two kinds introduction essay

A Summary and Analysis of Amy Tan’s ‘Two Kinds’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Two Kinds’ is a short story by the American author Amy Tan (born 1952), published as part of her book The Joy Luck Club in 1989. The story is about a young American girl born to Chinese parents; her mother pushes her to become a child prodigy, but the daughter resists.

A powerful tale about pushy parents and their children, ‘Two Kinds’ deserves some closer analysis to tease out its meaning and significance. First, though, here’s a quick recap of the story’s plot.

‘Two Kinds’: plot summary

The story is narrated in the first person by a Chinese-American woman, named Jing-mei, who is looking back on her upbringing in the United States. Her parents had emigrated to the US from China in 1949, and the narrator’s mother was convinced that, in America, anyone could become successful, rich, and famous.

She tells her daughter that she can become a child prodigy like the child firm star Shirley Temple, but when her mother takes her to have her hair curled like Temple’s, the result is a disaster and Jing-mei has to have her hair cut short like a boy’s. She longs to become a prodigy because she thinks that will make her perfect; if she fails to become one, she will be nothing.

Her mother next tries to turn Jing-mei into a fiercely intelligent girl who can match the feats of knowledge and memory achieved by other children, but the tests the mother sets her become more and more difficult. She feels bad for disappointing her mother, but when she catches sight of her own reflection in the mirror, she realises how strong she is, and decides to defy her mother, who eventually gives up trying to school her daughter into becoming a genius.

A few months later, her mother sees a Chinese girl playing the piano on the television, and makes her daughter start taking piano lessons. When Jing-mei confronts her mother about this, the mother denies trying to turn her daughter into a genius, claiming she just wants her to be the best she possibly can be. She is taught to play the piano by a retired neighbour, Mr Chong, who is deaf. Because he cannot hear the notes she is playing, the girl doesn’t bother to correct herself when she hits the wrong notes.

She is determined not to commit to it because her mother has pushed it so hard. When her mother enters Jing-mei into a talent competition, Jing-mei decides to sabotage it by not practising and performing badly. However, as she starts playing and hits the wrong notes, she longs for the performance to go well. Afterwards, her mother is ashamed by how badly she has done, and Jing-mei regrets throwing the performance away.

Two days later, however, the mother tries to force Jing-mei into resuming piano lessons. Her mother tells her that there are only ‘two kinds’ of daughters: those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind, and she insists on her daughter being the obedient kind. In response, Jing-mei says she wishes she wasn’t her mother’s daughter, or that she had died at birth like the children her mother had lost back in China. This stuns her mother, who stops trying to force her daughter to learn the piano.

Jing-mei tells us that, in the years that followed, she continually disappointed her mother, because she doesn’t share her view that she could be anything she wanted to be, but instead could ‘only be me’. When the narrator turns thirty, she is surprised when her mother offers to give her the piano as a birthday present. Even after all these years, her mother is convinced her daughter has a natural aptitude for music. Although Jing-mei doesn’t immediately take the piano off her parents, every time she sees it in their living room she feels proud.

At the end of the story, Jing-mei tells us that her mother recently died and she went round to the house to tune the piano. Opening it up, she finds the sheet music for the piece of music, ‘Pleading Child’, she had failed to play at the talent show. She notices that the piece opposite it in the book is called ‘Perfectly Contented’, and realises these are two halves of the same song.

‘Two Kinds’: analysis

‘Two Kinds’ is a story about the relationship between parents and their children, and what motivates a ‘pushy parent’ to encourage (or coerce?) their child into working hard to achieve something. Does the mother in the story have her daughter’s best interests at heart when she tries to make her learn the piano? Where does a parent’s well-meaning desire to see their child succeed spill over into interfering with the child’s desire not to do a particular thing?

