provides resources for thinking critically about how we, individually and together, live and how we might yet live.

ENG 343 fulfills the English major's historical literacy requirement.

Required books:

Lynch, Deidre Shauna and Eric Eisner, eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. 11th ed., W. W. Norton, 2024. Vol. D of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6 vols. (ISBN 9781324062677)
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: The Original 1818 Text. Edited by D. L. MacDonald and Kathleen Scherf, 3rd ed., Broadview, 2012. (ISBN 9781554811038)

ENG 344U 001 VICTORIAN LITERATURE

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 475 001 ADV TOP: VICTORIAN LIT

Instructor: Kathi Inman Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 351U 001 AFRICAN AMERICAN LIT I

Instructor: Courtney Terry
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 371 001 THE NOVEL

Instructor: John Smyth
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

Primary texts are Balzac’s “Sarrasine,” Stendhal’s The Red and The Black, Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, and Isak Dinesen’s Ehrengard. Theoretical commentary will include Roland Barthes’ S/Z and René Girard’s Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, and Susan Gubar and Marianne Stecher-Hansen on Dinesen.

The main requirements are a midterm and a final essay, and weekly contributions to Canvas discussion (except in week 10). The first contribution will be your own post by Thursday night; the second will reply to someone else’s by Sunday night. Begin by reading Balzac's "Sarrasine" at the end of S/Z, and do your first Thursday post on that, discussing any aspect of the story that interests you. By Week 2, you should include Barthes' commentary in your Thursday post.

Using works by French, Russian, Danish, and Irish writers, we study in this class how theorists and critics make claims for their exceptional importance in understanding the modern world. The main focus of the class is the novelistic treatment of desire. Often this is amorous desire, but it also includes economic and even intellectual desire.

This class will be conducted entirely in writing without class meetings or zoom lectures. Guides to thinking about our texts will be provided each week by the Professor’s Notes and other critical commentary, and biweekly dialogue between students will occur as described above. If email is not sufficient for communication with me, I will schedule at least one zoom meeting with any students who request this (on an entirely voluntary basis).

At the end of the modules you will find links to PDF copies of Barthes' S/Z (including Balzac's story "Sarrasine"), Girard's Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, Dinesen's Ehrengard, and O'Brien's The Third Policeman - which is now also available as an ebook via the library. In the reading folder under our "library resources" you will find online access to Gubar and Stecher-Hansen on Dinesen, and various commentaries on O'Brien. The only books you have to buy or find elsewhere are the Norton Critical Edition of Stendhal's Red and Black and Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground with introduction by Pevear.

ENG 372U 001 TOP: LESBIAN&WOMXN IDS IN LIT

Instructor: Sarah DeYoreo
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 385U 001 CONTEMPORARY LIT

Instructor: Bishupal Limbu
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

ENG 387U 001 WOMEN'S LITERATURE

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 494 001 TOP: PSYC LIT FILM

Instructor: Michael Clark
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Fall 2026: Graduate English Courses

ENG 500 001 PROBLEMS AND METHODS

Instructor: Jonathan Walker
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

As its title suggests, this graduate course will introduce you to some of the central problems that scholars address in literary texts as well as some of the key methodologies that they use to examine those problems. Our approach will be both practical and theoretical. This approach will allow us to develop specific, applicable skills in our writing and conversations, while also understanding some of the conceptual underpinnings and implications of literary critical work. Our readings will therefore range from nuts-and-bolts questions to more abstract ideas that modify the way we read and grapple with literary texts.

The course assignments will support both the practical skills and theoretical knowledge you will acquire. By virtue of your presence in the graduate program, I will assume that you already possess some dexterity with literary analysis, but I do not expect you to be experts, so I encourage you to ask plenty of questions and to be patient with yourselves and your peers as you wrestle with new concepts. A ten-week term is a short time, however, so our focus and readings will be selective and strategic. Nonetheless, by the end of term you should be a stronger close-reader, be more attuned to the elements and vocabulary of literary form, be able to engage with scholarship in effective ways, gain more control over your own scholarly writing, and develop an awareness of how theory informs the work of literary criticism. Here are our course objectives:

To develop and expand close-reading skills as an entryway into larger questions of interpretation.
To understand and appreciate the significance of formal elements and rhetorical devices, including genre and generic conventions.
To understand critical arguments and scholarly conversations, including the ability to identify and summarize critical positions and use secondary material strategically.
To refine writing skills: constructing interpretive questions, crafting arguments, organizing paragraphs, using appropriate evidence, developing style, assessing rhetorical situations, addressing specific audiences, and writing with purpose.
To engage with theoretical essays and approaches.

