Margaret Claire Pamplin
Associate Professor
English
EMAIL: mpamplin@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office: N-751
Office Hours: Please email for an appointment: mpamplin@bmcc.cuny.edu
Phone: +1 (212) 776-7297
Expertise
Writing Across the Curriculum, Journalism, American Literature
Degrees
- Ph.D. The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), English, 2004
- Queens College, Flushing, N.Y. M.A., English.
- Armstrong State College (Armstrong Atlantic State University), Savannah, Ga. Education courses.
- University of Georgia. B.A., English, Cum Laude.
- St. Andrews University, Scotland, Junior Year Abroad.
Courses Taught
- Students placed in ENG 100.5 are offered extra support, afforded through additional instructional time. Students completing ENG 100.5 will have mastered the fundamentals of college-level reading and writing, including developing a thesis-driven response to the writing of others and following the basic conventions of citation and documentation. They will have practiced what Mike Rose calls the "habits of mind" necessary for success in college and in the larger world: summarizing, classifying, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing. Students will be introduced to basic research methods and MLA documentation and complete a research project. Students are required to take a departmental final exam that requires the composition of a 500 word thesis-driven essay in conversation with two texts. Successful completion of this course is equivalent to passing ENG 101.
Prerequisite: English Proficiency Index of 64 and lower or a score of 43-55 on the CAT-W and exemption from ACR 95 or successful completion of ACR 95. This course is not open to ESL students.
Please note: Tuition for this corequisite course is charged by the equated credit (hours) not per credit.
Course Syllabus - English Composition is the standard freshman writing course. The course introduces students to academic writing. By its conclusion, students will be ready for English 201 and for the writing they will be asked to do in advanced courses across the curriculum. Students completing ENG 101 will have mastered the fundamentals of college-level reading and writing, including developing a thesis-driven response to the writing of others and following the basic conventions of citation and documentation. They will have practiced what Mike Rose calls the "habits of mind" necessary for success in college and in the larger world: summarizing, classifying, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing. Students will be introduced to basic research methods and MLA documentation and complete a research project. Students are required to take a departmental final exam that requires the composition of a 500 word, thesis-driven essay in conversation with two designated texts.
Prerequisite: Pass the CAT-R and CAT-W or Accuplacer tests
Course Syllabus - Fundamentals of Journalism offers an introduction to the practice, purpose, and history of journalism as projections about its future. The course addresses journalism in all its forms and media, e.g. film, print, radio, television, and Internet-based platforms, including Web sites, blogs, Twitter. It provides a foundation in journalisma??s professional code of ethics and the work of a free press to safeguard social liberty. Skills cultivated will include information gathering establishing credibility, writing, editing and dissemination.
Prerequisite: ENG 101 and ENG 201
Course Syllabus - This course covers the basic principles and practices of news reporting and writing. Students are taught to write single-incident news stories, conduct balanced interviews and edit their own copy, employing standard copy editing symbols and format. Emphasis is also given to the theoretical side of journalism with an overview of its history, present legal controls, ethical issues and rapidly expanding technology.
Pre-Requisite: ENG201 or ENG121
Course Syllabus - This course provides further opportunities for students to explore journalism. Students conduct interviews, cover stories around the city and write journalistic articles. Opportunities are provided for specialized coverage in areas such as politics, consumerism, science, education, finance, the arts, social change and family life. Topics include layout, headline composition and basics of journalism law.
Course Syllabus - This course presents a global approach to literature by introducing prose, poetry and drama representative of different world cultures and historical periods, from antiquity to the early modern era. Students engage in close readings of individual texts and contextual/comparative analyses. Written and spoken activities are designed to enhance students' appreciation of literature and their awareness of the ways it arises from, shapes and reflects the world's cultures.
Course Syllabus - This course will introduce the student to autobiography in the context of literary debate: why do we read autobiography? How do we classify autobiography, as non-fiction or fiction? Works by both men and women of many cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds will be included. Students will examine the various styles, elements, as well as the recurring themes in autobiography, while working on their own "reflection of the self.
Pre-Requisite: ENG101 and ENG201 or ENG121
Course Syllabus - 3 CRS.3 HRS.NULL LAB HRS.ENG 382 (American Literature from the Reconstruction Era to the Present)
- Though English 381 is not a prerequisite, this course begins where 381 leaves off and covers select fiction and poetry from the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century to the present. Students study major writers and literary movements; and an effort is made to place literature in its cultural context. Works by such writers as Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Richard Wright, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Toni Morrison may be included.
Course Syllabus - This course acquaints students with the wide range and varied forms of the short story as it developed in America, Europe, and other continents. Readings will include works by male and female authors of different periods and nationalities, and some attention may be paid to the historical development of the short story as a genre, as well as the cultural contexts in which the assigned stories were written.
Pre-Requisite: ENG101 and ENG201 or ENG121
Course Syllabus
Research and Projects
Publications
- Vital Ideas: Money, Edited with Dana A. Heller, Great Books Foundation 2011
- “Plantation Makeover: Race, Myth and Violation in Joel Chandler Harris” in The Great American Makeover: Television, History, Nation, Palgrave Macmillan 2006
- “Race and Identity in Pauline Hopkins’s Hagar’s Daughter,” in Redefining the Political Novel: American Women Writers, 1797-1901. Edited by Sharon M. Harris. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press 1995
- Selected Publications
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Journalism Selected Articles
2016. “Male Champions at Work.” Network of Executive Women publication. March.
2016. “Millennials: Delivering Results, Making a Difference.” Network of Executive Women publication. March.
2010. “Stay in Style.” New Jersey Monthly. May 10.
2009. “The Red Road to Self Discovery.” New Jersey Monthly. November 10.
2008. “The Family Plan.” Profile of Roadrunner Pit Stop in Belen, N.M. Convenience Store News for the Single Store Owner, December.
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
- President, New York College English Association, present.
- Distinguished Teacher Nominee, 2019, 2017.
- Fall semester sabbatical, 2014.
- Certificate of Appreciation from Phi Theta Kappa, Alpha, Kappa chapter, May 10, 2007.
- Elected to the Modern Language Association’s Non-fiction Prose Committee, five-year term. 2006.