These questions are given an extra twist by the fact that the narrator is Chinese-American, born in the US but to parents who have struggled to escape from Communist China (China became a Communist state in 1949, the same year Jing-mei’s parents fled the country, when Chairman Mao seized power) and who clearly believe in the American dream .

Jing-mei, however, does not share the immigrant’s view that America is a land where all dreams can come true, and her aspirations are lower but arguably more realistic: simply to do the best that she can and to be happy.

It is clear that Jing-mei’s mother is motivating her daughter to succeed partly because she wants her to have all the opportunities she never had as a child. She arguably feels it is her duty as a parent to push her daughter to become a prodigy for her own good. But she is also motivated by a desire to feel pride as a parent.

Is this pride, however, not merely the happiness derived from seeing one’s child flourishing, but something more personal and even egotistical? She feels she can vicariously enjoy her daughter’s success through her, as though she had somehow won the talent show herself.

This becomes obvious when Jing-mei overhears her mother boasting to a friend, Lindo Jong, about her daughter’s natural talent for music, and she realises that her mother is only making her learn the piano so she can brag to other mothers about how talented her daughter is. It is significant that, after the talent show, Jing-mei is disappointed that her mother doesn’t shout angrily at her when they get home.

She wants an opportunity to confront her mother and air her frustration at having to live out her mother’s own fantasies by becoming a child prodigy.

The story’s title, ‘Two Kinds’, is ostensibly explained by the mother’s comment to her daughter that there are two kinds of daughter: obedient and free-thinking. Ironically, her mother has fled a totalitarian state only to set up a petty tyrannical regime in her own home (you can take the girl out of Communism, but …).

Yet Tan’s title ‘Two Kinds’ does itself have two kinds of meaning: it can also refer to the final section of the story, in which Jing-mei discovers the other piece of music from the talent show, and realises – in a moment laden (perhaps too conveniently) with symbolism – that ‘Pleading Child’ is complemented by ‘Perfectly Contented’.

These are the ‘Two Kinds’ of person she has been: she had to struggle slowly through the years as a pleading child longing for independence and the right to choose what she pursued, but now she has reached adulthood, she is indeed perfectly contented, in a way that her mother never could be.

Jing-mei realises that doing your best and making yourself proud is the key to a happy life: trying to win talent shows or outdo other people (or, worse, other people’s children through your own child) is only going to leave you trapped in a perpetual cycle of goal-chasing and ambition-pursuing.

And yet, Amy Tan has Jing-mei point out that the latter was dependent on the former: in order to be fully content as an adult, she had to plead and fight for her own independence while growing up. Her journey mirrors her mother’s, oddly, in that they have both had to struggle out of situations where they were not allowed to be free, but the difference is that Jing-mei embraces her freedom whereas her mother didn’t know what to do with hers.

Instead, she had to live out her own thwarted ambitions through someone who is, now, free to pursue them. Except, of course, Jing-mei doesn’t want them, because they’re not her ambitions. One message of Tan’s ‘Two Kinds’ is that you cannot force someone to be free: they have to embrace it and define it in their own way, otherwise it is not worthy of being called freedom.

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Introduction & Overview of Two Kinds

Two Kinds Summary & Study Guide Description

"Two Kinds" is the last story in the second of four sections of Amy Tan's immensely successful first book, The Joy Luck Club. Tan intended the book to be read as a loose collection of interrelated stories, but it is often referred to as a novel. Several of the stories appeared in periodicals separately, many of them in , which purchased the serial rights to the book prior to its publication. "Two Kinds" was initially published in the Atlantic in February 1989, one month before the book was released.

Like all the stories in the book, "Two Kinds" is concerned with the complex relationships between mothers and daughters. In particular, Tan's subject is the distance between mothers who were born in China before the communist revolution and thus have been cut off from their native culture for decades, and their American born daughters who must negotiate the twin burdens of their Chinese ancestry and American expectations for success.