ENG 507 001 SEM: SATIRE/CRINGE

Instructor: Bill Knight
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Cringe: Satire, Awkwardness, and the Ethics of Social Failure

Cringe is one of the defining affects of contemporary culture. We cringe when someone misreads a room, tries too hard, exposes too much need, performs status badly, fails at sincerity, reveals the body beneath the social surface, or becomes visible in a way they cannot control. The experience can be funny, but the comedy it provides is unstable. Cringe draws us into relation with another person’s exposure. We may laugh, recoil, judge, pity, identify, or feel implicated, often in the same moment.

This seminar studies cringe as a mode of satire, a structure of social feeling, and a way of thinking about ethical relation. Our central question will be: what kind of ethical relation does cringe establish between the spectator and the cringeworthy figure, act, or scene? Cringe often depends on a mismatch of feeling. Someone feels too much, too little, too openly, too strangely, or in a way the social scene cannot absorb. The cringeworthy figure may fail to feel the shame that others expect, or may reveal a desire, confidence, vulnerability, or confusion that others cannot comfortably share.

The course is historically grounded in pre-1900 literature and theory. We will begin with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works that explore bodily exposure, manners, shame, wit, bad taste, class misrecognition, failed sympathy, humiliation, and the social dangers of being seen. These older works will give us a genealogy for contemporary cringe. From Swift’s satiric bodies and Burney’s scenes of public embarrassment to Austen’s ethical dramas of wit, Melville’s office of failed responsibility, Dostoevsky’s humiliation, and Flaubert’s exposed desire, we will ask how literature made social failure visible before “cringe” became a modern category.

The contemporary portion of the seminar will ask what happens to these older problems under the conditions of visual media, internet culture, platformed selfhood, dating, friendship, fame, and involuntary visibility. We will examine awkward becoming, online sincerity, adult loneliness, social overexposure, and the terror of being perceived. Contemporary works such as Elif Batuman’s The Idiot, Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This, Andrew DeYoung’s Friendship, and Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario will help us think about cringe as a form of modern social life, as the moment when the effort to be recognized becomes embarrassing or uncontrollable.

Throughout the course, we’ll read literary texts alongside theory from satire studies, affect theory, sociology, queer theory, disability studies, media studies, and humor studies. We will pay particular attention to the politics of cringe: who gets made cringeworthy, whose feelings are treated as improper, whose vulnerability becomes comic, and how norms of class, gender, sexuality, race, disability, professionalism, and bodily comportment shape the experience of embarrassment. Students will write short analytic responses to specific cringe scenes, lead discussion on key theoretical concepts, and develop a final seminar paper that places a literary or media text in conversation with broader questions about satire, shame, spectatorship, performance, and ethical relation.

Primary works:

Frances Burney, Evelina. ISBN: 978-0199536931
Jane Austen, Emma. ISBN: 978-0198837756
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground. ISBN: 978-0679734529
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary. ISBN: 978-0143106494
Elif Batuman, The Idiot. ISBN: 978-0143111061
Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This. ISBN: 978-0593189597

Shorter primary works provided on Canvas:

Jonathan Swift (Selections from Gulliver’s Travels, especially Book III and possibly Book IV; “The Lady’s Dressing Room”; “Cassinus and Peter”; possibly “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed”), Alexander Pope / Scriblerus (selections from The Dunciad; selections from Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus or Peri Bathous); Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener”

Films and media:

Andrew DeYoung, Friendship
Kristoffer Borgli, Dream Scenario
Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, The Curse
And likely selected scenes from The Office, Nathan for You, The Rehearsal, I Think You Should Leave, Eighth Grade, and possibly Fleabag, Peep Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, or selected reality/social-media examples.

