ENGL 1500: Sports in Film

ENG 1500: Sports in Film is a new one-credit course that will be offered for the first time in Summer and Fall of 2026. The course was created by English Department faculty Cree Taylor and Dustin Crawford, and it aims to engage students in critical thinking by examining how sports are portrayed in film.

Cree will be teaching the course online asynchronously in summer, and Dustin will teach it in-person in the fall. The summer course will feature sports films with an emphasis on the Olympics, including Cool Runnings (1993), Miracle (2004), and The Fire Inside (2024). 

This course is for anyone interested in dipping their toes in the English Department. “I hope that the students have a positive experience in an English class. Yes, English does involve reading and writing. It also involves critical thinking, analysis, and community conversations about the issues we care about,” Cree explained further. “This course is designed to open that door for students. To help them see that their voices matter, their opinions are important, and they can be successful in an English course.”

For Cree’s summer course, students will be expected to engage with films in weekly discussion boards. The final project will be a 2-page paper, or a 5-minute video. “Students are really smart, thoughtful, and critical, and I wanted to design a course where they were able to talk about something interesting to them in a more structured way,” Cree reflects. 

“This is a great way to get credit for watching movies and then engaging in conversations about a topic many people love: sports!” Cree says.