In this story, the narrator, Jing-mei, resists her overbearing mother's desire to make her into a musical prodigy in order to compete with one of her friend's daughters. The narrator recalls these events after a period of more than twenty years and still struggles to understand her mother's motivations.

"Two Kinds" contains all the elements that won Tan the well-deserved praise she received for her first book. It shows off her keen ear for the fractured English of the older generation (Tan was trained as a linguist, after all), and her sharp eye for detail in recreating the domestic scenery of mothers and daughters, especially in her descriptions of food and clothing.

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Home › Short Story › Analysis of Amy Tan’s Two Kinds

Analysis of Amy Tan’s Two Kinds

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 4, 2022

Two Kinds is a selection from Amy Tan ’s (1952– ) critically acclaimed The Joy Luck Club (1989), which critics saw as an intricately woven “novel.” But that Tan intended the book to be read not as a novel but as a collection of short stories is evident. “Two Kinds” stands on its own as a story that explores the struggles between a Chinese immigrant mother, Suyuan Woo, and her firstgeneration American daughter, Jing-mei (the narrator of the story). Suyuan Woo dreams of her daughter’s becoming a child prodigy, but Jing-mei resists these ambitions and attempts to express her own free will. The story expresses the themes that run throughout The Joy Luck Club : “the struggle for control between mothers and daughters; the daughters’ bids for independent lives; the mothers’ attempts to understand the dynamics of life in the New World and somehow to blend the best of their Old World culture with a new way of life that they do not comprehend” (Huntley 43). These themes appear in the first two paragraphs, where Jing-mei begins with her mother’s, not her own, perspective: “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (585). At the core of the struggle between mother and daughter is the conflict between Suyuan Woo’s belief in America as the land of unlimited potential and Jing-mei’s more realistic expectations. However, Tan does more than merely present an unrealistic optimist in Suyuan Woo; with an allusion to Suyuan Woo’s past, Tan suggests why immigrants perceive America differently than their Americanized progeny: “She had come here in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better” (585). The date of her arrival in America coincides with the end of the Sino-Japanese War and hints at the tragedies that befell her in her war-ravaged home country. Instead of dwelling on these tragedies, she invests all hope in the future, specifically in her daughter.

Amy Tan (HarperCollins / Julian Johnson)

In the third paragraph, the story shifts focus from Suyuan Woo’s perspective to young Jing-mei’s impressions of her mother. For instance, Jing-mei notes that her mother’s search for the type of prodigy she might become was implemented through reading magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Reader’s Digest, and she explains, “My mother got these magazines from people whose houses she cleaned. And since she cleaned many houses each week, we had a great assortment” (586). Jing-mei offers no comment on, seems to have no empathy for, the hard work her mother does in order to achieve a better life for her family. Furthermore, she does not seem to appreciate the sacrifice involved in the deal Suyuan Woo makes with a neighbor, “Old Chong,” in order to get her piano lessons: “My mother had traded housecleaning services for weekly lessons and a piano for me to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six.” When learning about the deal for piano lessons, she focuses on her own obligations and concludes, “I felt as though I had been sent to hell” (588). Jing-meidoes not seem to recognize the IRONY of this comment. Despite her mother’s losses and sufferings in China and her sacrifices in America, Jing-mei sees only her own loss of free time in this piano deal. In this way, the story emphasizes differences between immigrant parents and their Americanized children. The children are largely unaware of the hardships the parents endure to get a piece of the American Dream in which they have so much faith.

However, there is more to Jing-mei’s resistance to and resentment of her mother’s ambitions than a mere desire to spend her free time watching television; it is not that she is just “lazy,” as her mother sometimes accuses her. Her resistance is a sign that instead of seeing America as the land of opportunity, Jing-mei sees it as the land of freedom, freedom of choice and of will. At first Jing-mei goes along with her mother’s crazy schemes to get rich quick, but she eventually perceives the unreality of these dreams and, instead, sees her ability to assert her free will. After yet another failure with her mother, Jing-mei looks at herself in the mirror and sees “only my face,” an “ordinary face.” With this she begins to cry, seeing herself as a “sad” and “ugly” girl. It is at this moment that she realizes a different kind of potential than the potential her mother sees: “Then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me—because I had never seen that face before. . . .The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won’ts. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not” (587). Her prodigy self is the self who is able to resist authority, to choose her own course of life, a distinctly American ambition.