Theoretical readings:

Likely selections from Adam Smith; Henri Bergson; Erving Goffman; Pierre Bourdieu; Sianne Ngai; Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick; Sara Ahmed; Lauren Berlant; J. Logan Smilges, “Cringe Theory”; and selected humor/media theory

ENG 518 001 TEACHING COLLEGE COMPOSITION

Instructor: Keri Behre
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 575 001 ADV TOP: VICTORIAN LIT

Instructor: Kathi Inman Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 594 001 TOP IN CRIT THRY: PSYC LIT FI

Instructor: Michael Clark
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Fall 2026: Undergraduate Writing Courses

WR 121Z 001 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 121Z 002 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 121Z 003 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: Keri Behre
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 210 001 GRAMMAR REFRESHER

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 212 001 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 212 002 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 213 001 INTRO POETRY WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 213 002 INTRO POETRY WRITING

Instructor: John Beer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 214 001 INTRO NONFICTION WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 222 001 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 222 002 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 227Z 001 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 227Z 002 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 227Z 003 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Sidouane Patcha Lum
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 227Z 004 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 228 001 WRITING FOR MASS MEDIA

Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

Writing for Mass Media introduces and develops skills in interviewing, event reporting, and delves into the vibrant ethical and legal debates around fact-checked media writing, This online asynchronous course is built around a core of conducting on-the-ground reporting in and around PSU. WR 228 counts towards the University Writing Requirement, and toward the Minor in English or the Minor in Writing.

Our textbook is Vincent Filak's "Dynamics of Media Writing." Old copies of the 2nd edition (ISBN 9781506381466) or 3rd edition (9781544385686) are fine; they all have the same chapter numbers and titles as the more expensive new 4th edition. Other readings from the course will come from publicly available local sources like OPB, Willamette Week, and the Vanguard.

WR 300 001 TOP: STORYTELLING SOC CHANGE

Instructor: Kate Comer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 301 001 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

Instructor: Bishupal Limbu
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 301 002 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 312 001 INTERMED FICTION WR

Instructor: Gabriel Urza
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 312 002 INTERMED FICTION WR

Instructor: Leni Zumas
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 313 001 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WRITING

Instructor: John Beer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 001 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 002 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 003 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Susan Kirtley
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 004 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 005 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method:

WR 323 006 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Susan Kirtley
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 007 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 008 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 327 001 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 327 002 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: Sidouane Patcha Lum
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 327 003 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: Sidouane Patcha Lum
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 398 001 WRITING COMICS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 410 001 TOP: LITERARY MAGAZINES

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

This course introduces students to the local and national world of literary magazines. By analyzing various submission, editing, and publishing processes, this class will promote critical thinking and insight regarding the practices of literary magazines. Students will also gain industry experience by reading and discussing Portland Review’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and mixed-genre submissions, as well as write reviews and essays with the goal of publication. Students interested in creative writing and publishing, whether they are new or experienced in these fields, are welcome.

During this class, students will...

Gain practical, vocational experience in the fields of editing and publishing
Identify crafted effects in published and unpublished creative prose and poetry
Build familiarity with Portland Review's editors, as well as publishers and art organizations in the Portland community and beyond
Analyze and reflect on ethical practices in literary publishing
Pursue personal goals related to literary magazines

About Portland Review:

Founded in 1956, Portland Review publishes prose, poetry, art, and translations reflecting a wide spectrum of aesthetic styles and voices. Produced by the graduate students in Portland State University’s Department of English, Portland Review is proud to publish both established and emerging writers, as well as showcase a diverse spectrum of literary and artistic engagement across genres and disciplines. To learn more, visit portlandreview.org.

WR 410 002 TOP: COMICS PUBLISHING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

WR 412 001 ADV FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Gabriel Urza
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 412 002 ADV FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Janice Lee
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

In this class, students will engage with topics related to craft (point of view, character, narrative, setting, etc.), look more closely at their own relationship with language, and aim to produce one complete draft of original fiction. Students will also participate in workshops and provide generative feedback for the works of their peers. Our work will be guided by various writing & revision exercises, as well as readings by diverse contemporary authors. This term, we’ll focus on rethinking the cultural values of craft alongside the core text for the class this term: Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses.

WR 416 001 SCREENWRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 420 001 WRITING STUDIO

Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

Writing Studio is a cross-genre creative space for developing new writing and for reimagining your prior writing. Along with prompts and exercises for creating new work and experimenting with texts, we'll read fiction, poetry, nonfiction and research writings that embody aspects of development, reflection, and revision. This course counts towards the University Writing Requirement. It can be used as an upper-division elective in the English BA/BS, the Creative Writing BFA, or the English or Writing minors.

Texts: Carmen Maria Machado's In The Dream House (ISBN 9781644450383) and George Saunders's A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (9781984856036). Other course readings will be material available free of charge in handouts or online.

