Please note that this course satisfies the “PRE-1700” historical breadth requirement for the English major.
This course will introduce students to the history of English language. We will examine changes in the language resulting from contact and colonialism, as English expanded to other parts of the world. We will reflect on the ways in which diverse Englishes may or may not and should or should not be encouraged in academia, and we will explore positions in those debates as they recur in composition studies.
Assignments
Short reading responses
Midterm
Final exam
Required Texts
The History of English: An Introduction by Stephan Gramley. Routledge, 2012.
Readings on Laulima from Peter Elbow, David Bartholomae, and a few other scholars in Rhetoric and Composition