While mother and daughter each cling to American values, the values they cling to are opposing. When Jing-mei tries to assert her free will by refusing to play the piano, Suyuan Woo tells her that there are only “two kinds of daughters. . . . Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!” Her mother further tells her that “only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter” (592). While the mother urgently desires an Americanized daughter, one who achieves great things, one with the potential to become rich and famous, she cannot come to terms with other American characteristics, those of self-determination and independence. Despite its emphasis on the immigrant experience, as E. D. Huntley points out, Tan’s fiction has a more universal theme: “Tan also writes about love and loss and redemption, about individuals coming to terms with the facts of their lives and about the workings of fate in human existence” (34).

Analysis of Amy Tan’s Stories

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Bella. Amy Tan: Contemporary World Writers. New York: Manchester University Press, 2005. Huntley, E. D. Amy Tan: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Amy Tan: A Literary Companion. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. Tan, Amy. “Two Kinds.” In The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction. New York: Scribner, 1999.

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The Story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan Essay

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The intention of Amy Tan in the story Two Kinds was to present her problem through her personal experience and leave the judgment to the reader. Though the narrator’s mother experiences tragedies in her life, she has the energy to forge on and impart her dreams into her daughter. Although the narrator is unable to fulfill her mother’s expectations, the aspect of maintaining two diverse cultures especially as an immigrant is almost unachievable to many but she succeeds.

The title Two Kinds refers to different types people in the society. In real life, there are people who are always determined to achieve a certain goal in life, and there are those who do not have such ambitions.

For instance, with her mother’s inspiration, the narrator’s dynamicity enables her to change her goals from being a Chinese Shirley Temple to a pianist. As the story opens, the narrator says, “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (Tan, 1989, p. 405), while in the last paragraph she realizes how it is easy to play the piano yet she had failed earlier.

Therefore, through the reconnection of the paragraphs, the author enables the reader to conclude that the narrator could be famous if she had followed her mother’s advice. Furthermore, the author’s description of the Chinese mother’s suffering excludes her personal feelings.

Due to the strained relationship with her mother, the author’s feelings to her mother’s suffering might be real and thus an effective technique in using first person narration. On the other hand, if another person retells the story he/she will explicitly describe the mother’s suffering while sympathizing with her.

Amy’s piano is the major symbol in the story. Although she had earlier turned it down, she eventually appreciates and plays it after the death of her mother. In this context, the piano symbolizes the care or love, which never existed between the mother and her daughter, the kid.

Nevertheless, after playing the piano in her adulthood, Amy realizes the love she had for her mother especially through her childhood songs. Through her mother’s death, the narrator starts to appreciate the Chinese culture because she treasures all the Chinese clothes/jewels her mother had; she actually keeps them away safely.

Moreover, the author realizes she belongs to the two cultures and easily plays the piano, which had been a problem during childhood. She learns the power of appreciation and hard work immediately after her mother’s death. Finally, the narrator’s ability to play piano in adulthood shows that her childhood failure was due to her poor attitude towards her mother.

Personally, the aspect of a person maintaining his/her culture away from home is not easy. American lifestyle, food, religion, and language differ greatly from the Chinese culture. When my cousin migrated to America in the early 1990s, he had to learn English and accept the American lifestyle, which differs greatly from the Arabic culture he was accustomed.

Though he had a hard time, flexibility, and dynamicity are some of the qualities that made him adapt to the new environment. Finally, the author’s experience encourages all the immigrants especially in America to maintain their culture. Though not easy through literature, she encourages the immigrants to embrace their culture, which seems to be a problem for all minor races living in the United States.