WR 425 001 ADVANCED TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Sarah Read
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

This course is a good choice for any student considering a writing-based career. This course focuses on the study and practice of foundational ways of thinking and professional skills for students planning to pursue a role or a career as a technical or professional writer across a variety of industries and disciplines, including technology, health, engineering, science, manufacturing and non-profits. Course topics include audience analysis, writing and editing in plain language for diverse audiences, common genres, ethics, collaborative writing, and project management. Students author individual and collaborative projects for a personal or program professional portfolio.

WR 426 001 DOCUMENT DESIGN

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

This course approaches document design as a strategic, user-centered practice of information design, guiding students through the document lifecycle from concept through iterative design and testing to final production. Information design transforms complex information into clear, usable communication. Students apply rhetorical theory, usability, and core design principles to create effective layouts, making informed choices about typography, hierarchy, and structure. Emphasis is placed on how design shapes credibility and carries ethical responsibility. Through hands-on projects, students develop a collection of work that demonstrates clear, effective communication for real-world use.

WR 431 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

This course is open to all upper-division students—no prior technology experience necessary. In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, writers play a critical role in communicating complex information to diverse audiences. This course offers an in-depth exploration of how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance the capabilities and efficiency of writers, with eyes wide open about the risks.

Topics covered in the course include:

Understanding AI Fundamentals
AI Tools and Software
Automated Documentation Generation
Content Optimization
Language and Style Enhancement
Ethical Considerations
Practical Applications and Case Studies
Future Trends and Innovations

WR 434 001 WIC: SCIENCE WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Hybrid

This course prepares students to be effective writers and communicators about science for both scientific and public audiences. Students will study a variety of genres of scientific writing, including scientific research reports, research posters, research proposals, science journalism, science non-fiction and various digital genres (e.g., blogs and websites). Students will learn rhetorical and stylistic strategies for writing across multiple audience types about science with a focus on developing life-long rhetorical skills applicable across many research and writing careers.

WR 457 001 PERSONAL ESSAY WRITING

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

The word “essay” derives from the French “essai,” meaning “to attempt, try, or experiment.” In this workshop we will subvert formulaic approaches to writing, and instead embrace the personal essay as a dynamic art form that allows us to meditate on a subject without necessarily arriving at any simple conclusions. Together we’ll explore various purposes for “essaying,” from attempting to heal past traumas, to enacting political or cultural change, to simply expressing delight. We will experiment with lyrical flights, poetic moves, and fictional technique—all of which are all admissible within the bounds of a single essay. You will also learn to choreograph various levels of narrative intimacy and distance by engaging with works that dive deep into personal and emotionally charged material, while also expanding outward, well beyond the self, to weave in news from the wider world.

WR 460 001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course offers an introduction to the book publishing industry. Students will be introduced to the history and current state of the agents and processes that constitute the book publishing industries in the US. Students will work together as mock publishing houses to produce a portfolio.

Course Objectives:

Converse intelligently about the book publishing industry
Deliver engaging oral presentations
Work effectively and professionally in a group
Write in various formats (from marketing material to research papers)

WR 461 001 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 462 001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 466 001 DIGITAL SKILLS

Instructor: Kathi Inman Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 474 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Publishing Studio & Lab are cross listed and split listed courses, which means they run concurrently. Enrollment depends on whether you need a one-credit or four-credit course as an undergraduate or graduate student for your individual degree requirements. There are no prerequisites.

Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade book publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.

Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

explain and understand the book production cycle;
competently use industry-standard terminology;
analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

WR 475 001 PUBLISHING LAB

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

explain and understand the book production cycle;
competently use industry-standard terminology;
analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

Fall 2026: Graduate Writing Courses

WR 507 001 SEM: MFA CREATIVE NONFICTION

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

From Imagination to Reality: The MFA Thesis Manuscript

This special-topic seminar will help MFA students at any stage in their graduate studies with the process of imagining, generating, and organizing a Thesis manuscript. During guest visits from MFA Program alumni, we’ll hear about their own Thesis-writing process—as well as their post-graduation process of transforming their Thesis manuscript into a book-length work. We’ll seek further inspiration by reading and discussing published books (which span a variety of genres and forms) by each visiting alum.

We’ll also dedicate class-time to discussing the general timelines and logistics for working with an individual Thesis advisor, assembling a Thesis committee, and engaging in a Thesis “defense.” Students will begin to compile a simple bibliography of outside texts that inspire their creative work or contribute to the research process. If time allows, we will hold informal workshops to discuss excerpts from each other’s Thesis projects-in-progress, with an eye toward recurring motifs and cohesiveness across various pieces.

