Announcement of Classes: Fall 2020

• Reading and Composition
• Lower Division
• Upper Division
• Graduate
• All Courses

BERKELEY CONNECT: Would you like to get together with your peers to talk about literature and books? Are you wondering what to do with your English major once you graduate? Do you want to hear about the books that most influenced your English professors? Do you want expert advice about which courses to take? Would you like to see your favorite professors debating about a great work of literature? If so, please join Berkeley Connect!

Berkeley Connect in English fosters community in the English Department and offers a space for “serious play”: small group discussions about ideas and texts, explorations of the many riches of the Berkeley campus, visits by department faculty and distinguished alumni, and one-on-one advice on courses and graduate programs from graduate students and professors.

Individual Berkeley Connect groups (each with about 15-20 students) meet every other week for one hour of “serious play.” On the off weeks, your graduate student mentor will hold office hours so that you can talk individually about issues important to you. Some of the small group meetings will be informal discussions of a range of literary issues, while others involve visits to places around campus (such as the Berkeley Art Museum and the Bancroft Library). On other weeks we will meet as a large group to hear from distinguished alumni, or to listen to Berkeley English professors talk about their own paths into literary study or debate key books in their field with other professors.

Berkeley Connect in English is intended for students who have taken classes in English and are interested in taking more. There are no essays, papers, exams, or outside reading for Berkeley Connect, just lots of good discussion, valuable advice, and all sorts of “serious play.” Although this is not a traditional course, each participant will enroll in and earn one unit for group independent study (as English 98BC or 198BC, on a Pass/NP basis). The program is not meant to offer extra help or tutoring on things like the mechanics of paper-writing or literary analysis; rather, it aims at providing a more relaxed and fun way to make the best of your Berkeley experience.

Berkeley Connect in English sections:  English 98BC sections 1-2 are intended for lower-division (freshmen and sophomore) students.  English 198BC sections 2, 5, and 7 are intended for continuing upper-division students; sections 3, 4, and 6 are intended for new junior transfer students; and sections 1 and 8 are intended for both.

Though Berkeley Connect may be repeated for credit, students may enroll in no more than one section of Berkeley Connect in English in a given semester.  Moreover, a Berkeley Connect class may not be taken in more than two departments in the same semester.

DE-CALS:

Please read the following instructions carefully:

(1)  All proposals for Fall 2020 English Department De-CAL classes must be submitted by WED., JULY 1 (rather than the later date listed on the Academic Senate's website). Students wishing to offer a De-CAL must provide, for approval, a carefully completed COCI Special Course Proposal Form, available at:  https://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/cpf_packet_2018.pdf, for 198 classes.  (Even if you have been a student facilitator of a De-CAL on the same topic sometime in the past, you must download a brand-new proposal form.)  The proposal includes—besides the information requested on the first part of the form—a fully developed syllabus of the proposed course; a course description, including the criteria for passing the course; a completed Unit Value worksheet; and the faculty sponsor's signed letter of support. (Make sure that the number of days that the proposed class will meet is the same wherever it is listed on the proposal. Also make sure that you have completed the training requirement for student facilitators, conducted by the Undergraduate Course Facilitator Training and Resources [UCFTR] program; facilitators are now being trained remotely via Zoom, so please check out the UCFTR's website at https://slc.berkeley.edu/ucftr for information about trainings and other services in support of De-CALs.)

(2)  COCI/the Academic Senate will not consider proposals that are not first signed by all the necessary people. Because the proposal form must be handled remotely this semester, all the parties involved—the student facilitators, the sponsoring instructor, and the department chair (Steven Justice)—will need to either sign a paper copy that will be scanned and emailed amongst the parties, or to sign the form digitally. In the latter case, you can either use the "sign" function in Acrobat, or—if you and your faculty sponsor are game for the challenge of setting it up—send it around via Docusign. 

(3)  Once you have completed the proposal form and obtained all the necessary signatures on it (as well as the faculty sponsor's signature on the accompanying letter of support), you will need to submit it electronically to COCI/the Academic Senate, by Wed., July 1, on this google form:  tinyurl.com/SFCFall2020   (Note that the student facilitator will have to upload these three separate documents to the google form: [a] the completed proposal form (including the unit value worksheet); [b] the syllabus; and [c] the faculty letter of support.)

(4) Please also send (by email) a copy of your proposal to Laurie Kerr, in the English Department, at:   l_kerr@berkeley.edu; if your proposal is approved, she will contact you about getting a classroom for your De-CAL, submitting a copy of your approved proposal to the De-CAL office, and a few other details. 

INDEPENDENT STUDY COURSES: These are instructor-approved courses and require a written application, available on the English Department's website at english.berkleley.edu; click "Undergraduate," then "Resources for English." Students will be emailed the class number that they will use to enroll in the class on Cal Central. Often students will elect to wait until fall courses have started to apply for independent study courses.