In summary, because of disobedience, the narrator is unable to live to her mother’s expectation but when she becomes an adult, she learns to appreciate/love her mother and the Chinese culture. Through her literary ideas, the author calls for dynamicity in all immigrants in the world.

Tan, A. (1989). Two Kinds. In J. E. Gardner, B. Lawn, J. Ridl, & P. Schakel, Literature: A Portable Anthology , (pp. 405-414). Boston, New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

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“Two Kinds”

• Genre : Fiction; realistic short story
• Originally Published: 1989
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 880L; grades 7-12
• Structure/Length: Approx. 12 pages; approx. 15 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: This is one of 16 linked stories in the author’s collection The Joy Luck Club ; each story features first- and second-generation Chinese immigrants in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco. “Two Kinds” explores the battle of wills between young Jing-mei Woo and her mother, a stern woman who believes Jing-mei to be a prodigy.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Racially charged language; disobedience toward parents; immigration; assimilation

Amy Tan, Author

• Bio: Born in 1952 in Oakland, California; frequently moved while growing up; attended several colleges, eventually earning a master’s degree in linguistics; worked as a language development specialist; turned to fiction writing to balance freelance jobs; short stories attracted the attention of a literary agent and potential publishers; earned fame with the publication of The Joy Luck Club ; served as a lecturer, TED Talk presenter, Sesame Street guest, and Rock Bottom Remainders band member
• Other Works: The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991); The Hundred Secret Senses (1995); The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001); Saving Fish from Drowning (2005); The Valley of Amazement (2013)
• Awards: National Book Award (Finalist; The Joy Luck Club ; 1989)

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ENGL 240.ST1 Juvenile Literature: 5-12 Grade

In English 240 students will develop the skills to interpret and evaluate various genres of literature for juvenile readers. This particular section will focus on various works of literature at approximately the 5th-12th grade level.

Readings for this course include works such as Night, Brown Girl Dreaming, All American Boys, Esperanza Rising, Anne Frank’s Diary: A Graphic Adaptation, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, The Giver, The Hobbit, Little Women, and Lord of the Flies . These readings will be paired with chapters from Reading Children’s Literature: A Critical Introduction to help develop understanding of various genres, themes, and concepts that are both related to juvenile literature, and also present in our readings.

In addition to exploring various genres of writing (poetry, non-fiction, fantasy, historical, non-fiction, graphic novels, etc.) this course will also allow students to engage in a discussion of larger themes present in these works such as censorship, race, rebellion and dissent, power and oppression, gender, knowledge, and the power of language and the written word. Students’ understanding of these works and concepts will be developed through readings, discussion posts, quizzes and exams.

ENGL 240.ST2 Juvenile Literature Elementary-5th Grade

April myrick.

A survey of the history of literature written for children and adolescents, and a consideration of the various genres of juvenile literature. Text selection will focus on the themes of imagination and breaking boundaries.

ENGL 242.S01 American Literature II

TuTh 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

Dr. Paul Baggett

This course surveys a range of U.S. literatures from about 1865 to the present, writings that treat the end of slavery and the development of a segregated America, increasingly urbanized and industrialized U.S. landscapes, waves of immigration, and the fulfilled promise of “America” as imperial nation. The class will explore the diversity of identities represented during that time, and the problems/potentials writers imagined in response to the century’s changes—especially literature’s critical power in a time of nation-building. Required texts for the course are The Norton Anthology of American Literature: 1865 to the Present and Toni Morrison’s A Mercy.