Tentative Reading List:

Holding: A Memoir about Mothers, Drugs and Other Comforts by Karleigh Frisbie Brogan
Ten-Cent Flower and Other Territories: Poems by Charity Yoro
Staring Contest: Essays About Eyes by Joshua James Amberson
Heartbroke: Stories by Chelsea Bieker

WR 510 001 TOP: ACADEMIC WRITING

Instructor: Kate Comer
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

Writing is essential to academic success but often neglected in graduate coursework. As a result, developing scholars often find themselves struggling with anxiety and/or inefficiency that can undermine their performance and career prospects. They also risk missing out on the real pleasures of intellectual labor and community engagement that make this work worthwhile.

Based on feedback from PSU students, this course has been designed to boost your confidence and competence in academic communication. Welcoming students from all fields and stages of graduate work, the course offers a transferable lens for engaging scholarship, practical strategies for reading and writing, and opportunities to apply them to your own research. Sharing these learning experiences with grad students from across campus will also foster personal insights and mutual support systems that will serve you well in the future.

WR 510 002 TOP: COMICS PUBLISHING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

WR 521 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP FICTION

Instructor: Leni Zumas
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 521 002 MFA CORE WORKSHOP FICTION

Instructor: Janice Lee
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

In this workshop, we will examine the entire spectrum of the writing process, exploring the relationship between our own expectations of creative practice, language, genre, and narrative and the values we weave into our own writing. We will read various essays on craft, writing, language, and ways of engaging with the world, and also work on our own definitions & reconceptions of major craft concepts, training ourselves to read and “listen” more deeply to form and language as expression, including work outside of our home genres. Students will be invited to write in any genre or form.

This workshop will be a generative workshop, meaning we will work on generating new writing, as well as collaborating on generative revision exercises where we will apply a variety of of revision procedures to our work while re-envisioning the structural frameworks that shape not only our texts, but also our language at the micro-level of line, sentence, and paragraph. We will also think critically about writing as a unique and collaborative process of becoming, and engage in critical analyses and discussions of peers’ work, participating in generative feedback as a collaborative process for amplifying, expanding, and multiplying possibilities in our work.

Additionally, this fall workshop will be a co-created container for nurturing community within the program and across strands and act as a portal into the greater PSU creative writing community.

This workshop is required for all incoming MFA students (all genres).

WR 525 001 ADVANCED TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Sarah Read
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

This course is a good choice for any student considering a writing-based career. This course focuses on the study and practice of foundational ways of thinking and professional skills for students planning to pursue a role or a career as a technical writer across a variety of industries and disciplines, including technology, health, engineering, science, manufacturing and non-profits. Course topics include audience analysis, writing and editing in plain language for diverse audiences, common genres, ethics, collaborative writing, and project management. Students author individual and collaborative projects for a personal or program professional portfolio.

WR 525 is a core requirement for the master’s in technical and professional writing.

WR 526 001 DOCUMENT DESIGN

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 531 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

This course is open to all graduate students—no prior technology experience necessary. In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, writers play a critical role in communicating complex information to diverse audiences. This course offers an in-depth exploration of how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance the capabilities and efficiency of writers, with eyes wide open about the risks.

Topics covered in the course include:

Understanding AI Fundamentals
AI Tools and Software
Automated Documentation Generation
Content Optimization
Language and Style Enhancement
Ethical Considerations
Practical Applications and Case Studies
Future Trends and Innovations

WR 534 001 SCIENCE WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Hybrid

WR 550 001 PORTLAND REVIEW

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 550 002 PORTLAND REVIEW

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 560 001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Course Objectives:

Converse intelligently about the book publishing industry
Deliver engaging oral presentations
Work effectively and professionally in a group
Write in various formats (from marketing material to research papers)

WR 561 001 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 562 001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 566 001 DIGITAL SKILLS

Instructor: Kathi Inman Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 574 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

explain and understand the book production cycle;
competently use industry-standard terminology;
analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

WR 575 001 PUBLISHING LAB

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

explain and understand the book production cycle;
competently use industry-standard terminology;
analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

WR 579 001 RESEARCHING BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Rachel Noorda
Instructional Method: Hybrid

WR 579 002 RESEARCHING BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Rachel Noorda
Instructional Method: Hybrid

WR 582 001 LIT AGENTS AND ACQUISITIONS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting