Liberal Arts

In this course, speakers of other languages will develop the skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing in English necessary for success in all college classes and adjustment to life in the United States. Students will read articles, essays, and stories; write short narrative and expository essays; develop their vocabulary; and review beginning and intermediate grammar structures.

A continuation of LENG-104, this course will help speakers of other languages improve their ability to speak English effectively, listen with understanding, read with comprehension, and write with clarity. Students will read pre-college-level materials (articles, essays, short stories); write narrative, expository, and persuasive essays; expand their vocabulary; and review intermediate grammar structures.

A continuation of LENG-105, this course will help speakers of other langauges develop reading, writing, speaking, listening, and critical-thinking skills necessary for success in LENG-111 and other college classes. Students will write short essays (narrative, expository, persuasive) focusing on issues of clarity, organization, development, unity, and coherence. They will read and analyze college-level texts, including articles, essays, and short stories; develop their vocabulary in academic and non-academic contexts; and review advanced grammar structures.

In this course, students explore the writing process as a tool of thinking and a mode of exploration. Students develop academic writing and expository prose techniques for creating clear and coherent papers. The course covers a wide range of skills necessary for college-level work including sentence-level issues, theses, paragraph structure, organization, form, and style. A focus will be placed on writing styles appropriate to audience and purpose. In addition, the process of writing and revision will be emphasized during the course. Students develop critical thinking skills and learn to evaluate, utilize, and cite primary and secondary printed and electronic sources. Students begin to cultivate a strong, individual, and creative voice by developing oral communication skills for a variety of settings.

This course is designed to improve the student's performance in public speaking. Emphasis will be placed on the development of personal style, confidence, and security; the construction, and delivery of various forms of speeches; and on the acceptance and use of evaluative, constructive criticism.

In this course, students explore different themes and genres within the field of literature, examining critical and creative thinking through literary analysis. Specifically, students will explore literary genres and devices, learn the conventions of literary analysis and elements of literary theory, and apply textual evidence in response to literary works. Students will explore how culture, society, and history impact literature and will learn how to discuss those elements. Although all sections will offer exposure to poetry and fiction, each LENG-223 course has a different focus and will explore readings from a variety of cultural perspectives. The titles of individual sections of LENG-223 identify the theme of that section and descriptions for each section are available at www.berklee.edu/liberal-arts.

In this course students explore the elements of poetry and lyric---the relationship between meaning and rhythm, meaning and sound, and meaning and form---through a survey of poems and songs, on a page and stage, in addition to a few opportunities to write poetry. Texts studied will include nursery rhymes, songs, narratives, blank verse, limericks, ballads, sound poetry, shout-outs, slam poetry, and nonsense. We will participate in creative and analytical ways of reading and responding to lyric and poetry through studying some fixed forms (such as ballad, ghazal, and villanelle), exploring what happens when words hit the air, and looking at the close relationship between music and poetry, through the "music" of language and discussion of lyrics and their relation to poetry. 

This course focuses on film adaptations of novels and short stories, paying special attention to similarities and differences in narrative technique. Students view various types of film adaptations and consider reasons for changes from the works of fiction. The course emphasizes the challenges in adapting a work of literature to the screen, the limits and possibilities of both art forms, and the techniques writers and filmmakers use to express their ideas. In addition to discussing works of fiction, film adaptations, and the roles of film director, screenwriter, and film scorer, students will have the opportunity to work on their own cinematic adaptation of a short story, including writing original music for the screen. Such authors as Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, James Baldwin, Isabelle Allende, Cormac McCarthy, Alexi Sherman, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Isak Dinesen, and Vladimir Nabokov will be considered, as well as such film directors as Claire Denis, Stanley Kubrick, Barry Jenkins, Jane Campion, David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Mira Nair, François Truffaut, Dee Rees, and Akira Kurosawa.

This course explores the elements of modern drama and film, including dramatic structure, theatrical spectacle, cinematography, conflict, characterization, aesthetics, acting, and directing. Students view a small number of films by directors such as Martin Scorsese, Julie Taymor, Francis and Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion, Quentin Tarantino, Susanne Bier, the Coen Brothers, Kathryn Bigelow, Alejandro González Iñárritu, or Christopher Nolan and read a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) or Diablo Cody (Juno). They consider Sondheim’s musical adaptation of Sweeney Todd and discuss several plays, choosing from such dramatists as August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Lorraine Hansberry, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, David Mamet, Adrienne Kennedy, Tennessee Williams, Caryl Churchill, Arthur Miller, Theresa Rebeck, and Yasmina Reza. 

In a workshop setting, students will participate in acting exercises and theater games as well as perform character monologues and improvisational scenes. Then, from the point of view of the actor, they will study several play scripts. The final demonstration of their understanding of the play scripts and characters will be the performance of a scene from the play.

This is an intensive workshop (seminar format) in which the student concentrates on the writing of poetry, on the use of metrics and form, and on the use of symbolism and metaphor.