WMST 247.S01: Introduction to Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies

As an introduction to Women, Gender and Sexuality studies, this course considers the experiences of women and provides an overview of the history of feminist thought and activism, particularly within the United States. Students will also consider the concepts of gender and sexuality more broadly to encompass a diversity of gender identifications and sexualities and will explore the degree to which mainstream feminism has—and has not—accommodated this diversity. The course will focus in particular on the ways in which gender and sexuality intersect with race, class, ethnicity, and disability. Topics and concepts covered will include: movements for women’s and LGBTQ+ rights; gender, sexuality and the body; intersectionality; rape culture; domestic and gender violence; reproductive rights; Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW); and more.

ENGL 283.S01 Introduction to Creative Writing

MWF 1-1:50 p.m.

Prof. Steven Wingate

Students will explore the various forms of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction and poetry) not one at a time in a survey format—as if there were decisive walls of separation between then—but as intensely related genres that share much of their creative DNA. Through close reading and work on personal texts, students will address the decisions that writers in any genre must face on voice, rhetorical position, relationship to audience, etc. Students will produce and revise portfolios of original creative work developed from prompts and research. This course fulfills the same SGR #2 requirements ENGL 201; note that the course will involve creative research projects. Successful completion of ENGL 101 (including by test or dual credit) is a prerequisite.

English 284: Introduction to Criticism

This course introduces students to selected traditions of literary and cultural theory and to some of the key issues that animate discussion among literary scholars today. These include questions about the production of cultural value, about ideology and hegemony, about the patriarchal and colonial bases of Western culture, and about the status of the cultural object, of the cultural critic, and of cultural theory itself.

To address these and other questions, we will survey the history of literary theory and criticism (a history spanning 2500 years) by focusing upon a number of key periods and -isms: Greek and Roman Classicism, The Middle Ages and Renaissance, The Enlightenment, Romanticism, Realism, Formalism, Historicism, Political Criticism (Marxism, Post-Colonialism, Feminism, et al.), and Psychological Criticism. We also will “test” various theories we discuss by examining how well they account for and help us to understand various works of poetry and fiction.

• 300-400 level

ENGL 330.S01 Shakespeare

TuTh 8-9:15 a.m.

Dr. Michael S. Nagy

This course will focus on William Shakespeare’s poetic and dramatic works and on the cultural and social contexts in which he wrote them. In this way, we will gain a greater appreciation of the fact that literature does not exist in a vacuum, for it both reflects and influences contemporary and subsequent cultures. Text: The Riverside Shakespeare: Complete Works. Ed. Evans, G. Blakemore and J. J. M. Tobin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.

ENGL 363 Science Fiction

MWF 11-11:50 a.m.

This course explores one of the most significant literary genres of the past century in fiction and in film. We will focus in particular on the relationship between science fiction works and technological and social developments, with considerable attention paid to the role of artificial intelligence in the human imagination. Why does science fiction seem to predict the future? What do readers and writers of the genre hope to find in it? Through readings and viewings of original work, as well as selected criticism in the field, we will address these and other questions. Our reading and viewing selections will include such artists as Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia Butler, Stanley Kubrick and Phillip K. Dick. Students will also have ample opportunity to introduce the rest of the class to their own favorite science fiction works.

ENGL 383.S01 Creative Writing I

MWF 2-2:50 p.m.

Amber Jensen

Creative Writing I encourages students to strengthen poetry, creative nonfiction, and/or fiction writing skills through sustained focus on creative projects throughout the course (for example, collections of shorter works focused on a particular form/style/theme, longer prose pieces, hybrid works, etc.). Students will engage in small- and large-group writing workshops as well as individual conferences with the instructor throughout the course to develop a portfolio of creative work. The class allows students to explore multiple genres through the processes of writing and revising their own creative texts and through writing workshop, emphasizing the application of craft concepts across genre, but also allows students to choose one genre of emphasis, which they will explore through analysis of self-select texts, which they will use to deepen their understanding of the genre and to contextualize their own creative work.

ENGL 475.S01 Creative Nonfiction

Mondays 3-5:50 p.m.

In this course, students will explore the expansive and exciting genre of creative nonfiction, including a variety of forms such as personal essay, braided essay, flash nonfiction, hermit crab essays, profiles and more. Through rhetorical reading, discussion, and workshop, students will engage published works, their own writing process, and peer work as they expand their understanding of the possibilities presented in this genre and the craft elements that can be used to shape readers’ experience of a text. Students will compile a portfolio of polished work that demonstrates their engagement with course concepts and the writing process.

ENGL 485.S01 Writing Center Tutoring

MW 8:30-9:45 a.m.

Since their beginnings in the 1920s and 30s, writing centers have come to serve numerous functions: as hubs for writing across the curriculum initiatives, sites to develop and deliver workshops, and resource centers for faculty as well as students, among other functions. But the primary function of writing centers has necessarily and rightfully remained the tutoring of student writers. This course will immerse you in that function in two parts. During the first four weeks, you will explore writing center praxis—that is, the dialogic interplay of theory and practice related to writing center work. This part of the course will orient you to writing center history, key theoretical tenets and practical aspects of writing center tutoring. Once we have developed and practiced this foundation, you will begin work in the writing center as a tutor, responsible for assisting a wide variety of student clients with numerous writing tasks. Through this work, you will learn to actively engage with student clients in the revision of a text, respond to different student needs and abilities, work with a variety of writing tasks and rhetorical situations and develop a richer sense of writing as a complex and negotiated social process.

ENGL 492.S01 The Vietnam War in Literature and Film

Tuesdays 3-5:50 p.m.

Dr. Jason McEntee

In 1975, the United States officially included its involvement in the Vietnam War, thus marking 2025 as the 50th anniversary of the conclusion (in name only) of one of the most chaotic, confusing, and complex periods in American history. In this course, we will consider how literature and film attempt to chronicle the Vietnam War and, perhaps more important, its aftermath. I have designed this course for those looking to extend their understanding of literature and film to include the ideas of art, experience, commercial products, and cultural documents. Learning how to interpret literature and movies remains the highest priority of the course, including, for movies, the study of such things as genre, mise-en-scene (camera movement, lighting, etc.), editing, sound and so forth.

We will read Dispatches , A Rumor of War , The Things They Carried , A Piece of My Heart , and Bloods , among others. Some of the movies that we will screen are: Apocalypse Now (the original version), Full Metal Jacket , Platoon , Coming Home , Born on the Fourth of July , Dead Presidents , and Hearts and Minds . Because we must do so, we will also look at some of the more fascinatingly outrageous yet culturally significant fantasies about the war, such as The Green Berets and Rambo: First Blood, Part II .

ENGL 492.S02 Classical Mythology

TuTh 3:30-4:45 p.m.

Drs. Michael S. Nagy and Graham Wrightson

Modern society’s fascination with mythology manifests itself in the continued success of novels, films and television programs about mythological or quasi-mythological characters such as Hercules, the Fisher King, and Gandalf the Grey, all of whom are celebrated for their perseverance or their daring deeds in the face of adversity. This preoccupation with mythological figures necessarily extends back to the cultures which first propagated these myths in early folk tales and poems about such figures as Oðin, King Arthur, Rhiannon, Gilgamesh, and Odysseus, to name just a few. English 492, a reading-intensive course cross-listed with History 492, primarily aims to expose students to the rich tradition of mythological literature written in languages as varied as French, Gaelic, Welsh, Old Icelandic, Greek, and Sumerian; to explore the historical, social, political, religious, and literary contexts in which these works flourished (if indeed they did); and to grapple with the deceptively simple question of what makes these myths continue to resonate with modern audiences. Likely topics and themes of this course will include: Theories of myth; Mythological Beginnings: Creation myths and the fall of man; Male and Female Gods in Myth; Foundation myths; Nature Myths; The Heroic Personality; the mythological portrayal of (evil/disruptive) women in myth; and Monsters in myth.

Likely Texts:

• Dalley, Stephanie, trans. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford World’s Classics, 2009
• Faulkes, Anthony, trans. Edda. Everyman, 1995
• Gregory, Lady Augusta. Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster. Forgotten Books, 2007
• Jones, Gwyn, Thomas Jones, and Mair Jones. The Mabinogion. Everyman Paperback Classics, 1993
• Larrington, Carolyne, trans. The Poetic Edda . Oxford World’s Classics, 2009
• Matarasso, Pauline M., trans. The Quest of the Holy Grail. Penguin Classics, 1969
• Apollodorus, Hesiod’s Theogony
• Hesiod’s Works and Days
• Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Homeric Hymns
• Virgil’s Aeneid
• Iliad, Odyssey
• Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica
• Ovid’s Heroides
• Greek tragedies: Orestaia, Oedipus trilogy, Trojan Women, Medea, Hippoolytus, Frogs, Seneca's Thyestes, Dyskolos, Amphitryon
• Clash of the Titans, Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts, Troy (and recent miniseries), Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

ENGL 492.ST1 Science Writing

Erica summerfield.

This course aims to teach the fundamentals of effective scientific writing and presentation. The course examines opportunities for covering science, the skills required to produce clear and understandable text about technical subjects, and important ethical and practical constraints that govern the reporting of scientific information. Students will learn to present technical and scientific issues to various audiences. Particular emphasis will be placed on conveying the significance of research, outlining the aims, and discussing the results for scientific papers and grant proposals. Students will learn to write effectively, concisely, and clearly while preparing a media post, fact sheet, and scientific manuscript or grant.

Graduate Courses

Engl 575.s01 creative nonfiction.

In this course, students will explore the expansive and exciting genre of creative nonfiction, including a variety of forms such as personal essay, braided essay, flash nonfiction, hermit crab essays, profiles, and more. Through rhetorical reading, discussion, and workshop, students will engage published works, their own writing process, and peer work as they expand their understanding of the possibilities presented in this genre and the craft elements that can be used to shape readers’ experience of a text. Students will compile a portfolio of polished work that demonstrates their engagement with course concepts and the writing process.

ENGL 592.S01: The Vietnam War in Literature and Film

Engl 704.s01 introduction to graduate studies.

Thursdays 3-5:50 p.m.

Introduction to Graduate Studies is required of all first-year graduate students. The primary purpose of this course is to introduce students to modern and contemporary literary theory and its applications. Students will write short response papers and will engage at least one theoretical approach in their own fifteen- to twenty-page scholarly research project. In addition, this course will further introduce students to the M.A. program in English at South Dakota State University and provide insight into issues related to the profession of English studies.

ENGL 792.ST1 Grant Writing

This online course will familiarize students with the language, rhetorical situation, and components of writing grant proposals. Students will explore various funding sources, learn to read an RFP, and develop an understanding of different professional contexts and the rhetorical and structural elements that suit those distinct contexts. Students will write a sample proposal throughout the course and offer feedback to their peers, who may be writing in different contexts, which will enhance their understanding of the varied applications of course content. Through their work in the course, students will gain confidence in their ability to find, apply for, and receive grant funding to support their communities and organizations.

College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Web Team

Articles - dotcms training - july 9, 2024 (this training is not open to msue staff/faculty.).

July 9, 2024 11:30AM - 12:00PM - This training is not open to MSUE staff/faculty.

Registration Deadline: July 5, 2024 - 03:00PM

PREREQUISITE:  New dotCMS users must complete the Introduction to dotCMS: Basic Training before participating in this training session.

This training session demonstrates how to create, tag, publish, and edit an article in dotCMS. Participants will also learn about article listings that appear on a web page. (Approx.30 min.)

This training topic is offered twice a month via Zoom; one as a morning session, and another as an afternoon session.

Registration is due by 3:00 PM - two business days prior to the training session date.

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